Retracing my 19 year old footsteps.

It has always seemed to me like a great idea to revisit places that evoke happy times. Surely the experience can help resolve any loose emotional issues and reinforce those old memories? At various times during my life when I have indulged this nostalgic impulse, I wonder what I learned? Usually that childhood memories simply don't hold up to my adult perception, making me realise how a child's viewpoint can be so narrowly defined.

This time, I thought, the memories of that summer when I was nineteen, footloose and fancy free, full of romantic ideals and at the start of my life adventure, would stand the test of the passing years. I've always wanted to return to Guernsey, where I fell in love with life and the man of my dreams, so recently I thought, 'Just do it'... and booked a holiday online for myself and eldest son.

In contrast to my original journey by train from London and overnight Ferry, the morning flight from Manchester Airport was quick and comfortable, depositing us at our Hotel in St Peter Port before lunch. The walk down to town was familiar as the house where I'd stayed is still there, only a couple of doors away from the Grange Lodge Hotel. We found somewhere to eat, but I was more interested in locating familiar places where I instructed Mark to take my picture to compare with old photos I'd copied onto my Tablet.

In 1957, after a long dark winter spent in a Fashion Photographer's darkroom, I'd taken a summer job with Studio Story in Pollet Street, St Peter Port. There I was given a 35mm camera and told to go out and practise taking pictures. I soon met the rest of the crew, Betty, an older woman just divorced, a couple on their way round the world, whose names I can't recall and Tim, a lovely guy who I didn't know was gay, until later, because I didn't even know about 'gays' before that became the accepted term. I was that innocent!

St Peter Port

Our job was simple... to take pictures of holidaymakers and give them a numbered ticket. At that time not so many people owned a camera, though everyone liked to have photos of their holiday,  so they would bring the ticket to the shop and would buy the photo if they liked it, thereby contributing to my commission. Our studio was not the only one in operation and we were in friendly competition with others.

I spent mornings around the town and harbour and afternoons on the beaches, taking the bus or getting a ride on the back of a scooter. I loved taking pictures of sunbathing families, children paddling and making sand castles. The sun shone and I got a healthy tan. A couple of evenings a week I was assigned to one hotel or another to photograph happy people dining, drinking and dancing.

One evening at the Hermitage Hotel I was approached by a member of the band, the double bass player, who wanted a picture of the band. Another evening at The Channel Islands Hotel, the same musician asked me to photograph him playing vibraphone on stage as part of the cabaret. He seemed very nervous and glad to see a familiar face and after his performance came to talk to me.... asking would I like drink? It was late and I was ready to leave, so we walked to a late night cafe.

A fine romance changed  my life. Gone were my aspirations to be a photojournalist, travelling round the world. Love took over reason, emotion ruled my senses. Being with Him was all I desired. Evenings were now spent at The Hermitage, which had the bonus of hosting many of the Big Bands of the time who I met. Cab Calloway kissed my hand, though I didn't know at the time how famous he'd been in years past, his big hit being "Minnie the  Moocher", before I was born.

My one day off a week we spent on Herm, the most romantic little island one could imagine. Walking round the coast until we arrived at the wonderful Shell beach, to swim in the warm sea and laze on the soft sand, which was composed of tiny shells. Then the walk back across the island to return on the small open boat with outboard motor in the warm evening twilight. I was in bliss!So what am I learning, on this retrospective journey? That I am not the same person I was then? But more than that... I may have moved on but there are still some romantic illusions to let go of... that holding onto disappointed expectations, resentments and unfulfilled dreams can only hold me back from fulfillment in life. It is an interesting visit so far!

Post War Developments

The war ended in 1945 and Dad was demobbed.  Mum and I must have already moved back to our own house in Russell Road by then, as I do recall the VE celebration party in our street.  Tables were brought out or improvised and covered in white cloths, some bunting or streamers were tied to lampposts and everyone contributed food, although we still had quite severe rationing of basics like butter, sugar and flour, but we were all used to eking out in those days and many people grew food in their gardens or on allotments.
I was seven years old and had a little baby sister.  This was a great novelty, and Mum let me push the pram down the road to the shops.  ‘Be careful now’ she’d say. The first time she let me do this, (maybe the only time) I left the pram outside one shop where I had to buy something, then crossed the road to another shop for something else, and preoccupied by my own thoughts, strolled home without the pram!  I don’t remember whether I actually got home without Diane, or realised what I’d forgotten half-way there and rushed back in a panic to push her pram back up the hill.

By then I was getting into serious reading.  Books may have been an easy option for Xmas and Birthday presents but I had no complaints on that score. Among favourites I’ve managed to keep from my childhood; a wartime publication of Peter Pan on low grade paper, with tinted monochrome illustrations by Mabel Lucie Atwell, a Golden Treasury of Stories, an album of the stories of Hans Christian Anderson, beautifully illustrated by Edmund Dulac, and my favourite; Little Grey men by the naturalist BB. I was given an eight volume set of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedias for my 7th birthday, which I proceeded to devour, especially sections on history and mythology, which have fascinated me ever since.  I only parted with them reluctantly in recent years, and now frequently see identical sets in car boot sales as others of my age decide to unload their old possessions.
These particular memories of the war years were most exciting to an innocent who didn’t know any better, but thought war was as heroic as tales of Paris and Achilles, the Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table, Crusaders and Saracens, Raleigh and Nelson as portrayed in story books.

