Life as a small child in 1970s Burton-Upon-Trent

I was born in mid 1970s England, in an industrial town in the Midlands, called Burton-Upon-Trent. My family were traditional white working class, some were lorry drivers for the breweries or working for the local coal power station. Some of my family were also involved in the Unions and Labour Party. One side of my family were mostly from Horninglow (maybe? I can’t remember), the other from across the River Trent in Stapenhill.

Burton of the 1970s and at least early 1980s was still quite a dirty industrial town, it’s main industry being breweries, of which at one point there were many, as well making Marmite, and the Robirch factory which made pies sausages and other products mostly made from pigs. The Robirch factory was situated next to the small train station and I remember my Mum telling me how she would hear the pigs screaming as they were taken to be slaughtered. Burton also had the River Trent running through it and a canal. I think at some point in my life I wondered why many of the sides of buildings were painted black, later to be told that they weren’t actually painted black, it was pollution. I remember the old ‘public baths’, a building where working people would go to bathe. it stood on its own just off a bridge near the Trent. I don’t remember if I went right inside the baths, I think I have a memory of going just inside the doors and hearing voices echoing off the walls inside.

Stapenhill

My Dad’s family home was on Heath Road in Stapenhill. For years the house was home to my grandparents, Albert & Gertrude, plus my dad, Joe, my uncle Albert (oldest of the siblings) and my Aunt Cath (the youngest). It was a small end terrace house, the front door was right on the pavement, no front garden but a very long garden at the back which was mainly taken up for growing food, plus outhouses and a couple of workshops that my Grandad had built from scrap wood. The workshops were dark, smelling of oil, grease and dirt, an Aladdins cave of various tools and vices attached to wooden work benches. One of the workshops had a small square hatch in the wall where the milkman could deliver the milk, pop and other things. The other workshop was right at the back of the garden, made, I was told, from some old rafts which my family had made and used for rafting down the river Trent. That workshop was also where my grandparents kept rabbits for food, which I think formed our Christmas dinner. In those days chicken was considered something of a luxury.

When I was about 6 or 7, the back workshop, which no longer had rabbits kept in it, was turned into a ‘den’ which me and a few other local children would use. One afternoon a friend, a local girl from the block of flats behind, had just left, I think we’d been eating sweets in candlelight, probably those pink shrimp things, and I started messing around with a candle. I burnt a bit of plastic, thought I’d put it out then turned my back. When I turned around again much of one wall was up in flames, making a whooshing sound. I panicked and ran out of the shed. A couple of doors down, Mr. Glover was in his garden and spotted me, asked me what was wrong, then noticed the shed now ablaze. It couldn’t be saved and in a very short space of time, I’d burnt it to the ground.

Entering my grandparents house from the street took you first straight into the front living room, there was no hallway. I remember in the early 1980s playing one of those early Atari games consoles in there, the ones with the joystick that had a rubber cover on it. I’d play games like Yars Revenge (which really I no idea what that was about), Pong, Pacman and 3D Tanx. Moving out of that room through a door opposite the front door, went under the stairs. On the left was my nanna’s pantry. This was a magical place and for me its sole purpose was as a kind of sweet shop. Whenever I stayed with my Grandparents, my Nanna would fill the pantry full of sweets such as pink wafers and viscount biscuits which I’d scoff along with my Nanna’s very sweet tea. My Nanna would also order fizzy pop, things like Tizer and Vimto, both of which seemed to have their own unique taste (I think Tizer might have been disgusting really) and which all came in glass bottles that we’d return to a local shop round the corner.

