When that was happening, water was fighting gravity as it was piped from the mains and up into the tank. Rather ingenious plumbing.  Doesn’t sound too scary, does it? But for a little child, the sight had to be daunting, especially when the flush was engaged – the noise of the water, haring down from the tank and filling and flushing in the toilet bowl was enough to waken the dead – well, maybe just the sleeping - and it scared the living daylights out of me.

I would sneak out of the living room, when mum wasn’t watching, and sidle along the wall to the bathroom door. Then, I would tentatively turn the knob of the bathroom door and push the door open. But as soon as I caught sight of the “thing” I would run helter-skelter back into the living room and slam the door! You would have thought all the bats of hell were after me!  Mum would come galloping from the kitchen. "What are you doing now? Why did I hear the door slam?"  I was busy drawing or pretending to do so. "Not'ing" I would say, not looking her in the eye. She would glare at me a few more minutes, heave a big sigh, then return to the kitchen with a worried look on her face.

Though my memory is dim on this, I have a theory that something else had occurred that would have been really terrifying to an infant. To explain how this probably happened, I have to talk about something rather indelicate at this point – bathroom habits and toilet paper!

I did some digging to find out when toilet paper became refined to the point where it didn’t tear the skin of one’s nether regions or leave splinters in an embarrassing place!  Apparently, it was back in 1857, in the United States, that commercially manufactured toilet paper first became available. It consisted of medicated, flat sheets of manila hemp sold in boxes. It was retailed as a medical product but was not widely successful.

It was in 1935 that an American paper manufacturer developed a “splinter-free” product, which must have brought immense relief to all who could afford to buy toilet paper! But it was in the 1920’s that another American paper manufacturer developed a process referred to as “the creping process innovation”. The paper was “micro-folded” as it was made, breaking down its rigidity and making it significantly softer and more absorbent! Voila! The world's first commercially available facial tissue, Kleenex, in 1924. Over the following decades, manufacturers adapted and refined the tissue-making process to create softer and stronger toilet paper. It was a British paper mill, in 1942, that introduced the first two-ply toilet paper. A major step forward. (Information courtesy of AI Mode in Google).

I crave your indulgence, dear readers, for my foray into these nuggets of information that I dig up and feel compelled to share with you.  After all, I am describing an era in this book, as well as narrating my part in living and growing up in that time. A period, I might add, that was to see many changes and improvements in people’s lives; some good, some not so good.

But, back to my story of my woes of coming to terms with the “water closet”! Needless to say, toilet paper in our house was not the soft-tissue sort. Far from it; when she could afford it, mum bought the flat box with harsh, abrasive, non-absorbent squares of paper, inter-woven in it, which were pulled through a slot in the top. Izal or Bronco was the brand. When money was short, we used newspaper! It was no joke to get black newsprint all over one’s behind! I couldn’t resist including this piece of information, again gleaned from the internet:

Bronco toilet tissue was manufactured by the British Patent Perforated Paper Company Hackney Wick before the war and sold millions worldwide. I worked in the office from November 1938 until my call-up in 1941. Raw paper was mostly imported from Sweden, so war supplies were hampered, but production kept going. Sometime in 1940 we had a letter advising the printing of a photo of Hitler on each sheet, a suggestion not accepted, but not without discussion!  Bronco and Izal were manila-based papers that did not dissolve in water, so were unsuitable in postwar sewers. Copyright: Martin Sheldon, Oxford.

Unsuitable in postwar sewers they definitely were, even pre-war and during the war -  and this was the problem. If one had to use too many sheets to reach a level of cleanliness that was satisfactory, when the toilet was flushed, all that excess of paper got stuck in the narrow “s” bend of the waste pipe which lead to the sewers, with the result that the flushing water backed up! Sometimes right over the rim of the toilet bowl!  Isn’t that everyone’s nightmare? Well, I think when I was still very little, I was in the bathroom, probably with my sister, when this “horror-show” came about and it scared me witless and from then on, I could not trust a toilet of any description being flushed when I was in proximity of it.  Even when I was a little older, I would have to have the bathroom door open and someone else would have to flush it for me.  I would not go into public toilets by myself, my sister or my mum would have to come in with me, and before they could flush, I would yell, “don’t flush it, let me out!”

