THE STALLEY FAMILY AND

MEMORIES OF WIDDINGTON

For some years now I have felt that it is important that I write everything I can remember about my family and Widdington, the village where I grew up. People and events become a blur as memories fade as we all grow older and there is so much to tell which will in future be of great interest to the family and those who are yet to be born. My life in Widdington has to be divided into three, namely before the war, during the war and after the war. I then thought it would be a good idea to describe members of my family, who sadly are no longer with us, and write as much about them as I can remember.

BEFORE THE WAR 1931-1939

I was born January 2nd 1931 in the back bedroom of the house called The Cottage beside the green. I lived in this house until 1955 when I got married. The weather was cold and snow laid on the ground. The district nurse attended my mother and it must have been a difficult birth because she had to call Dr Brown for his help. According to Mum, when he came into the bedroom he gave her some chloroform which made her unconscious and when she came round I was born and he was delivering the afterbirth. I weighed 6 lbs and was a healthy baby. There was a coal fire in the bedroom and I had a bed made in a clothes basket. After a birth, in those days, mothers used to rest in bed for about two weeks which sounds very sensible. Fresh air was also flavour of the month then and when the nurse had finished her work with my mother each morning, she used to fling the window wide open and let the cold in. When she had gone, Mum used to shut it. My sister Eileen was six and a quarter years old and wrote Mum a little letter which said “Dear Mummy upstairs, thank you for Daphne Joan”. I had a nice pram which had a deep body which was fashionable at the time and very substantial.. The colour was fawn and it had three pads in the bottom with storage space underneath. When I could stand up, these pads were taken out as I rocked the pram so much and was just able to peer over the sides. Many years later, the pram was sold to a gypsy.

I don’t remember very much about my early years until I went to school when I was four. Mum said I was a good baby and slept a lot but took ages to take my bottle. I think she fed me for a while and then I was put on the bottle by Doctor’s orders. She made up the formula which was supposed to be very good but it contained emulsion which had a fishy taste. i remembered this smell when my brother was put on the bottle eleven years later.

My father worked in a garage owned by Mr Nordon at Newport when I was very small and used to spray cars with cellulose. The fumes upset his stomach and he went into hospital at Saffron Walden with colitis. We went to visit him but I wasn’t allowed into the ward so was left in the corridor downstairs to wait and I remember a nurse talking to me. My father also had

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a motor bike and I can remember him emptying out the carbide from the lamps which provided the lights. Nothing as simple as a battery in those days. Dad was advised to give up the Garage work and get a job in the fresh air. He went to work for Mrs Medley at The Red House (now Widdington House) as chauffeur/gardener about 1935 and Mum had to work in the house doing domestic work for a few hours. I remember hurrying up the road with her, dragging a toy on wheels. The domestic work was hard as she had to push large floor polishers. She found it all too much with cooking a midday meal as well. She developed angina which was unusual in a woman of her age and had to give it up. Fortunately, Dad was able to keep his job.

About this time, 1935, I started school. Eileen was still at Widdington School but she left when she was 11 and went to South Road School, Saffron Walden until she was 13. The only means of getting there was cycling which was about 5 or 6 miles each way. Children would not like to do that today in all weathers. I loved school and have written several articles about this for Widdington Magazine which they have included in the Widdington Chronicles published for The Millennium. (You will need to read this as it covers most of my memories regarding school.) The school was small but we had a good education and were able to read, write and do arithmetic to a high standard. When Eileen left Widdington school, my cousin, Joyce Chipperfield used to take me. She was four and a half years older than me and was in the Juniors when I was in the Infants. The Juniors used to come out of school a bit later than the Infants as Miss King, the head teacher, used to read them a story. I used to go with them to listen to the story, which I loved, and come home with Joyce. One day, my mother went out for the day and I said I felt sick at school. I was taken up to Mrs Chipperfield, Joyce’s mother, who looked after me and gave me a bowl to be sick in but I didn’t really feel sick but had to keep up the pretence. I expect I was all right when Mum came home. Another time, when Mum went out, it was arranged for me to stay with Mrs Frank Stanley who lived opposite until Eileen came home from South Road school. Mrs Stanley took in washing and was busy ironing. i sat on her sofa and looked at all the pictures and photos which covered the walls in her room. (She had one room and a small back scullery). I asked if I could go over to my house and get some toys from our wash house and she said I could. I must have been gone a long time as she came and found me crying in the shed as I hated it if Mum went out. I was all right when Eileen came home as I felt safe again.

Before the war, after the Motor Bike period, Dad had his own car as cars were one of his interests. He bought one which was so awful that Mum said she wouldn’t go out in it so it sat in the garage until he got rid of it. We probably played in it. The one I remember most was a Peugeot which he pronounced Poo-Joe. It was brown and the seats were covered in material. On the back there was an orange light as well as the usual red lights and Dad said it was because it was a foreign car.

The first holiday I remember is going to Clacton with Granny and Grandad and Aunt Ruth. I was about four so it was 1935. Perhaps Grandad was 65 and had just retired. They hired a car and I remember the windows had circles in the glass. I think the windows may have been made of cellulose and the hot sun used to do this. We stayed in a bungalow or boarding house

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owned by Mrs Bowles and I shared a room with Aunt Ruth. One day she hired a push chair and took me to Jaywick Sands. There was some trouble with one of the wheels. I didn’t eat very much when I was a child and they tried to tempt me with nice food but I only wanted grapes and cheese. I wouldn’t wear my bathing costume on the beach but can remember wearing it in the bedroom and jumping about on the bed. Granny and Grandad probably just went for a walk and sat in a deck chair on the sea front or the beach. Clacton was a very popular resort in the 1930s.

The next year, 1936, I went on holiday with Mum and Dad and Eileen again to Clacton. This time we stayed in a bungalow owned by Mrs Watton. She had a son called Georgie who had a screwed up mouth. We used to make a face like this and call it the Georgie Watton face. There were other families staying at the same time and I heard Georgie had to sleep in the bath. Mr and Mrs Watton must have slept in the shed outside. Eileen and I shared a bed and one night I irritated her so much she got out and went under the bed. I think we were in the same room as Mum and Dad. I had had whooping cough earlier in the summer and the cough hung about for ages. It was thought that the smell of coal gas would help this so we walked down to the beach via the gas works. Not a pretty sight. I loved the beach, making sand castles, looking for shells and paddling in the sea. When the tide came in most of the beach disappeared. Sometimes I went under the pier and it felt much colder as there was no sun. There were amusements on the pier and also a show in the theatre at the end of the pier. Further down the promenade was The Jetty which also had amusements. One afternoon we went to an Air Show but cannot remember anything other than the fact that we went.

It was either 1937 or 1938 that Dad said we wouldn’t go away to stay but we would visit a different place each day. I remember going to Walton and Frinton, Southend, Brighton and of course Clacton. Sometimes we had a picnic in Epping Forest. The car used would have been the Peugeot and as this was out of action in the war due to petrol rationing, I think he sold it to Morrie Holgate who lived at Wyses Farm, Holly Road.

We had other outings and sometimes visited relatives. We went to Great Leighs, Nr Chelmsford as Granny’s sister, Dora Ketley lived there. She had a son called Stanley who was married and lived in a bungalow near by. They had a little boy with dark curly hair who was probably not much younger than me. Sometimes we went to Euston, London to see Dot Utting who had been fostered with Grandmother Ketteridge. Dot was Ruby Potter’s sister. Dot had two daughters, Julia and Barbara, one older and one younger than me. Sadly Julia died when a child of either pneumonia or diphtheria. I can’t remember and there is no one to ask. Dot lived in a flat and we children played in a courtyard below. I didn’t like it because you couldn’t go in and out of the flat without knocking as the door had a yale lock. The other children asked where I came from. I said “Widdington” and they said they knew where that was but I knew they didn’t. Children in North London wouldn’t have heard of Widdington. Sometimes we went to London Zoo at Regents Park and one time I had to wear Julia’s blazer as I had been sick in the car.

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Another time during the journey, Mum noticed I was sitting in the car like a hamster with bulging cheeks. On investigation she found it was the chewed haddock I had for breakfast and couldn’t swallow. At meal times we weren’t allowed to leave anything on our plates and I always found this a worry as I didn’t eat much. I had cleared my plate but couldn’t get rid of it!! Sometimes if I could get outside I used to spit it out behind the garage. I suppose years before that, children didn’t get enough to eat and that is why we weren’t allowed to waste anything.

Another outing I vaguely remember is going to Cambridge on the train with Mum and Eileen to do Christmas shopping and I think we missed the train coming back. For Mum to go on the train to Cambridge was unusual. Shopping was usually done in Saffron Walden or Bishop’s Stortford but not all that often as everything was delivered to our door. Groceries were sent up from the Coop at Newport. She had two order books and when one order came she gave them the other book for the next week. We had bread and meat delivered from Newport. The Somerlite came round in a large van selling paraffin and all kinds of hardware. We collected the milk in a can from the milk shop at Pond Mead. Later, milk was brought to the door in a churn and measured out by a ladle and put in our jug. Fresh fish came round on a Friday and a fish and chip van on a Saturday. Once they went down Spring Hill so fast, they crashed at the bottom and the men got burnt with the hot fat spilling out. I am not sure if the whole thing caught alight. Mr Brown used to call round with his case selling clothes and Granny had a Mr Carruthers who also sold clothes. Whatever she needed, she ordered and he brought it next time. Mum also bought clothes from Williams and Oxendales catalogues. We had the Post Office and General Stores in the village, the pub sold lemonade and crisps and Mrs Taylor next door sold a few things but this virtually packed up when the war came and rationing started. She was getting older and eccentric and I remember when Mr Taylor died. She banged on the wall for Mum to get help as he was having a Haemorrhage. Mrs Taylor sold sweets and she had a high stool inside the shop for customers to sit on. One day Eileen and I went to her shop and she gave me a large pear drop. On the way back, I swallowed it and was choking. Mum felt something was wrong and came running out and slapped me on the back and it flew out. Children should never be given large boiled sweets. Getting back to the shopping, the village was very well served, unlike today, and the only things you needed to buy in Saffron Walden were things from the chemist and larger items like furniture. Of course we never bought vegetables as we grew our own. We had fruit when in season and if people had a surplus of their produce, they used to share it. We did buy oranges and bananas, but these were not available during the war.

I remember going to see Aunt Martha and Uncle Tom at Thaxted because they were celebrating their Diamond Wedding. It was before the war but I do not remember the year. Aunt Martha was Grandad’s sister, married surname Saych, and I think they lived in Newbiggin Street. According to the census of 1871, Grandad was 2 and Martha 11. We walked up a long path to their front door and they showed us a telegram which they had received from the King. Granny used to visit this family via train. You had to walk to the top of Cornels Lane and further across the field to Sibley Station to catch the train to Thaxted. This line was closed in the 1960s

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by Dr Beecham. Willie Saych used to visit Granny and Grandad and I do not know whether he was Martha’s son or brother-in-law. When Aunt Ruth was still a child at school, Granny was ill and Aunt Ruth had to go and stay with Aunt Martha at Thaxted. She attended the school there along with her cousins. One day, instead of going to school, she ran across the fields as the crow flies, all the way to Widdington. She saw a man working in the fields who was Sunny (or Sony) Westward and he told her which way to go. She was too frightened to go home as Grandad would have been furious so she went up to Cousin’s, Annie Chipperfield who was a lovely lady. I think it was all sorted out amicably.

It was in 1938 that Ethel Ives married Tom Johnson in Widdington Church. Ethel had been fostered by Little Auntie but was quite a bit younger than Mum. I don’t remember going to the church but went to the reception afterwards which was held in Little Auntie’s front room at Spring Hill. When Ethel left school she had to go away to a place to be trained in domestic work and she hated it. I do not know where she then went to work but that is where she met Tom who was a gardener and they got married when she was about 20 or 21. After marriage, they lived at Leverstock Green, Nr Hemel Hempstead. There was about one wedding a year in Widdington and I always went to watch. I stood on the wall beside the path going up to the church door on the side where the bride would be, with my sweaty hand holding the rose petals to throw at the bride.

We always seemed to do a lot of walking years ago. As a family we would walk “right round” on a Sunday evening. This was down the road past Spring Hill and Shiptons Farm to the main road, then turn left to go along the main road towards Quendon. When we reached the road which goes under the railway bridge to join Holly Road, we would come back that way, past the chalk pit and down the village. About three and a half to four miles. We walked along the path behind the church which eventually leads us to Debden Park. There was a lovely wood behind the Red House and another walk down the lawns past George Pilkington’s farm at The Jock to North Hall. Leopards Bane grew in the ditch and harebells and wild snap dragons grew in the meadows. We were so lucky with the great variety of wild flowers, the fresh air and the beautiful countryside. Eileen and I were always out walking, sometimes with Joyce Chipperfield, and it was safe for children to be out in the woods and fields. The only thing to frighten us was a bull in the field or unpredictable cows and dogs.