I’ve mentioned the RAF Airfields where Dad was stationed and where we stayed close by, but he was stationed at other places as well, such as RAF Kinloss, right next to the New Age community of Findhorn that sprang up after the war.
Dad came home from the war and resumed his work as a clerk at Hamilton Woods Foundry in Salford, entering figures in ledgers in much the same copperplate handwriting as did Bob Cratchett in 'Scrooge’.  Working hours were still almost Dickensian so along with most men, he would go to work early in the morning and come home in the evening, with the result that I didn’t see much of him at all during the week.
It seemed to me that he was now a different man to the happy Dad I remembered.  He would shout if I didn’t get things right, especially if he was ‘helping’ me with arithmetic homework, which I found hard to grasp, and this probably compounded my fear of numbers.  Whenever he shouted for any reason, I would ‘freeze up’ and try to be inconspicuous.
I believe his experiences in the war had sapped the joy out of life and soured his feelings.  He actually had little or no combat duty, and as far as I know he never took part in a bombing raid over occupied France or Germany. It may have been the realisation on returning home that so many of his friends and contemporaries had not returned and that by some quirk of fate he’d escaped going down with his two aircrews, that somehow gave him a guilt complex that often came out in frustrated anger.
After the war nothing was the same, as people began to get back to normal life.  The war had been dangerous, exciting and terrifying.  The nervous energy that had seemed to motivate the whole country now fizzled out in the mundane toil of everyday living, with food rationing to go on for a few more years as the country struggled to recover.  Bomb sites were cleared, but left gaping wounds in the city centres.  In Manchester I saw dirty children in ragged clothes, barefoot in the streets and everything seemed grey and dusty.
Our family were the lucky ones.  We had no casualties and everyone was in work.  We had a roof over our heads and didn’t go hungry.  Mum settled down to being wife and mother again in her own home and I was back at Lancaster Road School.  But there was an unsettled feeling that this wasn’t good enough.  Maybe people wanted to feel better for all the hardships they’d been through and were fed up with the post-war austerities.

In 1947, when I was nine and Diane still two, we left Salford and moved to Southport. This was another great adventure, as my parents took over a large detached Guest house at the beginning of the season and the tenor of our lives changed yet again. My mother enthusiastically launched herself into the role of chief cook, laundress and housekeeper without realising quite what she was taking on.

For the moment my traveling days were over, but during the angst of my teenage years I would wander the sand-hills of the coast imagining the clouds were the tops of mountains, and on clear days would notice on the far horizon the hills of North Wales, though I didn't realise this at the time and had no idea that I would make my home there so much later.

Schooling!

While Dad was stationed at Scampton, the home of the Dambusters, his crew ‘blew up’ over Cornwall just before Christmas ‘42, while he was hospitalised with ear trouble.  The truth of this accident will never be known, whether the plane was hit by lightening or confused defence ack-ack guns, but what remained of the crew are buried at Helston in Cornwall, which we visited soon after the end of the war.
It must have been after that accident that we went to stay at Saxilby near Lincoln, and here I went to my second school, of which I have no specific memories, so presume it was a very brief stay.  Joining another crew Dad sustained an injury during a bad landing; a Potts fracture to the leg and was out of action for some time.  Soon after, this second crew were shot down too.
While he recovered at The Lees in Hoylake, a boy’s school requisitioned for a RAF convalescent hospital, Mum and I went to stay nearby.  I went to the local school (my third) briefly, which is where I contacted mumps.  When I was sick all over the poor landlady’s settee, because I’d tied myself up in my skipping rope and couldn’t get to the toilet in time, we were asked to go, and moved into a flat over a shop in West Kirby.  One day, on my way to school, I was cornered by a group of strange children, who demanded… ‘Are you Catholic or Proddie?’  At this age, not quite five, I had no idea of religious differences and when I burst into tears they let me go.  (Note that it was quite acceptable to expect a child of that age to walk to and from school alone.) It was Christmas 1943 and Dad had painted and decorated a second hand Doll’s House for me, making tiny furniture out of bits of wood, varnished, which I had for some years.
Recovered from his broken leg, Dad became an instructor and Airfield controller!  It must have been early in 1944 that Dad was at Halfpenny Green to the west of Birmingham when we stayed at the village of Bobbington, because I believe that was where my little sister Diane was conceived, and she was born in November 1944.  Coming to the country from the city, I regaled the local kids with tales of bombing raids and played at being fighter planes, until their parents complained!   This was my fourth school experience and the first at a Church school, where religion went hand in hand with the three R’s. Uphill from the village, this ancient building attached to the even more ancient Church, with its dank musty smell and chalk dust floating in the oblique slant of sunlight through high windows and wooden desks inscribed with the initials of generations of village children, seemed a dark and mysterious place with the chanting of catechisms and hymn singing.  