The first time I abandoned my potty and used “the beast”, I was very proud of myself.  I hadn’t called mum, as I wasn’t certain I was going to be successful, so I did the usual sidling into the bathroom and tentatively removed my underpants; feeling sick, I was able to force myself to continue the necessary deed, and then I called mum.  Was she ever pleased! But she wasn’t off the hook completely – it was  one thing to have overcome the monster at home, but quite a leap of faith for me to use strange toilets, even ones belonging to family. So, the faithful potty still had to come on sojourns from home.  I can remember mum carried it in a string bag! She garnered some strange looks as we boarded a bus or train!

To this day, I have not been able to shake off that infantile fear of toilets. Not the nice, civilized ones encountered in today’s world, but sometimes one will come across a public toilet in an outside shed, one that is somewhat insalubrious and smelly, and all my old fears rise to the surface, and my first instinct is to run! And pit toilets in the provincial and federal parks? Forget it! I’ll find me a nice, fat tree to go behind, better still, one with a toilet roll hanging from it!

Before I leave this riveting story of WC’s and urination etc. I have one more story of “toilet travesties” that I experienced.  Once I was suitably socialized where bathroom habits were concerned, I could play outside. But I had the annoying propensity for ignoring nature’s call and carrying on with my game. So much so, that I would end up with barely being able to hold it in until I could get to the bathroom. Sometimes I would dance on the spot, holding myself “there” and mum would say “you’ve left it too long, again, haven’t you? Get in!”. This day I flew through the house, into the bathroom, flung down my pants, and leapt onto the toilet, letting go with relief.  My mum who had followed me in shrieked “Oh Wendy, you didn’t put up the toilet seat, look you are peeing everywhere!”  I peered over the side, sure enough, my pee was pouring over the side of the seat, and everything was drenched in urine; the toilet, the floor, I was swimming in it on the toilet seat and my bottom, legs, feet, shoes, pants, everything from my waist down was getting soaked, and I was to bear the brunt of my mother’s wrath, again! But who could blame her?

Looking back, as I have been, while writing this missive, I have begun to realise I was something of a brat!  Not all the time mind, but sometimes.  I loved to poke and pry – poke in cupboards and pry in drawers!  But I also liked to forage. Food was in short supply and treats didn’t come my way very often, but sometimes there was something in the cupboard that I could pick at or take a spoon to and sample.  One morning I awoke very early, it must have been about 5:00 am. By that time, I was old enough to have my own bedroom, so no one heard me get up and creep to the living room. I made my way to the kitchen.

Earlier, in chapter one, I mentioned tinned condensed milk, “connie-onnie”.  It just so happened that mum had bought a tin recently; it had to be sitting on the counter, as I am sure I would have been too small to reach a cupboard.  Plus, it was open, a gift  just waiting to be purloined! To open a tin in those days a person would have to use a hand tin opener and as I was certainly not yet strong enough to be able to open a tin that way, it was fortunate for me this one was already open.  Mum had opened the tin only three-quarters of the way round, so the contents could be kept somewhat covered by folding back the lid to access them then pushing the lid back to cover what was left.  I was able to lift the lid and peel it back enough to get a teaspoon in the opening. As the edges of the lid were jagged and sharp it was a miracle that I didn’t cut my fingers to ribbons.  Despite the dangers, I had a lovely time indulging in spoon after spoon of the lovely, creamy, sticky stuff. After a while, I stopped and looked into the tin. Hmm, it didn’t look as full as it had, I decided I had probably had enough.  I carefully folded back the lid – or was about to when I noticed a tiny drop of milk stuck to the inside of the lid. I stuck out my tongue, tipped the tin, just a little, to reach it, then continued closing the lid and headed back to bed, feeling suddenly very tired.  I went into a deep sleep but some time later, was rudely awakened by my mother shaking me and yelling at me to get up!  “My God, what have you been up to you little madam, you are covered in condensed milk and so is the bed! Jack, what am I to do with her? Just look at the state she’s in, it will take me hours to get her clean, not to mention having to wash all the bedding. You are a very, VERY, naughty girl.” (or words to that effect!).

