Memories of my early childhood are sketchy.  It was disruptive inasmuch as I was occasionally farmed out to Auntie Rose or taken to a ‘home’.  I did as I was told.  Any questions were met with ‘little children should be seen but not heard’.  Maybe that’s why I know very little about mother’s upbringing, although she did tell me that she married for money and her excuse for having so many children was that there was no television in those days.  She didn’t really want to marry the old man but he pursued her until she eventually gave in.  However, I was probably sent away because of her confinements!  I can remember returning home on one occasion to find mother sitting on a chair just inside the dining room with a twin on each arm and a big grin on her face.  There was no interaction with me that I recall.  I never knew what it was like to be hugged or told I was loved.  I was only four years old.

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When mum was expecting twins, she employed a live-in maid named Mary, who lived with us for about a year until we were evacuated.  Mary worked and lived in pubs until she had to retire.  She had nowhere else to go so worked for her keep.  She was a funny little thing, thin with a fag always hanging from her mouth.  Apparently, I was one of her favourites and Squeaky (Sheila’s nickname) tried to convince me I was actually her child!  Mum always said she was lazy and I do remember her sitting drinking cups of tea with a fag while mum was ironing. I don’t know where or with whom she slept.  In fact, I only remember later years when Brian and Clive had the little room, the three oldest girls had the front bedroom (when I slept with them sometimes, it had to be at the bottom of the bed with a big toe in my mouth) and the back bedroom had a double for three/four of us and single for two. 

 

I was four and a half years old when we were evacuated to the North of England (September 1944 to June 1945): Durham (for sorting) then Boston in Lincolnshire then Tynemouth in Northumberland. I can only remember a little of Tynemouth – a room with a lot of camp beds, a grassed plateau opposite the house and the sea wall just down the road.  Soldiers were housed a few doors away.  Clive and I found a featherless baby bird by the front door.  We took it to the soldiers and they wrapped it in cotton wool and put it in a matchbox.  We were very sad.  It was probably already dead.

 

When Pam was born (last of the ten!) the two-year old twins were taken by ambulance to Barnet General Hospital and later to a home in Beaconsfield.  It was very upsetting to see the ambulance doors shut on the crying toddlers; we ran up the road after them.  When Pam was about two years old Brenda and I treated her like a doll.  She had lovely blonde hair with one big curl on top of her head.  I can see her now standing on the dining room table in a long white nightie, so cute.

 

I think it was Brenda, Clive and myself (not sure about the twins) spent time in Wellhouse Lane Hospital with diphtheria when we were young.  Just as we were due to go home I got a nasty stye on my eye so they kept me in.  I cried when they left me.  I recall making little woolly teddy bears, which I licked and tried to stick on the window.  The other times I was in hospital was when I had my tonsils out (my family were not very sympathetic; they laughed and called me ‘fat face’) and the removal of a wisdom tooth.  None of us were miserable at home.  We made the most of our lot; probably where the comedy took hold!  Iris, Sheila and later Clive suffered with migraine.  Didn’t know it then but I also had it and I can remember banging my head on the bedroom wall when it was really bad.  The doctor told me it was due to noise.  None of us got much sympathy.

 

My father was simply known as “the old man”.  Mother fed him well.  Steamed smoked haddock, yum yum.  I hovered and begged mum to leave a little of the buttery juice so that I could mop the pan clean with a slice of bread.  I made up for it when I got married by having the fish as well!  Still enjoy it today.  When he was drunk and fell asleep we (Brenda me and Clive, maybe Brian) thought it very funny to tie his arms and legs to the armchair then prod him to wake up.  Then we fled out the back door and over the dump (which has now been built on!!).  When Brenda knocked on the front door one day, he was so annoyed at having to get up off his chair to answer it (he wasn’t tied up on this occasion!) that he punched her in the nose and told her to go round the back. Her nose remained broken and we wondered later whether this was the cause of her brain tumour.