So now I had a little sister and she came on our last trip in May 1945 up to Northumberland where Dad was stationed at Embleton or Boulmer, near Alnwick in Northumberland.

Dunstanborough Castle in Northumberland

We stayed nearby in a bungalow with a lady whose husband was also away at the war, though the war was ending during this time. My mother considered her a bit flighty because she dolled herself up and went out with other men. I would see her in the bathroom applying makeup to her legs, doing her best to draw a line up the back to look like the seams of stockings, which were unavailable during the war, except from American servicemen!   Maybe she was able to get some after all because sometimes I’d see a USAF serviceman who’d drawl… ‘Wan’ some gum chum?  I’d never had chewing gum before but Mum taught me to accept graciously while being distantly polite.
Grandma came to stay with us for a short while, maybe a week or so, and she’d walk with me down the lane pointing out everything coming to life and bumblebees staggering from flower to flower.  A little later on, the road verges were full of nettles, as I remember well, from falling into them while learning to ride a bike down the lane.

My baby sister was six months old and Mum had more than enough to do with her, so as I was now the advanced age of seven, I was considered responsible enough to walk to the local school (my fifth) in the village of Newton-by-the-sea, a good mile away from where we were staying.  Mum took me to begin with, and then the milkman would occasionally give me a ride.  Every morning I was sent off with a packet of food for the day; home-made scone for morning break and sandwiches for lunch, each wrapped in greased proof paper, and a bottle of diluted orange juice, all in a paper bag.  Small bottles of concentrated orange juice and cod liver oil were provided for every child by the government, to keep the nation’s children healthy and there were small bottles of milk for every school child, although I didn’t like milk and would give mine away when I had a chance.  The toilets were in a separate block, and I was shocked to discover a row of three wooden seats when I first went in, and relieved that I didn’t have to share it with anyone else.  Previous generations obviously had no such qualms about relieving themselves in company!
The school consisted of two rooms; one for the young children and the other, literally up a couple of steps, for the older ones, so the one teacher divided her time between them, giving each class a lesson while the other class carried on an assignment.  I was in the lower class and would diligently practise my letters; we were taught the elegant loops and curves of joined up script, and read whatever text book we had, or draw, which I really enjoyed.  However intelligent I thought I was, this school became a nightmare for me because the other children all spoke a foreign language, (Geordie) and I found it difficult to keep up.  At this crucial point in my childish development, I felt mortified and embarrassed because I couldn’t even understand the teacher’s instructions.  So much so that I burst into tears when everyone started to write something down and I didn’t know what to do.  Whether the other children sniggered and mocked, I have no recollection, although I’d be very surprised if they didn’t, kids being what they are, but I do believe this was the trigger that has caused me to blush with self-consciousness ever since, whenever I’ve felt ‘caught out’..  I don’t remember having any friends, probably because they lived in the village and I lived a mile away.
Most of my spare time was spent drawing fairy castles, writing stories and reading voraciously.  I did however get involved with the local kids in making a den in the woods behind our bungalow, but I don’t recall that much went on there once it was built.  I was probably considered strange, an alien child in their familiar world, and as I was quiet and well behaved, they soon lost interest in me.
Walking home from school down the long straight road, I’d stop and put an ear to the big wooden poles that supported telephone wires strung along one side of the road, listening to the eerie sound of wind echoing through them, imagining I could hear conversations going on through the wires above. This was wild wind-swept country, and although the coast was heavily fortified with concrete and barbed wire so we couldn’t get onto the beach or sea, we did have picnics in the sand dunes in the hot summer sun with Dad when the war seemed far away and one day we went for a beautiful coast walk to the remote ruins of Dunstanborough Castle.  We had trips out and there’s even a snap of us all having a picnic by the river at Alnwick, although the famous castle was closed for the war.  This was recorded in the photo album that Dad kept so meticulously, fixing the small prints into special corners stuck onto the thick black paper leaves of the album and writing the date and place in white ink.  
Many years later I found myself in the same part of the country, and drove down that little road, seemingly unchanged, the telephone wires still humming their messages, to the tiny hamlet, where the school was now a very upmarket private house and the toilet block converted to a garage.
At these village schools we still wrote on slates with a slate pencil, and lessons seemed to be primarily concerned with reading out loud, practising handwriting, learning tables and doing sums; and first thing every morning the drill was to recite one or more Times Tables as a class.  Although I might have been able to say tables in my sleep, I struggled with mental arithmetic for many years, as I needed to see it on paper to work it out.  My Dad had little patience with this block in my perception, which made mathematics an increasingly stressful part of school life.  In spite of this, I did well at all other subjects, especially English, and I enjoyed reading so much I always had my head in a book!
Back home I was now in the junior school and was soon asked to help other children with their reading and writing, restoring my self-esteem and boosting my academic ego.  In my own time I was often engrossed in writing stories and poems that I would be ‘encouraged’ to read out to my adoring family, although I was naturally shy and reluctant to perform.  Being the first and only grandchild for some time, I was expected to show great intelligence and must have lived up to these expectations at the time, because when I was seven, I was picked out of my class to take an IQ test with the ten year olds, in which I apparently scored a high mark of 130 as far as I recall.  Somehow from then on I went downhill academically, only managing to get into the middle stream of Grammar school in the 11-plus exams, this being the seventh and last school I attended.  I have to say that I didn't enjoy school much, apart from English, Art, Geography and History, which were the only exams I passed and which have remained my prime interests in life. 

