Interviews With My Mother Joanna Inkster
Joanna Inkster born Dovercourt 1942
Memories of Nana Bane (Mary Ann Seagrove) and more besides:
Nana Bane said 'I never drank alcohol. I took the pledge'. But secretly when I was a teenager she'd send me to the chemist, Timothy White's, for a mini bottle of brandy, telling me to say 'It's for my grandmother for medicinal purposes'. When Connie found out, years later, she said 'The witch!! She signed the pledge!!' Connie was the one who cared for Nana in her old age and cleaned the messy sheets, for Nana was incontinent. Nana was blind, virtually. She had an eye operation when I was 11 and was blind from then on. That was in 1953. She'd been warned she may go blind, but had said it was alright as she was having it on 'Joey's birthday'. They called me Joey, Joey Inkster.
Some years before Nana died, as Connie was at the end of her tether, Doctor Phelan had managed to get Nana into St Mary's nursing home in Colchester. St Mary's had been a workhouse and was now converted. The ambulance came with two men to take her away, with me and Doctor Phelan also there, and Nana was crying and screaming 'Please don't send me to the workhouse, Conn.' Connie was saying 'It isn't the workhouse. It's the nursing home.' One ambulance man said 'You don't have to go if you don't want to, my love.' and Doctor Phelan was trying to persuade her, for Connie's sake. She said 'I'm not going then' and there was nothing they could do about it.
Nana was emotional and she and Conn argued a lot. She was very demanding and would bang on her floor with a stick to get attention. 4 Orwell Road was the home they lived in then.
Some years before Nana died, as Connie was at the end of her tether, Doctor Phelan had managed to get Nana into St Mary's nursing home in Colchester. St Mary's had been a workhouse and was now converted. The ambulance came with two men to take her away, with me and Doctor Phelan also there, and Nana was crying and screaming 'Please don't send me to the workhouse, Conn.' Connie was saying 'It isn't the workhouse. It's the nursing home.' One ambulance man said 'You don't have to go if you don't want to, my love.' and Doctor Phelan was trying to persuade her, for Connie's sake. She said 'I'm not going then' and there was nothing they could do about it.
Nana was emotional and she and Conn argued a lot. She was very demanding and would bang on her floor with a stick to get attention. 4 Orwell Road was the home they lived in then.
When my mother (Isabelle Bane) had her breakdown she gave me a letter and told me to take it to Connie and to not let Nana Bane know, but Connie read it out loud. My mother was writing 'Come and help' etc, etc and I was crying. Connie and Ernie got in a taxi and went to Fryatt Avenue, number 12, and collected her and brought them to stay at 4 Orwell Road. All the family came. My mother was crying a lot and had the radio up loud so she wouldn't hear the neighbours talking about her. Everyone, she thought, was talking about her. Downstairs in Orwell Road was the basement with kitchen, lounge, toilet and a damp room. Upstairs there were 2 big rooms with a concertina door between them, Nana Bane in one, and Connie and Ern in the other. Conn spoke to the landlords daughter, as the flat above Conn was becoming vacant soon, which they could have, and on the strength of this my parents gave up their Fryatt Avenue council house. Conn and Ern went in the basement, we children all slept with Nana, and my mum and dad had the other room (and sometimes we swapped). But the landlord gave that flat to someone else. So we were stuck like that. We all shared the kitchen and lounge. Nana had her own chair. There was no bathroom, just a tin bath and an iron range, and we lived like that for 18 months, my mum and Connie constantly arguing. Though my mum improved, confiding a lot in Ernie who tried to persuade her to go into Severall's mental hospital, but my dad wouldn't allow it. He didn't want her committed. Twice Doctor Phelan said they needed a holiday, so twice they went off touring around while Connie looked after us kids.
