Our childhood experiences

dustyangel

Maywalk my sister had a ‘lazy’ eye and later on my son. I think that I was very lucky in that despite having a catholic education, I don’t remember any. unkindness by any of the nuns. I know I was lucky in that I remember one in particular was very sarcastic and terrified one small girl.

When my booklet was published dusty angel I had many folk coming back to me telling me that they too had had the same treatment from many of the nuns, but their tales were more into the 50s era.

Not all of the nuns were bad but there were more distressing tales than good ones.

What year were you taught by them dusty angel. ?

Maywalk my sister had a ‘lazy’ eye and later on my son. I think that I was very lucky in that despite having a catholic education, I don’t remember any. unkindness by any of the nuns. I know I was lucky in that I remember one in particular was very sarcastic and terrified one small girl.

I was born ten years before maddyone. Still during the war but of course I wasn’t aware of that. My mother made the journey from London to Yorkshire for my birth as her friend a nursing sister lived there. She journeyed back again with me and six year old sister when I was three weeks old.
I went to school when I was four but although so young somehow I could already read, I can remember hating the nun who taught me to write. I once lost the ration books! I know I was being allowed to carry them in a string bag but the trauma must have been awful for my mother as I can remember the fallout.
We moved from a (large to me) London flat to a nearby semidetached when I was six. I thought it was miles away and have only realised how close it was since seeing it on Google maps.
In my memory we always had a car, although I can remember plenty of bus trips, and went on holiday for a two week holiday every summer.First of all to boarding houses and then cottages by the coast. I can still remember the excitement of getting up in the early hours to travel to Cornwall for our holiday. Mum of course still doing the cooking.
After I left home she rebelled or they could by then afford it and my parents drove to a hotel in Dorset for their holiday.
With two small children and living in the south of England and our holiday was camping nearby.

We lived in a largish house in London, my father lived and worked overseas in Houston, Texas, which was unusual to be without one parent in the 60s. My mother let out rooms and Keith of the New/Old Seekers was a tenant. I remember listening to the band rehearsing in our lounge.
I kept guinea pigs in the garden shed. My early years were spent travelling on the buses and on the tube to dance classes and competitions.

I was born during the Great Depression of 1930. Unemployment was rife and I was the youngest of four.

Unfortunately I had Double Pneumonia that affected my eyes and my parents could not afford the fee to keep me in hospital so being a Catholic she asked the Sisters-of-Mercy to look after me until my father managed to get employment again .

While in that home as I got older at the age of four and a half I was unable to see properly because the illness left me with one eye that was not working properly so I had to have the good one covered up to make the lazy eye work.
I was put to work at that age to scrub the long coridoors of the home and with not being able to see properly I missed wiping up some water. I was beaten with a broom handle and thrown in a tiny dark cupboard. I wasn't the only child who was illtreated by these so called Sisters-of-Mercy and my family finally got me back home by the time I was in my seventh year.
I was home for around two years when WW2 started in 1939.My mother was taking us hop -picking because being Londoners it was a holiday to get out into the country although it was very hard tiring work.
Anyway in the third week of the war an enemy plane got through our defences such as they were and he started using us as target practice. Thankfully a Spitfire came to our aid and shot the enemy plane down.
We went all through the London Blitz and were bombed out twice and finally got evacuated in 1941 to the Midlands.
I am more than lucky to still be here at the age of 93 to relate stories from those years to many who love history.

I was born at home in 1972, which I’m lead to believe was unusual at the time.
I was an only child, but shared my childhood home with owls.
I lost my mom when I was 25 and she was 50, and I still miss her like mad.
I’m so lucky that I still have my dad, and that we are so close.
My feelings and thoughts about my childhood and adulthood are intertwined and interchangeable

When I was about 4 I found a dead bird in the garden and I remember picking up the 'phone and pushing a few buttons and a man answered. I asked him to tell my daddy at work that the little bird was dead. So, he said he would tell my dad. When my dad got home from work and I told him about it, he said the man had told him. How nice of two gents to play along with a little girl's story. I never knew who the nice man was and my dad never really got the message but pretended to please me.

I was born at home in 53. 2nd of 3 children. Mum said she had no pain relief except a towel twisted around the iron bedstead which she squeezed and twisted as the pains worsened. I think I weighed just under 8lbs and I had thick, dark hair.