TRULY RURAL 1942

After my mum died, I found this typewritten essay in a folder labelled 'Creative Writing'.  Reading it brought back such vivid memories of this time of my life, I've copied it faithfully and would like to share it here.

We arrived at the house one sunny morning in August; Sycamore House, and there was no mistaking why. A really enormous tree stood in the front garden and as we entered into what was to be our temporary home, we felt that even though the rooms were dark from the shadows of the tree, it was a comfortable house, and we would stay as long as the dictates of fate decided.
Our hostess was old and sweet and delighted to have company, and as she showed us to our rooms, I gradually became aware of the lack of comforts to which I, as a city girl had become accustomed.  There was no water at all, no gas or electricity, hence no bath or toilet, and only an oil lamp for lighting. A coal fire and a primus stove were our only means of heat for cooking.  A walk to the well about fifty yards away was necessary before we could have a cup of tea, and for soft rainwater, we found a tank at the back of the house.  But surely rainwater should be fairly clean!  I found to my horror, minute living animal life swimming about, like very tiny worms.  They were a reddish colour, presumably from the rust of the tank.  Oh dear, my sensitive feelings were already revolting, but I was determined to make the best of the situation.
The real test came only three days later, when the dear lady suddenly became ill.  She was unable to get up, so I was asked to feed the animals, and she told me what to give them.  There was the cat, a pig by the name of Jinny and about a hundred hens, housed in two cotes in a fair sized field at the rear of the house.  The cat of course was easy to cope with, but the thought of the pig was much more frightening than she actually turned out to be.  I prepared her bucket of food, and arming myself with a stout stick, undid the door of her shed, positively trembling with apprehension.  How did I know that she would lie down at my feet simply asking to have her tummy rubbed?  After that first encounter we were great friends.
The fowl presented no great difficulty that first afternoon, though my walk and voice sounded much more confident than my heart felt.  Until then, I had hardly known one end of a fowl from the other.  I was learning fast.  It was the evening performance of getting them all safely under their roof, which caused me the most worry.  I went out armed with my stick, round by the barn to the gate leading into the field, and there to my consternation was a flock of sheep, with the hens all in the same field, and my path to the hen-cotes barred by a group of the biggest sheep I had ever seen.  I ran back to the house to our good lady to tell her.  “Oh yes” she said, “Farmer so-and–so rents the field off me and the sheep go in some part of most days.”
Oh dear?!! How was I to get past those terrifying animals?  On previous rambles and cycle rides, I had always kept at a very respectful distance from any animals, but this emergency had to be faced, so out I went once more, and on reaching the gate again, I shouted like, I hoped, a real farmer, and brandishing my stick marched forward into the field.  The effect was not miraculous… they scurried away in small groups, then stood and stared momentarily before cropping at the grass again.  I seemed to do an awful lot of shouting and waving of my arms until I finally reached the hens, then I had to coax the little blighters to bed. I seemed to be in that field for hours.  The hens were more stupid I think than the sheep.  A whole group of them would respond to my call and flutter in. then as I turned to coax a stray one from a far corner, a really naughty one would saunter out again, and almost fly off out of my reach.  Not that I handled any.  Oh dear no; I couldn’t have caught one, even if one had let me.  I just chased and shoo-ed them as patiently as I could, until they were all accounted for.  Then past the sheep again and beyond the gate home.  I felt almost brave, but a little hoarse and tired.  However, there was more to do.  I had borrowed a bicycle from a neighbour and now I was to go to see the Doctor for our dear old lady.  He resided in a village three or four miles away: incidentally, he was the nearest Doctor, and our village had no bus service at all, except to the nearest town, on Saturdays only.
I left my little girl safely asleep in bed and set off on my borrowed bicycle.  Only then did I discover that it had no bell.  Never mind, I said to myself, I can shout.  I felt for the brakes; they didn’t work.  I optimistically thought that I probably wouldn’t need them.  How wrong I was.  The village was in a lovely little valley, very cosy and picturesque, and the last two miles at least of my journey was downhill.  I enjoyed every second of that ride, but I had to shout each time I saw anyone on the road; there were no footpaths of course.  The evening was calm and still, with a deep setting sun in a cloudless sky.  Birds were high, and those in the hedges were twittering.  How beautiful our countryside is, and even though the war was at its height, I felt in another world that lovely night.  After my harem-scarem ride downhill, I had a slow ride uphill back home, and so to bed.
I now knew how to cope with the animals, and collect the hens’ eggs, which was also a tricky procedure, and I was quickly learning how to use water sparingly.  It was no joke carrying a couple of buckets of water from the well.  The primus stove seemed to require a lot of attention first thing in the morning, in order to boil the kettle, and the fire and oven seemed slow to heat, but we managed and certainly did not go hungry.
There was a good crop of plums on a couple of trees in the garden, and I was asked to make some jam, which meant that I first had to get the plums.  Now I had never climbed a tree, but here was my chance, 30 years of age or not, and with the help of a ladder, a stick and a basket, I proceeded to strip the trees.  The one element of nature I had not bargained for was wasps, and not a few groups of plums were left untouched when these wicked looking insects were observed hovering around.  Our lady hostess soon recovered from her illness, which left me with more free time to enjoy my leisure.
We found it rather unsatisfactory not being able to have a proper bath, so each Saturday morning found us on the bus journeying to the nearest town, and indulging in a general clean-up at the Public Baths, then a shopping expedition calculated to last us the week, returning home in time for tea.
The country around invited us many times to explore and enjoy it, but each night saw us retiring early as the daylight shortened, for reading or sewing by oil-lamp was tiring to the eyes.  The weather was indeed glorious that summer, and I remember one particular day, helping the local farm workers with the harvest.  Stacking the sheaves of corn into pyramids of three was my job, and I well remember the feeling of pride when I surveyed the part of the fields that I had worked, and I remember too the ache in my back at the end of that day.  Modern inventions and improvements must have shortened the farmers working hours considerably in the last ten years, and even revolutionised his way of work.
And so we came to the end of our visit to a Truly Rural Village, and returned to the rush and bustle of city life, to taps and running water, to the switch for heat to cook a meal, and light at a touch, and yet I would not have missed the experience.  I have lived since in other similar places, but none quite so primitive as the little village in Rutland, of one shop, one bakery, one church and two pubs.
Win Croden.  4/2 /1953