 

One evening in the dining room there was some verbal altercation when Audrey provoked the old man.  In temper, he lashed out at her, she ducked and mother, who was standing at the ironing board, got punched in the nose.  It bled profusely and, once again, I fled upstairs and hid under Audrey’s bed.  Mr Driscoll, our next door neighbour, was called in to diffuse the situation.  I don’t think the police were called (they rarely came out for ‘domestics’).  After a while I crept from under the bed to under the sheets.  The neighbour, before leaving, came upstairs, put his head round the door and said: “Goodnight Audrey”.  How did he know that was Audrey’s space?  The front windows are bay type so I can only assume he was a ‘peeping Tom’. (More than assumed in later years!)  I was about seven at the time.

 

Another of the old man’s drunken bouts started an argument with mum in the hallway.  She was holding Pam (about eighteen months old) in her arms.  Hearing the commotion, Brenda and I started down the stairs and saw him take hold of a shoe and hit mum on the head with the heel, shouting: “You’re a witch, you are!”  This became Brenda’s stock saying (in jest) for quite a while afterwards to friends at school and any sibling who crossed her!  I was eight years old.

 

It was round about this time, probably when mum went into hospital for a hysterectomy (she had a fallen womb!!) that Clive and I were sent to the home “Guys Cliffe” in High Barnet.  I was allowed to take one toy – a 7” teddy bear with moveable limbs.  The first shock came when siblings were split up so we didn’t occupy the same dorm.  I cried.  I don’t remember seeing Clive after that.  I think the boys had a separate playroom.  The second shock came the when one of the kids (I think from the ‘Crisp’ family) got hold of my teddy and started to mistreat it.  When I grabbed it from her she yelled so loud that one of the wards (wards were just older girls at the home put in charge of the youngsters) came over and told me toys were for sharing and to give it back.  Well, that was the end of Little Ted.  So dismembered, I couldn’t put him back together again.  Sometimes we played “Oranges and Lemons”.  I liked that.  One night I had a ‘toilet dream’ and wet the bed.  When the wards discovered this, they made me stand in a corner with my pyjama bottoms over my head until they finished the housework.  There was a slide and swing in the back garden and I can remember Squeaky and Iris playing on them when they came to visit me. They brought me a bag of maltesers.  On my way back up the fire escape (rarely used the front door) one of the wards said to see what I’d got, pulled the bag and maltesers spilled out and what she didn’t pop in her mouth she trod through the iron grating before I could pick them up.  That’s all I remember of Guys Cliffe.  I don’t know how long I was there.

 

I attended Sunday school and was all set on going on a coach outing to the seaside one Sunday.  Mother didn’t get me up and pack my lunch in time.  I belted over the dump to the village. A neighbour saw me standing in the churchyard and told me I’d missed the coach.  I managed to hold back tears ‘til I got home and later that day the kind neighbour knocked on the door and gave me a bag of toffees.  We never had holidays so outings were a real treat.

 

Drinking and gambling got the old man into debt.  When he had a good win it was drinks all round at the “The Cat” (the local pub)where he was well-known for his generosity.  He even sold our food coupons when he was short.  It came the day when the bailiffs were sent round and took stuff away.  We didn’t have much and possessions had no value to us kids then.  Mum, who was in bed with tonsillitis and could hardly speak, was desperate.  I don’t remember being there at the time but I do know she was crying when she told me how she tried to stop them from the bedroom window walking up the path with her wedding presents. I can still see her today with her croaky voice: “You can’t take that, it’s mine!” 

 

The only time I remember my father speaking to me was when I was half-way up Windsor Drive on my way with a friend to ice skate at Wembley.  He was obviously returning from “The Cat”.  He smiled, asked me where I was going and gave me sixpence: a very short embarrassing exchange, much to my relief.  I loved ice skating and wearing my white fluffy short-sleeved top and white satin short skirt.  But this activity ended abruptly when one day Brenda fell on the ice and someone’s skate went through her outstretched leg…more blood.  We were taken to hospital, where it was stitched.  As we had insufficient money for our fare home we had to wait for an ambulance to take us, by which time mum was worried and also very cross.  I was about ten years old.

