Cultureshock

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Video transcript

The Hartlepool 'Friends of the Library' group undertook a project to show how the roads which made up the shopping centre of the town used to look before the modern covered shopping centre was constructed at Middleton Grange. The shops that made up this well loved shopping area, that was central to life in Hartlepool, are now almost all demolished. I remember how my grandmother used to travel across town to visit us at Seaton Carew every Saturday and then I would accompany her and my mother "into town" to do the weekly shop in Lynn Street. I had the task of carrying their shopping bags as we negotiated the packed pavements. We always returned from the Saturday shopping expedition with a chicken which my mother would cook for tea in a large 'pressure cooker' before my grandmother returned home.

My mother died last year but a recent trip around Beamish museum's archives brought back further memories of them. Both my mother, Iris, and my grandmother, Barbara Florence Cornforth, used to make mats for their own use before I was born. They were constructed on a hessian backing made from recycled potato or flour sacks using strips of woolen fabric cut from old clothing. The proggy hook was used to draw the material through holes in the sacking. "Proggy mats" had the profile of sand dunes because the ends of the material were retracted into the backing, whereas "Clippy mats" had the profile of grass because the loops of material were clipped into tufts. Leaving the tufts longer meant that the mats resembled "Shag pile" which was the carpeting craze of the 1970's. Mats formed using different styles, patterns, colours and thicknesses made worthless materials resemble expensive carpets once laid on the floor with furniture arranged over them. 

They were not made following a set pattern but merely constructed according to whatever material was available. I clearly remember an innovation they came up with in the late 1960's that I have never seen anywhere else. It was a time when nylons and coloured tights were readily available. Unfortunately these items were manufactured to be disposable because, before run proof knits, they easily 'clicked' or were 'laddered'. Rather than throw them away, this ready supply of holed tights was collected by my grandmother who used the nylon to make a new generation of 'proggy' mats. The nylon construction made the mats waterproof and extremely durable and I well remember the small runner (made mostly from "American Tan" tights) that kept my feet warm as I washed dishes at the kitchen sink for my mother.