“Mondays, we had a copper in the scullery which had to be lit, and all the surplus rubbish such as our comics and bits and pieces went up the chimney on washing day, much to our sorrow, anything to get the water boiling you see, and wood and that, but it was an all-day job, washing day, and I can smell it now – the smell of the steam and the soap, you know, and my mother had three big zinc baths: one was for the washing, and there was a scrubbing board, and when I went home at lunchtime – this was when I was older – I used to be told to scrub the bands on the men’s shirts.”

This website is based on oral history interviews I conducted with my aunt, Mrs Lilian King, during February and March 2003, as part of the Certificate in Life History Work at the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Sussex.

Mrs King (nee Kidd) was born at 96 Ellen Street, Hove, Sussex, on 28th May 1910, the fifth of six children. (My mother, Hilda, was the youngest.) Their father, Fred, worked for Hove Corporation as a roadmender, while their mother, Fanny, stayed at home looking after the house and children.

Mrs King has some fascinating memories of growing up in Hove during the First World War and the early 1920s. To find out more, click on the buttons.