Royston is born.

Cliff was had a totally different nature to Mary. He couldn't bear me to be out of his sight and Dad called him bawling Billy. He was cuddlesome and once the feeding came right no trouble at all but that was to change.

I tried to include Mary in his bath and feeding times but she wouldn't stay and wandered off next door to Mam. It was all too easy for her but it really upset me. She also became more difficult with meals and I had great difficulty in getting her to eat.

Our worry about this made us stupid. Wes would take her up to her bedroom to try to make her eat and once when I was on my own, I shut her out of the room telling her she couldn't come in until she agreed to eat. I think this must have been after we left Birkin Avenue or she would have gone in to Mam.

Despite her early jealousy, Mary soon adopted a very protective attitude to Cliff especially after they started school.

Mary was still very under weight and had repeated attacks of tonsillitis and the glands in her neck had become tubercular. At last I refused to leave the hospital until they agreed to operate which they did before she was five.

I sold the pram, which had stood up well to carrying both children on our daily walks. We had a chair seat that fastened on the bottom of the pram for Mary but Cliff had a habit for unscrewing things and one day whilst I was in a shop, he unscrewed one of the arms. I didn't notice until we got home but then it was too late, it had gone. On another occasion he unscrewed the bolts on the ironing board whilst I was ironing fortunately I was able to catch it before it descended on his head

I had a canvas bucket type pushchair for Cliff, which was very useful especially if we were going on a bus or a trolley bus, as the sliding of two rings up the handle allowed it to fold. It was very light which was a good point since although the buses had conductors not all of them were helpful. We never needed a timetable since the trolley buses to Bulwell or to Trent Bridge ran every few minutes. There were also buses into town coming from the Aspley Estate and the stop was at the end of our street, opposite the Player cigarette factory.

Children under five travelled free but only one per full paying passenger, some conductors didn't enforce that. We didn't use buses much except in the summer to go to Trent Bridge. If it was fine, we took the boat trip to Colwick. There a sand beach had been made and a section of the river roped off for a paddling pool. We took sandwiches and had many a lovely day out there.

Another favourite place was the Arboretum. On Sundays, Wes would take the children straight after breakfast leaving me to pack up the sandwiches before joining them.

During heat waves, I caught a bus to Buiwell lido and Wes would come from work to join me. We were lucky in having several lidos in and around Nottingham. As well as the Bulwell Lido there was Highflelds at the Nottingham University, Carrington in the middle of town and Calverton which I think was provided by the Miners' Welfare there was also a privately run one at Papplewick. The Papplewick Lido was fed wutspring water and was exceptionally cold.

It was during a heat wave that Cliff became very fretful. I put it down to the weather and the cutting of his eyeteeth but I became alarmed whilst we were on the Arboretum when his breathing became very heavy and he seemed barely conscious. I sent for the doctor and she told me he was bordering on pneumonia. In those days doctors actually suggested mothers should send for them rather than taking babies to the surgery, moreover they continued to attend until the child was well.

Mary went down with whooping cough when she was four. Within a week, Cliff too took ill with this dreadful disease. All night long, they had bouts of coughing ending with vomiting. Cliff was in the next bedroom on the first floor and Mary in the bedroom on the second floor. I remember one night staggering out of bed to rush upstairs to Mary only to find it was Cliff who needed me but by the time he was settled I had to go back to Mary.

Once they were over the worst, I followed the time-honoured method of cure. I walked them wherever I heard they were tarring the road. The fumes from the tar were reputed to ease their chests. The coughs continued for months.

Some little time after this my father's sister, my Aunt May, invited the children and me to spend a few days holiday with her. I was surprised since I had only had one previous invite when I was a small child and she was a live in nursemaid. That was a disaster. I fought with her employer's child and cried all night with homesickness.

Now she was living in a cottage on some Lord's estate at Retford. I expected the cottage to resemble the one my work mate had been sent to when she was pregnant or the farm cottage at Farnsfield where I had once spent a weekend but this bore no resemblance to either. There was a baby-grand piano in the living room and it didn't look out of place with the sumptuous suite. The bedroom too was large and airy with frilly curtains and bedspread.

On the Sunday morning May and her husband Charles were going to church and I volunteered to do the vegetables. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the pantry door open and came to the conclusion that it was locked. May was furious - the door was just stiff. I could write an article about my problems with jammed doors.

Wes must have come to fetch me home because I recall we went a walk together and for the first time in my life, I saw a "host of dancing daffodils". Not ten thousand but still an impressive amount growing wild.

I have a feeling the invite was suggested by Dad, in any event the purpose was clear on the second day when Aunt May had a "serious talk" with me. "I was," she said, "too intelligent to waste my time bringing up babies. Any one could look after children and I was wasting my education. I should find someone to look after them while I took up my career."

I was not only surprised I was shocked. No one could care for my children the way I could. I wouldn't even consider the proposal. Besides which I didn't think I was particularly clever or well educated since I was in the "C" form and I missed several weeks at the beginning of the war when the school was closed down. I wasn't notified when it reopened and I was sent down to sit in with the first years for a term for truanting from a sports afternoon.

Two of our teachers were retired ladies brought back into teaching after many years absence. Naturally, we took advantage of them. The History teacher began each lesson with the question, "Now where had we got to?" Our answer was always Henry V111 and until the final year, we stuck with him. The other was a maths teacher and she pretended I wasn't there. As I was hopeless at maths I was content to keep my mouth shut and read a book under the desk.

We were able to take a holiday most years as Dad paid me to look after the shop for a fortnight while they took their annual holiday.

Our first holiday with the two children was at Mablethorpe in a caravan. It was dreadful. Water had to be fetched from a tap in the field, there was a smell of sewage, I developed cystitis, and a horse bit Mary.

The following year we took bed and attendance accommodation. The first shock was the sleeping arrangements. There was no room at all between the beds, one ran under the window at the foot of the other, the cot touched the wall and the bed. To lift Cliff out I had to crawl over our bed and stand him on the small bed to dress him. He lost his balance, clutched at the net curtain, which, although I didn't notice it at the time, tore.