 

Mother and father had a legal separation (divorce was out of the question with ten kids!) so he slept downstairs in the sitting room.  It soon became very smelly with beery breath and smoky clothes and I can remember seeing a large poo on the floor. He blamed the kids - anyone owning up?  Doubt it, you should have seen the size!  Kids were not supposed to go in there.  Even so, we played on the large box mattress held up against the wall by the single bed, climbing on top, sitting in a row then shouting “ready steady go!”, pushing off with our hands and jumping off before we hit the floor.  Great fun.

 

28 Windsor Drive had but one small coal fire around which we all fought to pull up a chair.  There were always arguments as to who was ‘hogging’ or making a ‘steal’, particularly when you went for a wee.  One day, around this fire with mum and Brenda, the old man, who was asleep in his armchair, suddenly got out his willy and peed in the fire.  I fled in shock and fright while mother was shouting her disgust at him.  That was my introduction to the male appendage!  (Not a pretty sight.) I don’t recall mother saying any more about it, even to allay my fears.  I was 10 years old. 

 

When I was eleven years old the old man was diagnosed with TB and taken to Wellhouse Lane Hospital.  The sitting room was fumigated by men in white suits and masks.  Just another exciting event in our lives!  We were all tested for TB by having two plasters stuck between our shoulder blades.  Only myself and Clive proved positive and were sent to Broadstairs in Kent to convalesce, he to a monastery and me to a convent, Port Regis.  I never knew I had a shadow on the lung until I went for my annual X-ray in St Albans when I was 21.  

 

Port Regis:  Mum took me by train to Broadstairs.  I had on a new dress in a pretty blue print.  On arrival at the convent she asked admissions if she could take me to the beach before she left.  So, mum being mum, off came my new dress and on goes the hand-me-down (I only had two).  The school uniform was a cream sackcloth dress and straw hat.  Alternating between this and my old second-hand dress, I never wore my new one again until I got home.  If only I’d kept it on!  I was given the number 57 and my clothes were thus tagged.  First thing: Asked by the nuns what religion I was, “Catholic” I said believing I was otherwise a heathen.  “What prayers do you know?” they asked.  “Our Father” I replied, whereupon, the nuns looked at each other and came to their own conclusion.  So I was not allowed Holy Communion and therefore deprived of the “holy” bread.  The girl in the next bed was a Catholic so I became her friend and she sometimes brought me back a crumb or two.  She also gave me a little book about Holy Communion, which I still have because I loved the pictures.  The beds were in rows, one behind the other, so we couldn’t talk.  A nun stood just inside the door watching us get washed and ready for bed before turning the light out.  Apart from Sister Mary Eugene, I found the nuns unkind, glaring and scary.  One day in the classroom I was asked to go out into the corridor to see the time by the big clock.  After a few minutes I had to return and admit I couldn’t tell the time.  I was sent out again to note the position of the hands. I tried not to cry in front of the whole class.  In the small courtyard at playtime we were asked to form a circle for “Jenny is a-weeping”.  When it was my turn in the middle I was too shy to sing “I’m weeping for my loved one” so just stood there petrified.  I was made to stand in a corner of the playground until teatime.  I can’t recall mealtimes, apart from tea:  a tomato, a small cube of cheese and a slice of buttered bread.  It tasted so good, that I took my time cutting it into tiny pieces with my knife and fork, savouring each bite.

 

After tea we queued up at a table on which was put individually numbered jars (mine, of course, being 57) containing sweets given or sent to us by family (not allowed to keep anything handed to you).  We could take out what we wanted under the watchful eye of the nun sitting on the other side of the table.  Any more than three was considered greedy (a glare from the evil eye!).  At the end of the table was a jar for the ‘poor’ (controlled by another watchful eye) which you dare not pass by without sharing your loot.  I put two in and kept one, not because I was kind – just scared!  When I look back I realise just how controlling most of the nuns were without uttering a word.  (I’ve seen films/documentaries about the treatment of young girls banished to convents in the 50’s and 60’s and they are so believable.)  Squeaky told me later that she sent goodies to me, including a box of chocolates which I never saw so the nuns must have had those.  I bet they dived into the ‘poor’ jar as well. She also told me that after travelling all the way to Broadstairs, they were not allowed to see me.  I can’t recall any family visits. 

