One of the younger Thorne sisters, Florence Nance always preferred to be called Annie. Perhaps this was the first example of her expressing a preference. She looks unassuming in this portrait, but she was a woman of strong opinions.
When she was born in 1894 she was so tiny that she had to be carried on a cushion. My mother told me this. I’m not sure who told her. Probably one of the Thorne aunties. The family were living in South Shields in a street next to the ruin of a Roman fort. It was a short walk to the sea and the beautiful sandy beach, backed by dunes. Sunderland, and Roker, where the family had lived previously, was a few miles down the coast. It has to be said that Annie never liked sitting on the sand, though did it to please her daughter, and later her grandchildren.
By 1896 the family had moved to the Bensham area of Gateshead, where they stayed. It must have been an up and coming area, as within the next decade a new school was built and a new church was consecrated. My grandmother was one of the first pupils to attend Kelvin Grove School and remembered being marched there from her old school. Her father became choirmaster and organist at St Chad’s. Sid even had an organ at home. There would have been music in the house, popular Edwardian songs as well as hymns. I hope her mother, Alice, joined in too. Alice was a pillar of the local community. She helped women in childbirth and laid out the dead. When she baked she distributed her food among the neighbours. I’d like to think she had some moments of light relief, enjoying time with her children.
My grandmother often talked about her sisters and always had framed photos of them on the bedroom walls. She had happy memories of an excursion on a lake. Sadly, these framed photos disappeared. She was fond of her brother Ernie and especially close to her sister Gertie.
As far as I know, her father Sid was never unemployed. But it can’t have been a sheltered or privileged childhood, as Nance left school as soon as she turned 14, saying that she was needed at home. She was told off by her parents, but not made to return. She didn’t stay at home, but got a job in Mason’s hardware shop on Saltwell Road. Even at 14 she was a determined woman. I’m inclined to believe she decided to marry the handsome and clever young man in her father’s choir. They were engaged before he went off to war.
Married in 1920, my mother was born in February 1924. It was a very difficult birth, so my grandmother decided to have no more children. 1924 was the year her mother Alice died of cancer. It was her older sister Alice who helped her through the pregnancy and birth. Traumatic to be losing a mother and having your first child at the same time.
Then baby Gertrude Nance was never healthy. She caught measles, followed by pneumonia. The health visitor decided the family needed a house with a garden if their child was to survive and they were allotted one of the first council houses, currently being built on the Fieldhouse Estate. The day they moved the short distance from Saltwell Road to 260 Rawling Road wasn’t auspicious as heavy snow blocked the road and the furniture van kept stopping.
Although the house had all mod cons, with an indoor bathroom and toilet, my grandmother didn’t like it.
‘For the first three years my mother couldn’t settle. She did not like the living room and bedroom having a window front and back. She felt that people were looking in all the time so always had very heavy net curtains and dark curtains. She felt you couldn’t sit in privacy and I remember her standing by the window knitting. When she got used to it she said she would never move again...’
My grandfather liked singing in the church choir, poetry and gardening. It’s much harder to say what my grandmother liked. She was much better at making her dislikes known. She didn’t like ‘quiet places’, she preferred to go shopping and going out for afternoon tea. I think she liked baking. She made wonderful raspberry tarts, scones, cakes and jam tarts. She had a plentiful collection of china, some inherited and some acquired from her work in a china shop. One tea set for everyday use, and another for special occasions. Then there was Alice’s tea set, enough for a family of twelve, with scalloped cups.
She refused to have a washing machine. She didn’t go the launderette. She did all her washing by hand, using a washboard. Then everything was wrung through a mangle…. even sheets., and hung out on a washing line in the garden. As a child I helped her do this. She wouldn’t have a gas cooker. This prohibition was so potent that to this day there’s never been a gas cooker in the family.
Although admirable in many ways, her determination made life more difficult. In her family history my mother described how they went to look at houses, and even shops with accommodation, ‘but there was always some reason she did not like them.’ I’m sure my mother disapproved of her refusal to buy a property. This would have provided her with a more substantial inheritance. Years later she still pointed out a house that overlooked the park that they might have bought.
