TASHY DID - A LIFE
1953
Imagine the scene. One night you go to bed as normal, the next morning your father wakes you to tell you have a little sister. The following Sunday,
you get taken to Kingsbury Maternity Hospital and a nurse holds up a black-haired bundle which you are informed is that sister. You are not allowed in
to see her. Your father tells you that she is to be called Elizabeth. A week or so later the neighbours start hanging out flags and bunting emblazoned
with the name, Elizabeth. Then your mother arrives home with this obviously treasured bundle, already worshipped by so many others. You immediately know
that your place as the only, and spoilt child, is over. You cannot hope to compete with someone for whom complete strangers festoon their houses with her
name. Not only with her name Elizabeth but including her surname, some flags said Elizabeth R.
What a year! Shortly after this historic event, we went over to my aunt’s house and I saw my first television programme. The screen was about the
size of a note-book computer, the picture quality pretty poor but I did see the crowning of our new Queen, coincidentally also called Elizabeth. We didn’t
get one of these new fangled inventions for another 3 years, until we moved to Leeds; television that is, we never had a queen though I did briefly share a
room with the less important, in my life anyway, Elizabeth R in 1970. She has big rooms.
But this was also “the year of the car”, and almost the end of me. Let me explain. The first incident with the car occurred in June, shortly after my mother
and sister came home from the maternity hospital. We were driving over to my paternal grandmother and her daughter in Slough from our home in Rayners Lane.
The car, which was a pre-war model and had been laid up for six years during the war, had seen better days. In those days the drive to Slough was still quite
countrified. Somewhere, if memory serves, near Denham we would go up and down a steep hill. It was raining pretty hard. I would always sit in the front of this
two-door car, while mother sat in the back with my sister in her arms. Sorry, did you say Health and Safety? I would also be clutching a thick log that I used
as a steering wheel of sorts. As we went up the hill I noticed that my feet were getting very wet as water was pouring over them; as we went down, the water
drained away. I mentioned this to father but, as he couldn’t stop on a hill, I think he thought my potty training had gone awry. Eventually, he too noticed
the water but there was nothing that could be done so, on any uphill stretch, I lifted my legs while the water flowed around the foot-well.
Then on the journey home the car began to smoke. Mother decided it would catch fire and ordered father to drive to Uxbridge tube station where she, my
baby sister and I caught a train home. Five minutes after we arrived, father turned up in the car. The smoke had stopped and he had just pressed on.
Two months later came a far more serious incident and one which, if I recollect correctly, stopped father from ever driving that car again. We were heading
to the other grandparents at Willesden Green. Once again, I was in the front, mother sitting in the back with my sister on her lap. Seat belts? Sorry. We
came up to a roundabout and Newton’s law of gravity, if he has one, came into play. We were doing about 30mph. Now these cars had the front door hinged at the
central pillar not, as nowadays, at the windscreen end. With no warning at all, when the car was at its maximum turning to the right, this door opened. I, also
being pushed over to the left by gravity, vacated the vehicle. The car following us was a police car and he managed to swerve and avoid the small bundle tumbling
along the road towards him.
The thing I remember, and I really do recall this, was running back to our car to be met by my father running to me. All I could say was, “where’s my log”,
as I had dropped this during the rolling. According to my mother, who told me this later, she was screaming in the back of the car and couldn’t believe it when
I appeared back at my open door. She also said my father was shaking so much she thought he would have a heart attack and she had never seen him so white. I only
had a scratch on my left temple but the policeman suggested that we go to the hospital, which was a mile or so away.
We did but there was a massive queue and after waiting for about an hour to be seen, I persuaded father that I was fine and we should leave. I hated
queuing even then; now things are worse, If I see a traffic jam in front of me, I will take the first turning off that road, even if it leads away from
where I want to be. Doing nothing, or sitting still, is alien to me. My ex-wife told me the other day that she thought I had probably been stressed all my
life. Well, it’s worked so far, although this desire to be doing something has got me into trouble as you will read when we get to 2010. In this instance,
I also think father was so shell-shocked at having, in his eyes, nearly lost his only son, he was happy to do anything to please me.
