Household Bills and Notices

© Reproduced with acknowledgement to John Dickson, Royston: December 4, 2012

Gas and Electric Meter Readings

Thank you to John Dickson, Royston, for sending me these cards showing meter readings taken at his house in Royston in the 1950s.

John wrote:

Meter Readings

"These cards were hanging behind the meters when we bought our house at Royston.

Gas

"The gas card names John Brown who built the house in 1908, and was a crane man at Granton."

Electric

"The electric card is for Reginald Hill in 1951. The meter reading changed in 1952 when Ronald Delnevo bought the house. Ronald owned the Jubilee chip shop in West Granton road.

Interesting?"

John Dickson, Royston, Edinburgh: December 4, 2012

Common Stair Notice

Many districts around the centre of Edinburgh have stone built flats or apartments, most built around the late 19th century and often about 4, 5 or 6 stories high, with a common entry and staircase for all residents except those on the ground floor who had their own 'main door' entrances.

I lived on the top floor of in one of these blocks of flats at 2 Comely Bank from around 1968 to 1973. I remember each of the residents taking it in turn, for one week each, to keep the common passage and staircase clean. After looking after the common area for a week, this notice was passed on to the next door neighbour in the staircase, by hanging it on their door handle. (The word 'Stair' would be written on this card on the dotted line after 'Common'.)

I had not seen one of these notices for almost 40 years until I found this one recently, still in the same style as I remember it.

Peter Stubbs, Edinburgh: December 8, 2012

Recollections

Allan Dodds

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England

Thank you to Allan Dodds who added:

People in the Photo

"I remember these cards well as a child:

Here, I recount an incident in my recent book, from which find an extract below. I must have been around two and a half years of age at the time as my father had not yet been demobbed and Mother and I lived together as a single parent family."

EXTRACT FROM ALAN DODD'S BOOK

Stair Notices

"Another highlight of the day would be when a card would mysteriously appear hanging on the polished brass handle of the front door bearing the injunction:

'Your Turn on the Common Stair and Landing'.

This referred not so much to a musical or dramatic event, but rather to the more prosaic fact that it was our turn to pay the ‘stair lady’.***

Even more alarming was the card bearing the sinister words:

'Your Turn on the Back Passage'.

I don’t believe that this referred to the use of suppositories."

Star Ladies

"Mother never referred to the stair ladies by their proper names, as I was to discover to my cost. The first woman I remember, who lived in a slum in Canon Street, would ring the doorbell at 6.30am requesting a bucket of hot water, a cloth and a scrubbing brush.

Mother was always ready on such mornings with the range already blazing and a black kettle on the boil, and I was invariably awakened by those early morning activities.

One day I asked Mother what the woman’s name was. 'Dean Swift' she replied with her usual cutting wit referring, as I later found out, to the speed at which the work was carried out. The next time the woman rang the bell I was awake and ready to be first to answer the door. Mother called out to me from within the house, asking who it was. “Mrs Swift”, I confidently piped.

Later, Mrs Swift was to be replaced by another anonymous person whom Mother had instinctively identified as an alcohol abuser. Once again, I had the opportunity of conveying Mother’s uninvited opinion to the hapless recipient when she called one morning. Answering the door ahead of Mother, I heard her voice asking who it was. “The lady who drinks the gin”, I reliably informed her.

Stair ladies were always difficult to get after that."

Book: Laughin' on the ither side o' ma face (Allan Dodds)

Allan Dodds, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England: October 29, 2011

*** Stair Ladies

I lived in a flat at Comely Bank for about four years from 1969, and the arrival of the "common stair 2 notice on the handle of my front door was a regular occurrence. But I never knew that there were 'stair ladies' who could be paid to do this work! I always did the cleaning myself