Delia Daws (nee Towers), of Kendal, recalls the house in which her mother was brought up

MY MOTHER was brought up in Lound Street, Kendal, along with two sisters, one brother and six cousins who had lost their mother.

In the 1930s, as a young girl, I used to visit the house as my grandmother and great grandmother still lived there.

I remember some of the wooden floors were varnished dark brown and the front room had lino down.

Any rugs were ones they had pegged themselves.

Old clothes were cut into strips and then pegged on to a piece of sackcloth with a special hook.

The hearth rug in the kitchen was half-moon shaped. This is where the family lived, and did their cooking in the black-leaded fireside oven with a big black kettle on the hob.

They had a big copper bed pan in which they put hot cinders at night and warmed each bed in turn.

They always took the newspaper 'The Daily Sketch'. This was cut up into small squares, tied together with a piece of string, then hung up in an outbuilding down the back yard.

This is where the outside toilet was.

Once over it would have been emptied by the men who came round with the appropriate vehicle and equipment, but in my time of visiting it had been changed into a WC.

It had a big broad wooden seat which was scrubbed daily, but no toilet paper as we know today!