Although mother doesn’t mention it, after staying with the old lady, we moved in with a family nearby, whose several children, older than me, I remember very little of, except that I was allowed into their den, an ancient barn, where they practised ‘Doctors and Nurses’ with other village children.  I escaped being practised on, though I was intrigued by what was going on!  It was a busy noisy household and on washday the clothes were hung out to dry, not neatly pegged out on a washing line, but thrown over branches of trees and bushes, a very primitive practise to my superior mind.
I recall very well the Harvest, when it seemed all the villagers turned out to help. The men went out with scythes, while others followed, bundling the stalks into sheaves. My mother, along with others, was busy stooking the sheaves into neat piles.  All the children, including myself, were set to glean, picking up fallen ears of wheat from the ground, as old women and children have done for as long as harvests have been gathered, in the dust and sweat of sun baked late summer.  At noon refreshment was provided in the rectangular cobbled farmyard, formed by barns and outhouses on either side of the farmhouse.  Trestle tables laid out and filled with pies, sandwiches and cakes enough to reward all the helping hands for a hard morning’s work, with jugs of lemonade and beer or cider for the men.
I treasure these memories; the sights, sounds and smells of the countryside when cows still grazed contentedly in their fields and happily came in for milking at the right time. That way of life that had lasted for countless centuries has long gone, but I feel privileged to have experienced rural England, however briefly. 