After the pantry under the stairs, was the back living room. I think during my time this was the room that was most used, probably by my grandad. In the corner furthest from the pantry, was my Grandad’s old armchair where he sat, next to some painted, built in cupboards, and the sash window looking out onto the back yard. I remember my Grandad smiling, I think normally dressed as an old fashioned Grandad would, with a shirt, sleeveless pullover and a Grandad’s cloth cap. Hanging on the wall next to him was a gold pocket watch, which I later inherited but due to my fascination with taking things apart to see how they worked, destroyed one day when I unscrewed something in the mechanism and the insides seem to spring out like the guts of a fatally wounded mechanical animal. My grandad had an old radio which he sit in his armchair and listen to. I remember when I stayed, maybe particularly on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I’d wake up to the sound of my Grandad listening to sport on the radio. The first thing I heard when I woke was the sound of the crowds and the excited commentator, echoing up the stairs, I’d get up and go downstairs and there he was sitting there doing the pools. I think my Nanna was normally in the kitchen making breakfast, with the smell of bacon, eggs and HP sauce wafting around the house. Sometimes there was also an old black and white TV set up in the back room which stood on what I remember to be a tall stand. The TV was powered by valves I think, and took a long time to ‘warm up’ and get a picture out of it. I think this was probably mainly for watching the football, or wrestling and I also have this idea from somewhere, that people, possibly my grandad, even sometimes placed a green plastic sheet over the screen for the football, for ‘colour’. Although I’m not sure whether I made this up now!

I remember there was another arm chair in the back room where I’d sit. My grandad was resourceful and made a kind of table top that would fit over the arms of the chair. I remember sitting in the chair with the table top over me, playing with plasticine. The plasticine came in strips of different colours which were corrugated and sandwiched between strips of clear plastic. Inevitably, mixing the different strips of coloured plasticine together, always resulted in one big lump of brown plasticine.

My grandad also made toys, including a small ‘car’ made of wood that I could sit on, which may have had a compartment under the seat to put things in. It had some old reclaimed plastic wheels and I could sit on it and push myself around. He also made me a ‘tram’. The tram was larger vehicle made of scrap wood. It had old pram wheels and a frame attached, covered in clear plastic sheeting. The key feature of the ‘tram’ was a rope driven pulley system. One end was attached to the tram, the other to the garden gate. I could sit in the pram, draw the rope toward me and pull myself along using the pulley.

At the back of the house was the kitchen, I think as usual, mostly the woman’s ‘place’ in the house, in this case my Nanna, Gertrude (or I think sometimes known as “Gert” or “Gertie”). I don’t remember the door of the kitchen being closed much, or even if it had a door. On entering the kitchen, to the left was the back door of the house which lead to the backyard and garden. In the corner by the door I remember there was sometimes bottles of pop. Next to the backdoor, along the same wall, was the kitchen sink. On the ceiling of the kitchen there was a meat hook, and a clothes line. I don’t remember my Nanna being a particularly warm person, I think she was practical, old fashioned and sometimes could be harsh. I think she once referred to my Dad as a “fornicating bugger” which was probably both amusing and apt but I don’t actually remember her having a sense of humour. I mostly remember her as being thin, with grey hair and glasses, normally wearing trousers and a cardigan.

From the back room, there was a door in the corner, opposite my Grandad’s chair. This door led to what seemed like very steep, dark stairs going up. The stairs was lined with thick table mats on the walls either side which had photos of vintage cars and their names on them. I remember the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost in particular.

At the top of the stairs, to the right, there was a bedroom with windows out onto the street. I don’t remember much about this room, I seem to remember a small oil lamp at some point.

To the left at the top of the stairs was what to me seemed like a long, dark hallway. There were no windows. At the end was a single door leading to my Grandparent’s bedroom. I remember the big old bed and I remember an electric blanket. It was quite a dark room, with one small window facing out to the back of the house.

At the other end, above the kitchen, was another small room. I think it may have been the room used for the youngest child of the house, since you could only get to it by going through my Grandparent’s bedroom. When I knew it, it wasn’t occupied, well, I may have slept in it myself actually, for some reason I don’t remember which room I actually slept in.

Most people didn’t have bathrooms in those days, they might have an outside toilet then a commode indoors, which I seem to remember, for my grandparents was an old pub chair with a hole in it and a bucket underneath. The outside loo was of course very cold in the Winter and I remember there was a extra rack next to the toilet which had a selection of toilet seat covers on it made from old bits of carpet which could be placed on the toilet seat to keep your bum warm. My grandparents had a big ‘tin bath’ which was filled with hot water, people would have a bath in front of the fire which originally was coal but later converted to a 3 bar electric fire which I associate with the smell of singeing dog hair as one of our dogs would get too close to it. I was very small of course and sometimes I’d stand in my Nanna’s kitchen sink to be washed.