It was decades later, reading her family history, that I realised my mother’s relationship with her mother wasn’t as stress free as I’d assumed.
here to edit.
When she was born in 1894 she was so tiny that she had to be carried on a cushion. My mother told me this. I’m not sure who told her. Probably one of the Thorne aunties. The family were living in South Shields in a street next to the ruin of a Roman fort. It was a short walk to the sea and the beautiful sandy beach, backed by dunes. Sunderland, and Roker, where the family had lived previously, was a few miles down the coast. It has to be said that Annie never liked sitting on the sand, though did it to please her daughter, and later her grandchildren.
By 1896 the family had moved to the Bensham area of Gateshead, where they stayed. It must have been an up and coming area, as within the next decade a new school was built and a new church was consecrated. My grandmother was one of the first pupils to attend Kelvin Grove School and remembered being marched there from her old school. Her father became choirmaster and organist at St Chad’s. Sid even had an organ at home. There would have been music in the house, popular Edwardian songs as well as hymns. I hope her mother, Alice, joined in too. Alice was a pillar of the local community. She helped women in childbirth and laid out the dead. When she baked she distributed her food among the neighbours. I’d like to think she had some moments of light relief, enjoying time with her children.
My grandmother often talked about her sisters and always had framed photos of them on the bedroom walls. She had happy memories of an excursion on a lake. Sadly, these framed photos disappeared. She was fond of her brother Ernie and especially close to her sister Gertie.
As far as I know, her father Sid was never unemployed. But it can’t have been a sheltered or privileged childhood, as Nance left school as soon as she turned 14, saying that she was needed at home. She was told off by her parents, but not made to return. She didn’t stay at home, but got a job in Mason’s hardware shop on Saltwell Road. Even at 14 she was a determined woman. I’m inclined to believe she decided to marry the handsome and clever young man in her father’s choir. They were engaged before he went off to war.
Married in 1920, my mother was born in February 1924. It was a very difficult birth, so my grandmother decided to have no more children. 1924 was the year her mother Alice died of cancer. It was her older sister Alice who helped her through the pregnancy and birth. Traumatic to be losing a mother and having your first child at the same time.
Then baby Gertrude Nance was never healthy. She caught measles, followed by pneumonia. The health visitor decided the family needed a house with a garden if their child was to survive and they were allotted one of the first council houses, currently being built on the Fieldhouse Estate. The day they moved the short distance from Saltwell Road to 260 Rawling Road wasn’t auspicious as heavy snow blocked the road and the furniture van kept stopping.
Although the house had all mod cons, with an indoor bathroom and toilet, my grandmother didn’t like it.
‘For the first three years my mother couldn’t settle. She did not like the living room and bedroom having a window front and back. She felt that people were looking in all the time so always had very heavy net curtains and dark curtains. She felt you couldn’t sit in privacy and I remember her standing by the window knitting. When she got used to it she said she would never move again...’
My grandfather liked singing in the church choir, poetry and gardening. It’s much harder to say what my grandmother liked. She was much better at making her dislikes known. She didn’t like ‘quiet places’, she preferred to go shopping and going out for afternoon tea. I think she liked baking. She made wonderful raspberry tarts, scones, cakes and jam tarts. She had a plentiful collection of china, some inherited and some acquired from her work in a china shop. One tea set for everyday use, and another for special occasions. Then there was Alice’s tea set, enough for a family of twelve, with scalloped cups.
She refused to have a washing machine. She didn’t go the launderette. She did all her washing by hand, using a washboard. Then everything was wrung through a mangle…. even sheets., and hung out on a washing line in the garden. As a child I helped her do this. She wouldn’t have a gas cooker. This prohibition was so potent that to this day there’s never been a gas cooker in the family.
Although admirable in many ways, her determination made life more difficult. In her family history my mother described how they went to look at houses, and even shops with accommodation, ‘but there was always some reason she did not like them.’ I’m sure my mother disapproved of her refusal to buy a property. This would have provided her with a more substantial inheritance. Years later she still pointed out a house that overlooked the park that they might have bought.
It was decades later, reading her family history, that I realised my mother’s relationship with her mother wasn’t as stress free as I’d assumed.
here to edit.