 

Occasionally, we were taken to the beach.  I remember walking in pairs down a long hedge-lined lane.  We were allowed to take our shoes and socks off but not to paddle.  So me and my friend made sand castles and rubbed our rosaries in the sand to make them shiny.

 

The convent was surrounded by a high brick wall.  Inside the wall were trees and bushes.  At the rear was a plateau where we played in our free time.  One of the kids was a lovely little four-year old girl.  She had polio.  She had such a sweet voice and her party piece was to sing “If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake” (put me to shame!).  When I went to play with her I was told not to talk to her.  “We don’t want her spoilt, do we?” My friend and I often circled the outer wall looking for a means of escape.  We both wanted out.  The only means of being sent home was on the say-so of the doctor, who made regular visits.  A lovely nurse patrolled the queue outside his surgery.  One day whilst awaiting my turn she kept looking at me.  I was feverishly praying Hail Mary’s on my rosary!  As soon as I stepped into the surgery the doctor said: “You want to go home, don’t you.”  God knows how much longer I’d have been there if it wasn’t for that kind nurse noticing and speaking on my behalf!

 

Whilst in Cliftonville some years later, Squeaky took me to Broadstairs to find the convent again.  Port Regis with its creeper covered facade, was still there we thought as a nursery/school.  The brick wall surround was really quite low!  We didn’t go in.  Squeaky recalled how very quiet and extremely polite I was when I returned home!

 

My last memory of the old man was shortly after I arrived home when he lay dying.  Mum took Clive and me with her to visit but, of course, we were not allowed in a TB ward so we stayed outside and looked through the window.  This very frail man, the man we hated, managed to lift his head, turn and smile at us.  Shortly thereafter, I awoke early one morning to a knock on the door.  I got up and went downstairs.  Mum was sitting in the dining room holding a piece of paper, a telegram delivered by the police.  She looked up at me and said: “Your father’s dead”.  I went back to bed.  I felt calm but as if I was in a void. It was New Year’s Eve 1951.  My teacher, Mrs Ernie, took me aside in the school corridor and said she was sorry.  I believe I said: “What for?”  Being eleven wasn’t a good year for me.

 

His funeral was held in January 1952.  He was buried in a pauper’s grave at New Southgate Cemetery in Brunswick Park Road.  Audrey and Iris were probably at work so Brian, at the tender age of thirteen, accompanied mum.  Aunty Win, Uncle Bert and one or two of mum’s brothers also attended.  Afterwards Brian told Audrey he was so embarrassed because mum had said: ‘Thank Christ for that!’  Squeaky had to look after all us younger ones.  She cooked macaroni cheese and mash for lunch and we all sat round the dining room table looking sombre, until one of the twins stabbed a piece of macaroni with his fork and chanted one of mum’s Victorian ditties: “the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, they crawl in thin and they crawl out stout”.  We stifled our giggles while Squeaky gave him a right telling off.  It was strange feeling that you should be sad and not knowing why; that’s why I remember it so well.

 

Mum was very Victorian and narrow-minded.  I must have loved her because I always warmed her side of the bed in a freezing cold bedroom with ice on the inside of the windows until she came up and I moved over.  I think she appreciated this small gesture and I soon got used to the strong smell of TCP!  She was good fun and took us out a lot to parks and Epping Forest.  Thankfully, she was a bit of a health freak (always thumping her thighs with a rolling pin!).  She was notorious for saying: ‘Get the air to your skin’ and ‘take your shoes off’.  She took out an insurance policy with the Co-op.  The agent thought all of us ought to do the same.  He finally persuaded me by saying I wouldn’t miss a shilling a week.  I went ahead for a few years but after I got married he stopped the regular weekly visits and it mounted up so I stopped paying.  It paid out £30 when mum died, which I didn’t expect.