I was confused, I had only had a few spoons of the milk, why was it all over me? It was! My hair was a complete mess, clogged with the connie-onnie, and it was all over my pyjamas. But, at three or four years of age, I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong, but I knew I was in big trouble. Mum dragged me down the hall, into the bathroom and made me sit on the toilet while she stripped me off and ran enough precious, hot water in the bath to get me clean, hair included. By then, I had quite long hair, and it was thick, so you can imagine the problem my mum had in removing all the goop from it; and let me tell you, she was not gentle while she was doing it!  When she had me dried and dressed, she again dragged me by my arm, this time into the living room, where she unceremoniously dumped me on the couch and said “sit there and don’t you  dare move”. I didn’t! Honestly, so far, I had gotten off quite lightly!

Another time when I was still quite small, it was summer, and a storm was brewing; the sun disappeared and suddenly the sky was filled with ominous black clouds. Then out of the blue there was a flash of lightning followed closely by thunder.  I had never seen a storm like this before and had no idea what was happening!  I was sitting in a baby chair which had a tray and playing with a fork, goodness only knows why a fork, but there it was! Before the thunder had rolled away my mother went into a frenzy! She whipped the fork out of my hand and flung it across the room, then proceeded to pull all the metal clips out of her long hair, while she hurled herself at the back door and threw it open! By then we were experiencing torrents of rain, and she stood there panting while watching the storm as if her life depended up on it!  Then she ran around the house pulling any electric plugs out of their sockets. By then, I had started to howl with terror, she frightened me witless and as the storm raged, I screamed.  This happened every summer there was a lightning storm and to this day, I am terrified of them. She had this theory that metal attracted the lightning, and so did electric plugs attached to the wall plugs. She never changed that belief, despite lectures from dad about how lightning would look for a high metallic point on which to ground itself. He said it wasn’t likely to find her hairclips or anything else in the house!  He tried to explain to me, that the main danger came from being outside, say in a large field and there was no other high point close. A lightning flash overhead could hit the person, as our own bodies were natural lightning conductors;  for all his blinding us with science, he was never able to convince mum. What I never understood was why she felt safer if the door was wide open until the storm had passed!

My Family and other strange things

My sister, Pat, official name Patricia, Rosina, was 10 years older than me, and I adored her.  To me, at four years old, she seemed so tall and grown-up.  I wanted to go everywhere with her, and most times she did take me along wherever she went.  When I was a baby, she would want to go play with her friends, but mum would say “Take our Wendy with you, in the pram!” Pat probably groaned inwardly, as her friends always complained when she turned up with her sister and “the pram”. The pram in questions, was the one I had rocked in and tipped up! It was a very old, very high, black pram; so high she could hardly see over the top of it and her head kept bobbing around the sides as she steered it down the road. It had probably done duty for other family members before it was handed on to mum and dad!

I can remember, one summer evening, after we had had our tea (supper), Pat said she was going out. As usual, I begged to go along too, but she was adamant that I could go to the end of the road with her, and that was all.  We set off and I danced alongside of her till we got to the end of the road and then she said, “Now you wait here on the corner - I’ll be back.”

I watched in disappointment as she walked away and down the road, until she disappeared around the bend.  How I wanted to follow; was Pat just around the bend?  I sidled out into the middle of the road in the hopes I would see much further and maybe see where Pat was.  But the bend kept on going and all I could see were the same houses on the other side and the tall wall on the left that had very tall trees peering over the top of it. Everywhere I looked there were tall trees, masses of them - all with rooks or starlings twittering away in them.

I hopped back onto the pavement in case my mum came out of the house.  She would tell me off if I wasn’t exactly on the corner.