A new council house was given on medical grounds, because of overcrowding. That was 10 Laurel Avenue. I was 12 and a half then. I was at Fryatt Avenue from the ages 6 and a half to 11. Before then, till I was 5, we lived at 4 Orwell Road, in the top flat, coming then to the top of the council house list, hoping for a good one, but we were given the old army camp. My mother burst into tears at this. We were told this would only be temporary. Actually it was nice, the happiest time we ever had. It was the old officers mess and had a real bath with hot water, and Conn and her son Chris would come and bathe there. Chris, me and my brother John, we all bathed together. We had a piece of land to garden, chickens, rabbits and a dog, and it was lovely. The officers mess, we had half of it, and the other half was for my mothers friend, Mrs Wilson, who died of anemia. After 18 months or so we moved to Fryatt Avenue. Fryatt Avenue was also lovely, with a long back garden, half vegetables and half a lawn and flowers, and fruit trees down the bottom. Dad grew potatoes in the front garden. We brought our chickens and dog. All was lovely.
But, over several weeks was the crying time. I got glandular fever and missed a lot of school and mum nursed me. And she put the dog down when it had mange and got a cat instead, for which I have hated cats ever since. Whenever I asked my mum why she cried she said 'You wouldn't understand, dear'. On the corner of the road was a family my parents were very close to and they would play bridge. My mother suspected dad of fancying the woman. But mum also flirted with the husband, which got me feeling awkward. After they moved to Orwell Road they never had contact with them ever again. I wouldn't know if anything untoward happened, being young. But mum did have her breakdown. The neighbouring lady was vivacious. There was jealousy. I saw that in my mum.
Of Grandparents D'Auvergne and Nana Bane:
D'Auvergne had already died when I was 9. They lived in 24 Hordle Street, which is where I was born. John was born at the Orwell Road flat. Both sisters gave birth at their mothers house. at Hordle Street. I was born upstairs and 6 days after Chris was born downstairs. Two weeks in bed was expected and Nana cared for them. D'Auvergne Bane was a very gentle man, quietly spoken, who played cards with us children and taught us how to draw. He was an artist, and used to sketch. He showed us how to draw trees. His pictures were hanging on the wall. Conn and Ern had moved in there from number 5 to 24 Hordle Street to look after D'Auvergne and Mary Ann. D'Auvergne was a bit delicate. People lived together in those days. D'Auvergne died at the age of 66. He was a soft loving grandad. They then all moved to 4 Orwell Road. When people got old, family would live together, to care for one another. My mother adored her father and not so much her mother. Nana Bane was lovely though with us children. She was a good cook, making things for us kids, always something to give to us. My mother was like that too, making things from the Bero book, flour recipes, cakes. I had one too and made things from it. Scotch pancakes, both my mum and I made, gingerbread, victoria sandwich, fruit cake and fairy buns. My mother would bake every afternoon so that when we children got home there was always something hot to eat.
D'Auvergne had already died when I was 9. They lived in 24 Hordle Street, which is where I was born. John was born at the Orwell Road flat. Both sisters gave birth at their mothers house. at Hordle Street. I was born upstairs and 6 days after Chris was born downstairs. Two weeks in bed was expected and Nana cared for them. D'Auvergne Bane was a very gentle man, quietly spoken, who played cards with us children and taught us how to draw. He was an artist, and used to sketch. He showed us how to draw trees. His pictures were hanging on the wall. Conn and Ern had moved in there from number 5 to 24 Hordle Street to look after D'Auvergne and Mary Ann. D'Auvergne was a bit delicate. People lived together in those days. D'Auvergne died at the age of 66. He was a soft loving grandad. They then all moved to 4 Orwell Road. When people got old, family would live together, to care for one another. My mother adored her father and not so much her mother. Nana Bane was lovely though with us children. She was a good cook, making things for us kids, always something to give to us. My mother was like that too, making things from the Bero book, flour recipes, cakes. I had one too and made things from it. Scotch pancakes, both my mum and I made, gingerbread, victoria sandwich, fruit cake and fairy buns. My mother would bake every afternoon so that when we children got home there was always something hot to eat.