 

Although close and loyal, we were a family of pranksters, jokers and tormentors, which taught me to be tough (or at least pretend to be).  To show sensitivity was fatal, especially when a red hot poker was held extremely close to your leg (the twins’ 'chicken' game!).  Clive was very cute; he was never mean.  His stock saying when he couldn’t remember something was: “I arr forgot”.  He had a quiet, shy sense of humour but sometimes lacked confidence in himself and was easily hurt.  The migraine sickness didn’t help. The ‘mickey-takers’ amongst us were quick to pick up on any failings so we had to learn to give as good as we got.  Being said, I loved my brothers and sisters; we had developed a strong bond which remained with us throughout our lives.  

 

I was a very shy and nervous child.  Audrey helped greatly in my upbringing.  Whenever she took me out (she was probably commissioned to cart me on the train to relatives in London) I was constantly reminded: ‘Stand up straight!’, ‘Hold your head up!’, ‘Smile!’  She was always sensible, caring and respected.  She noticed me.  And I was forever grateful for my straight back later on in life.  She also bought me my first book (Jane Eyre) and a birthday book which I still have.  She was working a lot.  When revising her shorthand whilst we were sitting round the fire, I was fascinated so she taught me some - my first ever words were ‘Dear Audrey’.  Being an air hostess later was so exciting.  She arrived home between flights (looking exhausted, I must say) and we all wanted to hear her adventures.  She didn’t consider it a bit glamorous, more a “glorified skivvy”.  She often brought us presents from abroad.  I still have a casserole dish and a green vase (not Whitefriars I’m afraid). 

 

Aunty Rose told me later how she worried a great deal about us kids and even took out a life insurance policy in case anything happened to mum.   But I wasn’t happy staying with her in London; she made me eat my greens.  When I cried to go home one day, she gave me a handful of halfpennies, opened the front door and said: “Off you go then”. Away from my siblings I was out of my comfort zone.  I was once described as ‘a cute little mouse’ by Brenda’s first boyfriend.  I felt so proud.  It was the ‘cute’ that did it!

 

Living with my vibrant, popular sister, Brenda (fifteen months my senior) was either a nightmare or a pleasure. Although very selfish, she was so much fun.  But she did love to entice my friends away.  I had one small sideboard cupboard in which to put my toys: collection of beads, cigarette cards (kings and queens), pictures of royalty, dabs, tiny Bakelite dolls, pressed silver paper and a space where my teddy bear had been.  Brenda thought nothing of helping herself and using them as ‘swaps’ with her friends then telling me what a great deal she’d made!  We had lots of fisticuffs and ‘hair-pulling-out’ bouts.  After one particular argument, she tore up my kings and queens.  She also decided I needed a fringe and cut it to within half an inch of my scalp so it stuck out!  Took years to grow back.  We used to love going round neighbours asking to take their babies out, mainly Ann Clark and Celia Leigh.  Brenda always chose Celia ‘cos she was the cutest.  Imagine that! We must have been trusted.  Round about ten years old.

 

Squeaky was a great organiser and soon became my idol.  We were allotted tasks and, instead of housework, I got the job of taking Clive and the twins out all day.  We’d set off with our bus fare and a jam sandwich to parks and woodlands.  We sometimes walked miles to save the penny bus fare so we could ask for stale bread or crusts at the pavilions.  I soon became a tomboy, climbing trees, making camps and jumping the brook.  Once I fell in and when I got home I stuffed my wet clothes behind a chest of drawers.  By the time mum found them they really stank and I got a right telling off.  I wouldn’t say I was scared, but it wasn’t unusual to get a slap round the face.  Days out were mostly fun but occasionally we came across nasty gangs or weirdoes.  One time down the park a gang threatened to thrash the twins with stinging nettles unless I pulled my knickers down.  Fortunately, someone came by and we managed to get away.