I remember going out walking with my Grandad. He’d take me on a tour of Stapenhill and into the town. We walk down the hill to Waterside. There was a path that ran parallel to the river. On corner I could see a house with a small model railway. We’d walk down the path, around the backs of houses and pubs. Along the way my Grandad would point things out to me and complain at people for using the footpath to cycle along. I remember once we planted a conker along the bank but I don’t think it ever grew into a tree. The path eventually reached a crossroads. Going right would take us back into Stapenhill but sometimes we’d go straight on which led to Stapenhill Gardens with its flower displays, a drinking fountain (which I think was broken) and a giant concrete painted swan which had flowers growing in it. I remember hearing a story that possibly the Swan of some of the rest of the gardens had once been a water feature.

The Ferry Bridge

Turning left at the crossroads took us across ‘Ferry Bridge’. I think this was (and still is) quite a decorative, Victorian structure, made of iron, built across the River Trent, where there used to be the ferry to take people into town. There were metal signs telling of the ‘Corporation’ and when and why the bridge was built and I think half way across there was a sheltered bit then a walkway which headed off the bridge to one side, through the marsh toward the public baths. I remember my grandad, probably sitting in his chair at home, talking about the local council’s plans to build a new bridge to carry cars, which would cross over the existing bridge. Sure enough, I few years later, I was there, playing around the site of the new bridge while it was being built.

Normally we’d walk on though, across the Ferry Bridge and into Burton. At the end of the bridge, on the right, I think was a technical college, possibly where my Dad and others went.

Into Burton-Upon-Trent

Once off the Ferry Bridge, we reached Burton itself. It was mostly industrial but with many different activities going on. Men going about their work. In those days there did not seem to be any health and safety so we could just walk right through. I remember walking down an old street, except now deserted of people. There were wrecking balls demolishing the houses. There was a kind of sad, eerie feeling to all of this as I peered through the holes in the walls of houses, to see the old wall paper inside. I imagined life inside those houses, but now, because of the holes in the walls and roofs, parts of those houses were being lit up and revealed as they never had before.

Walking through my home town, with my grandad, was a visual treat of sorts, but actually, equally as strong in memory for me, were the smells. Each area had a different smell associated with it. Walking down the abandoned street I could smell the brick dust in the air, like smelling the history of all those who had lived in them.

We walked on and suddenly we were walking through a joinery, down another street lined with old thing, dark metal walls and industrial windows. The sounds of sawing being done by unseen people, and the smell of the sawdust.

Then the towers of the breweries, rose up around us. We were surrounded by giant cylindrical towers of the industry that made Burton-upon-Trent. Importantly there was the smell of the beer being brewed in the air, a pungent but pleasant smell, permeating everything. I think later the process was redesigned, some breweries were shut down, and that smell became largely a thing of history.

I feel now through these walks with my Grandad, I got a glimpse of the past which most would never get and I could never get again, as change was in the air.

My grandad was a member of the local co-op, so much so that he once said that he’d die in co-op meetings. So, in about 1982, in his early 70s, his prediction came true when in the middle of a co-op meeting he had a heart attack and passed away.

For a few years, my Nanna continued to live at Heath Road. I spent some time with her. Her world seemed different to my Grandad’s. My Nanna would also take me around with her but staying in Stapenhill. We’d walk to the local row of shops. There was a shop, a newsagent but full of what seemed like everything, called “Colson’s”. Shops like these felt magical to a child because in those days they were just independent businesses with no specific layout and I seem to remember they would stock toys. There were the packets of polystyrene airplane kits which were popular. Small thin packets which we’d tear open, take the parts out, assemble and “fly”. They were printed and shaped mostly like things like Spitfires, which a little plastic propeller that we’d clip on to the nose of the plane. Cap guns were a thing, since in those days you were allowed to have play guns that actually looked like real guns, without fear of armed police turning up. Sometimes we’d just buy the caps, which were pink strips of paper with little dots on them containing gunpowder which I remember the smell of clearly. There were lots of sweets, including packets of fake cigarettes, another thing you wouldn’t get now. ‘Dinky’ and Matchbox cars, which sometimes we’d ruin by scraping the paintwork on the tarmac to make them shiny and silver. There were Tonker toys, cars and trucks that could be ‘revved’ up along the floor, with a button to press which would make the car shoot along the floor.

