I. Did you shop in Ambleside, were those your nearest -?
R. No . Now this was funny, the shopkeepers came from the shop, Mr. Harrisons of Kendal sent out a man every month and you ordered stones, bags of everything, you see everybody baked and everybody did all the cooking.
I. You must tell me about the baking in a minute. You baked?
R. Oh aye, everybody baked.
I. Now what did you bake? Did you bake in the side oven?
R. Yes. Everybody had a side oven.
I. Were there any of the old traditional brick ovens in the wall? That you remember at all?
R. No I don't remember. I do remember we did ours on what was called a Dutch oven - we did our sausages.
I. Tell me about a Dutch oven - describe it to me.
R. About a foot across - there was a bar over. You popped your sausages on or your black pudding or chops or whatever you wanted, put them in front of the fire and they were cooked.
I. What happened to the fat?
R. It went down into the bottom part, so your fat was always saved. There was a bottom for it….there was never anything wasted, they did all their own cooking.
I. When did Dutch ovens cease to be?
R. I'm sorry we lost it; it was a thing we ought to have kept - about 1912.
I. Why did it finish, did the side ovens come in? What did you do, buy new ranges?
R. The Yorkshire ranges; you used to have to blacklead them every Friday morning, about an hour.
I. Why did they blacklead them, was it to stop the rust
R. Yes, there was never any rust, the bars were always bright. And they were so far back, you could throw a basket of coal behind and it would all burn, - a big fireplace.
I. Was it wood or coal mostly?
R. You could use anything; but mostly coal.
I. Now getting coal up the valley must have been -
R. Oh yes the carts used to go to Coniston and bring you ten hundredweight
I. Brought in by rail to Coniston?
R. Yes. And our beer was brought in that way. Beer brought into Coniston and then a farm cart went down, and they could carry eighteen gallons, and they were in the big wooden tubs you know, and they brought five up at a time from Coniston.
I. Who brewed it?
R. It came from John Smith of Tadcaster did ours; John Smith at Tadcaster. And at Christmas, we always had 'three x' Beer, but at Christmas we had the 'four x' which was for Christmas - special. But you see it just was a beer house then.
I. That's a famous beer anyway, John Smith.
R. We always had John Smith.
I. And It was the only licensed inn up the valley then?
R. Yes; there was two; they evidently thought it was too much so they took the license off one.
I. And what happened at Christmas, was it special
R. Oh yes, it was always - people didn't have what they have today. You did very well in your stocking if you had an apple or an orange and a few nuts and one or two sweets, and then you were as pleased as Punch. Today you can have what you like on the never-never and you're not happy, but we were always happy.
I. What did you have for your dinner on Christmas bay?
R. Well it would be goose generally. Yes goose that was mostly what. Yes it was very nice, and you didn't hear much of turkeys until -
I. Were there a lot of geese about - on every farm
R. Yes oh yes. There was geese. We were a very happy little valley was Little Langdale.