(Illustration: My elder sister, Joan and I having our photograph taken at Saville Studios, North Shields. Also mam with  Auntie Edna just outside of the Primitive Methodist church, Norman Terrace, Willlington Quay, our local church.)

I count myself very fortunate to have lived as a child at the beginning of, what now seems to be referred to as, the ‘Fabulous Fifties’. I came into this world in 1949, four years after the Second World War had come to an end.

Technology assisted us, and improved our lives, it didn't control them. There was no social media directing, or influencing, our thought patterns, or behaviour. If there was some emergency, or a business call, a nearby telephone kiosk, sufficed, as long as you kept it fed with coins. Very few families and friends that we knew had a phone at home.

Doors could be left unlocked during the day, as burglary was a rare occurrence, although, having said that, we were burgled once when we were all out one evening. 

Visitors would simply rattle the latch of a door, call out a greeting and walk straight in. I never heard of bicycles, motor bikes (and side-cars) and the few cars that there were in the neighbourhood, being stolen. Crime figures were low, and everyone seemed hopeful about the future, despite some food still being rationed after the war.

Buses were beginning to dominate the roads rather than the ancient trolley buses with their two poles and overhead wires. Local shops had real character to them, our milk was delivered to our homes, washing lines hung across back lanes, and front door steps and windows were kept scrupulously clean with a donkey stone.

There seemed to be plenty of employment around for men and women, and the economy of the country was growing. We certainly didn’t starve. The world was now at peace, and there was a real respect for all authority figures; politicians, doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers and policemen. Men doffed their hats as they passed a lady they knew.

The wonderful NHS, the vision of Aneurin Bevan, Labour minister of health, came into being the year before I was born. Health care was free and available to all, regardless of wealth!

On the day I was born, I became both a birthday and a Christmas present for my older sister Joan. We were both born on Christmas Eve, with a two-year gap in between. My father, on hearing the news at the maternity home, ran all the way home to tell my grandmother, whom we called nana, the good news. She had been keeping an eye on Joan, while my mother was in the maternity home. Dad was absolutely delighted to have been blessed with another healthy baby daughter, despite the fact that my mother had really wanted to present him with a boy this time.

Throughout our lives he would tell us how very proud he was of his three girls, (my mother being the third ‘girl’) Thank goodness I wasn’t a boy, or I would have ended up with the name, Adrian! Paul was the other choice, which wouldn’t have been quite so bad.

I would imagine Joan got other birthday presents too, but none quite like me, her little sister. From that day on she took on responsibility for me, forever keeping an eye on me, wiping my nose, pulling my ‘knicker leg’ up when it was hanging down, and also translating exactly what I was saying, when no-one else understood me.

We went everywhere together, and were always dressed identically, as if we were twins; the same dresses, coats, socks, shoes and ribbons. I was lucky enough to get the ones Joan grew out of too, over the years; right little ‘second hand Rose’ I was, but with double the items of clothing!

Years later, I wrote a song for my sister, which looked back on those early years: it’s called, ‘When we were young’

When we were young, and ribbon’d bows were in,

Both dressed the same, with legs so needle thin,

I looked to you for all my answerin’

And we were proud when we were young.

Your face was thin, mine was so fat and round,

You’d talk for me, I just made babblin’ sounds,

And when you grew I got your hand me downs,

Life was so fair, when we were young.

How the years go quickly by, 

how the years go quickly by

Such happy days, those summers long ago,

you’d wipe my nose, and tell me when to blow.

I may sound dim, but you were older though,

You were all mine, when we were young.

You went your way, I’d follow close behind,

You’d let me play, you didn’t seem to mind.

I was secure, we were two of a kind.

We were so close, when we were young.

How the years go quickly by,

 how the years go quickly by

Love does not fade, in time it grows more strong

It’s good to know, in life, that you belong,

But more than this, a bond so deep and long

One faith, one Lord, eternal song.

When we were young

©2004 Sheila Hamil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8BufD4NT80

I followed Joan everywhere seemingly, and at the age of eighteen months, I survived a terrible fall from the very top of our hallway stairs. I had seen my sister lower her doll’s pram very carefully down the stairs in front of me, step by step, and so I had decided to follow her with my pram, and I bounced and tumbled all the way down, landing in a heap at the bottom.

My mother, who’d heard a thumping sound, came running to me, and as I wasn’t breathing at all, gave me a hefty slap to bring me back to life. Joan must have been horrified!

I don’t remember the incident at all, I was too young, but I wonder if a guardian angel had been watching over me way back then, or was she standing at the ready to whisk me off to a better place?

I have had one or two similar ‘near misses’ in my life, which I’ll come to later, but I survived that episode and heaven had to wait!