Tin bath tub at Judges Street
SHEILA Tasker (nee Perkins) has written in regarding a photo we featured in Looking Back five years ago, of a party held to celebrate VJ Day in 1945.
Sheila, who lives in Canberra, said: “In 2013 my second cousin Christine, who lives in Loughborough, sent me a copy of the Loughborough Echo which featured the photo because she thought one lady on the back row could be her late grandmother.
“I immediately recognised Mrs Thelma Beet (nee Heggs) as Christine’s grandmother - my aunt - in the back row of the photo, third lady from the right. Her husband was my moth- er’s brother - my uncle Syd.
“I was then surprised to realise that the lady next to my aunt - fourth lady from the right - was in fact my late mother, Mrs Joyce Perkins (nee Beet).
“Mum grew up at 29 Judges Street. She married my dad, Reg Perkins from Lincolnshire, in 1944, and then stayed at home with her parents until dad came home from the army.
“I believe that Thelma, who married my uncle in 1942, lived with my grandparents too whilst my uncle was also in the army.
“When the war ended and the men came home, the two girls were able to move out and give my grandparents and their other two sons some space!
“It would have been a crowded house for a while as it was not a big house.
“I recall that there were three bedrooms upstairs and two rooms (one was a sitting room, the other was what we’d now call a family room) and a tiny scullery downstairs.
“No indoor bathroom, they used a tin bathtub in front of the fire in the ‘family room’ once a week and filled it from the constantly boiling kettle!
“The toilet was several metres down the yard from the back door. I particularly remember the bit about the toilet!
“I was born in 1947 in Gregory Street, just off Leicester Road, and would visit my grandparents often as a child.
“Life moved on and in 1965 my parents decided to emigrate to Australia with me and my four siblings, and as most of the older members of the family are now no longer around I’ve been researching the family tree online with the help of Ancestry.com
“I’ve had a lot of success and the ‘tree’ is pretty huge as you can probably imagine, so this photo in the Echo brought back lots of memories for me and I shall treasure it.
“There is so much to tell today’s younger generations about their descendants and their lives and I’m trying to document parts of my life in the small town that Loughborough was when I was growing up.
“I have an Australian husband, two sons and nine grandchildren now and would love to get something down on paper for my boys before I forget more of my life than I already have done!
“Fortunately I can still type fairly well, thanks to what used to be Loughborough College of Further Education where I completed a commercial/secretarial course in 1963, so I have no excuse!”