 

We sometimes had midnight feasts either under the stairs or in the underground air raid shelter in the back garden.  A week prior was spent collecting goodies, consisting mainly of sweets and homemade jam tarts.  I overheard Squeaky plotting a feast with her friend, Diane Floodgate, who lived two doors down and begged her to take me with her.  In the event she couldn’t wake me up and despite throwing stones at Diane’s bedroom window, she couldn’t wake her either so this was abandoned.  The following day Squeaky and I crawled into the air raid shelter and ate jam tarts.  She wouldn’t let Diane (who complained she’d contributed) join us, saying she didn’t want her hard old rock cakes anyway.  I think she was just annoyed with her for not waking up.

 

Another Squeaky outing took Brenda and me to a pub garden in Arkley.  I was sitting on Brenda’s fur coat with my back to a lily pond when she told me to get off and pulled it from under me.  I toppled backwards into the pond.  Squeaky took over and I travelled home in Brenda’s vest and a teddy bear coat.  Walking up Eton Avenue, she met a friend and laughingly told her I had no knickers on. So embarrassing!

 

Secondary school was pretty uneventful – I had to follow Iris, Squeaky and Brenda in upholding the Worthington name in the joke department.  We had for so long laughed in the face of adversity that it probably became part of our nature.  Every time I was reprimanded, I couldn’t stop grinning.  I couldn’t help it; it was a nervous reaction, much to the frustration of some teachers (one of whom tried pulling my hair out!).  Whenever I was sent to stand outside Miss Littlechild’s office with other naughty kids, she would ask why we were there, but when she came to me she just said: ‘You’re a Worthington, you can go’.  Maybe she thought we were beyond help!   I didn’t learn much, except from my form teacher, Mrs Ernie, who was kind to me.  I respected her.  I later realised she was probably aware of our unusual home life.  

 

At the age of fourteen mother arranged for me to leave school and follow Squeaky and Brenda in an apprenticeship at Pitman’s College, Finchley, and it was here I started growing up.  I remember clearly the day I “came on”.  It was April the first.  Just about to leave for college, I saw blood and was very scared.  I had eaten plums the previous day. Anyway, I told Brenda, who sorted me out.  I begged her not to tell mum.  As I left the house via the back door, mum called after me: “April fool!” with a grin on her face.  I fled, red-faced (one of those times when I hated her).  We still had fun, like the day, at the request of Brenda, I climbed out of the office window to retrieve a pen which had fallen onto the lower roof.  When she locked me out I realised I’d been ‘duped’ (I was always a willing mug) and had to climb down the drainpipe, much to the surprise of the housekeeper looking out from the ground floor window.  Notwithstanding, I did pretty well at College and left with certificates sufficient to easily obtain secretarial positions in London.

 

I was given two shillings per week pocket money.  Out of this I had to buy (or make) my own sanitary equipment, which was always referred to by Audrey, Iris and Squeaky as ‘cossers’ (come on sudden!).  Occasionally, on the way home from College my friend, Margaret Pratt, and I (her sister Francis was and still is Audrey’s friend,) would sometimes stop at the Quality Shop (it’s still there!) in East Barnet and have lemonade laced with ice cream through a thick straw.  This was a real treat.  I also loved malt, bought myself a jar and hid it behind the bedroom curtain on the windowsill.  I savoured a teaspoonful a day.  It was delicious.  I suppose I was a bit dim, as I found out later that the twins (and probably Clive) were also dibbing into it!  