We left the hospital, drove home, the grandparents came over to see us, we called our private doctor and a few hours later I was violently sick,
suffering they said, from delayed concussion. This inability to react to blows on the head materialised some years later after a game of rugby. I spent
a day or two in bed but after that was as good as new. Father, though, was not. He later told me it was the most frightening thing that ever happened in
his life and he had lived through the war. As I said, he never drove that car again and, within a year, he had sold it and we became a carless family for
over 10 years.
The rest of the year seems to have been unspectacular until, that is, Boxing Day. In those days you still got little gifts in your Christmas cracker but
the health and safety brigade had not yet become involved. As an aside, they weren’t involved in the lead toys I took a delight in licking nor the lead bits on
our living room windows where my tongue might also stray while waiting for someone to arrive. Mother used to delight in telling me that a watch pot never boils
but as I had not wanted my grandparents to arrive whistling with steam pouring out of their heads, this didn’t stop me. Mother was a great one for proverbs and
her sayings may appear quite often in this saga.
But, back to Boxing Day and my cracker gift. Looks like I may have got a new coat from Santa, but my cracker toy was a tin clicker. Don’t know if you see them
now, I certainly never saw another one, but it was circular and if you pressed the middle bit in, it clicked. Large Boxing Day dinner, time for a walk and,
carrying my tin clicker I set off down the front path, to be followed by father pushing my sister in her pram. Sadly, I tripped at the end of the path and
inserted the tin clicker, deeply, into my left palm. As the clicker went in, so my blood came out. Sensing a small problem, I returned, apparently not crying,
to the hall and dripped a lot of this blood onto the beautiful black and white tiles which covered our floor. Mother went hysterical, father phoned an
ambulance; rather sums up their characteristics. The walk was cancelled and I, with father, set off for the local hospital in an ambulance leaving a
hysterical mother to clean the floor.
Once again, there was a long queue and we were there for something like two hours before anyone saw us. The ambulance men had bound my hand and I
kept it raised and the bleeding seemed to have slowed. Eventually a very nice nurse had a look at it and announced it was a very deep cut and would need
three stitches. She explained to my father that, unfortunately, they had run out of numbing injections and so did he mind if they stitched my hand without
an injection. He said “no, he didn’t”, which as it wasn’t his hand was very nice of him. To be honest I don’t remember much pain but I do remember being given
a tangerine, the NHS wasn’t ring-fenced at this time, for being a brave little boy.
Before I go on to tell you more about my mother, a couple of amusing anecdotes from this year. While my mother was in hospital producing royalty, I was
looked after, first by my father, and then by his mother, who came to stay. Father’s cookery skills appear to have been limited to steamed fish and scrambled
eggs, not at the same time of course, don’t be silly, but both served with mashed potato. My sister seems to have taken his skill at making superb mashed potato.
To be honest, she can’t cook anything else. In fact I’m not sure she can do potatoes, only mashing someone else’s. I acquired his skill for producing the greatest
scramble egg in the world. I have never, ever tasted anything better and while I accept taste, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, many seem to agree.
If my daughter is cooking breakfast for some friends who have stayed over at hers, she will often ring me and offer me breakfast too, on condition I come and
cook the scrambled egg. It takes about 20 minutes to cook and I suppose destroys my earlier piece about always doing something although you do have to
constantly stir and remove from the heat.
The other story concerns a different attempt I made at baking. A couple of weeks before my sister was born I had helped my mother with some baking.
She had some pastry left over and I had made four jam tarts. She had put these in the oven to cook and then, when needing the oven later, taken them out
and left them in the grill section of the cooker. Obviously this wasn’t used because while mother was in hospital, granny found these and asked me about
them, I told her I had made them, and we ate them, two each. When mother returned she was horrified claiming they were over a month old. Well, I’m telling
you the tale, and they were very good too.
