A new year, a new way of life

My horoscope said I should write a book, so I am going to write about what I remember from my past

 

Early years …

 

My first memories are of my first home, a two up two down in Oldbury. Two houses and a shop shared a yard and the toilet at the top of the garden.  Set beside the Cut (you might call it a canal), the yard would very often have rats and feral cats. A trip to the loo of an evening would be accompanied by a broom to fend off said cats and rats.

I would play in this yard sometimes alone and some times with P. (who is now my husband).  He wasn’t nice to me!  I used to have a big yellow clown, bigger than me; it was a yellow fluffy material with a white pointed hat and a plastic face. He had black pom-pom buttons on his hat and down his front. P would run around the yard dragging my poor clown around by its leg!  How horrible little boys are.

I used to keep caterpillars in a big plastic dish, fluffy brown ones, (do we still get those fluffy brown ones)? Feeding them leaves and grass, I could never work out where they went, so would throw away the contents of the dish and start again. I now realize they had properly changed into a chrysalis so I never saw them change into butterflies. 

We lived in the back room of the house, the front being kept for best and Christmas. In this room was a polished table with a cloth over it the cloth had little tassels all around the edges. I used to love the smell of the polish in that room after mom had cleaned.  One of the first Christmas presents I remember was hidden in this room. Sent in there in the dark to find my present I came face to face with a dolls house lit with real lights.  It had 6 rooms and was papered with paper that looked like brick and tiles.  It had green and yellow leaded metal windows that opened and shut and every room had a light in the ceiling. They were all tuned off by a switch in the kitchen. Every room was furnished, I thought it was lovely. (I still have a soft spot for dolls houses). Much later the insides of the house were removed to house a Guinea pig.

The back room had an open fire, which bath night would take place in front of every Sunday night, (that’s a tin bath which was kept in the wash house).  The small TV was set high on the wall, (yes we had a TV, but I think that had more to do with dad working for the British Relay than anything else).  On the back of the house was a veranda type building (but it had walls), this housed the cooker and kitchen sink and our Gold fish, a huge thing that would jump out of his tank and end-up on the floor, (I think that’s what did for him in the end).  I vaguely remember dad running a piece of string across this room which a monkey riding a one wheeled bike would run up and down. (No not a real monkey, a toy. It may have had a drum, I can’t really remember).   

The stairs to the first floor were dark and had two African women’s heads on the walls. With their colourful headdress and gold earrings I suppose they looked nice, but not for me, they frighten the bloody life out of me, I thought their painted eyes were watching me. 

I remember that I was scared of the lady who owned the shop, but loved granny Clark who lived with her husband in the other house.  Granny Clark in her wrap around apron and hair in a bun always seemed to be cooking.  She had a big rocking chair, (which properly wasn’t that big, given that I was little), with velvet on the arms. She would sit in this chair with me on her lap, rocking backwards and forwards, singing her church songs. If I close my eyes and try really hard I can still hear her singing ‘At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light.’  I didn’t care much for granddad Clark; he used to drown kittens in the cut. 

I remember dad going away to work for a while, (again as I was young it might only have been a week). When he came back he brought back what I thought were some of the most beautiful things I had even seen. Mothballs, but they were wrapped in green silk and hung on a long string with long tassels hanging from the bottom.  They made mom sneeze so they had to go. 

It was in this house that middle sis made an appearance! Mom went away and came back with a baby, which (so I am told) I asked them to take back when she started to cry, because she was too noisy. (She’s not changed a lot). 

I also vaguely remember being in a road accident on the road out side our house, mom and me, with little sis in the pram were crossing this road and got hit by a lorry. 

(I think this photo is really funny, look at the look on my face. I look like I am cooking up a not very nice plan for middle sis)!

 granny Clark

Grandparents … 

 

Mom and I with middle sis in the pram would walk along the cut to Langley and then on to Nan and granddads. Dad’s mom and dad lived in a very strange house, again there was the best front room, and they lived in the backroom.  The back room had an open fire and a huge built in cupboard in the corner. There was a small room coming off the side of it; this room contained the kitchen sink.  If you can imagine standing at the sink with the drainer on your right hand side, just under the drainer was the foot of the bath, (the none tap end) with a board over the top to cover the bath, and next to the bath a hand basin.  If you went out of the back door you entered an added on room that housed the cooker, toilet and coal house, if you passed through this room you came out into the garden which was crazy paved. 

