The earliest memories

Sister Edith, brother John

The earliest memories I have of my brother John “baby sitting me” was him having to take me fishing and dragging me along the river bank on a sack because I couldn’t keep up with him and his pal Louis Parsons. On other occasions he would take me to a very steep incline near our house called “Chick Hill” sit me on the handle-bars of his bike and free wheel from top to bottom. When my Mother was told by a neighbour what he was doing with me I think he was well and truly chastised! On another occasion he took me to the beach near our home and as the tide ebbed he lay on the shore line and jumped up when the waves flowed back. He then told me to do it but being barely four or five I was not quick enough to get up and the incoming waves drenched me! Mother was not happy yet again with him when he arrived home with me on his back soaked to the skin.

Luckily some of the houses Mother worked at were wealthy and she was given very good hand me down clothes which being a good needle woman she was able to alter to fit us. New clothes were definitely not an option for me especially as by the time I was five everything was on coupons.

Living in the Country but very near the sea Father was formerly a Farm Worker therefore we lived in a tied cottage which was built for our use in 1934 at a cost of £200 and our family moved in when I was six weeks old. I am told some of our house contents were transported by horse and cart as I was born barely a mile away.

My first home in Pett Level 

Our new house consisted of downstairs toilet, kitchen and pantry, front room with range fire and upstairs one large one medium and one small bedroom accessed by a steep flight of stairs. You will notice we had no bathroom so Friday nights Mother got the outside copper boiling and out came the tin bath in the living room and we all had our weekly soak.

We did have a front and back garden where Father kept us supplied with every fresh vegetable you can think of although Mother also a keen gardener did insist on having a flower border but had to pull out all her Lavender bushes when the perfume from them caused me to have severe headaches and vomiting from a very early age. I have never been able to use any product with this perfume until this day.

Also at the rear of our house we had a corrugated tin shed which stored Fathers tools and our bikes, a copper house for washing day, a rabbit hutch and a wired in chicken house and run for a minimum of six hens to keep us supplied with eggs. I mustn’t forget the outside safe to keep our milk and meat in?

During the war years and as we were surrounded by military personal we were given two air raid shelters a Morrison and an Anderson one for outside and one for the front room. As soon as the air raid siren started to scream we dived for whichever one we were near to and then waited for the all clear. During the critical war days there was hardly a day went by without a visit from German Planes and almost every field surrounding our house ended up with a bomb crater. I think we were charmed in some way because apart from losing roof tiles and having our ornaments shaken off the shelves and broken we were remarkably lucky. After a raid my brother and I would go out looking for shrapnel and bomb fragments, not the sort of past-time our children have today!

Yes we were very poor financially, farm workers wages were I am told in the region of £1.10 shillings a week so my parents had to be very self sufficient to keep a family of five, especially prior to and during the war years. At the start of the war we were asked to take evacuees and we did have two young boys by the name of Stan and Ken but it was not long before our area was considered a threat from enemy action and they were transferred to a safer part of the country. My mother was asked to send me away to a place of safety but she refused saying “we would all take our chance together”