Eileen and I used to go to Sunday School in The Hut which was run by Miss Pitcher who lived in a bungalow on the corner of Holly Road. I liked this as we did colouring, sung choruses and had stamps to stick in a book which I still have. I have a green bible which was given to me on Bible Sunday June 19th 1938 by Miss Pitcher. Eileen also had a bible. In order to win a silk bookmark to match our bibles, we had to answer a list of questions but I don’t remember what they were. Miss Pitcher used to hold tea parties at her bungalow and we had races in the garden afterwards. We had tea to drink at one time and they put hot milk into it instead of cold because they liked it hot. I hated it because there were bits of skin floating on top of the tea.

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Sometimes we had a picnic in a meadow somewhere up Cornels Lane behind the big houses. There were sandwiches and large enamel jugs of lemonade. There was a Christmas party in The Hut and we each had a present. Mine was a wooden Mickey Mouse which walked when you pulled it along. Roy Simrnonds pulled a banger from a Christmas cracker on my neck which stung and made me cry.

I also remember going to a Lantern Slide Show in Church with Eileen and was amazed at the beautiful pictures lit up on a screen. Another time, in Church, we were taken to the Font and shown the different patterns round the side. In 1771 the Church Tower collapsed and the Font was probably damaged and I think they made replicas of the original panels when it was rebuilt. Sir Claude Hollis’ History of Widdington will explain this better than I can. Sometimes in the summer we would go to Church, as a family, on a Sunday evening and then go for a walk afterwards. I knew the Church Services, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer from quite an early age and had my own Prayer Book dated April 9th 1939 in Mum’s writing. Eileen was in the Church choir and she was confirmed when she was about 14 in Takeley Church. Visits were made to a dressmaker in Saffron Walden who made her a dress in white crepe de chine for the occasion which I also wore for my confirmation in 1945 when the war had just ended. Mr James Walter Court was our Rector and was greatly loved and respected by the village. He was born in 1861 and his father James C L Court was also Rector at Widdington. Mr Court retired in 1947 so was 86 and died in Saffron Walden 25th February 1950. He married Frances Ellen Ducane who was buried at Widdington 27th January 1939. I don’t remember Mrs Court as I was told she was blind and didn’t go out. However, she had made the white muslin veils which the girls wore in the Church Choir. Mr & Mrs Court did not have any children. Mr Court is buried in Widdington Churchyard on the piece of ground in front of the clocktower near a fir tree. He has a wooden cross to mark his grave and some time ago this was repaired by Jack Chipperfield. I have recently visited his grave, which also contains Mrs Court and June Francis has planted some Daffodil bulbs in front of the wooden cross.

According to Church records, Reverend James Walter Court became Rector of Widdington in 1886 at the age of 25. My father told me that he was met at Newport station with a pony and trap and that the young men .of the village pulled the trap themselves into the village as they were so excited. Of course my father was not born then so that is a story which he had been told. When I was a small child before the war, Mr Court, although getting old, was still active and apart from Church affairs took part in village matters. There was the village brass band, the annual fete, the men’s club and I remember him attending a Bridge Party at our house. Dad played Bridge, Mum did the catering and Eileen and I were sent up to bed. He also taught Latin at Newport Grammar School at one time. Also, Widdington Primary School, being a C of E School would have benefited by his teaching. I have been looking through the old Widdington Magazines and have found an account submitted by Ernie Wilson (Little Auntie’s stepson) in the Autumn of 1987 which he found in the Herts & Essex Observer, October 24th 1936 recording the occasion of the celebrations when Rev J W Court had been Rector of Widdington

for 50 years. It was called “A Beloved Clergyman”. I must have attended this occasion but as I was only 5, I cannot recall it but am including it in my memoirs in his honour.

A BELOVED CLERGYMAN

Parishioners of Widdington assembled in large numbers on Tuesday October 20 1936 to pay tribute to their esteemed rector who recently completed 50 years as rector of the Parish. An enjoyable social function in the attractively decorated Hut was provided by the churchwardens, Mr William Chipperfield and Mr John Dillon-Robinson. On a long table in the centre of the room were the refreshments and an iced cake surmounted with a silver horseshoe and 50 candles. Mr & Mrs Jim Cooper made and decorated the cake and Miss M Cooper put the candles on.

Refreshments having been served, the Bishop of Chelmsford presented Mr Court with a cheque and a pipe as small tokens of their appreciation and great affection. The Bishop recalled that Mr Court had served 2 years as curate at Willingale Doe before coming to Widdington. Sometimes people feel that when a vicar or rector has been in a parish even 20 years it was time for a change, but your rector has been 50 years amongst you, but I am perfectly certain that if he went to another parish everybody would have the most profound regret: this is a small parish where he cannot keep himself out of the public eye, whereas, in a large parish he could to some degree, keep out of the limelight. But he has lived for 50 years in this small parish and passed the test in a wonderful way.

Mr Court returned thanks for the gifts and referring to the pipe he wondered if it was a bit of sarcasm, that his 50 years had all ended in smoke! But smoke goes up and up and teaches us something about God. Looking back 50 years ago when Jim Hoy brought him up from Newport full of wonderful expectations, religion does not seem outwardly such an important thing now as it was then, but it is only what it seemed like and he hoped he had been of some use and that it was not ending in smoke. Sir Claud Hollis expressed thanks to the Bishop and recalled spending part of his holidays at the Rectory, particularly when Mr Court fished him out of Debden lake. Another time Mr Court rendered first aid in the churchyard when they had attacked a wasp’s nest with a tennis racquet. He was delighted Mrs Court was able to be present in spite of failing health.

In reply the Bishop said he was pleased to come to Widdington and do honour to one who deserved honour. When he went round the village with Mr Court he was satisfied that his relations with people were exactly what they should be, and even on his first visit he was greatly impressed with the Rector and his work.

Mr T T Carmichael of Widdington Hall, speaking as an old Presbyterian, endorsed what the Bishop had said in praise of Mr Court. He had lived beside him for about half the time the Rector had been in Widdington, always on the best of terms and no man could have been a more kindly and helpful neighbour. Mr Edgar Chipperfield, an original member of the Band,

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presented Mr Court with a tobacco pouch from the Widdington Band which Mr Court had founded 27 years previously. Another presentation, another pipe, was made by Mr Jim Hoy. This was of cherrywood grown in his wood and made by himself.

A service in the Parish church followed, which like the Hut, is lit with electricity due to Mr Court’s initiative. A large congregation gathered for an impressive service conducted by the Rector. Members of the Widdington Band in uniform seated in front of the screen played voluntaries and accompanied the singing of the hymns.

In his address the Bishop spoke of this wonderful occasion in the history of the parish, because such an event would probably never happen again. The work of a parish priest called for qualities and gifts of all kinds and a wonderful and beautiful thing when they saw the work of a parish priest so faithfully fulfilled. Some people gave an excuse for neglecting the call of religion and absenting themselves from church - they didn’t like the rector doing this or that or the way he did something or other or the rector’s wife had offended them in some way - he did not admit the validity of such arguments. They should come to church to worship God and not to please the rector. Here the ministry of the word and the sacraments had been faithfully fulfilled for 50 years, but what had been achieved? In many cases he had won them for God and when the day came to render an account of his ministry he would bring in his train many souls he had won for the kingdom of God. In conclusion the Bishop expressed the earnest hope that Mr Court would be spared a long time to live and work and lead the worship in that place.

Previously, I mentioned the fete. This was held on August Bank Holiday Monday which then was at the beginning of August. I used to get so excited, I hardly knew what to do with myself and couldn’t wait to go. In the morning, chairs would be taken down the road from the Hut, in preparation. On the Sunday evening before the fete, Evensong would be held on the Rectory lawn with the brass band playing the hymns. One year, on fete day, Mum made me go upstairs to have a rest before I went. I expect this was to get me out of the way. I did everything but rest and kept getting out of my cot to see the Church Clock from Mum’s bedroom window. The fete was held in the Rectory garden which had lovely lawns, flower beds, rambler roses and a large copper beech tree. There were the usual stalls - hoopla, spoons, bowling for pig, rough on rats etc. and Vegetable and Flower Show. Dad used to enter things and Mum entered a cake one year and her plate got broken accidentally which upset her. One year there was a fancy dress show and Dad went dressed as a baby sucking a bottle in my pram with Sid Turner dressed as a Nursemaid, pushing it. He made posters to stick on the side of the pram saying “Hoy’s Bread is Best” and suchlike. When it got dark, the evening was rounded off with fireworks. Our lives were led at a slower pace 60 plus years ago so fete day was really exciting and a day never to be forgotten. Not much different really to fetes today but so wonderful to me at that time.

Another event before the war, was the Coronation of King George V1 and Queen 12

Elizabeth in 1937 so I was six. All children were given a mug and a plate and I still have the plate. We did a concert in the Hut with children dressed in costumes representing different countries of the Empire. Eileen and I were dressed in Union Jacks as far as I can remember. We had to sing patriotic songs with Mrs Briner teaching us. Elinead Dillon-Robinson was Britannia and her father made her shield which was covered in gold leaf. There were sports held in a field round Holly Road opposite Wyses Farm. It must have been raining because I remember a big boy had been running in bare feet and they were covered in mud. Eileen and I were very interested in the new King and Queen, also Princess Elizabeth who was a bit younger than Eileen and Princess Margaret Rose who was a few months older than me. I remember a little bit about the year before in 1936 when Edward VIII abdicated because he wished to marry Wallace Simpson. There was a lot of gossip going on and I knew something wasn’t right.

I will now come to illnesses in the 1930s. These were the days before antibiotics and immunisation. We were vaccinated agairist smallpox and have large scars to prove it. Most childhood illnesses were dealt with by good nursing and nature taking its course. Dr Brown used to visit us and medicine was in a large bottle - either brown which was probably cough mixture or white which was probably an antacid mixture. I had measles when I was one but don’t remember this. Curtains used to be kept drawn to protect the eyes. I had whooping cough when I was 5 and was quite ill for some weeks. We used to cough until we were sick and it really pulled us down. I think friars balsam was burnt in the bedroom to help with the breathing. I had German Measles one Easter, probably 1939 but wasn’t very ill. I remember having earache which was very painful and warm oil was put in the ear. We had colds which were dealt with by chests being rubbed with camphorated oil or Vic and large pieces of rag were used to blow our noses. Eileen had Rheumatic Fever as a child and was very ill. I was too young to remember much about this but in the mists of time I can remember she was ill. I have read that Rheumatic Fever damages the heart muscle and valves so perhaps that is why she died so unexpectedly at the age of 68. Something which shocked us all.

At school we had a third of a pint of milk everyday which was a good thing because previously, children who were not fed properly suffered from rickets due to lack of calcium. Mum was before her time regarding vitamins as were given halibut oil in drops on a teaspoon of sugar, also cod liver oil and malt. Every Saturday night we had a Steadman’s powder and later Syrup of Figs as it was thought a good “clear out” was beneficial. We always woke up on Sunday morning with stomach ache and had to fly up the garden. Children who caught Scarlet. Fever or Diphtheria had to go to isolation hospital. Diphtheria was a killer, also pneumonia, meningitis and infantile paralysis (later called polio). If children did recover, they were often left with disabilities. Mastoid was another serious illness and children had scars behind their ears following an operation. Tonsils and Adenoids were removed far too readily and ether was an anaesthetic quite often used. Teeth were extracted by using gas or cocaine and fillings were done with the old foot pedal drills with no pain killers so quite often teeth were removed rather than filled. Grownups with stomach trouble often had all their teeth taken out even if they were

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all right because it was thought they were causing the trouble. The person probably had gum trouble or pyorrhoea and as I said, there were no antibiotics to combat this.

Mum was also way ahead of her time regarding hygiene. She thoroughly disliked aluminium saucepans and would only use enamel. Even today, some people are not happy using them but fortunately a lot of our saucepans are made of stainless steel. Here are some of Mum’s instructions I have never forgotten concerning hygiene. Do not use other people’s combs or hats and do not lay your head on the headrests in trains or buses. (You could catch fleas). Do not blow a hooter which another child has blown or drink out of a cup or bottle which someone else has drunk. She loved disinfectant which at that time was Lysol or Jeyes Fluid. Her house was spotless and we were always kept clean in spite of no mod cons.

When I was born, drinking water was fetched from a tap across the green but later on in the 1930s it was piped to inside the house where the sink was. We always had rain water in a large tank outside which was piped to inside and that is why there was a sink. We washed in the rain water and our hair always looked gleaming. We had a bath once a week which was quite a performance. There was a copper in the wash house outside, referred to as The Shed, which had a fire underneath. This had to be lit and water was carried via buckets. If the wind was in the wrong direction, then the fire was temperamental and blew the smoke back into the wash house. We had a long zinc bungalow bath in the wash house which was tipped up on end to empty outside the door and it swished away across the yard to the drain. If it was cold, we had a smaller bath in front of the kitchen fire which was all right when we were small but embarrassing when we got bigger if Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to come in and out. Young people today don’t know how lucky they are to have bathrooms and a bit of privacy. We had no hot water laid on so all water had to be heated on the fire. When I was small, we had a kitchen range which had flues to be cleaned and the outside to be cleaned with blacklead. Later, this was replaced by a fire which came from Mrs Medleys. Each side of the fire was a rest place where saucepans or kettles could simmer. In front was a fender with a seat at each end and this was the warmest place to sit when very cold.