My dad had one sister who had heart problems and used to spend her time making dolls clothes, so there would always be lots of bits of material to play with. (She died in her 30’s)  When we went there to visit I would love to have a piece of cut your self bread and real butter, (none of which taste the same anymore), Nan would call it a piecey. 

Granddad was a bit of a tease, they used to have a big brass fruit bowl, and one of my clearest memory’s is of granddad taking the fruit out of this and putting it on his head, saying he would walk us to the bus stop in the rain. 

They used to go on what I thought were really exciting holidays to the Isle of White and Austria, and brought me back a watch. But I was only ever allowed to wear it for best, How grown up I would feel when going out with my watch, little lace gloves and white handbag. I must have been all of 5. 

Granddad died of Cancer he could have only been in his fifties. Nan lived to be a ripe old age, be it in a home. 

Mom’s mom and dad lived in a three bedroom semi, and granddad lived there up until he died a few years ago.  Mom came from a big family she had 11 brothers and sisters, so there was always some one to keep me entertain when we went there.  They to lived in the back room, but they had a black lead grate, which granddad would toast bread by.  In the front room they had a piano, mom taught me to play ‘Can you wash your father’s shirt’ on it.  I remember playing in there garden, digging in the dirt with tea spoons, making mud pies and decorating them with grass. Nan uses to let me eat raw sausage meat, straight out of the skin, (you can’t do that now). 

I remember listing to’ listen with mother’ on the radio, then mom would leave the radio on and it would be ‘Woman’s Hour’ We would watch ‘Watch with Mother’ on TV but never Bill and Ben. Mom didn’t think they were good role models. 

The first film I remember seeing was snow white and the mirror frighten the life out of me.  Dad would take me to the picture house in Birmingham, It was right by what used to be the bus station and had the heads of Slivester, Tweetie Pie, Bugs Bunny and others on the walls.  It was later turned into a porn picture house. No more Bugs Bunny there. Later dad would take me and middle sis to the Gaumont Cape Hill (I think that’s what it was called, by the old Mitchells and Butlers brewery) to see the James Bond films.   

  

 ____________________________________________________________________________________________

Memories of Christmas… 

I have very few memories of Christmas past, and what I have are spread out over the years. I remember helping to trim the tree; it wasn’t a big tree as it stood on top of the table. All the babbles were made of glass and different colours, there used to be a red glass trumpet that would toot when you blew it and white birds with nylon hair tails, and tinsel, as the years went by some of the tinsel ended up more string than glitter, but that just made it more homely some how.

Mom would buy fruit in the weeks running up to Christmas, wrap it and store it up stairs The smell of the fruit along with the smell of the paraffin  from the paraffin heater that was used to heat the house was the smell of Christmas.  Even today those smells make me think of Christmas. I also remember rubbing bread to make bread crumbs for the stuffing while watching Great Expectations on TV.  I still feel like I should have half a loaf in my hand when I watch that film.

A Christmas memory from a few years later was of dad. Dad didn’t drink, but went to the pub with his work mates on his way home.  He walked in the house well and truly gone.  His paper was under his arm, and he repeatedly asked where it was, his mates had taken his flask and sandwich box out of his bag and filled it with glasses.  Little sis was having a dolls house that had to be put together that year, but dad couldn’t manage it. So I waited until little sis had gone to bed and put the dolls house together.  It was so funny to see dad drunk, he said he wasn’t drunk just tired; yep I have used that one myself. 

Every year we would be taken into Birmingham to see Santa at Rackhams.  It was wonderful, first there was the walk around the grotto, or sometimes it was a trip on a flying sleigh. You got on in the shop, took your sit and the stars would fly past all around you, and when you got off you were in Santa’s house. It was magic and then when you thought it couldn’t get any better you could hear Santa laughing, then the best bit, you got to sit on Santa’s lap and whisper in his ear. It was so exciting.

 

(We don’t get grottos  or Santa’s  like that anymore).