As well as Colson’s, I particularly remember the local butcher’s shop, Ken Jack’s complete with some seemingly jolly big knife wielding butcher who would talk to me from behind piles of dead animal. Ken Jack I presume.

The rest of my time with my Nanna seemed to revolve around visiting a community of old people. We could round and visit all the neighbours. There was Mrs Mosedale who lived next door. By that time she was a small, frail looking elderly woman, I think her husband had not long passed away. I remember entering the house from the back door, into a small kitchen with its 1960s or even 1950s refrigerator. These houses seemed so dark and silent apart from the sound of a ticking clock, which felt like it was counting down the final days of the people around it. The warm, gloomy, almost tangible silence of a room filled with ornaments. I remember being fascinated by snow globes but I don’t think I was normally allowed to touch anything, probably just as well, given my propensity to break things.

John The Monkey Man

One day my Nanna took me up the street to see one of her friends whom I’d never met before. We walked up the street and came to an alleyway down the side of one of the houses. I remember all of this so clearly, how I felt walking along the alley to the back of the house where there was a gate. My Nanna opened the gate to the backyard. Here was the scene, a couple of elderly people and a small child, me, and I think my eyes wide taking in the unusual piece of architecture before me. Lots of chicken wire around a frame before me, it was daylight so I could see very clearly. I approached the structure. Then I think my heart raced as this small black shape came up to me with this jerky, nervous, quick movement. It was a spider monkey, with wirey but strong looking limbs and it clung onto the chicken wire between us. For a moment, there we were, me and the monkey, staring at each other, face-to-face, inspecting each other. I felt a bit freaked out by this encounter, and we went into the man’s home, another dark abode, smelling of old people. From this point I understood why the man was know as “John The Monkey Man”.

Demolition

One theme stands out for me about these times, and that is demolition. In an earlier memory of my Grandparents’ road, Heath Road, I remember the houses on the opposite side of the street seeming older, more run down. I remember going into one of them, as always seemed to be the case, entering from the back of the house, perhaps because it was with my Nanna, visiting women, kitchens were where women seemed to be and kitchens were at the back. I remember an old stone floor, more darkness. Then a few years later, those houses were demolished, by wrecking ball again I think, turned to piles of dust and rubble. In their place, new brick houses were built. I think some of the residents of the old houses may have been rehoused in the new ones. I used to visit an elderly woman, one of my Nanna’s friends, called “Trixy”, a woman with a small dog and these large glasses with thick lenses that made her eyes look bigger. The new houses were really warm inside I think as people then seemed to have the heating up (no wearing your coat indoors as “You’ll not feel the benefit” when you go outside).

It felt to me as a child, and still does, in my memory, like magic. The houses, the smells, the people, a monkey in someone’s back garden (?!), the history, felt powerful, potent. So much so, that sometimes I wonder if it was real, but it was, I experienced it.

My first home, I think for the first year, was on Beaconsfield Road, I don’t remember anything about it. We then moved to a house on Wood Street, from around the age of 2 years old, and this is where my first memories are from. I think the house was probably around the same age as my Grandparents. No front garden, with the front door right on the pavement. This house had a bathroom though, I think you had to get to it through my parents’ bedroom (so probably converted and originally similar to the back bedroom at Heath Road). I think the colour scheme was more modern, well, 1970s. The stairs was in the middle of one wall of the living room. At the top of the stairs hung a print of a painting of a little girl, holding a cat, I remember a lot of pink and I think this was a common painting for people to have at the time, though I can’t find it now.

The first memory that comes to mind, was something to do with a model motorbike. I think it was my Uncle Neil’s (who was a punk). It had been sitting on top of a cabinet in the living room and of course, I wanted to play with it but wasn’t allowed, probably due to it being a model rather than a toy. I think I kicked up a fuss and got upset when it taken away.

