Summary
Drink was a Tyneside curse that threatened so many families' tenuous livelihoods. The dockers queued for work - there was no retainer so you were paid only when there was work - in a street lined with pubs. Too much of what they earned they drank.
When she was little, Catherine would be given a couple of empty glass bottles to fill with beer for her mother; then, when she was eight, and reckoned old enough to carry it, Kate gave her a gallon stone jar to fill with beer. It was so heavy, when full, that Catherine would have to rest it on her hip on the return journey and pause regularly to put it down. It was a two-mile round trip.See the full content of this document
Extract
Drinking Their Lives Away
Kate was a heavy drinker and, inevitably, the drinking put an additional strain on the family's finances and led to shame...
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