My earliest memory is on the landing at 4 Orwell Road, and at the other end mum was cuddling and kissing a man dressed in khaki. I said 'Who's that man, mummy?' and she said 'That's your daddy'. It was 9 months before the end of the war, Christmas 1944. he had a 48 hour pass at Christmas. That was when John was conceived. I was aged 2. I remember also a blue Mickey Mouse gas mask kept in the cupboard under the stairs. Also, in September 1945, I was being shown how to change bed sheets by Connie, and she was explaining how my mum wouldn't have so much time for me now she had a new baby, John. When 4 I was sent down to Harwich to queue for sausages with money wrapped in a note, sent by my mother. Later Connie said how awful it was to send a 4 year old child to do this. I used to play on the terrace of 4 Orwell Road (the balcony). At the top of Orwell Road, the last house on the terrace, was a convent school run by nuns. The other side of the path was their playground, which was walled and had a big drop to the sea. One day I was curious to look over the wall and the big girls asked me to come in and play with them so I did. When I went home they were worried where I had been. 'Where have you been?' 'I've been playing with the big girls'. I was 3 or 4 then. When I was 4 I was allowed to play on the swings in the park, and I copied a big girl walking up the slide the wrong way, and I fell on concrete and cut my eyebrow. There was lots of blood, and a lady took me home. I had to have 4 stitches.
I remember my first day at school. I was 5 in August and on the 1st September mother took me to Main Road School and straight into the classroom where she knew the teacher. Then they realised I needed to go in the babies class and told off my mother, as I should have started after Easter and had missed a term. In the babies class there was a rocking horse and I queued all morning and didn't get my go. Then, after lunch they said I was meant to go in the next class up and I never got a go. I was only at Main Road School for one term. In Music I was given a triangle to play and someone else the drum which more appealed. At the next session I rushed for the drum, but was put back on the triangle and never got to play on the drum. In November 1947 I was ill, off school in bed, and I remember on the wireless, the radio, there was the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. There was no telly then. That winter was really cold with snow and my dad built a little toboggan and took me to the top of the road and pulled me in and out of the tank traps, which were like big sandcastles, and were left over from the war. Beaches were still barbed wired with tank traps everywhere.
In early 1948 my parents got a letter from the council and were all excited, knowing we were near the top of the housing list, hoping for a council house at Abdy Avenue at Tollgate. When they opened the letter my mum burst into tears, because they'd been allocated an old army hut on the camp at Wick Lane, off the Low Road, Dovercourt. The letter said we'd be there 2 years and then get a new council house. If we turned down the offer we would go to the bottom of the list again, and we'd already been on it for 6 months. So we had to move in, for 18 months, and it actually turned out to be a wonderful time. It was part of the old officers mess and had a big garden with countryside all around. We had a dog for the first time, chickens and rabbits, and grew vegetables. It was a great location for child play. There were corn fields and a newt pond and a mulberry tree. I roamed and explored with other kids. and the old prison of war camp was part of our exploration.
While there I went to the 2nd Avenue Infant School, which I found rather confusing. Mum used to take me.
While there I went to the 2nd Avenue Infant School, which I found rather confusing. Mum used to take me.
In the summer of 1849 we moved to 12 Fryatt Avenue, a brand new council house. This was even lovelier. I started at Parkeston School, walking up and down the hill 4 times a day, for lunch too. Mum tried to get me into All Saints School, but the council said all kids on the new estate had to go to Parkeston School, even though it was further. All Saints had a better reputation. The children of the private houses in Parkeston were allowed to go to All Saints!! The teachers at Parkeston though were very good and I excelled. Mrs Saunders was the first teacher. I was 6 and a half then and she gave me books of maths exercises and showed me one to one how to do short division and I never looked back. All through school, till leaving at 10, the teachers were wonderful. Mr Uphill was the headmaster and I was a favourite of his because I always got the maths questions right. There was Mrs Hart, and Mrs Peacock who was a fabulous teacher. Mrs Smith trained a group of us for the 11 plus. I passed the 11 plus for High School with the highest mark in the whole of Colchester and north east Essex.