I picked leaves off a hedge that was right by the corner. I hopped, skipped, danced and sang, but still no sign of Pat. Every five minutes I peered out to see if she was coming back.  Of course she wasn’t! She was probably miles away, at the home of one of her friends, or maybe gone for a walk with a boy. 

But I didn’t know these things.  She had said “Wait,” and waiting was what I was doing. Eventually it started to grow dusk, and my mum came out to tell me I had to go in and get ready for bed; I started to cry, I told her I had to wait for Pat.  She said Pat would not be home for a long time and it was my bedtime.  Reluctantly, I went in, but I couldn’t understand why my sister had not returned to me.

At other times she would tease me rotten and then make me laugh. She left school when she was fourteen and started work.  She wanted to be a hairdresser, and so she was fortunate to be taken on as an apprentice in a small, hairdressing salon in Walton, right on Rice Lane, where it crossed with Queen’s Drive.  Happily, the bus stopped really close to the salon.  The owner called herself “Miss Vaughan”; Pat worked with her for years, but she could never call her anything other than “Miss Vaughan”. That was the way people were back then, very formal.

During summer holidays from school, when I was a few years older, Pat would take me to the salon with her, mostly on the days when she knew Miss Vaughan would not be in; she wasn’t a spring chicken and there were many days when she didn’t have any client appointments. Her hairdressing skills were not what they were, and a lot of her clients were asking for Pat to do their cut and styling.

Right from birth I didn’t have any grandparents who were still alive.  I learned a little about my father’s side of the family but next to nothing about my mother’s.

My father was one of five children: three boys and two girls.  The eldest was Aunty Dorothy, she was born in 1902 and exactly one year later, her sister, my Aunty Ivy, was born in 1903. Three years later grandmother gave birth to the first of their three boys, Douglas who was severely disabled and died in his early thirties. In 1908, along came my dad, Jack, and finally, the “baby” my Uncle Bob, whose real name was Roland Oliver – he didn’t appear until 1916, so he was eight years younger than my dad. I have no idea how they got “Bob” from Roland, Oliver, and even then, my dad sometimes referred to him as “our Ollie”.

Sadly,  my dad’s parents died quite young; his mother, my grandmother, Rosina, died of cancer in 1924, she was forty-six. Grandfather Andrew followed in 1926, from a heart attack; he was only fifty-one. One after the other!  All of which means that Roland was only eight years of age when he lost his mum and ten when he lost his dad!  How sad, poor little boy. Mum said she thought Rosina had uterine cancer but as people would not talk about such things in those days, she couldn’t be absolutely sure.  I once found a photo of Grandmother Rosina and she was sitting in a wheelchair, she didn’t look exactly skinny or ravaged, but she looked older than forty-six! I seem to remember being told that at one time they were quite well off and then fell on hard times. They did live in Aintree at some point in time, which was considered quite “up-market”!  I think my dad grew up there.  In my late teens, I walked down the road that I knew they had lived in and came to the house that supposedly had been theirs.  It looked very unprepossessing and not all that big.

With the early death of both parents, it fell to the lot of my Aunt Ivy to look after the rest of the family. Dad was around fifteen years of age, and Roland Oliver, as I said before, was only a young lad. Dad hated living with Ivy and the quarrels and blow-ups they had were legendary. He had been hoping to go to university to study to be a veterinarian physician, but as money was in short supply, he had to leave school and find a job to help support the rest of the family,  Dorothy was already doing her bit.  Family lore recounted that Roland received a good education funded by the Masons, as Andrew had been a member. Unfortunately, this largess was awarded to only the youngest of the orphans of school age. This was always something of a bone of contention between him and my dad. his brother.  As a result of all this misfortune, my dad lived most of his life with a chip on his shoulder; believing that fate had dealt him a rotten hand.  Back in those days it wasn’t easy to better oneself after leaving school – there was no further education or night school.  No opportunity to recapture the ability to improve one’s learning and knowledge base. The die was cast – he lived his life going from one menial job to another and never acquiring a skill or trade, and always hard up.  Despite all this, he was somewhat intellectual, and quite well read.  He could knowingly converse on a lot of subjects and was well respected by his peers.