Mum had a Perfection Oil Stove in the wash house and did a lot of cooking on this especially when the fire wasn’t lit in the kitchen. It was drip fed by paraffin to two burners and an oven stood on the top and she could bake marvellous cakes in this which included Eileen’s wedding cake in 1945. Electricity came to the village about 1935. Before this, we had paraffin lamps and candles. When the electricity was laid on, we had a light in each room and the shades were white and of a material which could be washed. If I walked up two of the stairs, I could reach the switch in the kitchen. There was a cooker point in the kitchen and a plug in the front room and Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I can’t remember if there was a light on the landing but I know there was no two-way switch as you had to go upstairs in the dark or leave the door open at the bottom. When I was small, I slept in a cot in the back bedroom and Eileen had the little bedroom. Mum and Dad were in the front bedroom. The front room downstairs was kept

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clean and shining and only used on special occasions such as Christmas, Parties or Sunday tea. The furniture consisted of a 3-piece suite, sideboard, gateleg table, dining chairs and the piano. The floor had a carpet square surrounded by the wooden floor which was stained dark brown.

Compared with today, sanitary arrangements were primitive, but we didn’t know anything different and it certainly wasn’t detrimental to us in anyway apart from the weather. The lavatory was up the garden - a wooden two-seater affair with a cesspit underneath. You could lift the seat up and spiders flew everywhere. One hole in the seat was larger than the other and Eileen and I used to sit side by side sometimes. If you wanted to think or get out of the way, the lavatory was a wonderful place to go. Sometimes the wind blew the door open and you sat there in full view of anyone in next door’s garden. The weather came into these arrangements as it was not much fun going there on a dark night when it was snowing or pouring with rain. Toilet paper was a luxury and not always available. The News Chronicle was cut into squares, threaded on string and hung on the wall by a nail. Some people had pictures, a calendar or religious texts hanging on the walls. I can’t remember if we had any but I can remember Mum regularly scrubbed it out with Jeyes Fluid and once we had an Izal toilet roll which contained one or two pictures when you unwound it. I found this very exciting. You may well ask “what happened to the cesspit?” Dad had a vegetable garden in the back and grew runner beans. About every two years he dug a big trench and the cesspit was emptied into this via large ladles. What a rotten job. If we needed to pass water when we went to bed, during the night or when we got up, everyone had a po (chamber pot) under the bed. These were emptied every morning into a large bucket and rinsed out with disinfectant. It was one of the jobs done after making the beds and I did not find it unusual as it happened in every house. The bucket was emptied down the drain and then washed down. We had drains in the village which dealt with all surface water but not sewage.

The roads were made up with tar and shingle and I liked to watch when they were re done. Paths were made of earth and I cannot remember when the kerb stones came in the High Street. There was hardly any traffic so it was quite safe to walk the lanes at the side of the road or on the grass verges.

Getting back to health. After Dad went to work as a chauffeur/gardener at Mrs Medley’s, his health was much better as he worked in the fresh air. He always had bad varicose veins in his legs and suffered from the odd bout of lumbago. He was still a young man when I was little and only 33 when the war started. Mum developed angina when I was about four or five and Dr Brown said she was a young woman with an old person’s complaint. I remember she had to go to the surgery to have her blood pressure taken and if she exerted herself she had a bad pain in her heart. I had whooping cough about this time and sometimes Eileen got out of bed to see to me in the night. She did eventually get much better and years later had another two children. However, always, if she went for a walk and hurried up a hill, the pain would come and she would have to rest for a while. Later on in life, she had a lot of heart trouble and actually died of a

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heart attack aged 72. She was the same age as Dad, only one week between them, so she was only 33 when the war started. I don’t remember her having any other illness part from colds and she was always working. She did have all her teeth taken out because of pyorrhoea and then had a set of false teeth. She said there was nothing wrong with her teeth and fortunately today, that sort of thing doesn’t happen. Aunt Ruth also had all her teeth taken out and they were only about 30 years old. There were no antibiotics to treat infection.

I thought it might be interesting to write about the kind of food we ate before rationing when the war started. Breakfast cereals consisted of Cornflakes, Shredded Wheat, Puffed Wheat, Sunny Jim Wheat Flakes called Force and of course Porridge. The Sunny Jim dolls are now collector’s items. We had boiled eggs possibly on a Sunday and fried bread with egg and bacon. Eggs were bought from someone in the village as we didn’t have our own chickens until during or after the war. Dad started off with six bantams and a cock bantam and I remember him building the hen house and he made it very nicely. We had our main meal at lunch time called “dinner” and this consisted of roast meat on Sunday, cold meat on Monday which was washing day. We had sausages, bacon and onion pudding, rabbit stew, mutton stew and fish. Mum was a very good cook but I wasn’t interested in food as a small child and could only eat small amounts. Sometimes Mum made a meat pie or pudding. Dad used to come home for his dinner at 1 o’clock after cycling down the road from Mrs Medleys. After eating, he would lay down on the sofa and go to sleep then quickly drink a cup of tea and cycle back to work at 2 o’clock. We always had a sweet called “pudding” which was rice, semolina, tapioca, (which I hated) a steamed pudding with custard or a suet pudding with jam or Golden Syrup on it. There were jam tarts, rhubarb or plums and custard or other fruit in season and apple pie on Sunday. Tea was bread and butter (or marg) with jam, fish paste, marmite, cheese spread called Velveta and home grown salad items especially on Sundays. Mum also made all sorts of cakes such as sponges, fruit buns and cakes, ginger bread, caraway seed cake and only bought swiss rolls or french jam and cream sponge from Hoys. We drank tea, cocoa and water. Coffee was a luxury but sometimes we had Camp Coffee which is still around. We had a cup of cocoa when we went to bed and sometimes Ovaltine. We drank milk at school and at home because it was good for you. Grown ups had supper which was usually bread and cheese or cold meat with pickle. Lemonade was something special drunk in the summer at a picnic on a hot summer’s day. There was also a fizzy drink called Tizer which I liked. Sometimes we bought orange or lemon tablets which were put in a cup of water, fizzed up and made a nice drink. On a Saturday Eileen and I used to go to the shop in the village to buy some sweets. For a penny or half penny we could choose from a variety of boiled sweets which were rowed up in large jars. They probably came from Lee’s Sweet Factory at Thaxted. The sweets were weighed out and put in a newspaper cone made by Amy Holgate. If they got sticky, the news print stuck to the sweets, very unhygienic, but we didn’t seem to suffer by it. There were liquorice shoe laces, dolly mixtures, gob stoppers, aniseed balls, Fry’s bars of chocolate with a picture of 5 boys’ heads on the packet, Cadbury’s chocolate and many others to choose from. As well as making cakes, Mum used to make jam, jelly, lemon curd and pickles. She was always busy doing

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something in the home.

In the 1930s and 1940s, housewives spent most of Mondays doing the washing. They prided themselves on having the whitest wash and the earliest with a line of washing. My mother had to fill the copper in the shed with water from the tap in the kitchen. The temperamental fire had to be lit, the clothes put in the water and some were boiled. Mum always favoured Persil if you could get it, otherwise it was Rinso or Oxydol. Detergents weren’t around until about 1949 or 1950 and Tide was the first followed by Daz and Omo. Before soap powders were available, green or yellow washing soap was used, also soda and lux soap flakes were used for delicate items. There were various tin baths in use, some with rinsing water which contained a blue bag to make the whites look whiter. Sometimes sheets and large tablecloths were sent to the laundry and prices were reasonable. My mother had an Acme Ringer which had rubber rollers very similar to the ringer I had when first married. Some people had large mangles with wooden rollers which crushed the buttons on garments. My Granny did a lot of soaking of clothes in pails and she must have heated her water in kettles and saucepans on the kitchen range as I don’t remember a copper going in my early years. She had a pump outside the back door which was shared with Mrs Duller next door so she had plenty of soft water. Drinking water had to be fetched from the stand pipe in The Square, in a pail, and it was quite a few years after us before piped water was taken to the house and she had a sink. Previously, she washed up in a bowl on the kitchen table and china and cutlery drained on a tray. Outside her back door was a wooden table which was used to soak crockery items. She was a rare one for soaking things and I associate her with Lux flakes.

The ironing was done on the kitchen table using two flat irons. One in use and the other heating up on the kitchen range. I have wondered what my mother did in the summer when the kitchen range was out and I think she must have used the primus stove. This stood in the sink and the base was filled with paraffin. Above this was a little trough where methylated spirits was poured and lit to warm the burner up. At a precise moment, air was pumped in and the burner should catch a jet of vaporised paraffin and burn like a gas jet. If it was feeling temperamental, then the whole thing flared up and you had to let the air out quickly. We also used a little metal pricker to keep the oil jet clear. The whole thing now sounds lethal but they were use a lot years ago. After we had electricity, Mum had an electric iron It was red and had a thumb rest next to the handle. There was no thermostat, so had to be switched on and off when it got too hot. It was used for many years.

I will now write about Christmas and the toys we had. Christmas only covered Christmas Day and Boxing Day and of course Christmas Eve when we hung up our stockings at the end of our bed in excited anticipation. It was a bit confusing because the toys were supposed to come from Father Christmas but some of them, I knew, came from relatives. However, I was too excited to dwell on the matter. One year I wanted a big black doll which was the fashion at the time. Aunt Ruth couldn’t get me a big doll but bought two smaller ones called Topsy and Farina

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which I still have and they are my treasures. On Christmas morning. I went into Mum and Dad’s bed with my stocking and Topsy and Farina were in a doll’s cot beside their bed. I was over the moon. I played all the time with these dolls, made them clothes and wheeled them about the village in my doll’s pram. One year, Eileen had a bicycle but I must have been quite small as I don’t remember much about it. The kind of presents we were given were paints, tins of toffee, books, a scrap book, puzzles, china doll’s furniture, plasticine and there was always and orange and an apple in the toe of the stocking. We loved all our presents and although we did not have the amount of toys which children have today, we were quite satisfied. Mum cooked a nice Christmas dinner. We had goose or cockerel with all the trimmings and sometimes relatives came. A fire was lit in the front room and we had tea in there. I expect a few decorations were put up and also holly. I can’t remember if we had a Christmas tree every year. One year we went to tea with Auntie Doris at Pond Mead and Aunt Ruth pretended to be Father Christmas knocking on the door and Rosemary was frightened. Another time we went up to Granny’s and Grandad’s bed was in the front room. Auntie Doris and family were staying the night and I remember the bed clothes airing in front of the fire. Granny gave me a big colouring and puzzle book.

Somewhere along the line I had some soft toys and dolls. One soft doll had round eyes and the pupils moved about. Mum said she looked like May West. Dolls were made of china, or their heads were, and had cloth bodies. If you dropped them, they smashed and many tears were shed. Other dolls were made of cellulose which was dangerous as they could flare up if we got too near the fire. Ruby came to stay with Mum and Dad and she brought me a lovely big doll dressed in baby clothes. Her head was china, so I had to be careful. Mum and Dad bought me a doll’s pram and I wheeled this all round the village, sometimes with our dog, Toby, in it instead of my dolls. I was always sewing and knitting and used to obtain my materials from whatever source I could. Eileen made a nice blue doll’s dress and I / cut the bottom off and also cut a piece out of the curtain round the sink. This had to be patched up and I expect I got a hiding. I had various people in the village I could ask if they had any stuff. I have since learned that this is what material is called. I used to make all my doll’s clothes and could follow knitting patterns at quite a young age. We used to do knitting at school, so I learned all the fancy stitches. I was grown up before I mastered crochet patterns and could only make a chain or a set of holes to thread something round a neck. We could buy embroidery silks from Woolworths fairly cheaply and I used to use a strand of this if I hadn’t any cotton.

When I was about seven or eight, Eileen and Joyce made me a wonderful Doll’s House out of a wireless set with its insides taken out. It had upstairs and downstairs and was decorated with wallpaper taken from an old sample book which had belonged to Joyce’s father, Edgar Chipperfield, who was a builder. It had an electric light which was run on a small rectangular battery, a little mushroom shaped bulb and a switch on the side. I think Pa Salmon’s son, Harry, helped a bit with this. I had some doll’s furniture which included the pink and white china set, so I was well away

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Dad, as Mrs Medley’s chauffeur, took them up to Scotland for a holiday. He brought me a Scotch Doll back which I loved as she was dressed in traditional costume. Sometime later, our dog Toby got hold of her and savaged her and her eyes were laying on the shed steps. I was heartbroken. Another time, Dad brought me a basket containing chocolate Easter Eggs. As my birthday was so near Christmas, I never had a party and I don’t really remember much about them. Cousin used to have a Christmas Party for the village children in her front room and I remember going to that. There was a Christmas Tree and each child could choose a present which Uncle Joe took off the tree. We played games like spinning the bread board and pinning the tail on the donkey. Eileen was also friendly with Betty Campbell who lived at Priors Hall at the back of our house across the meadow. I think sometimes we went there to parties. On Sunday mornings, Dad had to go to work at The Red House to see to the boilers, chop wood, clean shoes and any other jobs which needed doing. He also went Christmas morning and came back with a basket of goodies from Mrs Medley. She always gave Eileen and I a book which pleased us. I think Mum also had a present but my mind on this matter is a bit hazy. I do know that she gave her a mincer when she had her teeth out. You put the food in the contraption and clapped two handles together and food oozed out of holes. Mrs Medley had an Irish cook before the war called Keneally. In those days servants and workers were referred to by their surname. Sometimes Miss Anne or Miss Margaret (Medley) would come round our house and say “Is Stalley in?” when they wanted something and he was off duty!! Anyway, Keneally could make wonderful meringues and brandy snaps and if Mrs Medley had a Cocktail Party, sometimes we had some of the leftovers.