While at Fryatt Avenue I was in a gang of girls known as the Famous Four, with June Fuller, who now lives in Ipswich, Jennifer Miller, from a large family and whose dad worked on the lightships, and Janet McGregor, who I met up with in 2015 as she is now a volunteer at the Redoubt - it was 60 years since we'd met. We played in The Hangings, and in the Dip where Churchill Road now is. It was all wasteland. We played on a building site at Harcourt Avenue, and on the lane down to the daisy field, all of which has been built on now. One day, being chased by a boy, Ian Vincent, I fell on glass in the Dip and had to have 6 stitches in my arm. I have the scar too, and 2 scars on my hands. Blood was everywhere. A lady, Mrs Rice, wrapped my hands in a towel and put me in a pushchair. My mum and dad happened to then come along on bicycles, just going out, and took me to hospital. I got into skating and had second hand white skating boots and skates, and took part in skating shows in fancy dresses. I used to skate around on the streets and one time at twilight, as it was getting dark, Janet McGregor's older brother, now dead, put a string across the road between two trees and tripped me up and I broke my collarbone. It was not a complete break. It got pulled back with a truss. There was no sling, so Ian wouldn't believe I'd broken it.
When I was 18 months old my arm got broken from jumping up and down on the sofa and falling off. It was a clean break, though I have no memory of it. I was told.
Of the Shetland grandparents (George and Helen Inkster):
My Shetland grandparents were older and less active than my other grandparents. Papi died when I was 4. I used to visit them on the Main Road as a little girl. They lived opposite where the Vine garage now is. They had a long front garden. Granny Inkster used to knit all the time with 4 needles, in the Shetland style, making everything for our family, jumpers, socks, etc. A man 2 doors from them, Mr Moss, had golden drop gooseberry bushes and I would go round there for the gooseberries. In my grandparents front door lounge, on the wall, was a highland scene of mountains with highland cattle which I loved and always wanted. It was a watercolour. Papi would be sitting in a chair. Granny's voice was a soft Shetland accent. Papi died when I was 4 and I was not allowed to the funeral. Children were never allowed in those days. After that granny, Kate, Tommy and Lawrence altogether moved up to Edinburgh. So I never saw them again till the age of 7 when granny was ill and we went on the train, to 9 Roxborough Street. She was in bed all the time and died soon after our return. Her body was brought down on the train to be buried with Papi. It was an epic journey for me, to Edinburgh and back. I was sick 13 times. I was really ill. Sometimes there was no seat and one time when I was being sick in the toilet someone was banging on the door trying to get in. The doctor in Edinburgh gave me a chewing gum medicine which I liked. Granny Helen was a friendly person, like a granny should be.
My Shetland grandparents were older and less active than my other grandparents. Papi died when I was 4. I used to visit them on the Main Road as a little girl. They lived opposite where the Vine garage now is. They had a long front garden. Granny Inkster used to knit all the time with 4 needles, in the Shetland style, making everything for our family, jumpers, socks, etc. A man 2 doors from them, Mr Moss, had golden drop gooseberry bushes and I would go round there for the gooseberries. In my grandparents front door lounge, on the wall, was a highland scene of mountains with highland cattle which I loved and always wanted. It was a watercolour. Papi would be sitting in a chair. Granny's voice was a soft Shetland accent. Papi died when I was 4 and I was not allowed to the funeral. Children were never allowed in those days. After that granny, Kate, Tommy and Lawrence altogether moved up to Edinburgh. So I never saw them again till the age of 7 when granny was ill and we went on the train, to 9 Roxborough Street. She was in bed all the time and died soon after our return. Her body was brought down on the train to be buried with Papi. It was an epic journey for me, to Edinburgh and back. I was sick 13 times. I was really ill. Sometimes there was no seat and one time when I was being sick in the toilet someone was banging on the door trying to get in. The doctor in Edinburgh gave me a chewing gum medicine which I liked. Granny Helen was a friendly person, like a granny should be.