The eating arrangements created a problem. There was one long table for all the guests and it was assumed we would all have egg, bacon and fried bread for breakfast. I had bought tinned cod's roe, which I knew the children would eat. The landlady refused to cook it. Then I asked if we could have poached egg. This too was refused. Reluctantly she agreed to boil the eggs providing we all had them.

We had to cut the bread at the table and Cliff screamed until he was allowed to sit on my knee. 1 can't think now why Wes didn't cut the bread but I suppose it was the woman's job.

Then I was told the only vegetable they were prepared to cook was cabbage! We were really browned off having to go out and shop again but greater trouble met us on our return. The landlord met us with the greeting, Tm afraid I shall have to ask you to leave. The other lodgers had complained about Cliff's screaming at the table and the landlord had found the torn curtain.

I accompanied him upstairs to inspect the damage. As soon as I examined the curtain net I realised it was rotted. I lost my temper and demonstrated its condition by shredding it between my fingers, from a small tear where his finger had caught it became a heap of rags. I also told him what I thought of the room and the so-called attendance.

As I packed, he said he wanted paying for the rest of the week. In those days, you paid a deposit on booking and the rest of your bill at the end of the holiday. I told him I was reporting him to the Council since we had got his address from their accommodation list.

We received every help there. They gave us the address of a small hotel and said they would look into the complaint. They also advised us to ignore any demand for payment.

Although the hotel was slightly more expensive, it was well worth it and we returned another year with some friends. Cliff once again caused problems by locking himself in the bathroom. The landlord made no fuss just instructing me to stay by the door and talk to him whilst he fetched a ladder to climb through the window

Another disastrous holiday was at Blackpool. We were greeted at the door by the landlady saying, "I hope you've brought your rubbers with you. And don't think you're going to leave them at night I don't provide a baby sitting service."

Wes gasped and almost choked. Then she added, "I had to burn the mattress after the last family."

Cliff had not wet the bed for over a year but I had brought a rubber and a cotton draw sheet, which was just as well since he wet the bed on the first night.

The following morning we found she had taken the glass door off the dining room because the evening before the children had played "peep bo" through it. The room was freezing but before the day was out a middle aged couple had arrived, the lady voiced her complaint loud and clear, and the door was returned.

The other guest continued to complain about any and everything and the landlady mellowed towards us even to the extent of offering to baby sit one night but there was no way I would have left my babies with such a sour faced bitch.

Once or twice I thought I was pregnant, I wasn't too upset since bank salary structure was arranged on the principle that men shouldn't marry before they were twenty-seven when they got an increase in salary so I was less worried about the expense and I had always thought four children a nice number. I was able to save the 5/- family allowance to pay for the children's clothes and there would be extra for each child after the first. Although money cannot have been plentiful since my friend and I walked up the mile of Radford road checking the prices of green-groceries to buy the cheapest on the return journey

However, each time after missing a menstrual period I began passing clots. I didn't seek medical advice at the time but later the doctor said I had probably had spontaneous abortions. As I approached thirty I decided I was too old to give birth.

One perfect holiday we had before our third baby was born. That was at Southbourne. We took bed and breakfast accommodation and hired a beach hut where we cooked potatoes and warmed tinned foods on the paraffin heater provided for the making of hot drinks only. We had hit a heat wave and spent long days on the beach. The landlady was a real gem urging us to go out after the children were asleep.

We could never forget this holiday for two incidents. To reach the digs we had to walk home from the beach via a park with a large goldfish pond. In spite of warnings Cliff insisted on walking round the edge and one evening he fell in.

The other incident was down to us. Wes was fond of cheese and biscuits for supper and one night I lovingly popped cracker biscuits spread liberally with Brie cheese in his mouth. We didn't put the light on for fear of waking the children. The next morning we found the cheese was wriggling with maggots. If it hadn't have been wrapped it would have walked.

I was helpless with laughter, (I hadn't eaten any) I took the cheese to the landlady, and she too saw the funny side. She agreed to dispose of it.

When we returned that evening, we found we had not heard the last of the cheese. Our host had buried it in the garden, later when the smell pervaded the kitchen they discovered their collie dog had found it and it had spread all over his beautiful beard

It was a good thing they were such an easy going pair.

We might have returned another year but then my periods stopped. I thought I was pregnant and although I was worried about my age I was quite happy at the thought of another baby as my youngest would soon be starting school and I had always thought four to be a nice size for a family. I would, have another as soon as possible after this one, if it was possible. Mary and Clifford had got on so well together and I didn't want this baby to miss out on having a brother or sister near to its own age.

When after ten weeks I visited the doctor, she told me she didn't think I was pregnant but I must leave it until I had missed three periods to be certain.

I had a heavy discharge but not a period and was sent to the hospital for tests. There I was told I had gone into a premature change and I was put on hormone pills. After a few weeks treatment I had a very scanty period and soon after I became convinced, I was pregnant. The specialist said it was impossible and I should carry on with the treatment under the supervision of my own doctor who was still insisting I was not pregnant even when I felt the quickening.

"If I'm not pregnant," I said. I've got rabbits inside and they are jumping."

Again, I was referred to the hospital and they conceded I was pregnant but that the baby was not due until the 30th. October. He was born September 4th. 1956 and he was full term weighing 9lbs 4ozs.

This time with Mary at school, Dad took Cliff with him to collect sausages and pies for the shop whilst I attended the antenatal clinic and for the first time since I was a child, I met and talked to local women.

Present day welfare benefits are today criticized as discouraging people from seeking work but they were no different then. I met one young woman about my age who was expecting her eighth child. Her husband was unemployed. It wasn't worth his while to work, she told me because he only earned ten bob more than he got on the dole and with her family it was worth ten bob a week to her to have him at home. Even in those days, some men helped around the house. Not mine unfortunately.

