Hi Thanks for the add. i have on the request of my Grand children written a brief essay of my life, thought you might like to read the first bit of it.
The Harders From Northam 1933.

I was Born Frederick Harder named after my Father on the 22nd Dec 1933 at No 25 Bond Street Northam Southampton. My parents (Fred and Freda ( Fowler)) were married on the 4th march 1933, so that makes me legitimate (Contrary to what some people in the RN may think). The houses where I was born were all terraced houses built some time ago to house the dockworkers, stevedores and ship builders working along the river Itchen, the houses were two up and two down, that is two bedrooms a living room and a kitchen, no electricity, the lighting was by gas mantle (If lucky) or candles, cooking was by gas (If you could afford it) or over an open fire, the fire was started with paper, wood and coal, then fed with coke which was the remains of coal cooked to make gas, the coke was collected in our prams from the local gas works (Now the St Mary’s football stadium,) You could never start a fire with coke alone as it had to be heated up, as all the goodness had been removed to make the gas which was stored in large Steele gasometers,
In those day it was common to find that there would be anything up to 12 to 13 children in the family (there were 13 of my grannies) not only that you could have more than one family living in the same house, plus lodgers, (lodgers were paying guests), the kids would sleep 4 or 5 both ends of the bed, plus a mattress on the floor with the same number, when they got older the boys would be separated from the girls, the younger children would sleep with their parents. The beds, would either be slats of wood across a frame or a Steele mesh which could be tightened by means of nuts and bolts at the end of the bed, the mattresses were large bags the size of the bed filled with a mixture of scrap wool and cotton called flocks which had to be fluffed up every day or they became as hard as wood, There was no inside toilet, the toilet would be in the back garden, so a bucket would be used in each bedroom which would have to be emptied and cleaned every morning, during the day come rain, snow or shine you would have to go to the end of the garden to go to toilet, In those days there were no toilet rolls, one of our jobs would be to tear up newspaper into small squares and thread onto string to hang on the inside of the toilet door, (Sometimes if the print on the paper was very black, your bum would be colored) open back wedding dresses
There was only one tap in the house and that was cold no central heating, in winter it would sometimes freeze, the sink would be a square stone, very unhygienic.
The houses in Northam were so close to the river that if there was a very high tide the houses and streets would become flooded and boats would have to be used to ferry people around. This was mostly along to one the numerous Pubs. 5.
Some sunny days Mum and a few Aunties and Uncles would make a few sandwiches (Jam mostly) and bottles of lemonade and they would trapes off pushing the very large wheeled prams to the Houndwell park in Southampton for a picnic and play on the swings and slides, or we would go to the Western shore across the floating bridge for a picnic and a paddle.
Granny Harder died in 1935 at the age of 61, so I cannot remember her as I was only 2 years old, but from the photos I have seen she was quite robust. And would sit at the front door talking to the neighbors, granddad was x-army and worked in the docks as did most of the men in Northam.
From Bond Street, I think we moved to The Grove in Sholing for how long I do not know as people seemed to move quite a bit, we then moved to Johnson Street which was a couple of streets away from Kingsland square a big open air market down St Mary’s street where we would go late in the day and pick up the unsold vegetables and pecked fruit(Fruit that had been pecked by the birds,) as all the vegetables and fruit used to come in crates straight from the farms or orchards and at the end of the day there would be the pecked fruit left at the bottom of the crates, which no one would want to pay for and so they could not sell. We would play in the street on our bikes most never had any tyre’s on, and cycle to the end of the road and watch the big red trams clanging past and the horse and carts go by, I was not very old, but I can remember one time, they had one of the little girls dressed up as a bride in some old net curtains and old flowers, and I was dressed up to be the groom and all the kids and parents made a procession to the Methodist church just around the corner and we had a pretend marriage on the front steps and afterwards we had lemonade and buns as a wedding reception.
From Johnson Street, we moved to Hollyoak Road, Shirley Warren. Quite some move, we lived in a corner Council house alongside a sort of park area with great big Oak trees on it, I used to like to go to sleep under the trees under a panel of corrugated iron propped alongside it. Especially when it was raining and you could hear the rain on the iron, I still think about it when I hear the rain. I remember one time, Mum Yvonne Desmond and I went to the local clinic it must have been Autumn as there were masses of leaves on the ground and me being a kid ran through the leaves dragging my feet as one does, straight into a sheet of corrugated iron, splitting my leg open with blood all over the place, they took me to the hospital and I had some stitches put in. still got the scar about 70 years later.
At one time there were workmen on the site doing something to the paths, workman used to have a large hut on big metal wheels which they used to tow behind a steam roller, they used to have a big fire stove which burnt coke and glowed red in it with a chimney protruding through the roof, the stable door to the hut was quite high off the ground so had a big wide wooden set of steps, I used to like to stand just inside the