Of romancing with David Harrison:
I met David for the first time at the age of 11 when I started at High School. I had joined an after school biology club. David was the leader of the seaside group which I joined. All fizzled out. He told me to go to the beach and collect crabs. I got a whole bucket of crabs and took them home, but my parents couldn't see sense in that so I had to go and release them. That was the first year. In the second year, there was snow one time and I was up at the Towers, Davids class was there for physics or art and in the lunch hour we played snowballs against the 4th year boys. David and I kept targeting each other. I was only 12 but I liked him and had in the first year too. In the third year the biology teacher, Mr Hucker, and you can imagine what he got called, started ballroom dancing class, nothing to do with the school, at All Saints Hall in Upper Dovercourt. I went and got David as a dancing partner. David has since said that when we girls were out playing hockey he and his mates hung out of the window watching our legs, and he picked out my lovely legs. In the fourth year there was the annual carol service at St Nicholas Church in Harwich. The 5th and 6th forms had to be in the choir, and the 4th form girls had to hand out hymn books and show people to their seats. I did this and at the end of the service was walking home with my friends, Jill Honeycombe and Joan Curl, and three boys followed us, David, Jeff Flood and another. I lived furthest away so was left with David who walked me back to Laurel Avenue. Nothing happened. We both had paper rounds, and the next day met by the football grounds while on our rounds and said Hello. On Saturday was a Social, an evening where teenagers danced, with no alcohol, and David danced with me and walked me home, and I had my first kiss under the lamppost outside 10 Laurel Avenue. My parents didn't know. He was 3 years older. On the next day, Sunday, I was a Sunday School teacher and played the piano for hymns. This was the Schools anniversary and I had to play the organ in church for Sunday School, and while out, that afternoon, there was a knock on the door and my dad answered it. There was June Honeycombe with two boys a little behind at the garden gate. She said 'Can Joey come out?'. Dad said I was at the church playing the organ. They walked off and dad saw that Jill was walking with Jeff and David was on his own, and dad told my mum about this. Meanwhile, my friends didn't know which church I was in and stood listening to lovely music, waiting, outside the wrong church. So we didn't meet that day. When I got home dad said 'There's a bloomin' great ginger chap called for you today' and he said what had happened and questioned who he was and how old. When they heard he was 17 they were worried, until they heard his name. My mum said 'Ah, that's Eileen Spencer's boy. I remember seeing him in his pram with all those lovely red curls.' They weren't worried now. The courtship began. We would go to the cinema twice a week. David had left school, working at Bexford at Brantham, after only one term at 6th form. They went to the Social on Saturdays. Eventually David started going to church with me on Sunday evenings.
I met David for the first time at the age of 11 when I started at High School. I had joined an after school biology club. David was the leader of the seaside group which I joined. All fizzled out. He told me to go to the beach and collect crabs. I got a whole bucket of crabs and took them home, but my parents couldn't see sense in that so I had to go and release them. That was the first year. In the second year, there was snow one time and I was up at the Towers, Davids class was there for physics or art and in the lunch hour we played snowballs against the 4th year boys. David and I kept targeting each other. I was only 12 but I liked him and had in the first year too. In the third year the biology teacher, Mr Hucker, and you can imagine what he got called, started ballroom dancing class, nothing to do with the school, at All Saints Hall in Upper Dovercourt. I went and got David as a dancing partner. David has since said that when we girls were out playing hockey he and his mates hung out of the window watching our legs, and he picked out my lovely legs. In the fourth year there was the annual carol service at St Nicholas Church in Harwich. The 5th and 6th forms had to be in the choir, and the 4th form girls had to hand out hymn books and show people to their seats. I did this and at the end of the service was walking home with my friends, Jill Honeycombe and Joan Curl, and three boys followed us, David, Jeff Flood and another. I lived furthest away so was left with David who walked me back to Laurel Avenue. Nothing happened. We both had paper rounds, and the next day met by the football grounds while on our rounds and said Hello. On Saturday was a Social, an evening where teenagers danced, with no alcohol, and David danced with me and walked me home, and I had my first kiss under the lamppost outside 10 Laurel Avenue. My parents didn't know. He was 3 years older. On the next day, Sunday, I was a Sunday School teacher and played the piano for hymns. This was the Schools anniversary and I had to play the organ in church for Sunday School, and while out, that afternoon, there was a knock on the door and my dad answered it. There was June Honeycombe with two boys a little behind at the garden gate. She said 'Can Joey come out?'. Dad said I was at the church playing the organ. They walked off and dad saw that Jill was walking with Jeff and David was on his own, and dad told my mum about this. Meanwhile, my friends didn't know which church I was in and stood listening to lovely music, waiting, outside the wrong church. So we didn't meet that day. When I got home dad said 'There's a bloomin' great ginger chap called for you today' and he said what had happened and questioned who he was and how old. When they heard he was 17 they were worried, until they heard his name. My mum said 'Ah, that's Eileen Spencer's boy. I remember seeing him in his pram with all those lovely red curls.' They weren't worried now. The courtship began. We would go to the cinema twice a week. David had left school, working at Bexford at Brantham, after only one term at 6th form. They went to the Social on Saturdays. Eventually David started going to church with me on Sunday evenings.
