We led busy lives. My parents were both working full-time and we three children all under 14, were at school from 7:30am till about 1pm, after which John and I had to attend one session per week of afternoon school from 2-3:30pm, plus at least two compulsory “after school sports” sessions. If we wished, we could also participate in optional extra-curricular activities at our respective schools. I joined a recorder group and for a while began learning how to play a violin in the school orchestra.
So, it was a real treat for our family who could not afford to go to restaurants, to know that on Friday dinner would be fish and chips collected from a shop that specialized in such fare. We looked forward to even the smell of it: fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, with that mouth-watering smell permeating the newsprint producing a Pavlovian response in all of us. We could hardly wait. We so looked forward to unrolling that newspaper to get to the thickly battered fish and the crispy chips sprinkled with salt and vinegar. We never tired of it! However, there was a price to pay, not only literally speaking, but figuratively speaking as well: we had to do our part towards completing the weekly housecleaning.
It became a routine. Every Friday, when my parents returned from work at 4:30pm, we would have a cup of tea and a snack, before starting on our list of chores, the lure being the fish and chips at the end. John, Peter and I were told what each of us had to do. The tasks might include tidying up and putting away whatever was out of place, stripping the beds, changing the sheets, vacuuming the flat, sweeping the balcony, doing the ironing, dusting the furniture, cleaning the bathroom, whatever household tasks needed doing on a weekly basis. We all five had to help.
Ironing was a major task since we needed to iron every single item that touched our skin, including towels, bed linens, socks and underwear, so that none of us landed up with maggot-flies burrowing their way under our skin in boil-like eruptions. My mother and I must have done a good job because not once did any of us experience a maggot fly break-out.
Our family always kept a clean house and we all complied, accepting our various household chores. The fish and chips were the perfect lure and played their part in instilling in all of us the importance of cleanliness and how to maintain it.
Decorating was another matter! We all groaned whenever my mother announced that she thought the place could do with sprucing up; none more loudly than my father who hated decorating and never thought it necessary, since to him home décor was simply about functionality, not style. To my father, if the walls were standing and a chair had four legs, that was all that counted. Not so to my mother who loved to improve the place in which we were living even if we were renting it.
