IN a life spanning more than 90 years, Elsie Reed has seen some changes in York. She has lived through most of the fastest-moving century in history. Her childhood was so different to that of her children and her grandchildren, it is almost as if she spent it in a different world.

Mrs Reed wanted to tell her family about that world. So, four years ago, she wrote her memoirs.

With her kind permission, and the help of her daughter Lynne Townend, we are delighted to reproduce some extracts of her life story here.

She was born Elsie Banks at 1 North Eastern Cottage, Nelson's Lane, close to the main railway line off Tadcaster Road, York. The house comprised a bedroom, living room, kitchen and scullery. "My grandchildren don't believe there was such a place as a scullery," she writes.

"It was a narrow passage with a cold water tap in the wall, which was our water supply. We had no sink so we had a bucket under the tap to catch the drips, and a bowl and table to wash pots, ourselves etc."

By the end of the First World War, there were six children and her mother and father sharing this tiny cottage.

"We had two double beds in the bedroom, mum and dad in one and when there were four children, we had to sleep two girls at the top of the bed, two boys at the bottom in the second bed.

"Then, as our family grew, we had a doorway knocked from the living room to the outside." A shed, which could house two double beds, was fitted to the hole "so that in later years we had four girls in the shed and my dad and the boys in the two double beds in the bedroom. That was how people lived in my young days."

There was much more room outside, with outbuildings where hay was stored, pigsties, a flower garden and a vegetable patch. Also outside "there was a huge rain tub which mum used for her washing and also for our baths, but it was lovely soft rainwater".

Evening entertainment included games of ludo, snakes and ladders and draughts. When Elsie was about ten, her parents got a piano and she had lessons, learning to play On Mother Kelly's Doorstep.

After her father was called up to fight in the First World War, she sometimes had to stay away from school to "look after the younger children while mum did the washing, as it was hard work carrying water from the rain tub to the wash house.

"In fact, thinking about it now, I don't know how mum managed and her washing was always so lovely and white.

"When you think whites in the tub had to be pegged with a stick, then rinsed, then blued, then starched - and in 1916 we girls always wore the white pinnies with broderie anglaise on - then the ironing was done with an iron propped up against the bars of the fire to get hot and even then they used to get very sooty so they always had to be wiped before use."

But she preferred wash day to school. "One teacher, if you did your work wrong, would slap you across the knuckles with a ruler or throw your book across the room."

Her father was in the Battle of the Somme. When he came home on leave, he would tell them about the war as he polished his boots, buttons and hat braid.

"He was in the Royal Artillery and so was with the horses. He also did signalling with little white flags, and taught my brother how to do it too.

"The stories he told were about the mud everywhere, men and horses killed on the Somme in the mud and nothing you could do. But I guess we were one of the lucky families with dad coming back."

There was always something going on down by her home. "All round our cottage there were ponds, some with eels which I didn't like a bit. Fishermen used to come, and some came for the eels.

"With the ponds there were lots of elderberry bushes and wild rose trees. We used to gather the elderberry leaves and rose hips. Dad took them to Bleasedale's on Toft Green for medical reasons. The berries, when the birds didn't get them all, my mum used to make elderberry syrup for winter colds. A cure for all our ills."

Little traffic disturbed the peace. "It was very quiet down our lane, which was Nelson's Lane, with a very deep pond at one side. My brother, who was 15, had got a motorbike.

"I remember my aunt and I, she was only a few years older than me, said, 'let's have a ride on it up the lane'. I was driving, she on pillion, we went down the step pond side and into a tree, which stopped us going into the pond.

"Lucky for us but not the bike. Our Stan was really angry."

Mrs Reed recalls the big days out. "I remember the York Gala. The Yorkshire Show had some horse racing, but not as much as now.

"Also about this time, there was a bandstand near where Dick Turpin was hanged on Hob Moor. On Knavesmire I can remember the bandstand so clearly. It was one like they had in Rowntree's Park.

"It was lovely to go out and listen to the band. Nowadays you wouldn't be able to hear it for traffic but it was so peaceful, just horses and traps. The bandstand never got vandalised.

"One thing I did enjoy was Military Sunday, once a year. The different regiments marched through town all in full dress uniform, horses etc and lots of bands."

Life was certainly not easy, but she looks back on her younger days with great fondness.

"One thing we didn't have to worry about, going out and leaving our doors open, or our parents having to worry about us.

"There have been so many changes in life and surroundings but it is so lovely to look back on. We were poor as children, but so rich in our surroundings."