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

First schools…

  I don’t remember much about my early school years, but that could have something to do with the fact that I didn’t spend a lot of time there. I was a sickly child, who went from ear infection to tonsillitis to bronchitis and back again.  (This is why every tooth in my head as a filling, there were no sugar free medicine then). 

 I spent a lot of time having ultra-violet treatment, I remember sitting in a room in vest and pants and wearing goggles. There was a bright light was in the middle of the room, first you sat facing it, then when the bell rang you turned round and sat with your back to it. My skin always smelt funny after treatment.

My first school was the Tabernacle in Oldbury, gone now, knocked down for bus stations, and then shops.  My class was on the top floor and the only thing I can remember is doing number work with blocks and the dressing up box. There was a lovely yellow dress with lace on that I longed to wear, but never had the chance as I could never get my work done in time.  We would say grace before dinner, at home time we would put our chairs on the table and sing a prayer. We also had sometime with our heads on the table to rest in the afternoons. From there I went to the Good Sheppard also in Oldbury, (years later that was made into a teacher training school, I think it’s a nursery now).  From here I remember Janet and John books, standing in a cold foggy playground worrying about getting another cough, because mom had told me not to go out in the fog. You try telling a teacher you should not be out. (Things didn’t work then like they do now). 

 

The school play, ‘The wedding of the painted doll’ I was a rabbit. 2nd in from the right

  ___________________________________________________________

 

 

A new home…                                                   

We then moved from our house to a brand new flat on the Lion Farm Estate, The houses and shop were demolished.  I remember running with middle sis from room to room in the flat, everything looked bright and shinny. Tiled floors and windows you could see miles and miles out of, and a real bath and toilet indoors!   The kitchen hatch always held a fascination for me. Of course there was no where to play. 

A few floors up there lived a friend of mom and dads, I remember a name ‘Hilary’ and I remember I thought they were very posh because they had one of those 1960’s mirrors hung just inside the door. (All curly metal)  We went to the fair with them once and I came home with a doll in a sticky out red and black dress and high heeled red shoes.   

From there we moved on to a house in Oldbury Town centre, facing the Salvation Army.  We now had a garden to play in and had a swing and a sand pit. (The swing followed us to the next house, then on to one of my homes where my son played on it, it eventual rotten away). 

Middle sis and I would go to the Sunday school held at the Sally Army every Sunday. I loved the marches we would walk around the streets, stopping on corners to sing.  We did a show once, I remember a big cloud and I had to pull out a ribbon and say a little piece, thinking about it, it must have been the Noah’s ark story.  Middle sis and I were dress in matching dresses, pink with a lace skirt over the top, with a little bow at the waist.  Mom used to have our dresses made and we were always dressed the same.   

Mom and dad became friends with the people next door and we were allowed to go and play with their two daughters. They had bikes, we were never allowed bikes.  They stayed friends for sometime, and we would go to their house every other Boxing Day, where their dad taught me to waltz and to do the quick step, (sad but I can’t remember any of it now). 

 ___________________________________________________________

 

 

Another new home and a little sister… 

 

Our next move was to a house in Warley, were I grew into a spotty tubby teenager, (I still remember the smell of the carbolic soap mom used to tell me to wash in, no it never did get rid of the spots).

We were only a 15 minute walk from dad’s mom and in the same road as mom’s dad. This house had a shared drive with the neighbours, who owned a poodle, a bloody little vicious thing, that frighten the life out of us. (I can’t say that I was sorry when it died, although I felt sorry for the owner, it was her baby).

This house had a bigger garden than the house before, (but we still weren’t allowed bikes or roller stakes). But we did have a patch of garden each to look after and grow our own flowers. 

It was in this house that little sis came along, right there at home. I was 9 coming 10, and I remember a lot of coming and going, a lot of people rushing about and being told nothing, (it can get quite scary when you don’t know what’s happening) and in the end being sent outside with middle sis to play at the other end of the garden.  Well curiosity got the better of us and we crept down to the yard and sat on the little wall under the bedroom window.  Straining to hear what was going on.  Then Aunty (now my mother in law, no she wasn’t my real aunty, we called everyone aunty then), brought us inside to see our new sister. I remember thinking she was the cutest thing I had ever seen.  I used to love to help mom look after her, and later as she got older I loved to take her out. I would take her to the pictures and feed her far too many sweets.  The relationship with little sis was nothing like the relationship I had with middle sis.  Middle sis and I would fight, it was not unusual for one of us to give the other a bloody nose or pull out a hand full of hair, but I suppose that’s because there were only 3 years between us.  