He used to tell me he was descended from French aristocracy! And I believed him!  But I have done some digging into the Willetts name in recent years and there are hundreds of them, some scattered to the four corners of the world. I discovered such a variety of spellings for the name, even French versions, so there has to be a branch of the family in France.  But I couldn’t find any link to aristocracy, English or French!  Knowing my dad, he was probably just “swinging the lead”.

Dad was a fearsome disciplinarian! Even when I was little, mealtimes were a nightmare of “Don’t chew with your mouth open. Don’t talk with your mouth full.  Sit up straight - elbows tucked in - elbows off the table,” and so on.  He would say it was for my own good, as one day I would be able to take tea with the Queen!  Well, I never did receive an invite, but I have always been grateful to him for teaching me good manners, as I have always known how to behave in certain situations.

I was about four so it was still some time before I would go to school, but I was trying desperately to read – dad would help me with the words sometimes. I had been given a picture book that was entitled “Our House.” I knew what the title was, but I couldn’t pronounce it to dad’s satisfaction.  I would say: ‘Are’ House, he would say “No, it is Our House.  I would listen and then say, ’Are’ House!  I was sure I was saying it the same as him.  This went on for several minutes until my mum, in desperation, said to him “Oh for goodness sake Jack, leave it alone, she’ll get it right one day!”

I had a strange relationship with him.  I so wanted to be with him and be his friend, but he was so withdrawn and remote most of the time.  However, there were the times he surprised me.  At least, looking back on my childhood, I feel surprised now, at the time I just felt delight.  There was the day he suddenly announced he would take me to the little shop down the road, Hodges, to buy me my favourite lemonade. In Britain, pop or soda drinks were referred to as lemonade.  We called everything lemonade even if it was bright red and cherry flavoured!  We got there and I said I wanted “Crème Soda”, which was a vivid green.  In those days you could buy the drinks in small sized bottles.  Once the precious purchase was made, I asked dad if I could carry it and, not really thinking, he said I could, but he didn’t allow me to drink it along the road.  He said he would open it when we got home.  So, back home we walked, me holding onto the bottle with one hand and dad with the other.  We had just turned the corner into our road when the unbelievable happened: I dropped the bottle! Smash! Broken glass flew in every direction and green, precious crème soda spread itself all over the pavement.  I was horrified – then I howled with disappointment.  Poor dad, he worked hard at consoling me and trying to get me to stop crying.  He said I wasn’t to worry, we would just go right back to the shop, and he would buy me another bottle; but this time he would carry it home.  So, we did, me still sniffling and hiccoughing as I struggled to recover from the shock. 

I have another story to relate of me and my dad, when I was still a very small girl, just feeling my way in the world. Bed-time was always the same, always early, and not negotiable! I think my parents hustled me off to bed by 6:30 p.m. But when it was summer and the evenings still so light, I had such a hard time going asleep. Being highly strung as I have already mentioned, and still not able to read, I felt bored; so I bounced up and down on my bed and sang songs at the top of my voice. One evening, as  I was performing in this manner, I heard my dad’s chair scrape and knew he was moving and maybe coming to tell me off! So, I bounced under the covers and lay there, the picture of innocence, eyes closed, as he opened the door to my bedroom. He stood looking over at my hump in the bed and in a pretend, stern voice he said, “What is going on in  here then?” From the depths of the bed clothes I muttered “Mind your own “boody” business!” Years later I learned he was so taken aback at my reply that all he wanted to do was laugh out loud! However, he didn’t say anything for fear I would know he was trying not to laugh, so he quietly shut the door and went back to the living room to relate to the rest of the family what I had said.

