Page 17 - It's a Rum Life Book One "In the Beginning 1947 to 1960"

about’ with their friends at some ‘do’ or other. The best family
friends were Gordon Croft and his wife Sybil. Such good friends
in fact that father and Gordon both having Richard in their
Christian names, determined that if they should have sons, they
should be called Richard too! Hence I am a Richard.
Gordon was the second or perhaps even third generation in
the family butchery business in Harrogate and owned two shops
in the centre of town. I remember being taken to view his
piggery at weekends, a good walk from our Dragon View home
and located behind one of the huge hotels that were needed to
accommodate the hundreds of folk who sought relief from their
ills by ‘taking the local waters’.
The location was convenient as the pigs at this time were fed
entirely on ‘swill’; left overs of human food collected from the
hotel kitchens. These were then boiled together daily in a huge
open vat affair. The smell was grim at times but the pigs loved it.
Modern regulations now prevent this use of ‘swill waste’ and
we are encouraged to compost it instead.
This was of course only a very short time after the end of
World War Two and rationing of almost everything was still very
much affecting our everyday lives.
Both families were determined to have a holiday, the first
after the war and Aunt Sybil’s family home in Somerset was to
be our destination.
Extensive planning for months beforehand involved finding
sufficient petrol to not only get there but indeed to get back
again. ‘Grandfather’ (Sybil’s father) had told his son in law in no
uncertain terms, that he was welcome to stay but on no account
would he provide any petrol from his closely guarded ‘ration’ for
the farm tractors, to be used ‘illegally’ in getting the family home
again to North Yorkshire!
Gordon always loved large saloon cars and it must have been
his car we used. When it was being loaded, the most important

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