 

 

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________ 

 Middle school …

 

A new house meant another new school, this time Moat Farm Juniors; this is where I first came into contact with people not like me.  First there was Maize James, a long legged, tall Jamaican girl, she had short hair and gold earrings, and I thought she was beautiful, then there was a boy called Michael who was a thalidomide baby who had only one arm with a finger and thumb where the hand should be, and a red headed boy who I can’t remember the name of, who had no ears. 

I used to love music with Mr. Lewis, we would sing songs from an orange song book, songs like ‘My Grandfathers Clock’ and ‘They built the ship Titanic’ and one I can’t remember the title of but it went ‘Hey oh, away we go donkey riding, donkey riding, riding on a donkey.  It was here I learnt to knit (teddy bears, and a stripy bag) and sew, (tapestry book markers and table mats). 

I made a couple of friends when I first started there, we would play Dr. Who in the playground.  I fell out of the loop a bit though, as I was not aloud to go to their houses to play, so began to feel more and more left out, needless to say by the time I left junior school I didn’t really have any friends. 

I used to try so hard at school but could never seem to grasp what was supposed to be going on.  We once had to do a topic for Cadbury’s chocolate and the winner won a tin of chocolates and a certificate. I tried so bloody hard on that topic and came nowhere. 

I failed the 11+ so went into high school thinking ‘I will do as much as I need to do so that I don’t get into trouble and no more, I get no where when I do work hard.’

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Senior school …

 

My plan to not work to hard fell flat on its face about 4 weeks into the first term, when Mrs Lambert called my mom and dad into school and informed them that I was dyslexic. It is thanks to Mrs Lambert that I learnt to read and continued to work as hard as I could.   

When I first started my senior school Brisnall Hall it was an all girl’s school, where you did as you were told.  Flat shoes, or you had to change into your pumps, long hair was worn up, no make-up, or nail polish, if you turned up with either it was a trip to the head to have it removed. The same went for jewellery.  Skirts sat on the knee not above or below.  When a teacher came into the room you stood up and stayed up until you were told to sit.  You didn’t answer back, but that didn’t mean you were frighten to ask about something you didn’t understand. We spent our days learning the three ‘R’s as well as science, history, geography, RE, PE, gym, needlework, craft, art, music, dance and drama and home economics.  I loved the first two years there and so wanted to take my colours in dance and drama.  When I got my end of year report, I couldn’t believe that I had all A &B’s.  I had never got over a D before. My confidence soared; I even song a solo part in a concert. 

Then as I entered the third year, the school mixed with the boy’s school and nothing was ever the same.  Rules went out of the window; lessons were full of girls showing off to boys and boys showing off to girls. I found it hard enough to learn without all the distraction of silly little boys and girls, so kept out of it and worked even harder, so I was picked on for not joining in. (Don’t feel sorry for me I had one very good friend name Susan who I went on hoilday with a couple of times).   All the rules that had kept us in line went and I feel that it ruined the school, and they stopped the dance and drama, so I never got to take my colours. I was put in for my C S E’s but never took them, I was offered a job, and so left school. In the 70’s jobs were hard to come by.   

   

 _____________________________________________________________________________________________

Sundays…

 

 Were always the same, or is it that it just feels that way?  Sunday morning I would help mom prepare Sunday lunch, peeling and chopping. Then there would be the cakes to make. Sometimes granddad or dad would take us to the park to fish, (middle sis fell in once and got her nice white socks dirty, boy did that cause some trouble)!   

Sunday lunch was always a big roast and then it was my job to clean the stove, which wasn’t easy as mom had a thing about using cleaners on the stove, (because of this if my stove doesn’t come clean with the first wipe, I get the bleach out. I am wasting no more time rubbing at a mark). 