Eileen and I were interested in film stars and as she six and a quarter years older than me, she was more knowledgeable. Shirley Temple, the child star, was all the rage and I thought she was wonderful with her head of curls and her singing and tap dancing. My mother told me that Shirley’s mother used to tell her what she had to do the next day when she put her to bed and she did it. There were Shirley Temple books and dresses with full skirts which flared out when you swung round. I told someone at school that I had one but I only had this in my imagination. Charlie Chaplin was another star in his prime and I remember seeing a film where there was a lot of machinery and someone got caught up in it and went round and round on rollers. I was worried sick. I have since found out that this film was called Modern Times. Cartoons were made showing Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck as the main characters. Walt Disney made Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs about 1938 and we all loved this film. Mum and Dad were worried in case I was frightened of the Witch. She was horrendous but I said I wasn’t frightened. I remember the family going to see a film “60 Glorious Years” which was about Queen Victoria and Mrs Medley had recommended it. I cried because I wanted to go but I had to spend the evening with Granny and Grandad and they were always nice to me. When Snow White was in fashion, we had all the paraphenalia on the market such as lead toys, jigsaw puzzles, books and I have a tablecloth which belonged to Granny Bridgeman.

Everyone loved Gracie Fields and her songs such as “Sing as we go and let the World 19

go by” and she also made films. There was George Formby and his Ukulele singing “I’m leaning on a Lamp-post”, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and once Mum and Dad went to a dance in the Hut and danced to the tune of “A Little Dash of Dublin” and Dad trod on her toes. That of course has nothing to do with film stars!! Elsie Carlyle was a singer and Eileen and I used to collect cigarette cards which had a series of film stars such as May West and Greta Garbo. I mustn’t forget Henry Hall and his orchestra who entertained us with their music via the wireless for many years. I went to the cinema only a few times before the war but thought it was wonderful. We also had a wireless run by an accumulator and battery and later an electric wireless which stood in the front room on a little table, like The Ark of the Covenant. The wireless was only switched on when Mum said so or when Dad listened to the news and the football results. Children’s Hour was about but I cannot remember if we listened to it.

When we were children we were never couch potatoes but went out to play at every opportunity, weather permitting. Games came in and out of fashion and consisted of spinning tops, skipping, hopscotch, Tensies which was played bouncing a ball and working up from one to ten, leap frog, hide and seek and many others. We walked the fields and woods looking for wild flowers, which we were allowed to pick, also nuts, blackberries, mushrooms, rabbits food, bits of wood for the fire and anything else edible or useful. I mentioned rabbits food as Eileen and I had a rabbit each and once a pet white mouse. We also had a cat called Minnie who lived to be eleven. She had kittens as household cats weren’t generally spayed and she lived on scraps and fish heads. Tinned pet food wasn’t about. Sometimes we had friends to play in the garden or shed but hardly ever in the house and never upstairs. We had to ask Mum if we wanted to go upstairs for anything and if we went out of the back door to go to the lavatory she would say “Where are you going?” Through force of habit we always made an announcement.

I always wanted to have a bicycle as everyone rode a bicycle in the village through necessity. I learned to ride secretly in the shed, getting my balance on Eileen’s old bike and took this out onto the road when Mum and Dad were at First Aid Classes in the Hut when the war started. When they came out, I was riding down the road and I dare not think what Mum’s reaction was. I also wanted some roller skates and a pair of shorts but never had any. I used to walk round the garden wearing Dad’s ice skates and wricking my ankles.

Dad made Eileen and I a little garden each. It was surrounded by a wooden border with a division up the middle. When he asked me what I wanted to grow, I said Red Hot Pokers and Love Lies Bleeding and he said they weren’t suitable. Remembering the size of the garden, I can see his point and I think we settled for Pansies and London Pride. I always took a great interest in everything which Dad grew as this was part of our life.

When Eileen was 13 and the year would be 1937 or 1938, she left South Road School and went to the Herts and Essex High School, Bishop’s Stortford. When 11 years old, girls sat for a scholarship to attend the school. Eileen passed but there was not room for everyone

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so she had another chance when she was 13 and was accepted. In those days, as well as the scholarship girls, parents could pay privately for their daughters to attend and there were infants classes of I, Ila and Ilb. The eleven year olds were in classes of IIla and Ilia. After the war, privately paid pupils were phased out together with the infants classes and girls could stay until they were 18 to do Higher School Certificate and possibly go to University. I remember the uniform she had which was a fawn skirt and pullover trimmed with yellow as she was in Hart House. There were cream blouses, fawn herringbone coat, fawn felt hat and a djibha (I don’t know how you spell it) which was a tunic for wearing when doing games or gym. The summer dresses were blue check and there was a fawn blazer and a panama hat. Some of this uniform was altered to fit me when I attended in 1942 when I was 11. I was a much smaller child than Eileen and looked younger than my years whereas she looked older. I like to hear what she did at school and all about the various teachers. She told me that in Biology they had a heart hooker and used to put it down their throat, hook their heart out and inspect it!! She also taught me to do joined up writing and as the Herts and Essex had a style of their own, I did not have to change mine when I started school there. Some children wrote with loops and in a slanting direction whereas we wrote upright with no loops. Eileen used to go to the school on the train from Newport together with Betty Campbell, Jennifer Fausett and Elinead and Brianna Dillon Robinson. Brianna was a character and used to sit in the luggage rack above the seats. When I went to school, I went on the bus and cycled to the Kiora Cafe which was on the main road near the turning going to Widdington. I don’t know when the change from train to bus began.

In writing my memories about Primary School, I previously mentioned that I had written several articles for Widdington Magazine which covers this subject and you would need to read them in The Widdington Chronicles. As these have been shortened and edited, I have decided to include them in this book as I wrote them.

MEMORIES OF WIDDINGTON SCHOOL 1935 - 1942

I attended Widdington School from 1935 - 1942 and will try to remember some of the high-lights during those years. I started school when I was four - I should have been five but as I was keen to go, Miss King let me begin early. Widdington School was a red brick building consisting of one large room with a small cloakroom attached to the left-hand side of the front of the building. Entrance to the schoolroom was obtained via the cloakroom. At the top of the wall facing the Church was a stone plaque which read “Come Ye Children and Hearken Unto Me: I Will Teach You the Fear of the Lord”. This is taken from Psalm 34 verse 11 and the plaque is now embedded in the churchyard wall. The large room was divided by a huge cupboard making it into two smaller rooms, one for the infants and one for the juniors. It was heated by a solid fuel tortoise stove. Sometimes we fetched a jug of hot water from the rectory when they were doing the washing and had the copper going. We needed this to wash the milk mugs in an enamel bowl. Outside were two “toilets” for boys and girls. These were the old wooden seat and bucket

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variety which I avoided if at all possible especially in high summer!! The playground was in front of the building and there was a small piece at the back, where the boys weren’t allowed to go and the coke heap was also kept there.

The Headmistress was Miss King who came up from Newport every day by taxi and when she retired, the school closed. Miss King taught the juniors and covered a wide range of subjects. When I started, the infants teacher was Miss Pansy Frost who lived at The William the Conqueror Public House. When she left, Miss Winnie Barnet from Rook End came. There were probably about 20 children attending school but this greatly increased when the war started and evacuees joined us. I have a school photo dated 1937 and there are 14 children on this but I know of at least 5 who are missing.

At break time in the morning, we had one third of a pint of milk which, I think, was free or it may have cost a half penny. (I can’t remember.) We could also buy Cod Liver Oil and Malt at a reduced rate and a block of Gibbs Toothpaste for a halfpenny. We were encouraged to clean our teeth every day and had cards to mark if we did. We received a badge marked Ivory Castle League and a red, white and blue ribbon was added. As cards were completed we received a star which was stuck in the ribbon. I still have the badge plus my own teeth!! We also had an Ivory Castle Newspaper which was given to all children who could read. I was too young to read but said I could because I wanted a newspaper.

Christmas was an exciting time and we made our own paper chains using the coloured strips of paper which are glued at each end and one is linked to another. These were hung over the beams using a long handled mop. When I was small we had a huge Christmas Tree which was beautifully decorated and the white fluffy stuff which looked like snow took my fancy. I stole some and hid it up my knicker leg and when I got home, my mother, who didn’t miss a thing, asked me what the bulge was and made me take it back. It was harder to return it unobserved than it was to take it but it taught me a lesson.

One day, when I was returning to school after dinner, I was greeted in the playground with the cry that Hilda Smith had fallen on something and cut her head open. I didn’t want to go in the classroom and see inside Hilda’s head but when the bell went of course I had to go. Hilda sat there as large as life with a bandage round her head. I was greatly relieved that she was all right and it goes to show the lengths to which children’s imagination runs. It was the same when a relief teacher, Miss Tamplin, came one day in a car from Newport and someone had run in front of the car and she said ‘My heart went into my mouth” and I thought it had. It made me feel quite ill.

Amongst my fondest memories are the lovely nature walks we had. Miss King taught us to appreciate the countryside and everything which grew and existed in it. That is something which will always be with me.

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Sometimes we walked to the wood which is half-way between the Church and Debden Park. We walked along the cart track past the farm, turned left and eventually crossed a field by a small path to the wood. We collected as many different wild flowers as we could find and then had to learn their names. Wild flowers were in abundance everywhere and the excitement of finding a white bluebell, a bee orchid or a butterfly orchid is never forgotten. Another route was “up the lane” (Cornels Lane) to Hoy’s wood which is between the water tower and the road to Swaynes Hall but on the other side of the road. There was a path from this wood to the wood behind the Red House (Widdington House) but sometimes the path could be a bit overgrown. We also walked down “Holly Road” (Hollow Road) and I remember a boy falling in the ditch opposite Wyses Farm and the ditch was full of black sludge. I think he had to go straight home and have a bath. One Autumn we had to see how many different leaves we could collect. There were the usual Horse-Chestnut, Sycamore and Maple but as my father worked at the Red House, he found me Fig, Medlar and Quince leaves.

Miss King was a tall lady with dark hair who always wore a patterned smock to protect her clothes, and we were fortunate in having such a good teacher. We started the day by doing our charts which consisted mainly of deciding what day it was and the weather, e.g. It is Tuesday and raining. We would then draw a picture of someone with an umbrella. This was followed by Scripture which we had every day because it was a C. of E. School. We learned the Catechism by heart and also about six Psalms; numbers 8, 23, 121 and 150 come to mind. We were taught all the Bible stories and drew pictures of these and made models in plasticine or paper. We also had a repertoire of a few hymns which included “There is a green hill” and “Blessed are the pure in heart”. I can’t remember who played the piano but as this was taken away during the war, we had to manage as best we could. Our religious knowledge was tested by a Diocesan Inspector called Mr Stares. I have a Certificate, dated 6th July 1939, to say I had passed “a specially satisfactory Examination in Religious Knowledge”. This is the only one I have so maybe he didn’t come during the war. (Or maybe I failed!!)

The juniors or the “Big Side” as we were called, consisted of Standards 1 to 5. We did reading, writing and arithmetic, nature, history and geography. I remember we followed the route taken by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth when they visited Canada in 1939. We had a large map of the world on the wall and marked such places as Toronto and Quebec. We reached a high standard in arithmetic and could do fractions and decimals by the age of ten. We could work out four and a half yards of elastic at one and a half pence a yard without a calculator!! We learned to count by having spent matchsticks in bundles of 10 to form HTU (hundreds, tens and units). We also learned to knit and, as it was war time, knitted for the soldiers. We started by making a scarf on large needles with khaki wool and progressed to socks and mittens. We learned to sew and do embroidery and I remember making a white handkerchief which had to be pinned, tacked and then hemmed. In my sweaty hands, it finished up grey. We did PT in the school playground and had little oval straw mats to sit on or do various exercises. Games like rounders were played in the meadow next to the school.

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One thing which I really loved was when we did a concert which was held in The Hut and our Mums came to watch. There was large box in the school which held all sorts of dressing up clothes and we also made some costumes out of crepe paper. One year we dressed up as animals and I was a duck. My mother made a lovely costume out of yellow material and it had webbed feet which I thought was wonderful. Another time, we did the Pied Piper and learned the whole poem off by heart. With all the rats and children - there was a part for everyone.

In the summer of 1938 we went on a coach trip to Clacton that was hired from either Griffins of Debden or Moores of Saffron Walden (I can’t remember.) Miss King, the Infants’ teacher, Mr Court (the rector) and some mothers came to look after us. We played on the beach in the morning and had a picnic lunch. I had my bathing costume on under my dress but wouldn’t take my dress off. I expect I was a bit shy of exposing myself or maybe it was cold!! In the afternoon we went to a variety show on the pier and the chorus girls sang “The Umbrella Man” and twirled their umbrellas. I thought it was wonderful. I can also remember going on the Ghost Train with Mr Court. We went to a restaurant on the sea front for tea and we could either have shrimps or pineapple which were in glass dishes. I chose shrimps and don’t ask how I remember all this. I bought my mother and father a present which was an enormous stick of rock which cost about 6d. I expect they were delighted. I don’t remember the journey home - perhaps I went to sleep.

