Angela Parrott was born in St. Bernard's. She moved to Mitchell's Brook when she was 20 years old. She likes to travel and watch T.V. She thinks a book of stories by seniors is an excellent idea.

OUR WAYS

We used to shear the sheep and wash the wool. Then we would card and spin it and use it to knit socks, sweaters and caps. I used to turn the wheel to spin the yarn. We also used to make fish – start at 6:00 in the morning. When we were small we used to help each other, myself and my cousin, Lillian Whittle.

To make soap, we used to take ashes out of the stove, boil them, save up all the rashers (fat for the soap) and make the soap. When it was cooled off, we'd cut it up in junks. We had bare floors and we used to have to scrub it with a net. We'd cover the floor with sand off the beach and scrub it with the net to make it white. That's how bad off we were. We'd go down to the cliff rock and get the white stuff and mix it with Clothes Blue(1) to paint the loft (ceiling) and it would make it a kind of sky blue color. Of course, when we washed the loft, it would all come off, all over everything.

We used to get the bark off the trees and boil it for using when you had the flu. We'd use turpentine for cuts.