Digs--No it doesn`t refer to archeology!

  While talking of the 1962/63 cold winter, I mentioned my `digs` at the time and its far from genial landlady. A reader expressed interest (wow) and it occurs to me that this system is probably as extinct as the dodo, and later generations may not even have heard of it.
   I would explain that I was posted from my home town of Plymouth to Portsmouth at the age of 18  by the Admiralty, for whom I was working at the time as an Assistant Armament Supply Officer, not as grand as it sounds! The Personnel office found me lodgings or `digs` in Lowcay Road, Southsea, run by a widow and her aged mother.  The house was a four bedroomed Victorian place, and provided bed, breakfast and evening meal at a modest price. There were three lodgers, me, Colin, who worked in the dockyard and a Navy Lieutenant. Colin and I had to share a bedroom, while the Lt had one of his own, but paid more. In theory, we could use the front room as a lounge, sharing with the family, but in practice this was discouraged by a wave of silent hostility which soon persuaded one to go up to your room, or better, to go out. The lounge had the only means of heating in the house, a small paraffin heater, which smelled abominably. Strangely, we did not feel hard-done-by by these conditions, every unmarried youth not living at home lived under these conditions, I suppose. Perhaps this was a method of encouraging matrimony or ensuring that the much more welcoming pubs were well patronised! Certainly I soon formed the habit of going out most nights, though I was never a big drinker, couldn`t afford it.
   On Saturdays and Sundays, there was a meal served at midday---but this was at the cost of the suppression of the evening meal, which I had to buy in a café. I can`t say that I look back on this establishment with nostalgia, though I did stay for a couple of years, through inertia, I believe now! They were not all as bad as this, I later stayed at a much more cheerful address run by an ex  CPO which was really something else. Looking back, it`s like another world.....

         Bye for now, going to sit by our OWN fire!