GEORGE Booth was born into poverty in Blackburn in 1924.

His father died from wounds inflicted in the Great War when he was just six months old and the house where he lived with his mother and older sister Elsie, had no wireless, gas oven, carpets, bath or any form of lighting.

He stood at the kitchen table to eat his meals, as there weren’t enough chairs, but 53, Brookhouse Lane, was the happy home of his first 21 years.

Today, we look at life in Blackburn in the 1920s, through the eyes of a young George Booth, whose street was a playground and the tangle of back alleys his adventure land.

Brookhouse Lane was a steep street, which straddled the River Blakewater and every day, people in their thousands would hurry along, in their clogs and shawls, to their work as weavers, winders, warpers, engineers and shuttle makers.

His home was the same style as millions of others, two up, two down, which the family happily shared with his Uncle George, wife Bertha and baby son Harry, who were later to do a ‘moonlight flit’.

It had cast iron fireplaces, a single cold water tap over a shallow stone sink and a small boiler beside the fireplace in the kitchen, which was brought into life every Monday, for washday.

Everyone spent their days in this small room at the back of the house, which had a large, scrubbed table in the centre, mother’s rocking chair to one side and two bent wood chairs in the opposite corner.

“We stood at the table all our young lives and never thought anything about it. We all accepted things for what they were; we didn’t know any different,” he said.

“Nobody protested, as everyone was in the same boat. There was no work and no money, but life went on.”

His mother’s pension was 10s per week and with the rent 6s 4d , it left only 3s 8d to spend on food , fuel, light and clothing for the three of them, until she got an extra 1s on ‘The Relief’. She took in washing and ironing and went as a cleaning lady anywhere, scrubbing and mopping for the extra two shillings, which was vital.

George and Elsie ran errands, returned empty bottles to the shop and scavenged under stalls after market day, looking for bad apples or oranges.

On Sundays they would go to St John’s in the morning, the Salvation Army citadel in the afternoons and Bent Street Ragged School in the evenings.

Said George: “These three churches were known to help the desperately poor people of the parish and would naturally tend their own flock first — mother was spreading her net as wide as possible in the hope of a bigger harvest for us all.”

Each year the Ragged School would organise a train trip to St Annes and George and his sister went on these joy filled days — as they were on Christmas mornings, when Toc H gave breakfast for the poorest children at King George’s Hall.

There would be three sittings, at 7am, 7.30 and 8am and there would be a meat pie, a sausage roll and a mince tart for each child.

“All the children knew the drill, they were hungry, it was Christmas and they tucked into the food with a will,” recollected George.

Various festive goodies were pressed into their hands on the way out and waiting in the foyer as they left was Father Christmas, with a present for each of them.

“Every child went home happy. Christmas was in the air and in my quieter moments, I give thanks to those unsung heroes who gave up their own Christmas morning for the benefit of the less fortunate.”

Mother joined a women’s club which solicited help from welfare organisations all over the country and from this charitable ‘sunshine club’ the family received regular parcels filled with warm clothing from a wealthy lady in London well into the 1930s.

“I was getting older, too, and at the age of nine began calling on the local shops and houses to collect waste paper which I then sold to the nearby paper mill.

“Each and every penny I earned I would put on the table for mother, waiting for my reward of a lovely smile.”

The money was placed in an array of tin mugs kept in the parlour cupboard to pay for the rent, or the coal, or the insurance club collectors.

“I also started going to a nearby Methodist Church and Sunday School, and became a wolf cub, where I found great happiness.

“Everything in our frugal existence we accepted as the norm, but what I do remember in the main is the joy and happiness, the laughter and enjoyment, adventure and excitement that were my bedfellows of those happy days,” added George.