As mentioned earlier, Aunty Dorothy was the first born and I think she and my dad were quite close. As close as they could be; the whole family were a bit uptight and not given to displays of affection. I don’t think that I saw any of them give a hug to another sibling, or any other person, certainly none ever came my way!  Aunt Dorothy was the storyteller of the family.  She would regale them all with tales of work and people she’d met, and there would be gales of laughter as she reached her punch line. After I became an adult, she loved to tell me tales of the family, one in particular was that her father, Andrew Willetts was involved with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Co. who were famous for staging the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan.  They did tour the British provinces, but whether Grandfather Andrew sang with them or alternatively, acted as backstage janitor, will remain one of life’s mysteries!  Aunt Dorothy was a bit of a dreamer and a snob to boot! She loved to spin stories of family glories, which were impossible to prove right or wrong!  She would then tell a smutty story, usually one she told every time you saw her, and break into an old music hall song.  She was definitely a character in a class by herself. She had a wonderful sense of humour - when she wasn’t feeling depressed!  She was married to a kind, quiet man whose name was William Millsom, but known mostly as Billy - Uncle Billy to me.  He needed a ton of patience with Dorothy. One day, as the story goes, he came home from work, to find her with her head stuck in the gas oven! She had wanted him to believe she was trying to end her life!!  She was flamboyant and her moods were like quick silver. She was as thin as a rail, but she was ever the Femme Fatale, even in her eighties, she would not go out of the door without some eyeshadow, blush and lipstick on!  Always dressed to the nines and she loved to dance. I think I have quite a bit of her in me! They had two daughters and a son; cousins Mildred and Jean, and Maurice, who was the one born in the middle. 

Every year on my birthday she would send me a parcel – my birthday present. Post, as mail was called, was delivered, every day, by a man on a bicycle. His bike would have a very large carrier on the front and in the carrier was a brown, canvas bag, holding the day’s mail deliveries.The man who served our area was called Peter McKellar.  He was a pleasant man and very popular with everyone on his route. On my birthday, I would wait for him to come, with mounting excitement, dancing and bobbing around our short road, almost unable to contain myself. It felt like eons before I spied him turning the corner. As soon as he did, I would run up to him calling “Hello, Mr. Postman, do you have a parcel for me?” He would smile as he dismounted his bike and started to rummage in his bag. Sure enough, he pulled out a parcel with writing on it. When I was very small, I couldn’t read what it said but he handed it to me, and I knew it was my present. Good old Aunt D., she never missed! Every year I would receive either something to wear or a book.

That was Aunty Dorothy, my favourite aunt. But, dear me, Aunty Ivy was a completely different proposition. My mum would say she was so sour she could turn milk off!  Such an unhappy woman.  She was married to a strange man, Chris Caldwell, and then gave birth to their one child, a boy, also strange!  He was their only child and was born with a cleft palate. I don’t think I ever saw him during my childhood, but legend tells of him having to have “many operations” to correct the deformity in his mouth and lip. Even then, it was difficult to understand his speech. I was still quite small when about twice a year we would have to make the obligatory social visit, “to take tea” with them; they did live in Maghull, but quite a walking distance from where we lived.  My dad refused to go, and I don’t remember our Pat being there, so it was just me and mum who went along and suffered through cups of weak tea, spam or paste sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and homemade cake! The sandwiches were cut into triangles and one bite and they were gone. Everything Aunty Ivy did was stingy. She hated spending money.

She had bought a new three-piece suite, which lived in the front room, the “best” room. But she was so afraid of it being spoiled, she had covered the arms and the back of it with bits of material, “to protect it, should it be used!! It was the same with the new carpet they had bought for the hall and stairs area, it was covered with squares of old carpet, because if people walked on it, it might get damaged!  She didn’t seem to understand that covering it with a bit of old carpet was one sure way to damage the pile anyway, so she was defeating her purpose. When we were invited to enter, us poor relations, we were shuttled right through to the back room, where we could sit on the old couch and chairs. I think she wished we could walk in on our eyelashes in order to preserve her precious carpet.