My Dad

The next memory got a bit muddled up in my mind and it involves my dad ‘fixing’ something, yes ‘fixing’. My Dad also seemed to have a habit of being too sure of himself, having a go at fixing things then doing a bad job of it. The word ‘wassock’ comes to mind, which is, I think essentially means something like “feckless moron”, which I think summed up his general persona quite nicely. This wassock getting himself (and others) into stupid, sometimes dangerous situations, all with his trademark smug look on his face. ‘Pillock’ is a another good word here. What a role model. Anyway, the particular memory I had, was of being in a room with my Dad and I was standing behind him. He was fixing something on the wall, crouching down. Then, all of a sudden I felt a big shock, I think it was pretty terrifying. Originally I had the memory as me receiving an electric shock but actually I think what really happened was that my Dad decided to try and fix a mains socket (with probably a butter knife or something), without turning the mains off. I suspect the shock I got, was my reaction to him connecting himself to the mains. There is another story but it may just be a different event, since these things were not uncommon, and that was that my Dad removed a mains socket from a wall, stuffed the uninsulated wires into the wall, plastered over the hole, then touched the wet plaster.

To be fair to my Dad here, I have one last memory from the house at Wood Street, in which I think he actually did something right. It’s a rare memory as well. I was in the back garden, probably playing in some sand, with my bright orange plastic wheel barrow. I was happy enough in my own little world for a while. Suddenly I was startled by a clanging noise which seemed to be coming from the sky everywhere. I ran inside, scared. So my Dad took me for a walk around the block, where he pointed out the sound, coming from the local church, since the clanging turned out to be the sound of the bells.

During this time, my Dad worked at a power station. I remember once being driven by my Dad through the power station with it’s formidable looking cooling towers. It was a coal power station, rather than a nuclear power station, otherwise my dad’s nickname now might be “Homer Simpson”. Yep, the man who seemed to have a passion for giving himself electric shocks, worked at an electricity power station. I seem to remember a story involving him slicing the end of a finger off once in some machinery but I may be getting my Dad confused with the guitarist of Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi, who sliced the end of his finger off which resulted in the classic Sabbath guitar sound as the guitarist detuned his strings so they’d bend easier. My Dad’s accident did not seem to result in anything other than yet another anecdote about him doing something stupid, and probably some embarrassing quip to go with it. This is also something that sticks in my mind about my Dad. Hiding behind humour. For the first part of my life, I sort of liked my Dad, perhaps he could come across like child, just one that never grew up, which doesn’t necessarily seem all that bad, until I take into consideration that he was supposed to be a parent, a responsible adult. Looking back I think it rarely ever felt like I really had a Dad.

My Dad later told me about something else he used to enjoy doing at the power station. After his shifts, he would often break into the offices. Except instead of stealing stuff, he’d move the furniture around. I mean, not just move things around the room, he’d swap furniture between the rooms as a ‘joke’ on people, making one room look like another and vice versa. On the face of it, it just seems childish, but I wonder about it having some deeper meaning, something about power over people, a kind of gaslighting. Gaslighting people at a coal power station.

It seems it was all a game for him, and perhaps reading what I’ve written so far about my Dad, might not seem so bad. Then again, it wasn’t just about him playing games with office furniture, no, the bigger problem was him playing games with his family. The games I’m referring to here, are my Dad’s affairs with women. It’s seems that right from when he first got together with my Mum, he was having affairs. Actually, I don’t think my Mum was even his first choice. It’s almost like the entire reason for my existence might have been a result of one of my Dad’s games.

I don’t know if my Mum really wanted to have a child, and to be honest, it doesn’t matter to me now. It doesn’t matter because I know that my Mum genuinely loved me. Maybe my Dad felt love for me, but I never really felt it, and crucially, I am certain he always put himself first. I don’t really understand how a man, my Dad, who was ultimately in love with himself, could really love his child. He was a child, an incompetent, irresponsible child, not a parent. I’m not even sure that someone like that can really know love, to truly recognise it.

My Dad’s affairs were not even just him sneaking around, it seems he got a thrill from the idea of getting caught, including by my Mum.

My Dad risked his own family in the pursuit of self gratification. It seems he became known for his behaviour, and people in our home town, weren’t happy with it.

The end of an era

The story goes something like that one evening, My Dad was at a pub with friends, and one of them told him he’d make a good prison officer. He’d found a way out of the sticky situation. Rather than taking responsibility and simply changing his ways, he applied to join the prison service, was successful, offered a job down south at a prison, and my family left town, which meant leaving practically all of the rest of my family behind, to start a new life literally based around my Dad’s new job, as a result of my Dad’s reckless behaviour.

Copyright © 2026 Siobhán Sarelle