The War Years

When war was declared in 1939 I was less then two years old, and my first memory of war was the building of the Air Raid Shelter and the start of the Blitz.  Early on everyone was issued with a gas mask, which was to be keep with us at all times for the duration and I still recall the rubbery smell and tightness of the bands round my head, holding it in place. It’s fortunate we were never called on to use them as I’m not sure how effective they would have been.
I do recall the confusion of being put to bed on the sofa downstairs instead of in my own bed, to be wrapped in blankets and carried into the shelter at the first eerie wail of the warning siren, a sound that never fails to send shivers up my spine.  I don’t know if I slept through the menacing drone of aircraft and muffled explosions of bomb blasts, and I have no idea how long we would have stayed each night in that dank hole, sharing its protection with our next-door neighbours. Both young couples at the beginning of married life and with a very young child, among so many other families; fearful and unsure at this unexpected turn in their ordinary lives.  My Dad and Mr Savage spent part of the night in some voluntary capacity as Air Raid wardens or Fire-watchers, no doubt shouting ‘Put that light out!’ whenever someone opened a back door or lit a cigarette.  All I know is that Dad wasn’t immediately pressed into combat, and I was three when, in anticipation of conscription, he volunteered for the RAF as the apparently less combative of the Armed Forces.
Dad’s RAF training entailed a perilous sea voyage to South Africa, with the ever-present danger from German U-boats, and Mum would frequently take me to the News Cinema in Manchester to watch the latest Pathe film account of the war.  On his return Dad was posted to an RAF Bomber Base.  With our house let to tenants, Mum took me to stay at her mother’s, which was our second home anyway, and very shortly found a way of being near her husband, wherever that might be.  Making the journey by train, bus and hitch-hiking to the nearest town or village to the Base where he was stationed, she would find respectable lodgings, commonly known as Digs, (or dig-ins, from trench warfare I believe) for us both, and return for me.  
This was high adventure for a three year old!  I imagine there must have been a taxi to the Station in Manchester.  What I do recall is the hustle and bustle of travellers hastening in all directions under the vast edifice of dusty old Victorian Railway Stations, waiting on the platform amid the smell of acrid smoke, noise of machinery and steam hissing in billows from huge black engines; rain glistening in the darkness on polished metal and stone flagged platforms, while every now and then an express train whistled past in a thunderous roar, while Mum held me away from imminent danger at the edge.  Then the excitement as our train arrived with the scramble for seats, stowing bags and coats on the overhead rack.  A corridor train would often be packed from end to end with servicemen and women in their various uniforms sitting on kit bags, but sometimes we  found ourselves in a train of separate carriages, usually on smaller branch lines.  
I’m sure I was never bored on those journeys and Mum would have supplied enough reading, writing and drawing materials to keep me busy. And there were wonderful illustrated posters of holiday destinations; golden sands inviting ‘Come to sunny Blackpool’, and more enticingly, lush green hills and blue waters of ‘Windermere, the heart of the Lake District’, the mountainous temptation to ‘Holiday in Snowdonia’ and so many more. Maybe it all stems from those days, but the truth is, I have a love of travelling… just watching the unfolding countryside, fields of growing crops or herds of cows or sheep, crossing above and below roads and canals, thundering over river bridges, large and small.  Fascinating glimpses of other people’s back gardens as we pass through towns and cities, shunting yards with engine turntables and other passing trains… come and gone in a flash… until we would reach our destination at a small rural station, stepping out into fresh country air.
The small villages we stayed in during those years seemed in some ways to be in a completely different world to the one we’d come from; rural in a very real sense. At four years old, my first experience of country life was in Morcott, a small village in Rutlandshire, to be near to Dad who was based at North Luffenham.  Our first ‘digs’ was with an old lady in her tiny ancient cottage with a rambling garden… more of a field… at the bottom of which lived hens and a large pig in a pen.
When I say that life was primitive, water was obtained from the village pump and there was a bus just once a week to the nearest town of Stamford, where we went to the Municipal Baths, not to swim, but for a proper bath!  Mum wrote a short essay about her experiences there when she joined a writing course some years later, which I’ll include in the next episode. 

Please feel free to leave a  comment if you find this of interest or your have any memories of your own. I'd love to hear from you! 

Families

When my Dad joined the RAF and went away for training, Mum let our little house and we moved in with her parents, who always seemed more relaxed and friendly than my Dad's family who were a bit 'posh' and emotionally restrained.

Memories of food are so emotive. The smell of caramelised (or burned) onion always takes me back to my Grandma’s house where it usually heralded dinner.  I’ve always loved that smell, maybe because I loved being there. My mother's parent's home was homely in the best sense of the word.  Everything in it had seen better days in those years of make-do and mend; threadbare patches in the carpets disguised with rag rugs, diligently made from scraps of material left over from making garments, or even old clothes, sewn onto sacking by Grandma and her daughters.  The ancient furniture that we might regard now as antiques had been cleaned and polished over many years, and the window had faded curtains.  The curtains were of no consequence however, as the wartime blackout demanded black material thick enough to prevent any light escaping that might betray the whereabouts of this huge city to enemy bombers and I remember the window glass being crisscrossed with sticky black tape in case of bomb blast.  A long floor-sweeping curtain of thick dark velvety material hung at the corner of the living room to prevent draughts from two doors, one leading into the hall and the other into the kitchen.
The kitchen itself was quite large but rather dark, as the window looked out onto the side of the next house.  It had a big white sink with brass taps and wooden draining board, gas cooker and a small larder off to one side with marble shelf that served as the fridge of the day and the indispensable meat safe, a small cupboard with mesh sides to keep out flies. This larder stored all the foodstuffs, butter and homemade jams, and a large earthenware jar that held dripping, that delicious fat from the Sunday roast beef, not only used in frying, but amazingly delicious spread on bread with a sprinkling of salt. Nowadays this fare would be considered most unhealthy, but at the time it was a real treat. A scrubbed wooden table at one side of the kitchen held an enamelled Bread bin and round wooden breadboard, a pair of cast-iron scales and a clutter of other culinary items.  A couple of shelves held herbs and spices, Oxo and Bisto for seasoning soup and thickening gravy, while the cupboard next to the gas stove always seemed to be covered in a clutter of jars and cooking utensils.  The floor covered in linoleum was patched where it had worn badly, or else concealed with homemade rag rugs that could trip up the unwary.  Looking back, it was rather cold and dingy and not at all like the bright attractive kitchens expected today.  On the kitchen door hung a print of Christ, the Light of the World by William Holman Hunt; “I stand at the door and knock.”  As with other women of her generation Grandma, though not overly religious, had a strong protestant faith.  She wasn't a regular churchgoer, though she may have been at some time in her life.
A door from the kitchen led into a passage, with toilet and coal store off, and the back door leading into the garden, where Grandpa grew roses over a trellis, and vegetables in season, a small greenhouse full of growth and a couple of apple trees.  Back in the house, the toilet was scrupulously clean but cold in winter, and furnished with neat squares of newspaper hung by a string through the corner.   However it was worth braving the cold for the pleasure of reading the daily tear-off calendar with amusing or philosophical saying for each day.  Grandma must have had a standing order for these calendars, as there was always one hanging there!
A gleaming brass and black-leaded Victorian Range warmed the living room; it’s hot and warm ovens with big black kettle constantly simmering on the glowing coals, lit every morning by my Grandfather.  Part of his morning routine that I remember was to take some salt and soot from the chimney to clean his teeth, and I have it on good authority that he still had his natural teeth when he passed on at the age of ninety three.  At either side of the chimneybreast, floor to ceiling built-in cupboards served as storage for crockery, bed linen, materials and Grandma’s sewing paraphernalia.  When I was quite young, my favourite diversion was a large box of buttons of every shape and size that I would empty onto the floor, though what I did with them I can’t now imagine.  Each of these cupboards had large drawers half way down filled with papers and letters and things that were put there because there was no other place for them.  One drawer however, held a large collection of loose Photographs, and these I found fascinating, especially old sepia portraits of past family members; those beautifully posed and softly illuminated records of elegantly coiffed young women in decorously attractive dresses, upright matrons in dark high necked, long sleeved garments, moustachioed young men in stiff suits or smart uniform, sober old men in starched collars, newly married young couples and family groups; my grandparents’ forebears.  In later years I was to add to this collection with photos of my own marriage and young children.  They never went into Albums as they did at home; Dad fixing them onto the black pages with special corners and writing in white ink very artistically.