Ivy had a way of standing with her arms crossed and looking at you intently, as if she was sure she would see something about you to find fault with.  I was terrified of her.  I was never comfortable in their house.  Uncle Christ would sit there, puffing away on an old pipe, plumes of horrible, smelling smoke enveloping him. He too had a strange way of looking at you, then he’d say, “Well Wendy, how are you, are you alright?”  I’d say, “Yes thank you Uncle Chris, I’m fine”. Then he’d say, “Yes but how are you really?”  This would go on and on, until my mum or Aunty Ivy would think of something to say to distract him.  Christmas morning, we would have to take the walk to their place for a small glass of sherry for mum, glass of juice or milk for me, and one miserable, unpalatable mince pie!

Mum was raised in Liverpool - in Kirkdale, where the streets were mean and the houses were two up, two down and joined together in terraces.  Although she didn’t talk about her family, she did tell me a little about when she was younger. It was her dad that named her Peggy.  From the way she talked, I think she was very special to him.  She left school when she was quite young, fourteen years of age, and went to work in a small corner grocer’s shop, not far from where she lived.  In the densely populated areas of Liverpool, you would find almost every street corner had a grocers shop on it and a pub on the other! She was trained to be a grocer’s assistant.  She was quite proud of her abilities in the grocery trade.  She boasted that she could tell the weight of an item by holding it in her hand.  She would take a package of bacon, “weigh” it in her hand and then guess that it weighed about half a pound!  She was usually correct. This would have been during world war I, and apparently there was some bombing of Britain during that time, but mum never mentioned anything about it, so I am left to assume that it didn’t affect the area she lived in. It did impact her family life as I know for sure, her father had to sign up and was shipped to the trenches in France, where he suffered shell shock, these days referred to as PTSD!  His nickname for her, Peggy, went with her through her life – I don’t think anyone ever called her Margaret.

Many years later, when I became an adult, I was lucky to catch mum in a nostalgic mood, as she told me of the night she met my dad.  Apparently, they were both at a party of mutual friends.  Mum was quite pretty and had very long, dark auburn hair.  Pat’s was the same colour, but mine was a dark, ash brown. Strangely enough, the first time I attempted to lighten it, I found very red tones beneath the brown, I had become a strawberry blonde! Anyway, back to mum’s story.  As she told it, my dad was quite taken with her long hair and sat behind her combing it for hours.  He was nineteen when they met, mum was older than him.  He was born in 1908, on November 27^th, mum was born on January 4^th, 1905.  There’s a definite pattern with the womenfolk of our families marrying men younger than themselves.

Uncle Bob lived in Maghull also, actually not far from where Ivy lived, but I don’t think he saw much of her anymore than dad did.  Elsie, (nee Sutch), a pretty, smart lady, was his wife and they had one daughter, my cousin Norma, who is about eighteen months younger than me. Uncle Bob used to come by our house often, though he and dad were often at loggerheads over something they disagreed on. He rode a bike, and we would hear him coming through the gate at the side of the house, and dad would say “Ay-up, here comes our Ollie!”  I liked Uncle Bob. Though there were times when he thought it was his right to chastise me over something I had done, of which he disapproved! He would give me such a stern look and at that moment I didn’t like him too much! 

I remember him coming round one time when I was small, but Norma was a toddler. I seem to remember her being dressed all in pale pink and trying to get out the back door. As all the adults were deep in conversation, I considered it my responsibility to stop her from getting the door open.  So, every time she stood on tiptoe and tried to turn the knob I would say “No” and take her little hand off, but she got cross with me and would try to push me away!  I don’t remember having much to do with her after that, she didn’t go to the same school as me. But when I was around ten years old, she started to come around to ours often. Maybe Aunt Elsie had started work. Then we would play in the garden, and I would boss her around unmercifully!

More wartime lodgers - long term

It had to have been around 1945 that the Goode family came to live with us.  They had lost their home in Bootle, during the night-time bombing.  Obviously, there were many people in Liverpool who were rendered homeless by Hitler’s bombing raids. People who were lucky enough to escape this terrible ordeal, were asked to be generous and open their homes to the hapless families. Our home was plenty big enough for a family of four with a little more room besides. So, squeezing in a small family of three wasn’t too much of a stretch. Nancy and Bill Goode and their daughter Shirley became our lodgers. Shirley their only child was a couple of years younger than Pat.