Another young woman was attempting to have a baby after suffering five miscarriages. I don't think I would have had her courage and yet another had a cancer that had spread down her arm like cat fur. She said she was to lose her arm but they wouldn't operate until she had the baby. I don't know whether she had the baby as mine came first.

Mary and Clifford took German measles when I was about four months pregnant. Mam couldn't remember whether I had had it or not so, I was very concerned for the baby, the doctor said it was too late to do anything about it but as my generation had most childish ailments, it was unlikely that I had missed out.

I had great faith in the painless childbirth theory and practiced my breathing exercises regularly but I made the doctor promise I could have pethidine since I had no faith in the gas and air.

A week before the actual birth I had a false labour and rang for my husband to come home from work. This time he wasn't taking his holiday as I had been granted a home help from the local council. By the time Wes reached home the pains had gone and he was very annoyed at being fetched from work. About ten days later, in the middle of the day the pains started up again.

This time I adopted a wait and see attitude. Mother wanted to send for the midwife but I thought the pains were not strong enough for anything to be happening. By five o'clock, they were every ten minutes but still not at all strong. Mam took matters in her own hands and she rang the midwife and the bank.

My waters broke before the midwife arrived accompanied by a student nurse. She literally threw me on the bed and I was still fully clothed when the baby arrived. Wes walked in about ten minutes later to be ordered out by the midwife with the words, "We don't want you in here, you've done enough damage."

1 was supposed to stay in bed ten days but after a week I was upset by Cliffs crying and decided to get up. My dragon midwife had gone to another birth and the younger less intimidating nurse who had accompanied her at the birth was attending me.

Conditions down stairs led me to send the "Home Help" packing. None of the pans she had used for cooking had been washed and the unironed washing on top of the sewing machine reached almost to the ceiling. Nor had she had to spend much time looking after Cliff since he spent most of the day next door with Mam. I can't remember how much I had to pay but whatever it was, it was too much.

We named the baby Clive Royston but for reasons best known to them Mam and Dad insisted on calling him Roy. It was strange since he had been given the name Royston at the request of my sister-in-law's husband who had acted as our best man. At the time, Dad bitterly opposed the choice, as he was a divorcee.

Breast-feeding was an even greater problem this time as although I had plenty of milk I am convinced the baby was allergic to it. The experts declared this impossible, yet within ten minutes of being fed he regurgitated like a fountain. My first thought was that he had a stoppage and in panic I visited one welfare clinic after another in an attempt to discover what was wrong. I tried the bottle with no more success and the whole house reeked of vomit.

He was only a few weeks old when Cliff took ill with Chicken Pox. His was a mild attack but Royston became desperately ill. The infection had attacked him internally and he developed enteritis. The doctor even attended Christmas day and Boxing Day.

All that I had learnt from my previous struggles were forgotten. I couldn't leave this baby to cry, for if I did he had an asthma attack. I often found myself cooking with him in my arms.

He was only a few weeks old when I began working in the shop again cleaning as well as serving at lunch times, not just for the money but because I was worried about Dad. He had taken early retirement but wouldn't let up. He was getting a lot of indigestion and had been put on a fat free diet. The weight was dropping from him week by week.

He had been very depressed by the death of his young brother who had suffered with his chest since doing service abroad. He was one of the first to be called up since, against Dad's advice he had joined the territorials not out of patriotism but for the extra cash. He too had been a union man and claimed Players sacked him when he tried to organize the men.

Dad took Gilbert's death hard and tried to get a pension for his widow. She was one of those who were hit by the new pension laws that denied married women under fifty and without young children a pension. Like most women of her generation, she had not worked since getting married, not even during the war since her son was still at school.

My younger brother John was called up for military service in Cyprus. It seemed incredible. When the Second World War broke out Harry, my elder brother, was sixteen. No one could have foreseen that John who was only three years old would eventually be called up.

To make matters worse the removal of price controls meant the business could no longer compete with the nearby stores. Dad had to pay more for goods at the "Cash and Carry" than the stores charged. At one stage, I was buying sugar from the Co-op for him to retail. He saw his profits eroded as his customers deserted him for Woolworths and Co-op. Ice-cream profits too were down. After complaining to the local "Trades Council" about the bicycle ice-cream peddlers stationing themselves outside the shop he began to be hounded by the local "Health Inspectors."

He was made to build a separate dairy at the bottom of the yard to make the ice-cream. Plus an additional sink for the washing of hands. After he had carried out these improvements, he was told he must have a separate toilet for the staff. (One part-time lady)

When Cliff started school, I left Royston in his pram in Mam's back yard whilst I took him. I had to meet him to bring him home at lunchtime and take him back but soon I was leaving Mary to bring him as far as the Boulevard and meeting them to cross the road. Years later she told me she had terrible trouble with getting him there but she never complained at the time.

Open day helped to strengthen my resolve to move house for Mary's teacher seemed inadequate and when I asked how Mary was doing she just replied, Oh she's alright."

For some time we had, during the summer months, been looking at houses with a view to buying. I had had no ambition to move but Wes suffered several asthma attacks and was very unhappy when we were confined indoors on wet weekends furthermore he had seen on his bank report a comment about his address.

The matter became more urgent after Mary had a very nasty throat and gland infection with a fever causing her to hallucinate. The doctor suggested her health would improve if we lived in a cleaner environment.

Our first thought had been to buy a newly built house on the same estate as my brother but we withdrew from that when we discovered there was virtually no back garden.

Dad urged against, "putting your life in bricks and mortar" but I was afraid if I stayed, I would be putting my life into the shop. He became cross when Mam and I went shopping together and was less tolerant of the children's misdemeanours.

When Mary had developed the habit of crawling under the counter and chewing both matchboxes and cigarette packets he made the cigarettes less accessible but when Cliff posted salvage in the milk churn that stood in the back yard, he demanded payment and wanted him chastising.