My mother was born on September 17th 1916, sharing her birth date with Stirling Moss, Damon Hill and………..her brother. She was delivered in the family
home in Strode Road, Willesden Green. As you may remember, her father had his own laundry business round the back of the house and mother does appear to have
had quite a cosseted upbringing. In 1920, just before the birth of her sister, they moved to Chatsworth Road, still in Willesden Green and they she remained for
the next 25 or so years.
They had a live-in maid and mother used to delight in telling the story of how, on winter evenings, she would sit in the kitchen with the maid and be told
to look into the log fire and see all manner of bewitching shapes. I don’t think the relationship was a true “below stairs” one. The maid, who I met several
times in my life and was a family friend once she left, was only about 14 years older than mother.
Mother didn’t go to school until she was 11 years old. Until then she had a governess, who would come to the house each day and school her, her brother and,
later, her sister. In 1927 she began to attend school in St John’s Wood and, from what I gather, many of her classmates were, or would be, the so-called
débutantes, who were presented at court each year. I should point out that this was the Royal Court and not the Old Bailey. This practice was abolished in
1958 by our current Queen and, while mother did not follow in these young ladies footsteps, she was, while at school, taught deportment (go on, look it up
and then put a few books on your head and walk) as well as her normal lessons.
Home life was, or seemed, great fun and there were numerous holidays, only within the UK, with particular favourites being Cliftonville in Kent,
Mundesley in Norfolk and Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Time would also be spent down in Dartmouth with her father’s family. She briefly learnt the
piano but not to a very high standard, spent a fair amount of time shopping “up west” (the west end of London) with her mother and rather more time
being friends with quite a few of her brother’s school pals. One claim to fame was that she briefly classed herself, so she told us, as the boyfriend
of the nephew of a guy called Hayden Wood. He was a fairly well-known musical composer and, among other pieces, wrote the then popular song, “Roses of Picardy”.
She loved music and dancing and would spend much of her time playing records on her gramophone. She still had this at the time of her death but
there were very few places where you could get a needle (really!!!) to insert in the playing arm. Many of her records were my first introduction to
music and I could list, and still sing, ten or so of those songs. To paraphrase a famous quote, “ask and it shall be sung”.
The dancing was even more important to mother and she always told us that she really wanted to be a chorus girl but her father stopped her. I know that two of
her grandchildren will remember those “after sherry” moments when, even in her late seventies, she would proceed to demonstrate a high kick, and prove to be
pretty good at it. Sadly she might also demonstrate her singing ability with what may have been a lovely number called “Rose in the Bud”. Her own hysterics
seldom allowing her past the first verse.
After leaving school, she went to Pitman’s Typing College, in London, and not only learnt typing but also, much to my sorrow, shorthand. At this time of
her life, she was now 20, things become rather interesting but also quite confusing. I have, of course, the diaries to refer to but, within them, there are
passages in that shorthand. It would appear, from a few investigations, that the shorthand used is not universally known, so mother has taken some secrets to
the grave, or in her case, the North Sea (more later).
She began her working career as a secretary, at a firm of solicitors, in 1936. She notes that in January 1936, 28th she says, she stood outside the gates
of Buckingham Palace with fellow mourners after the death of King George V. Between August and October she was too ill to work although she makes no mention of
the cause of her illness. It was also in 1936 that she first met a man who would be a great influence on her life. I have no way of knowing exactly what their
relationship was but, in 1937, she left the solicitors and went to work as a personal assistant to this guy in his tea importing firm.
He was an Australian and one of the things she did was to type up his memoirs about the Gallipoli campaign of which he was a part. From diary notes it
would appear that, when mother and her family went on holiday to Cliftonville, this guy would come down for the day to see her. Her diaries say that, while
away, she would also receive letters from him and reply. I should point out that he was married and 28 years older than her. These are the facts. Sometimes,
as I grew older, mother would give little snippets away about this relationship but she never said anything definite and I never asked.