 

Working days were traditional pencil-slim skirts, blouses, stilettos and a marmite sandwich for lunch.  Heels often got caught in escalators so it wasn’t rare to see me hobbling to work and finding the nearest cobbler in my lunch hour! I loved working.  Many a time travelling on the tube I would see something or remember something that gave me a fit of the giggles.  It was so embarrassing but the harder I tried to stifle, the worse it got and when I reached my destination I belted up the stairs or escalators with great relief.  Although now earning (five guineas a week) over half of my weekly wages went to the family kitty (for home improvements, etc) and mum for food.  I very rarely bought myself chocolate or sweets as doing so made me feel guilty (probably a throw-back from convent days!) but mum always got her pay-day treat.  She did very well on a Friday with chocolates and flowers from all the workers.  As well as my marmite sandwich, for a special treat I sometimes went to the nearby café and had a toasted mushroom sandwich.  I can still taste it today!  I spent more on my heels than I did on goodies: I was never extravagant.  I’d seen mum raid the old man’s pockets when he was in a drunken stupor looking for a shilling to feed the electric meter.  The family photo shows just how much a stick of rock was such a magic moment!  

 

Brenda, Pam and me took up smoking, which mum hated.  One day when we were all sitting round the fire smoking mum disappeared then came back with a sanitary towel tied to her face by the loops fitted behind her ears.  We rolled up.  She didn’t do it for a joke, it was the nearest she could get to a smog mask. 

 

Sheila and Iris decided I should have dancing lessons.  They took me to Felix Ronga’s evening class at Littlegrove School.  I have very happy memories of going out on a Saturday night with my older sisters and Jean Tyler, following the Ace Band (nine-piece steel with Tony, the singer), all dolled up after spending the day with my hair in curlers and awaiting my turn on the ironing board to get all the creases out of my 50’s cotton dress and multiple nylon petticoats.  Without fail mum saw us off with: ‘No drinking, no smoking and no boys.  Have a good time’.  When we got back it was: ‘What time do you call this?’  The very first time I went they got me to ask the ugliest male to dance the ‘ladies excuse me’, the aim being they would all excuse and make him feel good.   But once again I fell for it and had to endure three foxtrots with a goofy, acne faced partner, while they stood there wetting themselves. 

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Iris had loads of friends and was often out so I didn’t see much of her but she was always cheerful, full of life, very kind and taught me to sew.  She used to cycle a lot, even to Southend!  When she didn’t use her bike I sometimes pinched it and went off for the day with my jam sandwich, places like Stagg Hill out in the country.  Later on, after I’d started work, we used to meet her friend, Margaret, in London and go to Ronnie Scott’s or the 100 Club, where all the well-known jazz bands played.  Sometimes it was too crowded to jive but we loved listening to the bands.  I can remember us sitting on the tube in the twins’ white shirts with rolled up sleeves, blue jeans, white socks and pumps.  My real jiving days were from the Barnet Jazz Club, which came in after the ballroom.

 

Brian’s account shows just what an achiever he is.  Living with six females couldn’t have been easy.  He was quiet with a very subtle sense of humour and could always make us laugh.  Before he enlisted into the Air Force he was one of the lads down the park and he never minded when I joined in the fun.  He was more than a brother; he was a dear friend.  I once spent a whole day shrimping with him, only to catch just enough for one sandwich to share between four of us!  It was during a caravan holiday.  He also thought he’d lost his car keys on the beach, by which time the tide was in and Jenny and I watched while he dived in the waves looking for them!  He came back freezing cold only to find they’d slipped down the side of the bench in the van!

 

When Audrey, Iris and Sheila all had boyfriends life remained basically the same.  They had no alternative but to fit in.  But they were all great and joined in with even more humour.  When Tony called to take me to the pictures, mum would somehow wheedle her way to come with us, only to fall asleep halfway through and start snoring.  I believe the same thing happened with the others.  

 

Pam’s account of her life growing up, brought back all those funny moments I had forgotten about, not to mention the poverty.  As time went on, Pam became a very good friend to me.  We would write to each other from Jersey and Australia.

 

It is so sad not to have Iris, Sheila and Brenda here with us today, sharing in these memories and having their own great tales to tell.  

 

Well, that’s all for now.  There must be lots more to come back and haunt me!   I’ll let you know.  I’m not sure if you will ever write the book but I have recorded a hard copy, together with photographs, to be passed down, hopefully through the generations.

 

 

November 2018