He also accused Cliff of stealing money from the mantelpiece. Cliff claimed the lady in the next street who the children called "our Grandma who isn't our real Grandma" had given it to him. I was shocked when Dad said Cliff would finish up in gaol.

I asked if I could pay weekly for the ruined milk and Dad relented to the extent of only making me pay half as he conceded the salvage should not have been lying about.

We eventually settled on a house to be built at Wilford Hill. The plot was at the top of a hill with an open field at the back and what I thought was a church on the horizon. The mortgage was really higher than we could afford in spite of the interest on the loan being only 2.5% (a special rate for bank employees) the loan was for the whole amount £2,500.

The choice was mine. I was tired of looking and Wes had set his heart on living south of the river. We saw an older house that we liked but the asking price was £2,800 and as we needed a 100% loan, the repayments would have been too much.

Wilford Hill was a new estate and the nearest shops were a mile away down an unmade road. The promised school had not yet been built nor did it have a bus service.

At first, I had to take the children to school across the main Loughborough Rd. and through a farmer's field but after a several weeks, the Council provided a school bus. This made life easier as I only had to put them on the bus and meet them off it at the end of the school day. One day a lady approached me to tell me Cliff had been swearing. I was surprised since I had never heard him swear. Apparently the bus had mounted the curb as it turned the corner at some speed and Cliff said, "what does the silly boggar think he's doing?" I guessed he had picked that up from Dad.

Once I met the bus only to find they were not on it. I panicked and ran with Royston in his pram to meet them. I found them just leaving the school. Mary had been kept in. Trembling with rage, I went to give the teacher a dressing down. She wasn't a bit concerned and seemed to think I was making a fuss about nothing.

We had a similar alarm a few years later when the children missed the bus from Sunday school. We discovered them arguing with an irate lady who was trying to offer them a lift. Her insistence had made them very frightened but she turned on us saying it was ridiculous to make children so afraid of strangers. I did not doubt her motive but if it happened today, I would call the police.

Soon after we moved to Wilford Hill I discovered there was a farm selling goats milk and I read somewhere that goats milk was often tolerated by people allergic to cows milk so I began to give it to Royston and it agreed with him.

As soon as the new school was built, I transferred the children and as they no longer had a main road to cross, I didn't need to meet them and they could come home for lunch. I think life is like Edward Thomas's "Roads"

"The next turn may reveal
Heaven: upon the crest
The close pine clump at rest
And black, may Hell conceal."

We took our first holiday at Butlins, Skegness, hoping to at least to be able to eat our meals in peace whilst Mary was in the nursery and perhaps to go out for an hour or so after she was in bed. No such luck! She screamed so much when they put her in the cot that we felt we couldn't leave her and although she was fast asleep before we went to the bar in the evening, she was screaming before we had finished our first drink.

It was at Butlins that Mary had her first birthday and took her first steps. We bought her a push along revolving wheel holding a mickey mouse. She tried to get the mouse out and screamed until we broke the toy to liberate him. How daft can you get? At the time we were sure she related the character's imprisonment to her own experience in the creche

Before the holiday was over I realised I was again pregnant. This was a double blow. The bank, where Wes worked, gave a child allowance of seven pounds fifty a quarter but they had earlier announced that this was not to be extended to any child born after December 31st. 1951. We had discussed having another child in time to qualify and as I had no intention of rearing an only child, I thought we should attempt it but Wes refused. It was strange really for he has made very few decisions during our married life.

I accepted his judgment and was using both a Dutch cap and pessaries but "Man proposes and God disposes," as my paternal Grandma was fond of saying. How much the allowance would have meant became more obvious as the months went by. I was supposed to save for the gas bills as well as paying the rent and running the home. In the time-honoured way I put the gas money in a tin at the beginning of the month, alas before the bill came I had borrowed to pay the milk bill or the butcher and when the gas bill came there was nothing to meet it.

We had a terrible row, which ended with my telling him to do the housekeeping. I think he deducted ten shillings a week and thereafter paid the bills himself.

Our monetary problems were not helped when we had our first attempt at wallpapering. I wanted to put Mary in a bedroom of her own before the new baby came. There is an old song "When father papered the parlour" which describes our efforts to the "T" but unlike the song, it wasn't funny for we could ill afford to make mistakes.

Plumb lines had never been mentioned and the pattern sloped at an ever-increasing angle between one corner and the next. We were covered in paste, there were several holes where our fingers had torn through the flimsy paper and the extra roll we had to buy wasn't quite the same shade as the rest, but it had to do.

Mary was still very thin although we did everything we could to encourage her to gain weight even making a bedtime drink of Bournvita in a bottle to which we added raw egg.

The Bournvita was expensive and Mam suggested I bought a canteen-sized tin from her. That proved to be a costly mistake for we kept it in the back bedroom and whilst we were scraping the several layers of paper Mary managed to get it open and played sand pies with the contents.

My second pregnancy was tortuous. Morning sickness developed into all day sickness. I had to stop my work in the snack bar for I could no longer cook without being sick. Even the smell of food made me nauseous.

The doctor couldn't help other than to suggest a dry biscuit. Everything taken would go straight to the baby so any pills or potions were strictly forbidden.

At this time, my old boss rang me to say the Inland Revenue was inquiring into my earnings and he thought he ought to warn me. We used to get a monthly bonus on top of our salary and he wanted to know if he should declare it. I was able to tell him it was Dad they were after. He had bought a car cash down and they were accusing him of fiddling his accounts. He told them I had tipped up all my wages since starting work and he had kept my wage packets unopened and used the cash to buy a car. I had left work three years before and they were checking on my wages.

And then Dad had a heart attack.

Some time previously I had noticed his lips were blue as he carried the milk crates from the backyard to the shop. I asked Wes if he would take them in for Dad before he went to work in the morning and yet I was shocked when it happened. I believe the tax authorities hounded him almost to his death. I remember feeling very bitter about it. God knows he had worked hard enough, he'd earned that car.

