Lino usually came from Kirkcaldy. Where our wandering lino lads came from I don’t know. It wasn’t real lino, or to be correct linoleum, it was a kind of oilcloth with varnished finish and it must not have been rationed. These men would carry great rolls of this stuff on their shoulders, knocking door-to-door trying to sell it. You’d answer the door and there would be a chap holding vertical, a great wobbling roll of lino. He looked like a scared demi Samson with his one pillar about to fall under it’s own weight. We never bought any; we were fully linoed you know.

I always thought what great, optimists these men were. They went from door to door looking for the one person who wanted that entire roll of lino in that particular pattern and on top of that had the money to pay for it. It must have been like looking for the Holy Grail. I’ve talked about these chaps in far off Huddersfield and they say they’ve never heard of them, (probably all fully carpeted). Perhaps lino men were only known within the distance a man could walk in a day with a full roll of lino. Maybe they didn’t sell full rolls, they sold bits for patching to make their load lighter on their way back to unlucky lino land. I do know some people only had bits of lino covering their floors. Their lino was all different weird patterns as if they’d cut up a lino sample book There were geometric ones, like the Art Deco patterns on the trolley bus seat covers, dark flowers or the pretentious had, ‘Magritte type’, badly drawn parquet. The lino was never plain. With all these different bits of lino, their houses were like working lino museums. Only the occasional rag rug relieved the geometric jigsaw pattern.

Rag rugs of course are now very much the fashion with stripped pine furniture and distressed paint. All our paint seemed to distress itself quite happily without any assistance from us. Some vandals once painted graffiti on, I think it was Stone Henge, an expert said it would take two hundred years for the paint to wear off. Every one wanted to know where they got this paint.

I wonder if distressed lino will make a nostalgic come back. All nicely dried up and cracked with the sack backing worn into a nice cheap string fringe. Which reminds me of those flying helmets, kids preferred to balaclavas, they were supposed to look like leather. It was called leather cloth or American cloth; it looked like thin brown lino. It cracked just like lino and the cloth showed through just the same as lino. I think it probably was reject, substandard lino. I don’t know where our lino came from; it seemed it had always been there. It was laid on top of an under felt of Daily Mirror newspapers. Under it lived strange creatures called silver fish. They were less than half an inch long and a sort of shiny silver, white, slippery, leggy thing. They were not at all offensive so I left them alone. Mam wasn’t too happy if she saw a ‘Black clock’ that was the local name for cockroaches or beetles. They were hunted relentlessly.

The lino was there to add a touch of class and disguise the fact we had a damp stone flag floor. It didn’t fool anyone the lino had taken on the contours of the stone flags under it. So on entering, instead of just flagstones, you saw shiny patterned flagstones. The floor was so shiny because Mam polished it vigorously every day with ‘Mansion’ floor polish. It was the best. Didn’t God live in, ‘Many mansions’. St. John. Chap., 14, Verse 2. Yes, she polished our cellar floor with the same stuff they used on mansions. ‘Mansion’ polish was a sort of orangey yellow colour and she put it on the lino with an ordinary white cotton headed floor mop (I wondered if God had many mops in his many mansions).

Mam always called the mop, “Pom”. Nothing could make her call it a mop it was always, “Pom”. So she put the polish on with a, “Pom” then she tied an old vest over the, “Pom” head and polished the lino to a bright shine. She seemed to pay particular attention to polishing the lino at the top of the stairs. This was an area to be wary of because Granny had one of her smaller rag rugs there. If you were rushing and forgot about this rug, and I did on at least two occasions, the rug would slide on the waxy surface with you standing on it. Off you’d fly, like a snowboarder on a floppy board. On one occasion, I actually landed at the bottom missing all the steps. Strangely, when Granny died she was found at the bottom of her cellar steps.

The mop’s white cotton string head eventually turned to the orangey yellow colour of the Mansion polish. In fact the same colour as my hair at the time. When I realised this I took advantage of my Mam’s bad eyesight. I’d lean the orange mop head round the door and Mam would talk to it, thinking it was me. An occasional wiggle made her think the ‘mop Wilf’ was paying attention and she was happy telling it off.

JOKE: Mrs Elliot’s kid’s a musical genius. He’s only six months old and she says he’s already playing on the linoleum.

Wilf's new book 'My Best Cellar' (his autobiography up to the age of eleven) can now be ordered online. £ 9.99   download book sample here

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