Another exciting event was the Christmas party on the last day of the Autumn term. I have already written about the paper chains we made beforehand. In the afternoon, we played games and had sandwiches, cakes and lemonade. Each child had a present and I don’t know who paid for all this but suspect it was Miss King. We didn’t go to many parties as children so an event like this was very much appreciated.

It was in the summer of 1940 when soldiers were often on manoeuvres, that a group of them, together with their lorries etc. camped near the green for a day or two and the water tap, which was on a green island in the middle of the road leading to the church. was in great demand for their ablutions. Miss King let us put on an entertainment for them and we enacted the story of Cinderella and decorated the hedge at the bottom of the playground with coloured streamers. The soldiers appeared to appreciate our efforts.

Miss King was a wonderful story teller and at the end of each afternoon, she always read to us. Sometimes it was one of her books and sometimes a book belonging to one of her pupils. I shall never forget the Dr Dolittle stories. The Push¬Me-Pull-You (the animal with a head at both ends) sparked off my imagination together with the floating island which was pushed along by porpoises. Another story was Emile and the Detectives which I think was set in Germany and sounded different to me. My sister Ruth, who is 13 years younger than me, confirms my appreciation of Miss King’s story telling, as she feels just the same. From a medical point of view, we were looked after quite well. From time to time the School Nurse came and we were

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weighed and measured and she inspected our hair. I liked the Nurse but was a bit nervous of the Doctor, who examined our chests. As a child I was very thin and small for my age and wondered what he was going to do to me to fatten me up. He suggested I had egg and milk but as my mother looked after me very well anyway and was a good cook, it didn’t seem to make much difference. I did fill out a bit when I was 19 and have filled out a bit more since then!! We all had the usual children’s illnesses, e.g. Measles, Chicken Pox, Mumps and Whooping Cough. I think it was during 1936 when a lot of us had Whooping Cough and were ill for weeks. I was immunised against Diphtheria during the war and this was the start of the prevention of all these illnesses. The School dentist came once a year with a mobile surgery in a caravan and we had our teeth filled with the old treadle drill and gas was used for extractions. We had this done during lesson time and when we came back into the classroom, we hung our mouths open and pointed to what we had done so the other children could see. Miss King told us to sit down and be quiet so we didn’t have to make a fuss. In 1940 the School Dentist was a very nice man called Mr Chamberlain who named me Pixie, which was very apt. The next year an older man came and I heard that Mr Chamberlain had gone into the Air Force.

My sister, Ruth, has related a story to me which shows what an understanding teacher Miss King was. Ruth took a rotting carcass of a bird to show her and instead of saying “take that thing out of here” she inspected it and pointed out various parts of its anatomy and talked to Ruth about it. She then suggested that it would be a good idea to bury it under the Acacia tree.

Sadly, at the end of the school year in which we were eleven we had to leave Widdington school. Pupils then went on to Newport School until they were fourteen and were taken each day by car. There was, however, an opportunity to sit for a scholarship and, if successful, the boys went to Newport Grammar School and the girls went to the Herts and Essex High School, Bishop’s Stortford. After I left Widdington School, there were many changes in my life. My eldest sister, Eileen, left home to become a children’s Nanny. I had a new baby brother and our two evacuees had gone home. I started a new school which was like another world.

I last saw Miss King in 1959, when I was staying with my mother and took my new baby to show her. I think she retired a year or two after that and the school closed. That is the end of my pre-war memories and the end of an era.

THE WAR YEARS 1939—1945

In September 1989, the 50th Anniversary of when war was declared, I wrote an article for Widdington Magazine called Outbreak of War, September 1939, which they published. I shall, therefore, start by recording this account, as I wrote it, eleven years ago.

I was eight years old and during that summer there had been talk of war and some Austrian refugees came to Widdington. I still remember their names, and some of them became friends of my Aunt Ruth. A titled lady, Mrs Von Karla and her two daughters stayed at our house for a while. I remember the daughters were very pretty and spoke perfect English.

We were all supplied with gas masks which were black and came in three sizes, small, medium and large. I had a small black one but would have liked to have had a Mickey Mouse gas mask which was brightly coloured and supplied to very small children. At school we used to practise wearing these and tried to be brave. They felt a bit hot and stuffy and when you breathed out, they made a rude noise at the side. Later on in the war, an additional filter was added which was bright green. I am thankful that we never did have a gas attack and had to wear them for real.

One Sunday afternoon we walked right to the end of Cornells Lane and along the cart track to the fields. A huge trench was being dug from left to right as far as you could see and was called a “tank trap”. I am glad that this was never put to use either and I expect it was filled in long ago.

On Sunday, September 3rd, I sat on our front door step with the cat. As a child, I spent quite a bit of time sitting there because in that elevated position, I could see right across the green and beyond, and watched everything that went up and down the road. Also the sun always shone in those days! I sat there waiting for the evacuees to arrive from the East End of London. Each house had previously been visited to see how many children they could take in. We had been recorded as having room for two girls. When the coaches arrived, they stopped outside the Hut and the occupants went in there to be sorted out. They all seemed to be mothers with small children and were allocated to various houses in the village. We didn’t have anyone at that time but later on in the war we did have two girls with us for a year. Their names were Anne Webster and Valerie McClelland. During the next week or so the mothers used to sit on the village green during the day and Widdington must have been a very bewildering place after the East End of London. I remember one lady going into the village shop and asking for some beetroot and when she found it wasn’t cooked, she didn’t want it. I didn’t know you could buy cooked beetroot. Most of the mothers soon moved back to London but three families stayed until the end of the war. As they lived quite near to us, we became very friendly. They were Jewish and I was interested in their different customs. They also introduced us to new foods such as halva, matzo and cooking oil. I was especially friendly with one family, namely Mrs Israel and her children, Godfrey, Lilly and Stanley and

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visited them once when they returned to Spitalfields, London, but that was forty years ago. I often wonder how they are.

After that memorable day in 1939 we eventually started a new term at school and life settled down but was never quite the same again. We had food rationing and when I asked my father what that meant, he said that everyone would be allocated a set amount of food. As I didn’t eat much in those days and meal times were a bit of a worry, I replied that if I couldn’t eat mine all up I would have to leave it!! However, we managed and although we didn’t have the variety of food we have today, we didn’t go hungry. (I used to long for an orange though).

We often laugh because I got married on September 3rd, but that was sixteen years later. We are still battling on!

Preparations for war were made during the summer of 1939. Mum bought a load of blackout material to make curtains as when it got dark, no lights were allowed to show. The cry of “Put that light out” was heard if a light was seen from a window or door. I have already mentioned the gas masks and Ration Books were issued for food. Sweets were in short supply and it was better when they came on ration as everyone had something even though it was only 2 ozs a week. Bread wasn’t rationed until after the war. Eventually clothes came on ration and nothing was wasted. “Make Do and Mend” was a slogan and every scrap of material, wool and paper was put to good use. When I see what is left at the end of a jumble sale today, I think of the war years when everything would have been sold. Some people had money but not enough clothing coupons and some people with large families had the coupons but no money so deals were done. There was a great trade in second hand goods. If you needed to replace household linen, you had to apply for dockets. There was The Ministry of Food, Ministry of Fuel and Power and a Ministry of everything else. Funnily, you didn’t need clothing coupons for hats.

We had enough food but there was nothing very fancy. We fared better in the country as we grew vegetables, had fruit in season and the meat ration was helped out with the odd rabbit, pigeon or dare I mention pheasant which Dad caught. Sausages tasted more of rusks and seasoning than meat, the bread had a darker texture, probably because the flour was not so refined and cakes and biscuits were only plain as there was hardly any icing sugar about. Christmas cakes were “iced” with dried milk and water. It looked all right but didn’t taste like icing. Later on in the war, America helped us out by sending dried egg and spam. Ships went in convey across the Atlantic but were often destroyed by U-boats. We never had any oranges or bananas until after the war. Milk was fetched in a can from the milk shop at Pond Mead and when I was small, Uncle Horrie was the milkman. He used to bring the milk in and put it through a filter and then measure it out. Later on, milk was brought to the house by Mrs Walters and her daughter from Quendon in a churn and measured out. Sometimes I went across the meadow at the back of our house to Mrs Campbell’s at Priors Hall Farm to get milk. I cannot remember when we stopped fetching milk and it was delivered to the door. We

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mostly drank tea during the day and cocoa when we went to bed. Very rarely we had coffee which was either ground coffee and made in a jug or Camp Coffee in a bottle. There was no instant coffee at all.

The displays in shop windows were made of cardboard as the goods inside were very depleted. The bananas were made of plaster. There were only a few toys in the shops and these were mostly lead soldiers, toy tanks and other war vehicles, books made of greyish poor quality paper, a few lead farm animals and dolls with cardboard heads and rag bodies. People made soft toys out of old coats which were also used to make rugs. The material was cut into strips and pegged through with a special tool onto a piece of sacking. Newspapers consisted of only a few pages on recycled paper.

Before Jimmy and Ruthie were born, Mum sometimes took in paying guests. They had the front bedroom and meals in the front room and she was an excellent caterer. I have her Visitors Book and it appears that Mrs Emma Karplus came in July 1939 and in August we had Mrs Von Kahler and her two daughters Lieselotte and Elfie who spoke perfect English and had been presented at Court. They were all Austrian refugees escaping the Nazi regime and came to Widdington with the help of the Tugendhats who came to Widdington in 1938. Mrs Von Kahler gave Mum lots of beautiful clothes and these were adapted for us to wear. I had a dress made out of a brown velvet evening dress which used to ride up inside my coat and I would be walking with my knickers showing. Mum made a nightdress for herself out of the lining. I used to walk about in the bedroom wearing blue and white high heeled satin court shoes about six sizes too big for me. I also still have some trinkets which they gave us. There are two small wooden clogs with Bruges written on them, a very small leather shoe decorated with red wool and a little leather note case with a badge on the front saying TURIET u BARDACH, VIENNA. There were other Austrian ladies in the village and Mrs Kelvin and her friend Olga came to work as cook and maid for Mrs Dillon-Robinson. They later went to work away in a school and Aunt Ruth corresponded with them for many years. There was Mrs Karbash and her son Rudi who was interned, also Mrs Kalivoda (I have no idea how you spell it). They were all musical and some were marvellous pianists. Getting back to the Visitors Book, Mr and Mrs Walters came at the end of August but it doesn’t say whether it was 1939 or 1940. I don’t remember them but they came from Hampstead. Mr and Mrs Matthews came for five weeks in the Autumn of 1940, their address being Newbiggin Street, Thaxted and they wrote “Five lovely weeks spent here never to be forgotten owing to the kindness of Mr and Mrs Jim Stalley”. In November 1940, Mr and Mrs Bookman from Cricklewood came but I cannot remember anything about them. Then Mr and Mrs Goldstein from Golder’s Green came for two weeks to December 1st. I think they were acquaintances of Mrs Israel, a Jewish lady who came as an evacuee and lived two doors away. They were an elderly couple and their daughter-in-law came to stay during the winter, probably January 1941 as there was snow about, to have her baby. While she was carrying the baby, she had lived through the London Blitz and spent a lot of time in Air Raid Shelters and the hospital booked for her confinement

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was bombed. It was arranged she would stay with us and Mum would look after her. She was very nice and used to sing and Mum would whistle the latest songs. She had made beautiful clothes for the baby - little embroidered gowns and of course everyone knitted little matinee coats and booties. One day she had a spurt of energy and was outside sweeping the snow. During the night, things started to happen and Mum waded up the road through the snow to Hoys as they had a telephone and she needed the District Nurse. The baby was born during the day. Nurse was with Mrs Goldstein and I heard a scream and Nurse banged on the floor for Mum’s help so I ran to the shed to get her. A little boy was born but sadly he only lived a few days. Mum said he looked blue and they tried to get him to feed. He was called Michael and is buried in Widdington Churchyard next to the yew trees where the still born babies were buried. His father, who was in the Air Force, came, and Mr Court came to see them. Michael was a little Jewish baby and I probably am the only person who remembers him, apart from his family, so that is why I have recorded this. About eighteen months later, they had another little boy called Martin (I think) and he was well.

A Mr and Mrs Cheverst came to stay in July 1943 from Muswell Hill but I do not remember them at all. That seems to be the end of the visitors. At the back of the book, Mum has recorded the childhood illnesses of Jimmy and Ruthie and dates of various immunisations. She has also written “Money make the household but only one the home.”