The last six weeks of my pregnancy my weight dropped by two pounds a week till December came, I begged the doctor to give me something to hurry the birth. I told her about the bank child allowance, which would continue as long as the child was in full time education, provided it was born before the end of the year, but she refused to help.

Dad had taken on a part time helper and she advised me to take gin and castor oil whilst sitting in a hot bath, so after Christmas I did just that.

The pains started and I thought the treatment had worked. Agonising pains rooted me to the toilet. The midwife was sent for and immediately asked me what I had taken. I thought I was going to die and felt it would be preferable to living.

The griping and diarrhoea lasted two days and afterwards I felt so weak I could hardly stand but the baby refused to be hurried.

I finally went into labour on the ninth of January. The labour was protracted, although I had asked for pethidine the midwife said she couldn't administer it and she was unwilling to send for the doctor. Instead, I was to have gas and air. The machine didn't work and the pain went on for hours until both the nurse and Mam were yelling at me to push while I was too exhausted to obey.

At last he was born. Nothing was said and when I asked if it was all right, I received no answer. Through half closed eyes I watched as the nurse blew into his mouth. Then she laid him on a towel, picked up the jug of cold water, and threw it over him.

She then began to blow into him again and then to clean him up before attending to me.

When I finally got a look at him he appeared to be bruised all over. Unlike his sister, he was a chubby baby and although his head was large it did not look out of proportion, his back was covered in hair.

The following day the midwife told me she had thought the baby was stillborn and dashing cold water over him was a last resort before asking mother to take him away. The water however had induced a slight movement and so she had resumed working on him.

Mother was very angry and asked why she hadn't sent for the doctor when I was having such problems with the delivery. Her reply was that the doctor too was in the ninth month of pregnancy and she was afraid she might have two babies to deliver at the same time.

The doctor came several days later, still pregnant. She said I had been badly ripped by the baby's head, which was very large. It was however too late for stitches but the tear would heal itself.

Once again feeding caused problems, this time I had too much milk so when the baby tried to feed it gushed like a fountain and choked him. For a while, some of my milk was collected and taken to the premature baby unit.

I named my son Clifford after my father and Wesley after my husband. From the beginning Wes said he wasn't going to put up with the sleepless nights . Cliff was to be fed strictly on a four-hour schedule and once in bed he was not to be picked up however much he cried.

I wouldn't have kept to the four hours during the day but for him getting mild enteritis due to over feeding. The welfare nurse couldn't believe his weight gain was due entirely to breast-feeding. He would regularly put on eight to twelve ounces a week whilst his sister grew ever thinner.

The contrast between them became so marked that when I took them both out strangers made comments about "feeding one and neglecting the other." I often went home in tears.

Dad recovered and in spite of hospital advice refused to have a bed downstairs. "You're not making an invalid of me," he said.

He received sick pay until one day the health insurance visitor came whilst he was attending to a customer. Mam had gone to the lav but that wasn't a good enough excuse he was told he must not serve in the shop whilst he was on sick.

He signed himself off.

Following Dad's advice we began to rely on "stop in time" for contraception. I hated it but was afraid of being let down by mechanical methods.

Mary had been out of nappies for several months before Cliff was born but soon after she began to wet herself and following the advice of the district nurse I put her back in nappies.

I now got up at 5am on Mondays in order to boil the nappies and do the household laundry, which was ponched in the kitchen sink before being transferred to the gas copper. We bought a mangle, a smaller lighter version of mother's old wooden roller one. The rollers were rubber covered and because it was so light, it had a tendency to walk when anything heavy was put through it. It had to stay in the back yard for there was not sufficient room in the kitchen.

Cliff was only three months old when Mary took ill with measles. The doctor reassured me that he was unlikely to get it as I was feeding him and he would take immunity from my milk.

Mary was very ill and lay all day in a semi-conscious state. I had the cot downstairs and we kept the curtains drawn as it was said the light could affect the child's eyes. She recovered and Cliff didn't take it.

Now more than ever, I was glad of my friend's company. She too had two children and once Mary had recovered, we both would do all the household chores in the morning and wheel out the babies in their prams in the afternoon. At this time, Wes came home for a midday dinner so it was usually after two o'clock before I was free.

If it was fine, we took them on the nearby Forest and if it wet we shortened our walk to take a cup of tea in each other's house. I had to be home by four thirty though because in those days, the banks closed at three thirty and Wes wasn't best pleased if he got home before me.

I found his attitude hard to accept. I couldn't see why he couldn't have made himself a cup of tea instead of waiting with a face like thunder. It was of course his upbringing. His parents were ten or more years older than mine and had known the time when they had a "live in" maid. His father would not have undertaken any household task, indeed he didn't even mow the lawns whereas my Dad scrubbed floors, cooked and dusted, though I never saw him iron.

However, my husband made no objection to Barbara and me going dancing once the baby was fully weaned, something my Dad would never have allowed mother to do. Indeed, he told Wes he shouldn't allow it. I found his concern quite amusing since we danced together most of the time and when we danced with a fella, we returned to our own table. Both of us agreed the men we had left at home were better than anything that could be found at the Palais.

We never saw anyone from the old days until one night when Cliff was two or three years old and Fred was there. He asked me to dance, I think it was foxtrot and I couldn't follow him. It was very odd for although we had never gone dancing together I had no problem the night we met at the Civil Service dance. We gave up trying and he invited me to have a drink. I told Barbara and the three of us left together.^

Spitefully I gave the glad eye to another fella that I had danced with once or twice. I was so angry because he thought I was going to fall at his feet again. The other fella came and asked me to dance and I left Fred with Barbara.

Later, she told me how surprised she was that I was obviously bored in his company. That too was deliberate, there was no way I would risk my marriage.

