Rosy Lee

We're aware of tweeness and the dangers thereof. We've been putting little pieces of poetic writing about childhood onto cakes and doilies and tablecloths and we've got our eye on bunting. It could all get hopelessly rose-tinted, couldn't it?

But these are St Helens childhoods viewed through 70-80 years of living, sometimes hard living. Many people talk of happiness, but they also talk of lack.

if there's stress in anyway a cup of tea...

We'd decided to talk about tea-drinking, that Great British Staple - and especially teadrinking when faced with a crisis. Tea is a big part of our shared culture, a fondly-held tradition. It's often delivered with little frilly extras, like teacosies, doilies and iced cake as ornaments. But what I'd not really considered was tea as a means of just getting through the day.

During our drop-in at our regular library haunt in Four Acre, we encountered several people whose thoughts on tea were anything but rosy. B told us about working 12 hour shifts, grafting from light to night on one meal a day. The tea trolley at work was the thing that kept them propped up, a pick-me-up and an appetite suppressant.

My Mrs is a bugger for tea

Tea is also the Great Comforter as another participant said. 'When someone died we were awash. Would you like another drink?'