How I smelled my way to school!

From potbanks to the abattoir, during the 1940s the smells in the street could tell various stories. In 2018, ANITA OXFORD recounted her daily journey to school, defined by the smells of those streets where she lived

IRECALL that walking to school in the mid-1940s was a malodorous experience. I don’t mean the experience of learning, but there were typical smells associated with the school building itself.

However, it was more the journey to and from school.

The smells we were confronted with as soon as we stepped onto the pavement were pungent to say the least.

From my home in Furlong Street, Tunstall, the first smell to hit my nose, which usually made me cough or sneeze, was the sooty, smoky smell of the steam train shunting up the mineral line from the Scotia coal wharf to the coal yards of Sandyford.

This was frequently mixed with the smell of horse droppings.

Travelling on, the next mixture of smells came from the chip shop, the greengrocers and the oatcake shop.

If Mrs Cope’s chip fat needed changing, then the greasy clogging odour dominated, masking the earthy smells of potatoes and the rotting outer leaves of cabbages and other vegetables at the back of Heath’s Greengrocer’s.

All these pungent smells were overcome by Adams Pot Bank with its clay, slip, litho and clay dust odours wafting out in hot waves, unbearable in the summer, but a haven of warmth in winter. This stretch of pavement was usually ice and snow-free, the only place to walk with confidence and without fear of slipping.

At the top of Furlong Road, turning into High Street, the variety of road vehicles contributed to the overall sooty atmosphere. This was, in turn, provided by the black smoke belching from the various oven kiln chimneys of the surrounding potbanks.

In Keele Street, just off High Street, was an abattoir, and cattle trucks were often unloading live cows and sheep onto the pavement.

Here, rich farmyard smells from the steaming animals and their frequent emptying of bowels and bladders all contributed to the general reek of the High Street.

Further down, passing the butcher’s in High Street, blood and sawdust eminated from the shop, but I did not at the time connect it with the animals going into the slaughterhouse and the cuts of meat in Mr Morton’s shop window. If I had, I may have become vegetarian.

As I continued down the High Street toward Haymarket and a large corner shop I remember being called Rudges, which sold animal food.

The smell from this shop was unique, earthy and comforting, combining a variety of pungent and ponging aromas. Nearer to school in Hose Street was Frosts stable yard, and, again, the smell of sweaty horses, straw and manure would filter out into the street.

Next door to the stables was a cinema, The

Regent, better known as the ‘Bug

Hut’. If the doors were open then a deluge of cigarette and pipe smoke would drift about, mixing with the animal, vegetable and mineral smells of the town.

At last, school was reached. Here the smells were more human

– sweaty damp clothes, musty socks and wellingtons all mixed with the smells of strong cleaning agents used by the caretaker.

At the end of the school day I would retrace my earlier journey and push open my front door, which was always on the catch.

Aah! A lovely welcoming smell. It must be pie for tea. It was always good to be home.

The potbank’s warmth usually kept its stretch of pavement ice and snow-free – it was the only place to walk with confidence

Adams Pottery, top, cigarette smoke, fish and chips and steam train smoke were all part of Anita Oxford’s daily walk to school from Furlong Street.