It was a tiny rented cottage in a pretty seaside village and we had nice neighbours. We had just a cold tap inside and an outside toilet. No bathroom. My Dad had to cycle about 7 miles to work every day at an old army camp and cycle home again. The road had no shelter and the icy winds came straight off the North Sea.

I started school just a month before my 5th birthday. There was no playgroup and no nursery so I was at home with Mum until then and I remember being loved, being warm and doing nice things. The village school had just 3 classrooms and was a happy place. I had some lovely friends and excelled at reading, writing, sports and art but not so keen on Maths. In the summer we were allowed to play in the plantation next door rather than in the playground and it was just wonderful.

Around the age of 7 my parents were allocated a council house in the village with 3 bedrooms, a huge garden, big lounge and kitchen and hot and cold water and a bathroom. The toilet was not quite inside, but in what we called the wash house but it felt so luxurious after tripping up the garden path for years!

I was lucky enough to pass my 11+ exam and went on to grammar school about 14 miles away which I also loved. I believe I had the best childhood even though we didn’t have much money as Dad was only on low, rural wages.

That little cottage I was born in sold recently for £650,000 with just a teeny triangle of “garden” which fits just a tiny table and 2 chairs.

I was brought up with my sisters and brothers eight of us. We lived in our grans inner city house it was a rather big house but my gran was a tenant. In the 1960s we moved to a big council house outskirts of Liverpool surrounded by farmland. It was heaven to us wide eyed children as it was green and gorgeous with big gardens.

We were always sent to Sunday school in our little wooden purpose built church. Our school wasn’t built until six months later so we had a very long summer playing in wheat fields surrounding our house. Our parents both worked but at times life was a struggle because of all the strikes. We were happy and looked after well but we had to leave school to get jobs.

Our mum cooked every meal and dad helped at the weekend. We had some cooked breakfast or salt fish on Sundays a roast and salad and cake for tea. I still live in the same area but ten mins away it has meant a lot to me it’s home.

I was born in a Nursing Home in 1941 ( Dad in the army in India) My mother nearly died fom post partum haemorrage. We were taken to a Stately home/nursing for 3 months for her to recover.
My first memory of home was around 2 years old when we moved into a 'walk up' flat in a very deprived council estate. It was a regular occurence to see homes being sealed and fumigated.
My Mum told me later the first night there the bugs were coming out of the walls.
We moved to a new council house in 1949 and I was fortunate enough to pass 11 plus and get into a great Grammer School in 1951.

Not too difficult for me in some ways as relatives still live in the original family home.
I "go home" regularly.

Small village. Even village school is still there and open. Albeit with a couple more classrooms.
Grandkids of some of my former classmates now there.

The point in time when I worked out my childhood wasnt quite the same as others was when I went to big school. Only 3 of us could not swim. That was an eye opener. And one classmate had their own swimming pool! Unheard of where I grew up.

When I was 5 we moved from Barnsley to Ikeja I remember Father Christmas arriving by aeroplane at Lagos airport.
I also remember some insect laying her eggs under the skin of myself and my mum and my dad squeezing the little maggots out when they hatched.
Seeing Rome on our return to the U.K. in ladybird pyjamas - it was cold and they were the only warm things we had.
After that we moved to HK and life improved 😂

My childhood memories are of seemingly endless hospital treatment and operations. Visitors were only allowed in occasionally as “they upset the children”.
At home, the fields behind our house were full of blackberries and some raspberry canes and gooseberry bushes that must have escaped from one of the neighbour’s gardens. We loved summer.

I was born in 1950 in a nursing home where I was nearly strangled by the umbilical cord, causing an umbilical hernia. This was operated on in 1952 and my parents were not allowed to visit me for the whole two weeks I was a patient!! My older sister said I was very odd when I came home!

From then on, I would scream if ever Mum took me into a public toilet, presumably because the smell of disinfectant reminded me of hospital.

When I was five, we moved from Wiltshire to Surrey so days out in London to museums, galleries, etc were a regular feature. My favourite memories are trips to London theatres to see musicals like The Sound of Music, Oliver!, My Fair Lady, etc., which gave me a lifelong love of the performing arts, influencing my teaching career and leisure time and is still a source of great pleasure to me now I'm retired.

I drew pictures of horses in a book and had to decide which one to ride when I went to the corner shop to buy my mums Woodbines. And I played for hours in the communal brew house where I filled the sink with water and played with the animal figures I’d bought on a school trip to London Zoo. One year we had a real live donkey living in the school cloakroom that was going to be used in our Easter service. We then all appeared on tv with a different donkey.