In 1939, a month before war broke out, the tea importing firm went bust and mother was out of a job. She received some glowing references from her boss
and, I believe, was distraught when he died in the early 1940’s. She attended the funeral. There are some notes in her dairies indicating she received letters
from this guy’s wife but, again, I have no idea why or what they said. I do know that on June 3 1939, they were at Lords cricket ground to watch Middlesex play
the West Indies.
Meanwhile, in the real world, or the one we know about, she had become the girlfriend of one her brother’s best friends. He ran a building company and,
after two or three years of going out, he asked my mother to marry him on 24 August 1938. On the 14 October of that year they officially became engaged and
the diary says that when she told her Australian boss he was very cross. Also, from those diaries, it was obvious that mother was enjoying life to the full
and, purely an impression I have gained, her new fiancé was, shall we say, more sober and staid. There are countless entries where she would meet him at the
Lyons Tea House and go off and meet X to go the cinema. Who X was, I have no idea. What is more some of their time together was conducted in shorthand.
Before anyone criticises me for revealing these things, I would point out that mother made me promise to read the diaries once she had died and also kept
suggesting I should make it into a “good story”. After her death, I discovered she had actually begun writing the story herself, even giving it a working title,
and so I firmly believe she would have no problem in these minor revelations. Maybe, if we ever invent the 48 hour day, I will try to finish her story.
On the 29 October 1938 (!!!) she was fitted for a gas mask. This is very definitely far earlier than I assumed these things were being issued. Then, the
diary notes, that by Christmas 1938, her fiancé wanted to know when they would marry. Once the war started, in September 1939, he joined the RAF and seemed to
spend a lot of time away training somewhere secret. Sadly, for my interest anyway, there are absolutely no diaries for any of the 1940’s. This seems strange but
there we are.
What I know, from a couple of letters, was that she joined the civil service in 1941 where she met with the man who would become the other half of my parents.
What happened next will be revealed a little later.
Imagine the scene. One night you go to bed as normal, the next morning your father wakes you to tell you have a little sister. The following Sunday,
you get taken to Kingsbury Maternity Hospital and a nurse holds up a black-haired bundle which you are informed is that sister. You are not allowed in
to see her. Your father tells you that she is to be called Elizabeth. A week or so later the neighbours start hanging out flags and bunting emblazoned
with the name, Elizabeth. Then your mother arrives home with this obviously treasured bundle, already worshipped by so many others. You immediately know
that your place as the only, and spoilt child, is over. You cannot hope to compete with someone for whom complete strangers festoon their houses with her
name. Not only with her name Elizabeth but including her surname, some flags said Elizabeth R.
What a year! Shortly after this historic event, we went over to my aunt’s house and I saw my first television programme. The screen was about the
size of a note-book computer, the picture quality pretty poor but I did see the crowning of our new Queen, coincidentally also called Elizabeth. We didn’t
get one of these new fangled inventions for another 3 years, until we moved to Leeds; television that is, we never had a queen though I did briefly share a
room with the less important, in my life anyway, Elizabeth R in 1970. She has big rooms.
But this was also “the year of the car”, and almost the end of me. Let me explain. The first incident with the car occurred in June, shortly after my mother
and sister came home from the maternity hospital. We were driving over to my paternal grandmother and her daughter in Slough from our home in Rayners Lane.
The car, which was a pre-war model and had been laid up for six years during the war, had seen better days. In those days the drive to Slough was still quite
countrified. Somewhere, if memory serves, near Denham we would go up and down a steep hill. It was raining pretty hard. I would always sit in the front of this
two-door car, while mother sat in the back with my sister in her arms. Sorry, did you say Health and Safety? I would also be clutching a thick log that I used
as a steering wheel of sorts. As we went up the hill I noticed that my feet were getting very wet as water was pouring over them; as we went down, the water
drained away. I mentioned this to father but, as he couldn’t stop on a hill, I think he thought my potty training had gone awry. Eventually, he too noticed
the water but there was nothing that could be done so, on any uphill stretch, I lifted my legs while the water flowed around the foot-well.