An upright Piano had pride of place and was as usual in such a home as a Music centre or Television is now.  Every Sunday morning with the smell of dinner roasting in the oven, Grandma would play hymns in lieu of going to church.  Grandpa would be sitting in his armchair by the fire reading the Sunday paper and smoking a cigarette.  I’m reminded by Auntie Nance that Grandma would also smoke Woodbines that she kept in her drawer along with her makeup and cheap scent, though what that combination did to the taste of said cigarettes I leave to your imagination!  I loved playing on the polished mahogany rocking chair, an elegantly carved Victorian upholstered haven of delight to a small child with imagination.  That chair was my sailing ship and horse-drawn carriage; and would carry me away to wherever I wished to go.  (Sad to say, after my Grandma passed away and Grandpa re-married, that wonderful old rocking chair along with all the photos and other things of my Grandma’s, apparently ended on a bonfire instigated by the new wife who wanted no such reminders of her new husband’s past.  Such is the insensitivity of possessiveness.)

No TV or Movie Drama would be complete without music and I’m reminded of the pervasiveness of music in our lives, due in no small part to the popularity of the Radio which was a constant companion, with the humour of stand-up comedians such as Max Miller in Workers Playtime, broadcast live at lunchtime, and Tommy Handley’s ITMA in the evening, with plenty of popular music in between to keep the country happy!  At an early age I learnt to sing, not only all the traditional Nursery Rhymes, but also ‘You are my Sunshine’… ‘Run Rabbit Run’… and the amazingly profound lyrics of… ‘Dozidotes and Marezidotes and Littlelambsitivy, a Kidllitivy too, wud’n you?… If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey, sing… Mares eat oats and Does eat oats and little Lambs eat ivy…’etc.  Mum also loved to sing and play the piano in our front room, her favourites a mix of classical and popular music… ‘The Wedding of the Painted Doll’… ‘Claire de Lune’ ‘The Warsaw Concerto’ from a wartime film, and Grieg’s A Minor concerto, among many others.
Back at my Grandma’s, a small front room was ostensibly the dining room, with a beautiful polished folding mahogany table.  However, this room was hardly used at all, especially in winter, and although it did have a small fireplace in one corner I can’t remember a fire ever being lit there.  There was a wind-up record player, probably belonging to my Auntie Nance, on which I was allowed to play if I was very careful, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, my introduction to Jazz and the wonders of recorded music.
Grandma was an accomplished tailor and her bedroom was a jumble of clothes and materials, of garments in the making, so at times I had to suffer the indignity of being stood on a stool to have the hem adjusted of a new dress or coat or even worse, have newly cut pieces fitted and pinned on me; admonished to keep still as I stood there fidgeting and complaining of pins sticking in me!  It mattered not if the material was new, from Grandma’s hoard, or from my aunties’ cast-off garments, easy to cut-down for a small child; I always had new clothes.  Grandma was large and cuddly, with an open face, embellished with several lumps or cysts that always fascinated me.  I believe she taught me a lot in her quiet way, songs and stories, and made me aware of nature, in the garden, or on walks down country lanes, observing bees going from flower to flower and listening to birdsong.
I remember sleeping in a bed of feather pillows and quilts with a very special smell, maybe not as pristine as my little bed at home, but so cosy.  There was a time we had a family party and everyone stayed the night, when I shared the big bed in the back bedroom with my mother and her two sisters, my aunts.  Sharing one bed meant two at each end, which was accomplished with much laughter!  Whenever my mum's family came together, I remember such mirth and hilarity that tears would roll down my mother’s cheeks.  Their sense of humour was acute but not barbed, farcical but not cruel, risqué but never crude.  Their code of behaviour was fed by spiritual rather than religious conviction, with a sense of honour and rightness rather than moral righteousness.  It felt warm and safe in that family.
In the big back bedroom where my mother and I would stay, a large framed Victorian print hung on the wall opposite the bed, portraying a scene of a little child picking flowers on a grassy bank perilously close to the edge of a precipice, but thank heaven, a wonderfully radiant Guardian Angel with magnificent wings standing right behind the child with hands outstretched to catch him should he fall.  That picture was such a comfort to me as I said my prayers, asking God to look after my Daddy in the war, and fell asleep wondering if anyone ever saw their own Guardian Angel.