When I was 12 I used to go out on walks with the family, with mum, dad and John, before Bobby was born, and we were walking along Wick Lane where we lived, and coming towards us was David with his parents and brother Clive and his mum pushing the pram with Lolly in. They got close and I was blushing as David and I looked at one another, and to our astonishment our mothers said Hello, having been at school together.
David was going to Colchester night school three times a week, to technical college, studying physics and chemistry, and he passed A level chemistry there which he had started in the 6th form. He'd taken retakes of his O levels in the 6th form and had passed two. At Bexford he was a laboratory assistant in solvent recovery for Ilford Films, their project, and this was the same firm Margaret Thatcher worked for. When David was 20 he left Bexford and joined the Royal Air Force, wanting to be aircrew as many boys did, but after he signed up he was found to be colourblind, so he had to choose another trade. He chose the RAF police, wanting to do detective work, but really was just a glorified guardsman. He signed on at Bridgenorth and did the basic training in Cardington for 4 or 6 weeks, then did police training at Nether Avon on Salisbury Plain. His first posting was at RAF Honington, near Bury St Edmund's, where he had to stand guarding bomber planes which had nuclear bombs on. This was often at night, and once he fell to the ground asleep, which was a chargeable offence, but no one knew. He had done well on his training course so after a short time at Honnington was given a plum posting at Fontainebleau in France. He lived for 6 months in barracks at Camp Guynemer, without me, after which he came home to marry me. He had already proposed not long after I left school. We had been engaged for a year. He'd come home from Nether Avon and we got engaged in September 1960, but he hadn't got money for a ring, so he sold £20 of premium bonds his mum had given him for his 21st birthday, to buy my ring. For years afterwards his mum asked if he'd won on the premium bonds and he never told her what he'd done.
So he came to marry me, at Cliff Road Congregational Church, with the reception at All Saints Church Hall in Upper Dovercourt, and we went on the train to Margate at Butlins Hotel, Cliftonville, for our honeymoon. Four weeks later we went to France by boat and train and I was sick just as we were going into Calais. After a long train journey we got to the caravan in the forest at Camping La Faisanderie. The people we'd bought the caravan from had a dog, Tina, a spaniel cross breed, and asked if we wanted her. We said No, not wanting the attachment of a dog, so they left her with the next door neighbour. But she kept coming round and so we kept her and she was lovely. Twice Tina had puppies which were born dead, and she had one phantom pregnancy yearning for her babies. Once she gave birth on David's lap. She used to take your squeaky toys under the caravan and make a nest with them and try to nurse them. She was the reason we did so much walking, to the rocks. She used to get ticks which David burned off with cigarettes as he was a smoker.
I lost my virginity on my mothers sofa when I was 15. I think you were conceived at my mums house or maybe in France.
It was a few weeks after arrival in France that I realised I was pregnant. It was an easy pregnancy. I gave birth at the French military hospital. We had some friends at the caravan playing whist and I started having little contractions. They all took me into hospital in the early hours of the morning. I was in labour all the next day. David came with flowers thinking the baby would be born. But I had only just started, so I was put in bed till morning, then was in labour all next day. I was given some pills, I don't know what or what for. I had a young nurse with me. They were St Mary nurses. I had an enema and in dozy sleep recall thinking I needed the toilet. I was pushing my back passage, and when the young nurse asked what was wrong, as I was moaning, I said I wanted to go to the toilet. She called the sister who looked, and she said 'Goodness, the babies almost here. You've been pushing, you naughty girl'. They got me on the trolley and pushed me into the labour ward and after 4 pushes you were there. So it was easy. But they shouldn't have left me drugged. Trouble then started as the afterbirth wouldn't come. The sister got hold of the cord and pulled and it snapped off. She was newly qualified and it was her first job as a midwife. So they called out the RAF doctor who gave me an anesthetic and took it away. One of the doctors had pyjama's on under his uniform. The last thing I heard was one doctor saying 'Do you think she'll need a blood transfusion?' and the other doctor replying 'No, she has high hemoglobin'. I hadn't seen my baby at this point. When I awoke they got me off the trolley onto the bed, off from bloodstained sheets. The nurse said 'Don't worry about that, you'll be alright'. I was wheeled into the ward of the other mothers and not allowed out of bed for 24 hours. When Sandy was born she was in the premature ward. So on the day of your birth, David didn't come till evening, bringing a hop, skip and jump trophy wrapped in pink ribbon which he'd won at the big sports event that day. He'd already won the RAF one and this was between the Army, Navy and RAF. He had never done it before but he was the champion.