Then on the journey home the car began to smoke. Mother decided it would catch fire and ordered father to drive to Uxbridge tube station where she, my
baby sister and I caught a train home. Five minutes after we arrived, father turned up in the car. The smoke had stopped and he had just pressed on.
Two months later came a far more serious incident and one which, if I recollect correctly, stopped father from ever driving that car again. We were heading
to the other grandparents at Willesden Green. Once again, I was in the front, mother sitting in the back with my sister on her lap. Seat belts? Sorry. We
came up to a roundabout and Newton’s law of gravity, if he has one, came into play. We were doing about 30mph. Now these cars had the front door hinged at the
central pillar not, as nowadays, at the windscreen end. With no warning at all, when the car was at its maximum turning to the right, this door opened. I, also
being pushed over to the left by gravity, vacated the vehicle. The car following us was a police car and he managed to swerve and avoid the small bundle tumbling
along the road towards him.
The thing I remember, and I really do recall this, was running back to our car to be met by my father running to me. All I could say was, “where’s my log”,
as I had dropped this during the rolling. According to my mother, who told me this later, she was screaming in the back of the car and couldn’t believe it when
I appeared back at my open door. She also said my father was shaking so much she thought he would have a heart attack and she had never seen him so white. I only
had a scratch on my left temple but the policeman suggested that we go to the hospital, which was a mile or so away.
We did but there was a massive queue and after waiting for about an hour to be seen, I persuaded father that I was fine and we should leave. I hated
queuing even then; now things are worse, If I see a traffic jam in front of me, I will take the first turning off that road, even if it leads away from
where I want to be. Doing nothing, or sitting still, is alien to me. My ex-wife told me the other day that she thought I had probably been stressed all my
life. Well, it’s worked so far, although this desire to be doing something has got me into trouble as you will read when we get to 2010. In this instance,
I also think father was so shell-shocked at having, in his eyes, nearly lost his only son, he was happy to do anything to please me.
We left the hospital, drove home, the grandparents came over to see us, we called our private doctor and a few hours later I was violently sick,
suffering they said, from delayed concussion. This inability to react to blows on the head materialised some years later after a game of rugby. I spent
a day or two in bed but after that was as good as new. Father, though, was not. He later told me it was the most frightening thing that ever happened in
his life and he had lived through the war. As I said, he never drove that car again and, within a year, he had sold it and we became a carless family for
over 10 years.
The rest of the year seems to have been unspectacular until, that is, Boxing Day. In those days you still got little gifts in your Christmas cracker but
the health and safety brigade had not yet become involved. As an aside, they weren’t involved in the lead toys I took a delight in licking nor the lead bits on
our living room windows where my tongue might also stray while waiting for someone to arrive. Mother used to delight in telling me that a watch pot never boils
but as I had not wanted my grandparents to arrive whistling with steam pouring out of their heads, this didn’t stop me. Mother was a great one for proverbs and
her sayings may appear quite often in this saga.
But, back to Boxing Day and my cracker gift. Looks like I may have got a new coat from Santa, but my cracker toy was a tin clicker. Don’t know if you see them
now, I certainly never saw another one, but it was circular and if you pressed the middle bit in, it clicked. Large Boxing Day dinner, time for a walk and,
carrying my tin clicker I set off down the front path, to be followed by father pushing my sister in her pram. Sadly, I tripped at the end of the path and
inserted the tin clicker, deeply, into my left palm. As the clicker went in, so my blood came out. Sensing a small problem, I returned, apparently not crying,
to the hall and dripped a lot of this blood onto the beautiful black and white tiles which covered our floor. Mother went hysterical, father phoned an
ambulance; rather sums up their characteristics. The walk was cancelled and I, with father, set off for the local hospital in an ambulance leaving a
hysterical mother to clean the floor.