I can’t remember how long they stayed with us, or indeed, how many rooms they occupied.  I just remember them suddenly appearing.  Aunty Nance, as she came to be known to Pat and me, was a cook by trade.  She would bake awesome cakes and biscuits and other goodies, when she could lay her hands on the necessary ingredients (usually powdered eggs and hydrogenated margarine; goodness knows how she came by the flour and sugar!).  She worked in the school kitchens, cooking dinners for all the schools in the area.  The school dinner program was quite unique to Britain and very ingenious when you consider that rationing was still in effect.  But the government of the time had decreed that all children of school age would have a hot meal, at least once a day. For a lot of the children, it would be the only meal they received in a day, hot or cold!  What they ate at weekends was left to providence! 

I do remember that one of the rooms the Goodes occupied was a small room at the end of our long hallway, which had a fireplace in it.  I used to enjoy sneaking in to see Aunty Nance and sit by her fire with her.  She would give me a biscuit and a drink of milk and then we would look for pictures together, in the flames of her fire.  She taught me that in a coal fire, when the flames were dancing really high, if you looked carefully, you could see images such as mountains, animals or even faces, hidden in the fiery coals.  I would sit staring into her fire for long periods, absolutely mesmerized. One day I had been licking a spoon which had the remains of “connie-onnie” on it, and staring mindlessly into the fire, when suddenly I threw the spoon into the fire then almost thrust my hand into the flames, in an attempt to retrieve it!  If it hadn’t been for Aunty Nance watching me and moving fast, I would have ended up with a charred hand!

I think that Bill Goode was maybe a heavy drinker.  Of course, as a child one is not aware of these things in adults, especially if they don’t stagger around smashing up furniture and shouting obscenities at the tops of their voices.  But I do remember one particular day - mum and I were alone in the living room and suddenly we heard a crash.  Mum jumped then warily opened the door to the hall and as I peeped under her arm I could see “Uncle Bill” lying on the floor.  She called “Are you alright Bill?”  Looking back, I think she was a little scared too.  “Yes, thanksh Peg.” he muttered and struggled up and disappeared into their room.

I have no idea how long they lived with us, though it was quite a few years. When Pat reached her fifteenth birthday, she was hosting a party and Aunty Nance pulled out all the stops. She made lovely butterfly cakes and a gorgeous birthday cake! Not to mention also puddings and sandwiches and a ton of food. The table was groaning at the weight of it all. Pat had invited quite a few of her friends, but before they arrived, I was told I had to go to bed!   I was mortified! I had been looking forward to tucking in to sandwiches and the butterfly cakes! But no, I was dispatched to bed forthwith, before anyone turned up. I went, but not with much grace, I will admit. Much worse was to come, when I woke up next day, hoping to find leftover cake or some morsel I could munch on, there was nothing left! I couldn’t believe it, nothing!

I remember the day they finally received a letter from Maghull Council, informing them that they had been allotted a new house in Sankey Road, Maghull. There was such excitement and joy, Shirley was bouncing up and down on her bed and both mum and Aunt Nance had great big smiles on their faces. It wasn’t long before the day came when they moved into their nice, brand-new home.  The bomb raids, the damage to their home, the fact that they were saved because they were safely in a bomb shelter, had changed the course of their life completely. But now war was over, the blackouts were gone, and they could look forward to life in a small town where they were building relationships and life could become normal again.

We never lost touch with them.  Often my sister, mum and me,  would go round to their home for a visit and many times, Aunt Nance would come by ours, on her way home from work, for a “cup of tea and a gossip”. They were like family by then.

I was growing, not an infant, or toddler anymore, but a little girl learning about my environment, my neighbours, and of an age when I could form relationships all of my own. And then there would be school. But that was all to come.

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