David was an RAF policeman in Fontainebleau, sometimes at Camp Guynemer and sometimes Melun airfield. He would be there for a 12 hour shift, all night, and I would lock myself in, not wanting to go out at night. I was in Fontainebleau for two years and it was lovely, wonderful. It was an open air life, free and easy, with plenty of money, and David bought a car. We had no rent and special extra allowances. Our first car there was a 2nd hand Simca, then we got a new white Triumph Herald which we had to go to Paris to collect and drive it home. Someone else who'd done that had an accident as he drove out of the showroom, so we were worried.
When we came home to England our wages were halved, without extras, so we had to sell the car as we couldn't afford to run it.
While still in France there was an asbestos fire in the caravan, from some clothes in the airing cupboard catching fire. The asbestos was cladding the coalfire pipe. Smoke and dust was everywhere. We always ordered our coal from the charbonnier and they always called me Madame Herrison (Hedgehog). Mrs Hedgehog. I had O level French though was often shy to use it, though I would say bits.
An Earlier Interview:
Of work experience as a teenager:
When I was 11 or 12 I looked after a little boy from the Basham family on a Saturday so that his mum could work. We were living with Connie then. Basham's was a tobacconist and confectioner on the bottom of Orwell Road and Connie's husband, Ernie, rented the back as a barber shop. I used to get a shilling for the afternoons.
When I was 13 or 14 I used to clean Connie's bedrooms out, once a week, and get paid for it.
At 14 years of age I had a paper round, from Monday to Saturday, 6 shillings a week, and on Sunday half a crown. David had a paper round at the same time and we fancied each other. We would pass one another down by the football grounds.
When I was 15 I worked in Woolworth's on the jewellery counter for 6 weeks up to Christmas.
Davids mum, Eileen Spencer, worked for Mr Shaw and I was put on the hot dog stall with her, but the onions kept making me cry, so I was moved to the ice-cream and gifts and souvenirs stall. Then I worked in a big new café, and Davids mum worked there as well. Connie worked at Basham's which had broadened into a greengrocers. She persuaded me to work with her, but there I was worse off financially, although it was all year round instead of just the summer.
Of work experience as a teenager:
When I was 11 or 12 I looked after a little boy from the Basham family on a Saturday so that his mum could work. We were living with Connie then. Basham's was a tobacconist and confectioner on the bottom of Orwell Road and Connie's husband, Ernie, rented the back as a barber shop. I used to get a shilling for the afternoons.
When I was 13 or 14 I used to clean Connie's bedrooms out, once a week, and get paid for it.
At 14 years of age I had a paper round, from Monday to Saturday, 6 shillings a week, and on Sunday half a crown. David had a paper round at the same time and we fancied each other. We would pass one another down by the football grounds.
When I was 15 I worked in Woolworth's on the jewellery counter for 6 weeks up to Christmas.
Davids mum, Eileen Spencer, worked for Mr Shaw and I was put on the hot dog stall with her, but the onions kept making me cry, so I was moved to the ice-cream and gifts and souvenirs stall. Then I worked in a big new café, and Davids mum worked there as well. Connie worked at Basham's which had broadened into a greengrocers. She persuaded me to work with her, but there I was worse off financially, although it was all year round instead of just the summer.