Sunday tea was cold meat left over from dinner with salad and home made pickles, followed by tinned fruit and evaporated milk, jelly and blancmange and cake.  This was eaten while listening to the top Ten on the radio, and then I would help to cleaned up while listening to Sing Something Simple.  

Sunday night was bath night, I loved bath night I could wash my hair.  I had very long hair that was very oily but I was only allowed to wash it once a week on bath night. I would lie in the bath listening to the navy lark on my little red radio with my hair floating around me, until the water went cold. 

 Some times of an evening we would play cards with dad or sit and colour before bed.  

____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

& Holidays… 

 

 I only remember going on two holidays with mom and dad. The first was to Tywyn, (you pronounce it toe in) in Wales. We stayed in a caravan, were the rabbits would run backwards and forwards underneath waking us in the morning. We went with my aunt and uncle, and uncle would take us to play sea side bingo. We sat at our lit up bingo boards and uncle would point out the numbers and sis and I would shut the little doors to cover them. We won enough tickets to have a doll each. 

The second holiday was many years later I must have been about 16 and it was again in a caravan, this time in Rhyl.  We did a lot of wondering around the town and took a day trip to Llandudno

(A picture of me aged about 16, taken on holiday in Llandudno)

When I was about 14/15 I went on holiday with a school friend and her parents, to a Butlins Camp in Barry Island. For the first time in my life I had freedom. We were allowed to go out in the evenings to discos, shows, the fair or just wonder round anything we wanted, just as long as we stayed together.  It was fantastic.  I had never enjoyed myself so much before.     

 

 

Another holiday I took was just after I left school, I went to Italy as a chaperone to a group of high school children, I wasn’t much older than them myself, but I loved it. I loved Italy, the noise, colour, smells and the food, oh the food.  We stayed first in a bed and breakfast type place with an Italian family in Rome, so the food was very Italian. I loved Rome all the old buildings and narrow streets. We did the sight seeing tours, the Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the arch of Constantine, the Roman Forum, the Spanish steps, Pompeii, Vesuvius, fountains gardens, St Peters, Villa Aurino Roman baths.   We took a day trip to Capri and the Blue grotto, and spend a few days in Sorrento which I didn’t like as much as Rome. Sorrento was too much of a chips and burger type holiday place.  I believe that it was in Rome that my love of old building was cultivated.

( A picture of me aged about 17/18 out side St Peters)

(I said earlier I only remembered two holidays with mom and dad, but I found this photo later. I still can not recall this holiday)

______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 Pets

We always had pets when we were younger; fish cold water and tropical, budgerigars, a rabbit and a guinea pig. Dad found the rabbit on the side of the road on his way home from work, he was very poorly. Dad had brought him home and put him in the garage to die in comfort. I kept going in and feeding him, and stroking him and he began to get better. Well we couldn’t get rid of it after that, and he was definitely my rabbit. He would follow me around like a little puppy, when I lay on the grass he would stretch out along side me and go to sleep.  He hated middle sis and would chase her around the garden, he even bit her.  We had that rabbit for years, in the end I had to take him to be put down because he had stomach cancer.

 

___________________________________________________________________

 

 

Special Days 

 

 

 

 

In 1977 it was the queen’s silver jubilee.  Our road was only small and didn’t want to celebrate, so we all headed for my aunties road, where a big party had been organised. Both ends of the street were closed off and long tables where placed down the middle of the road and covered with white table cloths. Where we all sat and ate real party food, sandwiches, and trifle, swish roll, watered down orange squash, oh the delights. Well it was then. We all had red, white and blue hats to wear and were each given a jubilee mug, (broken along time ago), and a sliver coin, (which is somewhere in the loft), and there were silver, red, white and blue balloons and union Jacks tied everywhere.  Music was supplied by a record player in someone’s front room.  We played games and danced in the street until quite late into the night.  I remember I painted my nails in red, white and blue and made a sash out of ribbon with union Jacks on it to wear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also remember going to see a parade with dad; I can’t remember what it was for. It was in Birmingham and had floats with colourfully dressed people on them as well as walking along the roads with buckets to throw your change in.  The people on the floats were throwing sweets into the crowds and there was music playing I remember finding it all magical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although we didn’t have a lot of holidays, we had days out. A yearly visit to the zoo with picnic in tow was a favourite.