I tried hard to be a dutiful wife and to make our home nice. The red tiled kitchen floor was scrubbed with the wash water after the laundry was finished. It was a good smooth floor and I thought how nice it would be if I polished it with Cardinal Red polish. This was a heavy wax polish, which was supposed to need only mopping to keep clean. I used it first on the outside window sills and got Wes to fasten a wooden bar across so that I could put geraniums in plant pots on the sill.

Polishing the kitchen floor was a mistake. Not that it didn't look nice but one morning while I was making the beds the children decided to help by polishing the floor. I suppose I must have left the tin out. Unfortunately, they decided to use their Dad's suit as polishing cloths. I never bought dusters but used rags cut from old clothes so presumably they thought the suit was "old clothes" whereas it was his best suit that had been left ready to take to the cleaners.

I had forgotten this incident until my young brother reminded me. He went into paroxysm of laughter as he recalled me sobbing to mother. He fell about laughing then and she clipped him over the ear.

Mother's cleaning lady told me to take the suit to the cleaners straight away and tell them what had happened. They tried to be sympathetic but couldn't stop laughing as they told me they would do their best. Their best was marvellous, the suit was returned in pristine condition and Wes knew nothing about it until John and I were swopping memories for this biography.

When Mary began to crawl, we broke our resolution of buying everything in cash. We had a coco-matting floor covering which grazed her knees so we took out a Co-op club for a carpet square. I think it cost thirty pounds. The collector called every week and you got "Divi" on the payments. We continued to take out "clubs" with the Co-op for many a year, we wouldn't have managed anything new without it.

We acquired a new wardrobe, Mam's old one. It was oak and had an oval mirror on the door. Dad had bought a new one (second hand), a huge mahogany wardrobe lined with quilted blue satin. I'm sure he expected Mam to be delighted but she hated it.

They couldn't get it up the stairs and it had to be taken apart to get it through the bedroom window. Poor Dad he never did get it right. He once bought me a pair of opera glasses and I thought he'd found them. I went to plays not opera or revues and I had never seen anyone use opera glasses.

I was still working in the shop. Cliff took his day time sleep in the pram in Mam's back yard. Before I had realised he could pull himself up he had managed to fall from the pram and over the wall which must have been about an eight foot drop. I was distraught but there wasn't a mark on him.

Wes & me at Skegness

Married Life

Dad bought the two shop premises some time before (1936 according to my younger brother). The opportunity came when the landlord of no.87 which Dad rented offered it for sale. The adjoining shop premises no 85 had become vacant so Dad got both premises very cheap.

He rented no 85 to some one as a hardware business which failed. The tenant had then sublet the shop part and she incurred Dad's wrath when he came home one day to find it was to be used as the "Conservative Party" headquarters.

In spite of this he would have found it difficult to recover the premises for us but for the fact that he discovered she had accepted "key money" for the house part. This was a practise that had been made illegal.

We were delighted at our stroke of luck even though the rent was to be twenty five shillings a week.

The week prior to the wedding we spent every night scraping the walls and decorating the house that was to be our home. We scraped off layer after layer of paper only to find the walls were painted dark green with a two inch black border at head height. It had previously been a butcher's shop. A retired painter and decorator advised us to use powder distemper to cover it and he showed us how to stipple a pattern using a sponge. We used cream for the background and random dots in blue and pink. I was very satisfied with the result but we were both dog tired by the time we finished.

My cousin Jean was to marry the following month and we planned to share the house as it had a living room and kitchen downstairs and the shop could be used as an extra lounge whilst upstairs was a large room over the shop and three more bedrooms.

Dad had previously had a "cook an heat" put in both 85 and 87 kitchens and bathrooms built over the kitchens.

It was years before I lost the sense of utter luxury of having a bath in our own bathroom. Turning on the taps and pulling out the plug were miraculous to me.

Jean's parents stepped in to offer her a room at home at the same time pointing out that if she moved in with us she would probably forfeit her chance of a Council house.

The Councils at that time had waiting lists. Nottingham City would accept engaged couples names on the housing list providing the man was a resident in the City. Nottinghamshire County, however allocated houses on a points system. The first requirement was that the man should be married and a resident of the County. Points were added according to the number of children he had and as there was no way I was going to start a family without a home of my own we were ineligible for either list.

Dad had passed on to me his own fears of hire purchase and Wesley's father was of the same mind so we agreed we would pay cash for everything or go without.

We furnished the living room with Momma's drop side brown Rexene settee, and a wooden folding bed chair from mother in laws attic.

There were alcoves either side of the fire, in one we put Mam's old treadle machine, given on the understanding that I would do any sewing she required and in the other alcove an orange box covered with a piece of matching curtain. I had made the curtains very simply by hemming each length top and bottom and hanging them on a stretch curtain wire. The wire was not enclosed in plastic at this time.

Our last forty pounds went on a gas cooker that I bought new. I have always been particular about my cookers and couldn't abide the thought of a second hand one.

Wesley's father bought us a utility dining room suite that had a huge draw leaf table and a sideboard. He had chosen it with care but without any regard to the dimensions of our room. I would rather have had the money but we were given no choice although he did take us to see it before it was delivered. He had examined it carefully and told the shop he wanted that particular suite and not another from the production line.

We couldn't afford a new bed and I was allowed to bring the 3/4 bed that I had shared with my young brother until I was fifteen. I also brought my bedroom furniture, a wardrobe, which was a converted wall cupboard, and a three mirrored dressing table.

Mam gave me a couple of part worn blankets and sheets. The sheets were worn in the centre but I cut them and turned sides to the middle, one of my aunts bought us a pair of sheets and another a blanket. We were very lucky in our presents for the only thing that was duplicated was a teapot.

Before the wedding Dad warned me to avoid having babies too soon but as the Doctor had told me I wouldn't conceive unless I had my tubes blown I thought I had nothing to worry about. I intended to carry on working for at least five years before having a family.

On my wedding day Dad told me, "marriage is just hard work." I didn't understand then what he meant. Later I realised how right he was.

