Elizabeth GriffinAKA Betty

“Voices Project” by Adam Griffin

General Information

• Age: 82

• Born in Radcliffe

• Now lives in Bury

Childhood

Betty was born in 1923 in her grandma’s house, at her time of birth her father worked in the engineering business, a common job at the time with average wage. Her mother was unemployed and worked at home as a housewife.

Their family home was a 4 room Victorian terrace with an outside toilet and no bath. For the time this was average as most peoples wages were low and could not afford larger homes. Betty never moved house until she married as it was an expensive thing to do and they felt their current home was adequate.

School Years

School began at the age of four for Betty, the school was an old Victorian building that had been run for a long time. Equipment for writing was provided (pens etc.). The work was not particularly challenging as it was mostly copying down with the odd exercise.

The views on teachers varied as today. Some were friendly and kind to the children while others gave after school detentions and the cane to anyone for anything.

Q) Are there any events that stick in your mind?

A) Erm…when I changed school we were the first year in. The school felt very modern, it was wonderful.

After School

School finished for Betty at the age of 14. When she left she had no qualifications and no idea of what job to get. College was not even considered as an option as it was too expensive to go and an entrance exam had to be taken. Only the privileged went to college.

A few weeks after finishing school Betty got a job working in a factory making brown paper bags. Factory jobs were very common at the time as not much else existed. The job wasn’t very demanding it was just done to bring money into the household.

The working conditions were not brilliant. When it rained or snowed it would come in through the roof and get things wet. The only heating in the building was a gas cooker in the corner.

Betty got paid ten shillings a week for her work. At the time 10 shillings could go a long way, with it you could buy meat from the butcher, butter and sugar from the corner shop and eggs from the farm etc.

But Betty had to give 90% of her earnings to her parents as house keeping money.

Betty always wanted to work in a shoe shop as an assistant but never got her dream. We may see this as a strange thing to want to do but Betty says people “had different or no expectations back then”

This shows how much things have changed.

Thank you for watching.

Adam Griffin