Each cottage had a copper stove and an oven in the kitchen. Everything was done in the kitchen - cooking, baking, washing and bathing. We used to toast cheese under the grates of these fires and toast our bread in front of these fires.

This toast is far better than from the modern electric toasters. We used to toast red herring on the dustpan over the fire - these herrings were very salty - some people called them Salt Herring. As children, when they were small, we could buy 24 fresh herrings for a shilling. We would then have two each for tea. I can remember truck loads of herring being carted from Eye Station and spread on the fields of Benningham Hall.

My mother would never sell a fat hen - most of the old breed of hens were nearly as big as turkeys. She would boil the old hen up in the iron saucepan on the kitchen stove until the meat left the bones. Carrots, onions, small pieces of turnip and potatoes were mixed in and it was boiled again. This was known to us as broth and I can assure you it was very tasty. Many a time I have had a basin of this for breakfast, with bread.

My mother would say, ''That will keep the cold out". When we had this broth for tea she would say ''That will see you through the night".

My wife and myself often buy a nice chicken and do the same thing today. I look forward to a basin of this for breakfast on a cold winter's morning. When I see my grand-children using the microwave and I tell them how we cooked and lived they think I am light in the head.

There was mostly a pond near the cottages, where the clay was dug to build the cottages. The clay was mixed with straw to make clay bricks; (some people called them clay lumps). The farm buildings were built with these clay lumps and lots are still standing to this day in this area. The cattle yards built with clay lumps had to be tarred each year to stop the cattle licking holes in the walls

Clay and sand were mixed in this horse-operated pug mill to prepare the 'pug' which the brick-makers threw into their moulds. The material was churned by large knives inside the upright cylinder; proper mixing of the pug was necessary if the bricks were to be of uniform quality.

A kettle and saucepan was always standing on a hob by the side of the kitchen fire - full of water so that there was always some hot or warm water available.

All the kettles and saucepans were iron - very heavy. I don't think they ever wore up, years later tin kettles and saucepans got around but they only lasted about a fortnight on the coal fires.

The only toilet we had in my very young days was an old tin shed down the garden about 20 yards from the house. In this shed was a trench which would be emptied once each year. Later came the toilet bucket. This was emptied into a trench in the garden and celery would be grown in the trench.

I had an uncle who lived in an old farmhouse, by himself in the village of Brundish, Suffolk. He had a sister who was a widow and lived in Manchester.

She said that she would come back home to Suffolk and keep house for him on one condition - That he had a toilet and bathroom built in one of the bedrooms. This he did.

The toilet had been built for some time when his sister said to him, "I have never seen you use the toilet upstairs". He said that he never did use a toilet in the house and he was not starting now. He never did and used his toilet down the garden until he died aged 85.

The cottages had no bathroom. We used to bathe in a big tin bath in front of the kitchen fire, mostly on a Saturday night. Where there were children, they would be bathed first and sent to bed. Mother and father would then bathe in the same water.

I expect you think that they could have changed the water but remember that the water had to be carted in from the pond and heated up in the kitchen copper.

The only lights we had were paraffin oil lamps and candles. Our mothers would knit and sew by these lights - they could thread a needle by candlelight.

As children, when we went down the garden to the toilet on dark nights we had a candle in a jam jar, which mostly went out on windy nights. The toilet was mostly down the garden, about 20 yards from the house.

Sometimes children would have a candle in a jam jar beside the bed if they were sick.

The only light in the stable for Horsemen who went to feed the horses in the morning before they were taken to work was a Hurricane Lamp. Milking was also done with two of these lamps hanging on the beams.