Once again, there was a long queue and we were there for something like two hours before anyone saw us. The ambulance men had bound my hand and I
kept it raised and the bleeding seemed to have slowed. Eventually a very nice nurse had a look at it and announced it was a very deep cut and would need
three stitches. She explained to my father that, unfortunately, they had run out of numbing injections and so did he mind if they stitched my hand without
an injection. He said “no, he didn’t”, which as it wasn’t his hand was very nice of him. To be honest I don’t remember much pain but I do remember being given
a tangerine, the NHS wasn’t ring-fenced at this time, for being a brave little boy.
Before I go on to tell you more about my mother, a couple of amusing anecdotes from this year. While my mother was in hospital producing royalty, I was
looked after, first by my father, and then by his mother, who came to stay. Father’s cookery skills appear to have been limited to steamed fish and scrambled
eggs, not at the same time of course, don’t be silly, but both served with mashed potato. My sister seems to have taken his skill at making superb mashed potato.
To be honest, she can’t cook anything else. In fact I’m not sure she can do potatoes, only mashing someone else’s. I acquired his skill for producing the greatest
scramble egg in the world. I have never, ever tasted anything better and while I accept taste, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, many seem to agree.
If my daughter is cooking breakfast for some friends who have stayed over at hers, she will often ring me and offer me breakfast too, on condition I come and
cook the scrambled egg. It takes about 20 minutes to cook and I suppose destroys my earlier piece about always doing something although you do have to
constantly stir and remove from the heat.
The other story concerns a different attempt I made at baking. A couple of weeks before my sister was born I had helped my mother with some baking.
She had some pastry left over and I had made four jam tarts. She had put these in the oven to cook and then, when needing the oven later, taken them out
and left them in the grill section of the cooker. Obviously this wasn’t used because while mother was in hospital, granny found these and asked me about
them, I told her I had made them, and we ate them, two each. When mother returned she was horrified claiming they were over a month old. Well, I’m telling
you the tale, and they were very good too.
My mother was born on September 17th 1916, sharing her birth date with Stirling Moss, Damon Hill and………..her brother. She was delivered in the family
home in Strode Road, Willesden Green. As you may remember, her father had his own laundry business round the back of the house and mother does appear to have
had quite a cosseted upbringing. In 1920, just before the birth of her sister, they moved to Chatsworth Road, still in Willesden Green and they she remained for
the next 25 or so years.
They had a live-in maid and mother used to delight in telling the story of how, on winter evenings, she would sit in the kitchen with the maid and be told
to look into the log fire and see all manner of bewitching shapes. I don’t think the relationship was a true “below stairs” one. The maid, who I met several
times in my life and was a family friend once she left, was only about 14 years older than mother.
Mother didn’t go to school until she was 11 years old. Until then she had a governess, who would come to the house each day and school her, her brother and,
later, her sister. In 1927 she began to attend school in St John’s Wood and, from what I gather, many of her classmates were, or would be, the so-called
débutantes, who were presented at court each year. I should point out that this was the Royal Court and not the Old Bailey. This practice was abolished in
1958 by our current Queen and, while mother did not follow in these young ladies footsteps, she was, while at school, taught deportment (go on, look it up
and then put a few books on your head and walk) as well as her normal lessons.
Home life was, or seemed, great fun and there were numerous holidays, only within the UK, with particular favourites being Cliftonville in Kent,
Mundesley in Norfolk and Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Time would also be spent down in Dartmouth with her father’s family. She briefly learnt the
piano but not to a very high standard, spent a fair amount of time shopping “up west” (the west end of London) with her mother and rather more time
being friends with quite a few of her brother’s school pals. One claim to fame was that she briefly classed herself, so she told us, as the boyfriend
of the nephew of a guy called Hayden Wood. He was a fairly well-known musical composer and, among other pieces, wrote the then popular song, “Roses of Picardy”.