My main worry was that I would disappoint my husband in bed. He had confessed to an affair in the army and that his first sexual experience was with a prostitute.

Three months after the wedding I started to be sick in the mornings. I hadn't noticed the absence of my periods because I was so irregular.

At this time Wes was earning just under five pounds a week and I was earning just over five pounds so we were by no means living in luxury on two wage packets and yet I had no doubt, I would cope.

Fortunately I could both knit and sew and began to make the layette and to read everything I could about giving birth and rearing the baby. Dr. Spock's book on baby and childcare became my bible.

One promise I made to myself was that I would never smack my baby. The other was that we would never quarrel in front of the children. I thought I knew it all.

After the morning sickness passed I bloomed but it wasn't easy to keep working and I was relieved when the time came that I could give up and still qualify for the maternity grant.

It did not occur to me that I would ever go out to work again.

Natural childbirth was the vogue in 1950 and my baby was to be born without pain. At least that was what the books told me.

My doctor did not attend childbirths and so I was referred to a doctor at the other end of town.

She was a Catholic and as a result of an article I had read I asked her what would happen if at the time of birth she was faced with a choice of my life or the baby's. She assured me that it couldn't happen for if there was any doubt about my being able to deliver safely I would be admitted to hospital for a caesarean birth.

I travelled across town by bus and alone for my antenatal checkups. These visits became ever more wearisome as I passed the projected birth date. My mother's cleaning lady said I should be induced but the doctor insisted the baby would come when it was ready.

I had continued to work for the first six months and I bought as much as I could for the coming event. An aunt gave me a dropside cot which Wes painted lemon so that it would be all right for either a boy or a girl. We had to secure the bottom with string, as it was apt to collapse.

I am always amazed at the magazines costing of having a baby. In 1950, we used terry-towelling nappies and the recommended number was three dozen. I bought one dozen plus one dozen muslin ones and I had to manage.

The gowns, three instead of the recommended six, I made myself from vyella. Mam advised against the cheaper flannelette in view of the fire risk. One of her brothers had been burnt to death

I had set my heart on a Silver Cross, coach built pram, for babies spent most of the first year of their life in a pram. They were one of the most expensive prams on the market but we were lucky. Every night I scanned the Evening Post advertisements and answered every advertisement, at last we found one in mint condition. We had raised the money by selling both our bikes. The family forecasted that "no good would come of it." for it was considered unlucky to buy the pram before the baby came.

After I left the lab I worked in Dad's snack bar at lunch times for ten shillings a week. We had the use of the house not the shop. An entrance from his shop through to ours had been made and he had set up a snack bar hoping to attract customers from the nearby Players factory. He had the idea that I could provide homemade cakes but I told him they couldn't be made cheap enough to be viable.

Dad had thought there was a fortune to be made in cups of tea and bought a second hand urn from a market trader. The tea was vile!

The second error was in setting up a bar with bar stools. No one used them and he had to abandon them in favour of tables and chairs. Another mistake was he had calculated the profit to be made on such items as beans on toast, reckoning on one tablespoon of beans per customer. He had over looked the possibility of every customer making a different order so that not only did lunch time end with the kitchen table full of various open tins but as cooking was done on a standard household gas cooker the waiting time gave great dissatisfaction. Microwaves were unheard of,

Mam had been against the idea of the snack bar from the beginning and they argued bitterly. She reminded him of a costly mistake he had made previously. He had been offered a large quantity of sugar pigs, coupon free. Unfortunately just after he bought them sweet rationing ended. The walls of my old bedroom, which he had converted into a stock room, were lined with boxes of sugar pigs.

One of the best things that happened at this time was that my former school friend had bought the house where Momma used to live, she had a baby girl and we took turns to visit each other. But for her companionship I would have been very lonely indeed as Dad told me I should not invite neighbours into the house. I suppose it was because of the easy access to his shop premises.

May 1950 was very hot and I sweltered in a wool pleated crossover maternity skirt and crimplene smock. I remember the heat bouncing off the flagstones, and the sweat running under my heavy breasts as I puffed my way up the avenue. I was grossly overweight due, no doubt, to following folk law and "eating for two" and stuffing myself with chocolate.

By the time labour began I'd lost my fear of the pain to come thinking thank God that these wearisome months would soon be over. My friend, always Job's comforter, said it had to get worse before it got better and I knew she was right.

They say pain is the quickest thing forgotten and in this case, "they" were right. I was given pethidine and although my parents told me I suffered, I had no recollection even immediately after the birth. My mother was present most of the time. Not all the time for she was obliged to keep going downstairs to fortify herself with a drop of gin. By the time my daughter was born, the bottle was empty.

I think the pethidine had addled my brain for although I had spent many hours choosing names, when mother asked I said "Mary" which was mother's name and the last one I would have chosen in the cold light of day.

Dad's first concern was whether she had the full compliment of fingers and toes. I hadn't checked for it hadn't occurred to me that my baby might not be perfect.

I was rather shocked at her appearance for head seemed too large for her scrawny body and she had inherited her father's aquiline nose, she had a mass of black hair falling low into her neck. At the moment of birth, she looked a perfect replica of him. I wondered afterwards if I hallucinated for by the next day, the elongated head had shrunk and the nose was a tiny bud. She was as pretty a baby as anyone could wish to see.

The first night she uttered not a whimper and I asked Wes to bring her to me. I was alarmed to find she was icy cold in spite of the coal fire that he had stoked up before coming to bed. I lay her across my body to warm her and kept her with me all night. I know the experts preach against this but I honestly believe she would have died that night if I had left her in the cot.Besides Momma told me she always kept her babies with her and pooh-poohed the notion of a mother overlaying her own child.

The midwife terrified me. She was typical of the harridans who had slapped me in hospital when I was child.

"I hope you haven't any silly notions about putting her on the bottle," she said. "I always insist my babies are breast fed."

With hindsight I should have said, "I didn't know you had any Miss-" but I was too intimidated.