I realise this episode is a bit long and I make no apology for getting carried away with all these memories, because the more I write, the more memories come flooding back. So if this resonates with you, please let me know in the box for comments below and I'll keep on writing!

My 40's Childhood

My Grandparents, Ada and Charlie, lived in a council house unlike any council house I've seen since.  In fact I think that 11 Broom Crescent might even be considered a rather ‘des.res.’ nowadays in Salford 6.  Anyway, it seems in my memory to have been more spacious than the house I called home at No 3 Russell Road.  However, my parents must have been very proud of their new home, which I think they may have saved up and paid for before marriage.  I believe it cost all of £400; about two and a half years pay for my father, who was earning £3.00 a week when I was born.  Anyway, they had picked out the site and watched it grow among the neat rows of the new estate sprouting out of an area of sand hills on the edge of Salford.  I knew about the sand hills under the estate because when we went to the local shop in Hayfield Lane, (how is it I remember that so clearly? Yes, I know, we once took the train to Derbyshire and got off at Hayfield, a happy memory of walking in the hills when I was five with Dad and Mum and her friend.)  Anyway, at Hayfield Lane were the sand hills that all the kids of the neighbourhood loved to play in.  I only had the opportunity to play there briefly when my mother took me to the shop.  You see, I was a nice little girl and didn't play with the ‘other kids’.

I remember the shop so clearly, I could be standing there now amidst the wonderful aroma of a typical grocery store filled with unwrapped goods filling my nostrils.  Watching the grocer in his white apron and hat expertly wield two wooden butter pats to form neat pats of butter and fold them neatly into greaseproof paper.  Transfixed as his buxom lady assistant carefully poured sugar into a white paper cone, carefully folding over the top, and the same with a quarter pound of tea.  All carefully weighed on big brass scales with polished pans suspended and balanced with brass weights marked in ounces up to pounds.  Sides of bacon, taken down from a large hook on the ceiling and placed on the gleaming bacon slicer.  “How thick would you like it madam?”  Their whole existence was to serve and the customer was always right!  Our world revolved around polite manners and good service.


Our home, a small but stylish semi, was a step up the ladder for this newly married pair.  The window in the Hallway depicted a ship in full sail in stained glass.  As far as I remember, the front room was furnished with a novel settee that turned into a dining table and an easy chair that turned into a single bed.  It’s no wonder that I've also had a fondness for multipurpose furniture.  The hall led into the narrow kitchen with under stairs larder, gas cooker and sink, then to the back door and washroom with big galvanised tub, heated by gas, and obligatory washboard and mangle.  Come rain or shine, Monday was Washday.  Beds were changed and the strenuous ritual of washing and scrubbing, rinsing and wringing seemed to go on most of the day.  In good weather, very soon sheets and towels billowed on the line strung across the garden.  When raining, the house would be filled with the peculiar smell of damp laundry drying off in the washroom; the heavy linen sheets festooned over a large wooden clotheshorse and indoor clotheslines. 
The back living room, also my playroom, looked out onto the garden where Dad built trellis and laid winding crazy paving paths between flowerbeds.  When the war started, along with everyone else, he and our next-door neighbour Mr Savage dug out an Air Raid Shelter, (subject to periodic flooding) furnished with rudimentary Bunk beds and roofed in corrugated iron covered by a rockery.  As soon as wailing sirens alerted us to an air raid I would be wrapped in blankets and carried into this structure along with the Savage’s daughter Barbara who was also my age, and tucked up safely while planes thundered overhead and bombs dropped onto the city.  The sulphurous smell of a striking match can still evoke the hazy memory of lighting candles in the musty darkness of that tiny shelter.  There was a hole in the middle of our small lawn that I was convinced was a bomb crater.  At least that’s what I told everyone although I really don’t know what it was.
Up the stairs was a tiny box room, bathroom and two large bedrooms, the back one that was mine looking out over Salford, as our house stood on top of a hill.  I noticed this only when we returned home after the war, having spent most of four years in the country.  I was then seven years old and stood at the window, looking in horror at the rooftops stretching away to the horizon wailing… ‘Where’s the country?’

As I write these memoirs from so many years ago, I send them out to anyone who may appreciate the flavour of a world that has mostly gone... and I'd love to read any comments you feel moved to leave here!