She loved music and dancing and would spend much of her time playing records on her gramophone. She still had this at the time of her death but
there were very few places where you could get a needle (really!!!) to insert in the playing arm. Many of her records were my first introduction to
music and I could list, and still sing, ten or so of those songs. To paraphrase a famous quote, “ask and it shall be sung”.
The dancing was even more important to mother and she always told us that she really wanted to be a chorus girl but her father stopped her. I know that two of
her grandchildren will remember those “after sherry” moments when, even in her late seventies, she would proceed to demonstrate a high kick, and prove to be
pretty good at it. Sadly she might also demonstrate her singing ability with what may have been a lovely number called “Rose in the Bud”. Her own hysterics
seldom allowing her past the first verse.
After leaving school, she went to Pitman’s Typing College, in London, and not only learnt typing but also, much to my sorrow, shorthand. At this time of
her life, she was now 20, things become rather interesting but also quite confusing. I have, of course, the diaries to refer to but, within them, there are
passages in that shorthand. It would appear, from a few investigations, that the shorthand used is not universally known, so mother has taken some secrets to
the grave, or in her case, the North Sea (more later).
She began her working career as a secretary, at a firm of solicitors, in 1936. She notes that in January 1936, 28th she says, she stood outside the gates
of Buckingham Palace with fellow mourners after the death of King George V. Between August and October she was too ill to work although she makes no mention of
the cause of her illness. It was also in 1936 that she first met a man who would be a great influence on her life. I have no way of knowing exactly what their
relationship was but, in 1937, she left the solicitors and went to work as a personal assistant to this guy in his tea importing firm.
He was an Australian and one of the things she did was to type up his memoirs about the Gallipoli campaign of which he was a part. From diary notes it
would appear that, when mother and her family went on holiday to Cliftonville, this guy would come down for the day to see her. Her diaries say that, while
away, she would also receive letters from him and reply. I should point out that he was married and 28 years older than her. These are the facts. Sometimes,
as I grew older, mother would give little snippets away about this relationship but she never said anything definite and I never asked.
In 1939, a month before war broke out, the tea importing firm went bust and mother was out of a job. She received some glowing references from her boss
and, I believe, was distraught when he died in the early 1940’s. She attended the funeral. There are some notes in her dairies indicating she received letters
from this guy’s wife but, again, I have no idea why or what they said. I do know that on June 3 1939, they were at Lords cricket ground to watch Middlesex play
the West Indies.
Meanwhile, in the real world, or the one we know about, she had become the girlfriend of one her brother’s best friends. He ran a building company and,
after two or three years of going out, he asked my mother to marry him on 24 August 1938. On the 14 October of that year they officially became engaged and
the diary says that when she told her Australian boss he was very cross. Also, from those diaries, it was obvious that mother was enjoying life to the full
and, purely an impression I have gained, her new fiancé was, shall we say, more sober and staid. There are countless entries where she would meet him at the
Lyons Tea House and go off and meet X to go the cinema. Who X was, I have no idea. What is more some of their time together was conducted in shorthand.
Before anyone criticises me for revealing these things, I would point out that mother made me promise to read the diaries once she had died and also kept
suggesting I should make it into a “good story”. After her death, I discovered she had actually begun writing the story herself, even giving it a working title,
and so I firmly believe she would have no problem in these minor revelations. Maybe, if we ever invent the 48 hour day, I will try to finish her story.
On the 29 October 1938 (!!!) she was fitted for a gas mask. This is very definitely far earlier than I assumed these things were being issued. Then, the
diary notes, that by Christmas 1938, her fiancé wanted to know when they would marry. Once the war started, in September 1939, he joined the RAF and seemed to
spend a lot of time away training somewhere secret. Sadly, for my interest anyway, there are absolutely no diaries for any of the 1940’s. This seems strange but
there we are.
What I know, from a couple of letters, was that she joined the civil service in 1941 where she met with the man who would become the other half of my parents.
What happened next will be revealed a little later.
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