Just as my childhood nurses, she railed at me for the state of my bed, especially the pillows, "There are four corners to every pillow and four corners to each pillow case," she snapped every day as she proceeded to make my bed.

I was thrown into despair as she stripped the baby and threw all her clothes and cot linen, into a bucket of water into which she added a liberal quantity of Dettol. I had only three of everything and no washing machine or dryer and I knew I would run out of baby clothes and linen. Moreover, I thought one bottle of Dettol would be sufficient and it obviously wouldn't.

On the third day she was very late so I asked Wes, who had taken his holiday fortnight to look after me, to bring in the baby bath and I attended to her myself. The Midwife was furious!

"How dare you," she fumed. "I haven't even shown you how to bath her. Suppose you had dropped her."

Why I didn't tell her I had been bathing my brother and cousins since I ten or less, I'll never know, but then nurses, doctors and policemen represented authority and one didn't answer back.

She wouldn't give an inch and even though I had just changed the baby, she went through the same routine of stripping her and pouring water and dettol over her clean gown.

I could have choked her.

My father was disgusted but I couldn't help seeing the funny side. West Bridgford people in general considered themselves a cut above the rest while we regarded them as penniless snobs. It was a standard joke that if you dated a Bridgford lad he'd meet you inside the pictures.

There were many snide jokes about them. We called them the'Plus fours, and no breakfast" brigade.

Question: "What is a West Bridgford pheasant?"
Answer: "A kipper with a feather up its arse."

"What do the West Bridgford folk have for dinner?"
"A sausage on a silver plate with the blinds drawn."

All this because most of those on the other side of the river struggled to buy their own homes in an area where rates were less than in Nottingham. At the same time it must have been an awful blow to her that her son not only married a girl from Hyson Green but also went to live there.

Poor Wes it seemed as if someone at the war office was having a joke at his expense when the day our daughter was born his war medals arrived. Dad ribbed him for years.

Breast-feeding was a traumatic experience. At twelve, I had tried in vain to shrink my bust with tight binding so I had always assumed I would have no problem feeding a baby. Alas, it doesn't work like that. I appeared to have the milk and after the first fortnight, she gained an ounce or two every week but I seemed to have her on the breast every hour of the day. The experts said feed on demand. "Never mind that," Mam said. "Feed every four hours," I thought the experts knew best.

It wouldn't have been so bad if she had been contented but although she suckled and slept through the day, she screamed all night from ten o'clock until she was put at the bottom of the yard in her pram at five o'clock in the morning. It is the biggest wonder she wasn't a battered baby for nothing stopped her crying. I remember once after I had tried feeding her, crooning to her and walking up and down to no avail, I threw her on the bed. Not, thank God, very violently but had Wes not taken over she might have gone out of the window. I think it was despair at her lack of response to me. I had always had a way with babies-other people's babies responded to me but not my own.

Wes had a remarkable store of patience and after putting her outside in the morning he would literally fall on the bed asleep.

We were kept awake every night for six months. In desperation, I consulted the local chemist who gave me a sleeping draught for her. It was a brown sludgy potion that smelt of chlorodyne. I don't know what it was or whether it would have worked for after the first few drops, her eyes dilated and I was thrown into a panic. The rest of the bottle went down the sink.

Later the doctor prescribed reducing doses of phenol barbitone and she began to sleep but not to gain weight. My friend Barbara saw me struggling to feed her and gave me a bottle of her own baby's feed, "top her up," she said. I was amazed to see Mary guzzle the whole bottle.

I knew Dad wouldn't approve so for some time I tried to hide the fact that I had put her on the bottle, which was difficult as he could walk straight in through the shop.

Another thing my father disapproved of was my habit of reading while I was feeding. Of course he was right but unhappily I saw no point in talking to this inanimate creature. Just as in childhood, I was made to feel very guilty about wasting time reading. To this day, unless I am away on holiday I feel guilty if I read during the day.

I was soon back working in the snack bar at lunch times for, little though it was, I needed that ten shillings but I was full of resentment when I sometimes had to take the baby off the breast to attend to late comers. Dad thought she should be allowed to cry until the last customer had gone especially as Mam's eyesight was deteriorating and she often burnt herself when cooking.

Looking back, I can see Mother was prematurely old. I remember Dad saying to me, "Can't you do something about your Mam? She looks like an old woman."

I remember too my callous answer, "She is an old woman." She was fifty-two or three.

She had cataracts in both eyes and was almost blind, her hair was grey and had becoming sparse and she sprouted both a moustache and whiskers. Now in my seventy ninth year, I am ashamed to remember my indifference, yet could anything I might have done made any difference?

With hindsight, it was a mistake to live in such proximity to my parents. It was strange that Dad had made it possible for he had always maintained that he would not allow his children to begin married life in the parental home for he blamed his own marital problems on such a beginning, mainly because Mam relied too much on her mother who did all the cooking.

There was no fear of that with my mother, just the reverse. Dad suggested it was a waste to have two stoves on to cook Sunday roasts so why didn't I put theirs in with mine. This of course led to my providing them with a pudding every Sunday with more regard to Dad's taste than to my husband's.

It wasn't all one way though for whenever Wes and I squabbled I would go through to Mam's in the evening and Dad would provide a glass of beer. He would also call Wes through to join us though if he did he would be sent down to the beer-off with the jug.

Also, Mam and Dad baby-sat one evening a week while we went to pictures. Every time, although we had left the baby fast asleep she was downstairs with them when we got home. She was always in an excited state as Dad played with her by putting matchsticks between her toes and then she wouldn't settle.

In return for the baby-sitting, we took care of the shop while they had a night out.

Weaning brought more problems. Dad opposed the use of prepared baby foods and apart from Farley's rusks, I tried to feed her on normal food, beginning with soft boiled egg, the only food she took eagerly. I was very apprehensive regarding her food as she been so dreadfully constipated that her bowel had protruded during evacuation.