After the first flush of activity when war was declared, things settled down for about a year. Then we had Dunkirk in the summer of 1940. I remember Aunt Ruth pointing to maps in the newspapers showing how our troops in France could be cut off by advancing German forces. There was a mass evacuation from Dunkirk beaches from May 27th to June 4th to bring our men home across the Channel and every available small boat was used to do this. Then in September 1940 London was Blitzed and we had the Battle of Britain. The bombing in London was terrible and Aunt Ruth went with the Dillon-Robinson family to London to do domestic work for them. Cdr. Dillon-Robinson worked at the Admiralty and they took a flat in Dolphin Square. I was so worried about Aunt Ruth and pleased when she returned to Widdington because the bombing was so bad. Today there are many books showing photographs of the devastation at that time and people used to go down the Underground to sleep at night. They took blankets and tea and there was a wonderful air of comradeship about. In times of trouble, people tend to be nicer to each other. They speak and help where they can and the natural English reserve is broken down. Widdington had some stray bombs which were meant for Debden Aerodrome. Some incendiary bombs fell in the fields but fortunately the corn had been cut so there was only the stubble to burn. There were some whistling or screaming bombs which sounded frightening as they came down. One night Aunt Ruth was returning to Spring Hill as she “lived in” and one of these came down. As she leapt into a ditch a man called out “Gawd help yer gal, ‘cos I can’t” God did help her and she got back safely. Sometimes we would walk to a field to look at a bomb crater. We also had a Soldiers Searchlight camp in the village. This was in the field opposite Wyses Farm at first

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and then they moved to the field next to Shiptons Farm where there is a double bend in the road. There were several wooden huts where they lived and of course the Searchlights and I think they were there for the duration of the war. This made great excitement for the young ladies of the village. (I was too young). I know of two weddings which resulted in these young people getting together namely Floss Chipperfield and Ken Spall, also Grace Canning and Mr. Quinnell. After Jimmy was born in 1942 and Mum no longer wanted to keep our dog Toby, the soldiers took him in and gave him a home.

As well as the London Blitz, Thursday 14th November 1940 was the night of the “Baedecker” raid when German planes attacked five of our Cathedral cities. The hardest hit was Coventry. The Cathedral was destroyed together with over 60,000 buildings and 550 people were killed. Our Hurricanes and Spitfires defended our country and eventually after nine months Hitler ordered the war effort to be diverted to Russia. 48,000 Londoners were killed or wounded during the Blitz and thousands made homeless. We must not forget that as many innocent lives were also sacrificed in Berlin. War is terrible and Hitler and his cronies had a lot to answer for.

I think it must have been 1941 when Dad was called up and went into the Air Force. His number was 1134702. When he went for his medical aged 35 he was passed as A1 which was surprising. He was trained as a Flight Mechanic and was sent to Morecambe. I used to write to him and make him a calendar for each month. He sent me some sweets which looked like sea shells and I had never seen these before. He also told me that he had seen the sun, the moon and the stars all shining at the same time. We had Double British Summer Time in the war and probably round about the longest day, it was not dark for long up in Lancashire. Later on he was moved to Yorkshire and the Airfields near Thirsk. He used to talk of Lancaster bombers as he had to see to these when they returned from raids. One night I went to bed in the front bedroom with Mum and woke up in the back bedroom with Eileen. Dad had come home as he had been in hospital to have a vein stripped from his leg. He was sent home by train and walked from Newport station during the night. Some time during 1942 he was discharged from the Air Force as medically unfit. I have now come across his calling up papers and also discharge papers which are dated 3rd April 1942.

During 1941, when Dad was in the Air Force, we had two evacuees living with us. Anne Webster was 10, my age, and she had been living with Mrs Nora Carmichael. Her brother, Peter, aged 8, stayed with Mrs Pettitt, the Blacksmith’s wife and their cousin John was with Mrs Askey on Spring Hill. I got on very well with Anne and was sorry when she did not return to us after going home to Isleworth for the Christmas holidays. Mum was pregnant with Jimmy so had enough on her plate. The last time I saw Anne was on the train going to London. Dad, who was on leave, and I got out at Bishop’s Stortford and he found a lady on the train to look after Anne until they reached Liverpool Street Station where her mother would meet her. You would not dare do that today as there are so many nasty characters about. Anne and I wrote

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to each other until we were about 16 when we left school. This story has a happy ending because we have been able to meet up again. Her cousin, John Mitchell, visited Widdington and wrote an article for the Widdington Magazine and the Editor very kindly gave me his address and telephone number. As a result, I contacted Anne and she came to see me last Spring in 1999. She now lives in Hampshire. We married within a week of each other and both have two daughters. The other evacuee was Valerie McClelland who was 7. Her family had moved to Widdington and lived in a cottage at Wood End. Her married sister lived at Newport. Eventually the parents moved back to London, Valerie came to us and her two elder brothers went elsewhere. Valerie wasn’t with us as long as Anne was.

With all the families being evacuated from London, the number of pupils at Widdington School doubled in size. We all had to carry our gas masks with us. They were in a square cardboard box which was put in a case made of American cloth. Some of the boys had theirs in a metal cylindrical type case with which they used to slosh each other. An Air Raid Shelter was built in the school playground but we never had to use it. Before it was built, we used to shelter under our desks but no bombs were dropped near us. Eventually things quietened down and school returned to normal. The boys used to play games pretending they were hurricanes and spitfires and made noises like machine guns.

One evening at the beginning of 1942, I was in bed and we had an air raid so I was allowed to come downstairs. Mum and Eileen were sitting in front of the fire knitting baby clothes and I looked in wonderment. Dad was away in the Air Force. Mum then told me she was going to have a baby and I was surprised as I was eleven years old but I was also quite excited. Lots of preparations were made during the next few months as the baby was going to be born at home. The District Nurse whose name, I think, was Nurse Dutton but we called her “Nurse”, was wonderful. She worked so hard and was always cheerful. Dr Brown would be in attendance if needed. Mum and Eileen knitted matinee coats and after the birth Mum made little rompers and embroidered french knots round the hems. She had a large rubber sheet for the bed and Mrs Stanley, across the road, did the laundry. A maroon coloured pram was bought and my cot was in action again. She prepared a baby’s basket which contained the talcum powder, vaseline, cotton wool, zinc and castor oil ointment, brush and all the other paraphernalia.

Mum’s babies were kept spotless and one thing she did, which I copied when I had my babies, was the routine for cleaning eyes. She dissolved a few Boracic crystals in an egg cup of warm water and cleaned the baby’s eyes with swabs of cotton wool dipped in this. She had no cotton buds so made little twirls of cotton wool to clean noses. Mum was 36, which was getting on a bit in those days, when Jimmy (Maurice James Walter) was born June 8th 1942, weighing 6 1/2lbs. Mum said he looked like a little rosebud but I thought he looked a bit red and shrivelled. There were no complications with the birth and Granny, Eileen and Aunt Ruth kept things going at home. I was still at Widdington school and Eileen was working as a teacher at Waterside Prep. School at Bishop’s Stortford. Vera Lynn was singing “The White

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Cliffs of Dover”. It seemed strange having a baby in the house after there being just Eileen and me for so long. However things settled down and I remember Jimmy cried a lot at first until Mum put him on the bottle and used the same formula as she had used for me and that was when I recalled the fishy smell of emulsion. Jimmy was wheeled round the village in his pram and we all helped with this. Dad had been discharged from the Air Force so was back working up Mrs Medley’s. About this time, Dad and I went to Bishop’s Stortford and he saw some grapes in a shop which was a rare sight. He would have liked to have bought some for Mum but on enquiring the price it was £1 per pound. Compared with todays values, this would be at least £50 which was well beyond his pocket.

1941/42 was my last year at Widdington School and there was the opportunity to sit for a scholarship to attend the Herts and Essex High School at Bishop’s Stortford. Miss King put my name forward so at the beginning of 1942 I went to South Road School at Saffron Walden to sit for the entrance exam. I was the only girl from Widdington and didn’t know a soul when I got there. Mum arranged for little Auntie to take me and we went in Hoy’s taxi. Little Auntie visited her relatives until I was ready to come home. We did arithmetic which I liked and had to write an essay and the subject I chose was “My Rabbit”. I survived this ordeal and the next stage was to attend an interview at the Herts and Essex High School. This involved reading a piece to the Headmistress and answering questions. Eileen came with me and impressed upon me not to speak with an Essex accent. I must have sounded like Eliza Dolittle and The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain. Fortunately, I passed so started at the Herts and Essex in September 1942. Eileen had left the year before and as I have mentioned, was working at Waterside School and used to cycle to Bishop’s Stortford everyday. She taught the youngest boys and was very good at her job. However, she decided on a change, so after a year she left home and got a post as a Nanny at Fenstanton to look after Martin and Diana. She hadn’t been there long when she met Colin. By then, she would have been 18.

All too soon it was time for me to leave Widdington School in the summer of 1942. Miss King had been a good teacher and I just ran across the green to school. Life was very different when I started at the Herts and Essex and I had to cycle to the main road and catch a bus to Bishop’s Stortford. I had my cousin Mollie for company as she had been there for two years before me. We only went to school in the morning as Clapton County High School from London shared our school, because of the Blitz, and went in the afternoon. We had to go Saturday mornings and also had homework. I soon settled down and was very happy there and made friends. Eileen had left home and I missed her so much. Every five weeks she came home for a long weekend and I really looked forward to this. Eileen brought Colin home to stay for Christmas 1942 and we awaited their arrival. When the taxi drew up, Mum flew upstairs, I hid behind the front room door and Aunt Ruth greeted Colin with “I expect you are on strange ground”. Eventually, Mum appeared and I was dragged out and introduced and Colin remembers a creature with arms and legs flying and someone saying “This is Daphne”. I kept showing him my boxes of reels of cotton and embroidery silks saying “Which one do

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you like best?” which has become a family joke.

The attack on Pearl Harbour was December 1941 which brought the USA into the war. During the middle war years fighting was going on in the Far East, the Middle East including Libya, also Italy and of course the Russian front. Some European countries were occupied by German forces. Our troops were sent to India and Burma. Singapore, Java and other Islands were taken over by the Japanese. A good part of the whole world was at war. China and Japan had been fighting for years and there had been the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s. The countries in Europe which remained neutral were Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and Southern Ireland. Debden Aerodrome was taken over by the Americans and were often seen driving about in their Jeeps. When daylight raids were made on Germany towards the end of the war, we could hear the engines of their Bombers, possibly Marauders, Flying Fortresses and Typhoons, warming up in the early hours of the morning. The Yanks, as they were called, seemed to have a supply of candy, nylons etc. which attracted some girls. Children used to say “Have you got any gum chum?” and Americans had more money to spend than British Servicemen.

As time went on, Mum found she was pregnant again and Ruthie (Ruth Millicent) was born 26th April 1944. Again, the birth was at home and Nurse and Dr Terry (a lady) were in attendance. Mum was 38 and her labour was long and drawn out. Something seemed to have “got stuck” but then the Doctor (I think), moved something and Ruthie was born weighing 7½lbs with a funny shaped head which soon righted itself. I kept Jimmy, who was only 22 months old, amused in the back meadow whilst all this was going on and he tells me he remembers as he was bored and so was I as well as being worried sick. I was 13 years old and helped at home as did Granny and Aunt Ruth. I think it was Easter School Holidays. Ruthie was fed on Oster Milk and Mum had a hard time coping with everything. Washing clothes took ages and there were shortages to contend with as well as rationing and she was not a young woman. Today, lots of women don’t start their families until late 30s but housework with all the mod. cons, is so much easier. I used to help Mum as much as I could and walked miles round the village with Ruthie in the pram and Jimmy sitting on a board on the end. Ruthie used to throw all the covers out and sit there whistling and I would have the covers tucked under my arm as well as pushing the pram. I had real training for when I had my own family and I feel as if I have been washing up all my life!!

Doing my homework wasn’t always easy for me as I had a lot to do especially during the last two years at school. When the war ended, Clapton County High School went back to London so we went to school all day and no Saturdays. Everything went on in our back kitchen and I could either do my homework after Jimmy and Ruthie went to bed and I had helped to bath them, or I sat at the other end of the table and risked soap suds landing on what I had written. In summer I could sit on the front door step or go to my bedroom, when I had the little room, and sit side saddle at the dressing table. Poems were often learnt

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sitting on the bus. I somehow managed to cope with all this as I had youth on my side. I did quite well at school and have very happy memories. We wore school uniform, which hadn’t changed much since Eileen started, and because of war time, I had a mixture of new, second hand and altered clothes as everyone else did. I was also in Hart House to follow Eileen.

Apart from school uniform, I have been thinking about what I wore when I was about 9 or 10. We had vests and liberty bodices, called stays, which had one suspender on each side. These were supposed to keep my nigger brown stockings up but they were always in wrinkles. (We were allowed to say “nigger brown” in those days). I had two pairs of fleecy lined knickers, one pink and one blue, with elastic in the legs and a pocket in which to keep my piece of rag. These were changed every week!! I had a navy blue gym slip and wore a jumper underneath. Mum made me a coat which was fawn astrakhan and the original had belonged to Aunt Mag. I had knitted myself a blue pixie hood, which was the latest fashion, and I probably looked a sight but I was quite happy. I had a decent coat and knitted hat to wear on Sundays and probably a dress. I didn’t like new clothes and preferred to be inconspicuous. Sometimes Mum curled my hair each side near my ears with curling tongs if I was going somewhere special and I hated this. In summer I wore a dress, white rayon socks, which easily made holes, and sandals. In winter I wore shoes or wellingtons and loved walking in ditches. Mum was very good at needlework and could make clothes, either from new material or converting from another garment. Everyone knitted and old wool jumpers were unpicked, the wool made into skeins, washed to straighten the wool and then re-knitted. I still did this years after the war ended.

