The rent man

We lived in a stone cottage in Preston in the 1930s – two up, two down – and shared an outside loo with the folk next door. So the rent wasn’t much, one shilling a week, but it still had to be found in the days of the Depression.

The rent man was pleasant enough, with a voice that seemed too quiet for such a big chap. He would arrive on his push-bike, remove the cycle clips from the legs of his trousers, then placing them in his raincoat pocket. I thought he had rather big feet, but never said so. He also wore a Trilby hat, “a little ahead of his time,” according to my father, who wore either a flat cap or a bowler, depending on the occasion.

Once inside the house the rent man would remove the rent book from his jacket and open it on the table. Each time he did so, my eyes were taken by the neatness of the columns of figures and signatures in his book. The money was picked up and placed carefully away, then, writing his signature in the rent book and, after a few friendly comments, on would go his hat, his cycle clips, and off he would go.

There were one or two times when he was not able to collect the rent, either that, or we just didn’t have it for him when he came. He never got angry or raised his voice. I’m sure he understood the difficulties we faced as a family. He would just say in his quiet way to my father, “Perhaps next week then, Fred?”

I took the rent to his home on two occasions. His wife opened the door and led me through to the living room. She was rather house-proud; dust dare not settle while she was around and if it did it wasn’t there long. Everything was where it should be but it didn’t seem comfortable to me. I wriggled in my seat, a big, padded armchair. My feet kicked the base and the sound reverberated around the quiet room. The rent man’s wife looked at me and shook her head. It happened again – my feet kicked the base. This time her look was icy. I hated that chair and the house and was glad when I finally left to go home. I felt sad for the rent man to be married to a lady like that – it didn’t seem right to me.

We didn’t have much in the way of padded armchairs and the like, but our rented house was a home and it felt good to be there.

Dennis Crompton © 1997