One-up-one-down

[jayneyjonker]

Didnt they used to be called back to back houses? One family would live in the front part and another family in the back, but each had their own door, so they would be living "back to back."

 

I lived on Gloucester Crescent as a young un and there were a lot of these types of houses round that area.

 

I lived in a back to back on Little London Place in Heeley 'til I was six.

We had one room for everything, cooking, eating, washing and bathing in a tin tub in front of the fire.

We had a cellar, a bedroom and an attic and had to go up the street, down a jennel and across the yard to the loo!

My Grandma brought up six kids in that house! I think they all slept in the attic and top n tailed. There were families that brought up 10 kids or more in those houses!

I remember as a kid the highlight of the week was going to Heeley slipper baths for a proper bath!

[nosy nellie]

It is surprising how they brought up all those kids in those small houses,my Gran was the same and thing is nearly everyone had large families my Gran had four girls and one boy all slept in a tiny attic.

[black eyes]

my aunt lived on hodgson street at the back of he moor it was back to back with a celler

[grinder]

I lived in a back to back house for a while in Heeley. the front was on Heeley green road at a time when the Round house was on the corner at the bottom and the other corner was a Grocers shop.

We lived in the yard and the only way out was through a gate at the top of Alexander road behind another grocers shop in fact there was a shop on each of the four corners, a chip shop, a fruit shop, and another grocers. I'd forgotten how many corner shop there were back in the 50s..

We had an offshot kitchen a living room, cellar, one main bed room and an attic which was my bedroom.

So the address for the front of the house was Heeley green road and the address for the back where we lived was 11/3 Alexander road...

[DerbyTup]

I lived in a 2 up 2 down mid-terrace house too. Was there till I was 18 - still having a tin bath in front of the fire once a week - and having a "wash down" in the washing up bowl on other days. (I know it sounds dreadful - and it was).

 

There was no bathroom or toilet indoors. Just a toilet across the back yard next to a coalhouse. It was freezing cold in that outside toilet and in winter we used to hang a little paraffin lamp, known as a Kelly lamp, to the pipes to stop them from freezing over. Additionally it afforded a little light as there was no electricity in there. The place was crawling with spiders and doubled as a storeroom for garden tools and things. I will never forget squatting in that place, in the pale flickering light of the Kelly lamp, mid-winter, fearing spiders would crawl on me at any moment. No wonder I was constipated for years.

 

Just to make life more difficult, my dad had an idea that "gas" was dangerous. So he had the gas taken out of the house - which meant we had nothing to cook on, other than the open fire, a Yorkshire range with boiler and side oven. Oh, we did have a little paraffin Primus stove, a small brass thing with a spider-web top and single burner. We used to cook on that as well if the coals in the fire weren't agreeable to putting a chip pan full of dripping on it.

 

We had no fridge, no washing machine. Food grew whiskers on the pantry shelf. Mum used to wash in a zinc tub every Wednesday (wash day) with a posher and washboard. The clothes were wrung through a mangle and hung to dry on the washing line which ran the length of the garden and was pushed up by a wooden prop. At one time we had a big rack hanging from the kitchen ceiling for hanging clothes to dry above the fire.

 

Wednesday's were often returning home to the smell of washing drying over the fire and home-baked bread rolls in the oven.

 

Blissful to look back on - but desperate as well.

[alemap]

we lived in a one up, one down and a cellar. stone flagged floor, shallow brown sink one cold tap which we ripped out prior to moving in.that was back to back in thompson hill high green 1967/68

[grinder]

When we moved from the the back to back we went up market to a two up two down house.

(This is sounding more and more like a 17 of us living in a shoe box story)

 

But it's not, because we had a gas ring......

[megglers]

we were brought up in Gilpin Lane there were 10 of us kids and Mom and Dad in a one room slop kitchen one bedroom and an attic where we all slept in one bed ususally 4 at the bottom (the newest arrival in bed with Mom and Dad) and 5 at the bottom. It was murder and don`t know how we survived!! but all doing well now except for the loss of one of our dear brothers age 58 but stilll talk about him cause he was the one that wet the bed!!lol