Another thing I helped Mum with when I was about 13 and 14 was the shopping. We were registered at Newport Co-op and our rations were delivered each Tuesday. We had points for various tinned items and I used to cycle to Newport and choose what to have. Sometimes I asked for Golden Syrup and they looked in a book to see if it was our turn. On the subject of rations, I have come across two Ration Books which belonged to Dad for the years 1952/53 and 1953/54. There is also his Identity Card. Everyone had to register at the beginning of the war and we all had cards with a number. My number was DDWH 71/3 which is the number on my Medical Card. Saturday afternoons I went on the bus to Saffron Walden and it was 6d Return for a child. I had to go to Boots to get the Oster Milk, Gripe Water, Glucose, Magnesia, Cotton Wool and all the other things babies need. I liked to look round Woolworths but couldn’t buy much a) because I had hardly any money and b) most things were rationed. Widdington had their own special bus and there was only one hour to do the shopping. Some people had gone earlier, after dinner, to the pictures and came home on the bus when the matinee ended. They would have had to walk to the Bridge to catch the earlier bus as it did not come into the village. Cinemas were always full and Saffron Walden had two in those days.

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Everyone used to sing during the war and there were some wonderful songs. I used to sit in the lavatory belting these out - There’ll Always be an England, Run Rabbit Run, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Bless Them All, We’ll Meet Again and so on. Roy Simmonds, next door, would say “Hark at that ode gal Stalley”. I associate “Bless Them All” with Dad and “When the Lights Come on Again” cheered us up because this was all the rage in the last stages of the war. There was also a song called “Only 5 minutes more - let me stay in your arms” which was popular when I was 14. I mustn’t forget Vera Lynn, who was called The Forces Sweetheart because she entertained the troops, and husbands and wives and courting couples will always remember her songs. Another two songs which come to mind are “Lilli Marlene” and “You Are My Sunshine”. Sometimes the soldiers at the camp used to put on a show in the Hut. They sung, did sketches, I think one could draw and they had many talents between them and I really enjoyed these shows. Any entertainment was appreciated in the village to liven up these dreary times. Sometimes there was a fete and prizes were National Savings Stamps, also a Mock Auction where you bid and bought stamps and also had the item you bid for which villagers had given.

When I was about 12, Nanny Payne, Tugendhat’s Nanny, started up the GFS (Girls’ Friendly Society). We used to meet in the Hut once a week and do handicrafts, learn to smock, play games and socialise together. As it was affiliated to the Church, we sang a hymn and said a prayer. Sometimes we went to a Festival in Saffron Walden Church, also Chelmsford Cathedral and once, when I was 15, we went to The Albert Hall. This would be 1946, after the war. I remember we did a concert and Mrs Bass and Mrs Briner coached us. We sang “Where my Caravan has Rested” and dressed up as gypsies. This was very exciting. Aunt Ruth and May Chipperfield also used to belong to the GFS but I think they were called Helpers. When Nanny Payne moved away, Miss Binckes took over the job of running the GFS and we used to meet in her bungalow in the latter years and play cards. By that time, we had grown up, got married, some had left the village and the whole thing fizzled out.

When I was about 12 or 13, I was in the Church Choir. We wore the veils which Mrs Court had made. Miss Binckes used to play the Church organ and once we sang an Anthem - Lord, How Manifold, How Manifold are Thy Works. In May 1945 I was Confirmed in Saffron Walden Church. There were about six of us girls from Widdington and we had attended lessons with Mr Court. There were probably some boys but we were kept apart. I wore Eileen’s confirmation dress, the choir veil and white socks and brown sandals. One girl from another village was dressed up like a bride. Nanny Payne gave me a little book called The Daily Light - a Bible Reading for each day and I still have this. Nanny wrote in the front of the book - Daphne Stalley. In Commemoration of her Confirmation from R. Payne. GFS 24/5/45. In those days I mostly went to Church Sunday morning to Morning Prayer. Sometimes I went to “The 8 o’clock” as Mum called it, with Mum, which was Holy Communion. During the war, because of the blackout, Evensong was held in the Hut during the Winter months.

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When I was about 10 years old, Sunday school was held in the Chapel and was run by Miss Banks who was a dressmaker. We used to hear about Missionaries in Africa and children suffering from Leprosy. Mr Smith was the Chapel Minister who sometimes preached and his wife played the organ or harmonium with her little legs flying up and down the pedals. Each week we were given a small text and I loved these as they had pictures of birds or flowers on them plus a verse from the Bible. When we had 12 we got a large text to hang up. When we had 3 of these we could have a Bible or Prayer Book. I had a Prayer Book which I still have dated 14/6/42.

I have been trying to think if there was any other excitement on the go but each day was much the same. I went to school and we had to work hard. We had a long day as I left home at 8 o’clock to cycle to Newport to catch the bus and did not return home until 5 pm. I then had lots of homework to do in the evenings and weekend. I was very happy at the Herts and Essex, made friends and joined in with whatever was going. I loved it if we did a play as I enjoyed acting and being on the stage. I also liked to play the piano and had a few lessons with Mrs Bass. She used to play the mandolin and taught me to read music. I would have loved to have had proper lessons as I more or less had to teach myself but it gave me great pleasure. When I wasn’t at school I had to help Mum a lot in the house and look after Jimmy and Ruthie. I liked to go up and see Granny and Grandad as they always made me welcome and I loved it if Aunt Ruth came to tea and also when Eileen came home for her long weekend. Any activity in the village was an added bonus and occasionally I went to the pictures.

I always enjoyed my outings with Aunt Ruth when we went to Saffron Walden. Sometimes we went to the Museum and inside was a large stuffed elephant. I loved seeing all the exhibits and the lay-out has altered so much since those far off days. Sometimes we went to Fry’s Gardens (called Bridge End Gardens) and I loved walking round the little paths and climbing the metal steps to stand on a platform amongst the fir trees. Considering it was war time, it was kept in good order. There was a vegetable garden but the maze was locked up. We usually went into a cafe to have a cup of tea. I remember there was a restaurant behind the Co-op grocery and we would have beans on toast and sometimes we went to The Copper Kettle for tea. We looked round the shops and there was one called “The Bombed Out Shop” which sold all sorts of things. I bought a small tin which contained a few first aid items. The man said it didn’t contain any ointment and said “The best ointment around is lard”. I still have this tin and kept hair pins and metal hair curlers in it before the days of perms. Every night when we went to bed, we put these hair curlers in. In the morning you combed it out and if it was a wet and damp morning, I need not say what happened after I had cycled two miles to Newport to catch the bus.

Sometimes I would go for a walk with Granny up to the wood and once we went up Cornells Lane. We had gone passed the turning to Mole Hall and Swaynes Hall, when we

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came across hundreds of baby frogs crossing the road from a ditch. I was so taken up with these that I gathered a bag full and took them home and made a place for them at the top of the garden. I don’t remember the outcome but I expect they all leapt away into the meadow at the back of our house. Granny would have said ’’Well, I never” which was one of her expressions. Granny would have been in her early 60s then.

I have already mentioned going to the Co-op at Newport to choose what to have with our points for other food apart from the basic rations. One week Mum wanted me to go to Holgates, the Drapers, in Newport to get some Sanitary Towels. “Don’t you dare buy those made of compressed paper, they fall to bits. I want those made with cotton wool”, she said. I had not started to need such things but went into the shop and asked the sour prune for Mum’s requirements. The Sanitary Towels she wanted were in short supply and I was shown some which I knew would not meet with her approval. Miss Holgate ripped open the box, took a towel out, dragged it apart and said “What is that made of?”. When I said “Compressed paper”, she gave such a snort and I made a quick retreat. I was in a no win situation as I was sandwiched between Mum’s wrath and Miss Holgate’s sarcasm. I did not go in there again.

In Widdington, during the war, we had the Home Guard. These were men too old to be called up or were in reserved occupations. They did fire watching from the top of the water tower and generally kept an eye on things. We had ARP wardens who cycled through the village blowing a whistle when there was a raid. Later, we had sirens which probably came from Newport and if I hear that noise in films it still gives me a horrible feeling. The warning siren wailed up and down and the all clear was a clear signal all on one note which sounded such a relief. We were shown how to use a stirrup pump to put out fires, we collected metal which would be turned into aeroplanes etc. for the war effort. We collected waste paper and if you went shopping, you took your own paper or bag. We picked rose hips which were made into rose hip syrup for babies.

Another group of people who were around during the war and a few years afterwards, were the Land Girls or Women’s Land Army - they tend to get forgotten. They worked on the farms as many of the young men had been called up to go into the forces. I remember Miss Toomey who lodged with Mrs Hall up Cornells Lane. She used to come to the GFS. They wore a uniform which consisted of breeches, a thick woollen jumper, cotton shirt and a hat. They worked very hard and I remember Colin saying some were employed at the Nurseries at Galley Hill. One job was picking frozen Brussels sprouts in the middle of winter and their hands got so cold, they cried with the pain.

We still celebrated Christmas but in a quieter more simple way. Granny gave me the last of her decorations to put up, which we did each year. Sometimes Aunt Ruth bought me a Christmas Tree which I decorated with real coloured candles in little metal holders. I filled the stockings for Jimmy and Ruthie and loved doing it. Mum always cooked a nice dinner and managed a few extra treats. Sometimes Granny and Grandad came to dinner, also Little

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Auntie. One year May Chipperfield and family came on Boxing Day and once Aunt Ruth stayed the night. That year she gave me the white china dog with black spots which I had so admired in her trunk of ornaments. When I was about 14, I had a chemistry set which I really wanted. Eileen and Colin used to come and stay and they always bought me lovely books. I loved Enid Blyton and used to have Sunny Stories which came out about once a fortnight.

In 1944 we went to Floss Chipperfield’s wedding. She married Ken Spall from the soldiers’ camp and I loved seeing all the preparations. Aunt Ruth and I went up to Aunt Annie’s house, Floss’s mother, and saw the bridesmaid’s dresses which were blue. Little Anne Chipperfield who was about 3 wore a poke bonnet. The reception was in the Hut - sandwiches and cakes - and I thought it was all very exciting. They were also singing “When the Lights come on Again”. We had probably had D Day when our troops went over to France and started pushing the Germans back and there was a glimmer of hope that one day the war would end. According to the Hutchinson Encyclopedia, US soldiers landed on the Normandy coast on 6th June, 1944 the beginning of the Allied invasion of Europe. It was one of the largest and most complex movements of men and equipment in history and involved, British, US and Canadian troops.

In writing about the war years, one of the most prominent men at that time was Winston Churchill, who was the Prime Minister of a Coalition Government. He inspired the whole nation with his famous speech “We shall fight them on the beaches and we shall never surrender”. There were many dark days during the war but this man kept us going and was seen going about his business wearing a siren suit and smoking a cigar. When the war ended, there was an Election and he stood for the Conservative Party and the slogans were “Help Him to Finish the Job”. Surprisingly, Mr Atlee of the Labour Party was our Prime Minister and I think people wanted Social Reform and a better world for the working classes. The birth of the National Health Service was in 1948.

The Battle of Arnhem was an airborne operation by the Allies 17th - 26th September 1944 to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, thereby opening the way for a thrust towards the Ruhr. It was only partially successful and sadly there were 7,600 casualties. One day, when I was sitting in school in an upstairs classroom, a great number of aeroplanes went by towing gliders. The teacher interrupted her lesson so we could watch and explained they were carrying troops and subsequently we learn from history, they were going to Arnhem.

The bombing of Dresden by the Allies on the night 13-14 February, 1945 in a massive air raid, created the worst firestorm of the war. There were 8 square miles of devastation. Meanwhile, Britain was being bombarded by German flying bombs in 1944 and 1945. Many thousands were killed in air raids on London using the VI, also called Doodle Bug and Buzz Bomb which was powered by a simple kind of jet engine. You heard the horrid drone of the engine and saw flames coming out of the back and knew you were safe whilst hearing the noise. It was when the engine cut out that people waited for the crash and resulting devastation. Then came the V2 which was a rocket bomb with a preset guidance system - the first long range ballistic missile. These were deadly because you could not hear them coming so could not take cover.

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The launching ramps for these deadly weapons were across the Channel. I remember going into our back garden and seeing a Doodle Bug fly over and shall never forget the horrid noise it made. I don’t remember where it crashed but it missed Widdington.

As our Allies advanced through Germany and we read reports in the papers, one of the most horrific accounts was when the British troops liberated Belsen on 13th April 1945. Belsen was a Nazi Concentration Camp in Lower Saxony and when our troops entered the camp they found several thousand bodies laying around and the remaining inmates were barely alive. It was the first camp to be liberated by the Allies. Regarding Berlin, air raids and conquest by the Soviet Army 23rd April - 2nd May 1945 destroyed much of the city. Hitler committed suicide as Berlin fell. During the war, I read in the paper that it was Hitler’s birthday and he was 50+ and in my innocence I thought he was old and would soon die and the war would end. The war finally ended 8th May 1945 and there was much rejoicing. We were so pleased that the war in Europe had ended and most of the people in the village attended a social evening and dance in the Hut. Mum and Dad came over and I remember doing the Conga round the green. An American service man gave us a ride in his lorry through the village and we were so happy and excited. However, the war with Japan still carried on for a few more months until the USA dropped Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan surrendered in August 1945. We had not heard of Atomic Bombs and there was utter devastation. We lost one man from the village during the war - Mark Hollis who was Sir Claud’s son. Leonard Duller was taken prisoner and I remember how pleased people were when he came home. Another man, Mr Hall, escaped, and made his way home via Spain. You never forget the evil of war and when I see a swastika, it fills me with foreboding.

