The slump was coming and the prosperity of the post-war era was ending. People had little money to spend. My father's fruit and vegetable business folded. The animals had to go. My mother did not want my father to return to the coal mines, but by now they had two children my brother having been born when I was four and a half.
I was eight years old when my father heard that some of his Somerset friends had gone to work in the coalfields in the West Riding in Yorkshire. He went, too, and found work, staying with his friends for a time.
It was a bitterly cold day when my mother, brother and I left Bristol, by train, on the spur of the moment, to join him. A telegram had been sent, but he was on the late afternoon shift so knew nothing about it. It was February and, as we went further north, the snow was everywhere.
It grew dark early. When we reached as far as we could go on the railway, my mother thought she could get a taxi. She soon found out that here it was different to living in the City, it was out in the wilds. The only transport was a horse and coach used for funerals!
We arrived at the friends' house in this and beds had to be found for the frozen trio. My father came home late from his afternoon shift and was amazed to find us there. We stayed with our Somerset friends for a time and then it was our turn to live in a brand new colliery house.