Considering that many men were paid in pubs,it is small wonder they got drunk especially on pay nights.
My parents used to tell us how they would see the awful treatment the wives got when after patiently waiting outside the pub for what was left of their husbsnd’s wages,when they approached their husbands for money for food
they were savagely beaten.
The Police policy was not to interfere in a “domestic” so no help for the women, neighbours too did not interfere .
One dreadful spectacle which was seared on my Mum’s memory was of a woman who had glorious long hair,this would be about 1900 so short hair was not really an option,this poor woman was hung over the verandah railings of the first floor flat in a big building known as dwellings on Oldham Rd.Manchester.Her husband wrapped her hair round his arm and suspended her.This happened once when she was in the last stage of pregnancy.
It was a regular Saturday night spectacle.How shocking
Neither of my parents drank, having seen the resulting effect on families.
Children either emulate what they have seen because to them it is normal behaviour ,this can be good or bad behaviour but some do the opposite if they know first hand the effect their parent(s)bad behaviour had on them.
They have no desire to be like a bad parent.
My friend married a wife beater,against the advice of all her friends ,me included. He got her to believe she was useless without him.
When she had her first baby(a few months but not nine) after they married we popped round to see her,she answered the door ,thrust the new born into my arms and said “go to my mother’s”.
We did not want to leave her but she insisted it was the best thing to do.
My O.H was a quiet peaceable man but he wanted to at least talk to her husband but it was no good.
We took the baby to her Mum’s and my O.H and her Dad went back to my friend’s,by which time she was on the floor being kicked from head to toe.
They struggled with him and got her away.If only she had come with us.
She had bad injuries internally and a breast abscess after that.
They moved about and I lost touch no doubt his taking her away from any form of support.
The last time I saw her was on a bus going down Cheetham Hill Rd, with a suitcase. She was going to Strangeways as he was being released that day.
She had two more children and would not tell me where she lived.
I have no idea why he was inside but hoped very much if it was for assaulting her it had been a good long stretch and he’d been treated as he treated my friend.
I cried when she got off at the bottom of Cheetham Hill Rd.
We had been good friends all through college and she had refused a good decent steady lad for the @#&*+%#@& she ended up with.
He took over her mind.
Viktoria.