When the war ended, there was another light at the end of the tunnel and that was Eileen’s and Colin’s wedding on 30th June 1945. I found the preparations very exciting. Eileen had her wedding dress made and Joyce and I were bridesmaids and we went to Cambridge to buy the dresses. Joyce was in blue and I was in pink with matching head dresses. Mum made the wedding cake in the oven on the paraffin cooker and Jim Cooper and family iced it. Mrs Israel managed to get a lemon, costing 6d, when she went up to London, to use in the icing. Colin’s cousin George was Best Man. The wedding was in Widdington Church and Aunt Ruth looked after Ruthie, who was only a year old, whilst we were there. I used to tease Jimmy and say he had got to be a Page and wear a ruffle round his neck. He used to get cross and fortunately for him, he didn’t have to go through the ordeal. Eileen’s bouquet was red carnations and bouquets were much larger then and hung right down the front of the dress. Joyce and I had pink carnations and blue delphiniums. A car load of Colin’s relatives arrived from Hilton to attend the wedding and everything went according to plan. The reception was held at home and Mum did all the catering. I always associate orange blossom with Eileen’s wedding as it was in full bloom at that time. Someone managed to get a film so a few photographs were taken - there was no official photographer. Eileen and Colin went to London for their Honeymoon and then lived with Colin’s parents at Park Villa,

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Hilton until Colin was able to live in the bungalow which went with his job at the Nurseries at Galley Hill. The Nurseries were at the cross roads between St Ives and Hilton and Cambridge and Huntingdon. The Nurseries grew vegetables and tomatoes and I think Colin was made Foreman and the bungalow was next to the Nurseries. It all looks so different today and appears to be a broiler house business and the bungalow is hardly visible from the road when passing by in the car.

Getting back to farms, another group of men who worked on the farms were Italian prisoners of war. They wore a special uniform with round patches stitched on it and they lodged with the farmers. Later on, German prisoners of war did the same thing and sometimes joined in with village social events. German prisoners of war were very clever at making wooden toys and Colin gave some of these to Jimmy and Ruthie which he obtained from those working at Mr Price’s Nursery.

It was during the war that we were immunised against diphtheria as this was sometimes a fatal disease for children. We had the usual coughs and colds and influenza. According to the Encyclopedia, penicillin was around from 1941 but I don’t remember it being prescribed until many years later. There were M & B tablets but I don’t know what they actually were but they were large and Ruthie had them as she suffered with bad throats.

Tuberculosis, formerly known as Consumption, was infectious and mostly eventually fatal during the 1930s and early 1940s. Patients were given good food and fresh air was recommended. Will and Annie Chipperfield’s son, Cyril, had T.B. and lived in a wooden chalet in their garden. He was brother to Ted, Joe and Floss who were Dad’s second cousins. I do not remember him. During the early 1950s, the chalet was transferred to our garden and Aunt Ruth lived in it for a few years. According to the Encyclopedia, a vaccine, BCG was developed around 1920 and the first antituberculosis drug, streptomycin in 1944. Mum has recorded in her Visitor’s Book that Ruthie had a BCG vaccination in 1958. This became routine procedure for all school children.

I had Chicken Pox when I was 10 and I didn’t feel ill but wasn’t allowed to go to school and kept away from other children. I was upset because I couldn’t go May Singing and watched them all going up the road with their crosses covered in Spring flowers. I didn’t have Mumps until I was 20 which I caught off Ruthie. I felt ill for a few days but had to be off work for 3 weeks as I was in quarantine. Colds were treated with Vic Vapour Rub (Vic Brand as Mum called it), Camphorated Oil, Cough Mixture and gargling with TCP. I used to suffer from chilblains on my feet as there were no fur boots around during the war. After cycling 2 miles to Newport, sitting on an unheated bus to Bishop’s Stortford, I was frozen by the time I got to school.

Sometimes the radiators weren’t very hot in school as there was a shortage of fuel. The boilers were heated by coke. At home, we had no heat in the bedrooms and in winter the frost

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would make patterns on the windows. We had water bottles or a hot brick wrapped in an old jumper. We wore bed socks and cardigans on top of our nightdresses to keep warm. Looking back, we kept quite well on the whole. The school dentist used to come from time to time and did fillings, the old painful way with no pain killing injection, and the treadle drill, extractions and “regulations” which meant teeth to be straightened. I needed a tooth extracted as it stuck right out (inherited from the Ketteridge side of the family) but they wouldn’t do it and I waited until I went out to work. The gap soon closed up.

I mentioned May Singing and I wrote an article for Widdington Magazine in 1988 explaining what we did on that day. I will include that article as it was written then. They asked if we could record the May Song on tape, which as you remember, we did at Ethel and Tom’s Golden Wedding party. We all had hysterics but managed to sing without any interruptions. On reflection, it would have been lovely if we had recorded our hysterical laughter as well. I still have the tape and listened to it this year May 1st 2000.

LETTER FROM DAPHNE BRIDGEMAN (NEE STALLEY) NOV. 1988

I was born in Widdington in 1931 and lived there until I married in 1955 but came back regularly to visit my mother until she died in 1979. I still come to the Churchyard to visit my father’s and mother’s grave which is on the right-hand side as you go in the lych gate - James Alfred Stalley and Queenie May Stalley.

By various means, I usually get a copy of the Widdington magazine and was interested to read the May singing article in the June issue. I was one of the May Singers during the war and shall never forget the excitement we felt on getting up very early to start the singing before we went to school, then again in the dinner break and we finished our visits to every house in the village when we came out of school. Of course there were not so many houses in the village then. I don’t know what the doll in the hoop represented - we never questioned things like that but accepted that was how things were done. My Aunt Doris, most years, did the hoops and we made our own crosses. These were two pieces of wood nailed together, the back of which was covered with greenery. We picked bluebells, paigles (oxslips), cowslips and cuckoos (purple orchids) and made these into small bunches which were tied to the front of the cross.

Years later when my young brother and sister went May Singing I had the pleasure of helping my Mother do this for them. One year I had chicken pox and couldn’t join the May Singers but sat on our front door step and watched them go by. As I didn’t feel ill, I wasn’t very pleased about this. The song we sang went like this:-

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I’ve been a rambling all this night

And sometime of this day

And now returning back again

I’ve brought you a branch of May

A branch of May, my dear I say

Before your door I stand

‘Tis but a sprout, but it’s well budded out

By the works of our Lord’s hand

The hedges and the fields so green

As green as any leaf

Our heavenly Father watered them

With his heavenly dew so sweet

And now my song is almost done

I can no longer stay

God bless you all both great and small

I wish you a joyful May.

When I went to the Herts and Essex, we had longer school holidays than the village school. It was my great delight if Miss King sent a message to see if I would help out and teach the infants because for some reason the usual infants Teacher was unavailable. I loved doing this and at that time wanted to be a school teacher when I left school. Quite often suitable young girls were used to teach infants even though they had not been to a training college but all that has changed.

It was 1945 when we had a fete in the village and there was a fancy dress parade. I went as Snow White and Mum made me a dress with a velvet bodice. Jimmy was dressed as a dwarf and Dad made him a wooden pick axe out of a piece of apple wood. Someone made a cine film of this event and when it was shown in the Hut I was amazed to see us on film. I was 14 and Jimmy was 3

In August 1945 I went to stay at Hilton where Eileen and Colin were living with Colin’s parents at Park Villa. During this week, Japan surrendered on 14th August as a result of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war at last ended. I joined in with the celebrations in the village. There were races on the green and I was going great guns until someone touched me whilst running and I was thrown off balance and went flying. Eileen and Colin were watching from Mrs Britten’s window. They had a piano playing at the cross roads and someone brought a drum set. After a lot of fiddling about he packed it up so that was a

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bit of a damp squid. There was a dance in the school and Mrs Britten and I went to a Church Service. Colin’s brother, Seat, came home on leave and Eileen had to share my bedroom and Seat shared with Colin. Bing Crosby was singing “Don’t Fence Me In”, Vera Lynn sang “Always” and “Yours” and Frank Sinatra was also very popular. I liked staying at Hilton and everyone seemed to talk about cricket. Buses ran from the village to Cambridge and then I came home on the train to Newport. Those are my memories of VJ Day.

I recently turned out a cupboard and came across something which I didn’t know existed. I knew I had Mum’s Doctors’ Book which most people had in the days before the National Health Service, which they studied for minor ailments. Inside was the Infants Dietary Sheet No.1 taken from Woman’s Companion. It contains a chart specially compiled by “Matron” of Wife and Home and Woman’s Companion. It says “Feed baby naturally when possible”. If all efforts fail, it gives the recipe for preparation of Humanised milk as follows:-

To make 5 Ounces

Milk 2 ozs. Water 2 ¾ ozs. Emulsion 2 tsp. Lime Water ¼ oz Sugar of Milk 2 tsp. It also gives details of making up larger quantities up to 20 ozs. Then there are instructions for feeding Hand-Fed Babies from Birth. (I see emulsion has to be gradually introduced!!).

Quantities of food for each feed according to age of baby and number of times during the day. e.g. 6 am, 10am, 2 pm, 6 pm and 10 pm. (Not at night!!) How to mix the food and general notes. Chart 3 is a Dietary Sheet for the Second Year which could be applicable today but most of the suggestions were prepared at home instead of bought in jars and ready made rusks in packets. Eighteen month old babies can have “A little uncooked lettuce shredded up”. I didn’t know anyone would cook lettuce. I knew I wasn’t wrong about the smell of emulsion as it is mentioned so much in the instructions.

In the Doctors’ Book is a cutting taken from a magazine entitled “A Pity that Home Dyeing’s Neglected”. It gives instructions and the various pitfalls in Home Dyeing, it suggests which colours dye best to another colour and do not mix different makes. It brought to mind how Mum loved to dye curtains and usually favoured yellow and sometimes green. I think the dyes were called Dolly Dyes and the article did not have to be boiled. It sounds a messy job!!.

I have recorded my memories of VJ Day, August 1945 and thankfully all hostilities had ended and we entered the Post War Years. I went back to school in September and started a new school year. I say all hostilities had ended but there was much suffering going on in the world and lives to be put back together again.

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THE POST WAR YEARS - 1945 ONWARDS

Although the war had ended, we still had food rationing until 3rd July 1954. At first it seemed strange to buy clothes without coupons but we did not have much money and shops did not have much to sell. It was lovely when bananas were available but only to infants and young people. We weren’t called teenagers. You were either a schoolgirl or a young woman out at work. Also didn’t have to have moods and be difficult. You had to get on with things and adjust to growing up as best you could. I remained at school until July 1947 and was happy there but we did have to work hard and had lots of homework so there was not much time to do anything else. We had to choose our subjects for School Certificate (which was in force before GCE and O levels) and had to do Maths which consisted of Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry. We had to do English Language and English Literature. We had to do a language and I chose French and we had to do a Science and I chose Chemistry because my friend Raymonde did. (I should have done Biology). I also did History and Geography. I did obtain my School Certificate and if I wished to take Higher School Certificate which was the equivalent of A levels, I would have needed to go into the Vlth form until I was 18. After that you would be expected to go to University and then get a job such as School Teaching. I don’t think Mum and Dad would have been able to afford the cost for me to do that even if I had wanted to. I decided to leave school at 16 and get a job locally and earn some money. When I was younger, I had wanted to be a school teacher but also I eventually wanted to marry and have a family and in those days, having a career and being a wife and mother, didn’t go together. I was very fortunate in the fact that the school asked me to go for an interview at a firm of Accountants in Bishop’s Stortford as they needed a junior office worker. I went and was offered the job which I gladly accepted even though the money was low, as I wasn’t used to having any!! I took to the work like a duck to water (apart from the telephone switchboard, as I had only spoken on the phone about twice before in my life) and very soon was transferred to the Audit Room and had several rises during the first year. When I was told I was going to work in the Audit Department, I felt as if I was walking on air. I also improved on the telephone. I was taught book-keeping, PAYE, auditing and preparation

of financial accounts. Also all office procedure and this knowledge has proved useful and kept me in good stead all my life. I paid to go to evening classes to leam shorthand and typing but eventually gave this up as I didn’t use it at work. Thankfully, the typing has been a help especially in the age of computers. I remained at L.H. Benten & Co. which changed to Benten, Price & Bailey and then Price, Bailey & Partners until I married and then did part time work at home for them until I had Carol.

On reflection, I think I would have enjoyed doing a course of Business Studies or whatever it was called then, at Cambridge Tech. when I left school, but I didn’t know about it. I probably did just as well starting at the bottom of the ladder and learning the ropes whilst working.