Simon, David, Rachel, Ruth, Benjamin and Rebecca.

Contents

Memoir Picture

Editorial Foreword

Preface

Introduction

1. Seeing the light of day.

2. Off to work.

3. Dancing with love.

4. Marriage and family.

5. The first born.

6. Lifestyle changes.

Conclusion

Further Reading

Foreword

This is a piece of work written as a reminder – about a daughter, a mother and a wife – who died unexpectedly. As the written piece developed it took on a new purpose – becoming clear, halfway through, that it would interest others too, not just the grieving family – for it covers a lot of familiar ground common to all: birth, growing up, going to school, getting a job, marriage, starting a family, ad infinitum.

We are in a changing world not just because of coronavirus but the freedom’s gained by women: expression, purpose and choice. Statistics tell us that there will be an increasing number of older people aged 85 and over in the future, and that the numbers over eighty will double to 3 million in twenty years, that fewer people are getting married and the birth rate falling. Job skills are being shared and mixed communities becoming the norm. Leisure activities will expand – to keep pace with holiday makers, as the UK becomes a greater holiday destination for people coming from abroad. Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) encroaching into all areas of society, this will increase… as will communications, in all its forms. Young children will play with their own laptops which will become indispensable personal items – no subject out of bounds and none unanswered. Wearable technology in personal health care becomes the norm. Electric self-drive cars become essential. Global warming will continue as more land becomes worked. Man will walk on Mars.

Preface

Mum’s died! The words resonated in the earpiece. It was the 26^th March 2020, Sally had passed her eighty-eighth birthday in hospital – two days previously. Simon’s shock announcement began a detailed probe – by the family, into what had contributed to their mother’s sudden death – after all, she hadn’t been home long from hospital.

Her own doctor attended her at home the next day. Worried by her deterioration he immediately had her transferred back to the hospital. Sally died that night, from the Covid 19 virus and Pneumonia.

This recollection concerns Sally Joan Kearey (nee Morgan), her family – past and present, and those closest. It delves into the society which preceded her, to give context, her days as a child, to give education, beliefs and interests and those of the present day; explores Sally’s progress through life, touches on cherished rainy and sunny days, covers those befriended and those given life – her marriage, children and friends.

I apologise if there is anything or anyone left out, if I make a mistake, or upset anyone. Memories fade – past events become embellished or trivialized. Sally would perhaps dismiss this work with a shrug and a raised eyebrow, perhaps even to say, “Why would anyone bother!” Every individual deserves a place in someone’s memory. Sally’s hobbies involved looking after cats and her goldfish, meeting up with friends and family, driving, and taking holidays abroad.

I will do my best to paint a picture as I saw her, as a vibrant person, who was a mother in the 1960s, and loved by all. I will dally over the good times because that is how we wish to remember anyone – how we were introduced, our first kiss and how we came together – to eventually, form a family. These are my treasured moments and like many other such unions it had its ups and downs. I shall open proceedings by introducing myself – describe my own brief history: my parents, upbringing, school-days, employment and home-life. As I progress the reader will become aware of the huge changes society has made over a relatively short this period, the greatest being the place of women in society throughout the world.

I hold close upon the photographs saved and downloaded by Rebecca to jog my memory and give proof to these happy times which keep me going and hopefully keep my children going too,

Introduction

By the end of the thirties Britain’s recovery represented a significant improvement on the previous Edwardian era, where poor housing and ill-health affected ten per-cent of the population; those numbers living in poverty, made up by the chronically sick, those on low pay and large families – children and poverty being closely linked. There were still children going to school without shoes. The farmers still cut the corners of their fields by hand with a scythe. By the turn of the thirties people’s lives were changing, new forms of employment began to make a difference to living standards. The Independent newspaper gives the book: Rural Britain, Then & Now by Roger Hunt as ‘A fascinating record of change from Victorian times to the 1960s’ I keep this by me as I write.

As an example of social advance I have chosen electrical supply as the most striking – the grid, started 1900, almost completed by 1933, making Britain one of the most advanced nations using electrical power – its uses being: the cinema, radio, telecommunications, trains, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and ovens? Cars, motorcycles, aircraft, shipping, electrical equipment all becoming major industrial concerns, employing hundreds of workers. A host of everyday items began to be designed using plastics and artificial fibres. The building industry tried to keep pace with all these new industries as well as keeping up with home building – particularly to the north and west of London.

When I was a boy the Empire was promoted by all classes at every opportunity and at every level, as something to be proud of. London was the hub, the British Isles the wheel, and the Empire its carriage. Key figures, both in the Government’s War time inner circle, and the Labour Party are still remembered today. Lord Reith, 1889-1971, head of the new Ministry of Works became Director General of the British Broadcasting Company, he insisted upon perfect English and Englishness in all matters. Radio announcers were dressed in evening suits, expected to wear a bow tie. Wartime Britain had only one radio station the Home service programme. At school we danced round the May-pole on Empire Day.

A list of inspired persons of the time: Aneurin Bevan, 1897-1960, Founded the National Health Service and Welfare State, Ernest Bevin, 1881-1951, Secretary of State for Labour and Munitions, Stafford Cripps, 1889-1952, Chancellor of the exchequer, Arthur Anderson 1882-1958, and Herbert Morrison 1888-1965, Home Secretary, all led in WW2 by Churchill, his deputy Attlee and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.

By the time the Second World War had ended and the Labour party had taken over from the war-time coalition the Liberal party, even with a new leader and programme, had lost the battle for office. Churchill won the next election was back in power and the fight between the Conservatives and Labour resumed despite the latter’s Lib-Dem Alliance in the 80s and the subsequent formation of the Liberal Democrats, the duopoly continues today.

The birth rate dropped by all social classes as attitudes changed. School-leavers left home to work for the new expanding industries and offices. WW1 casualties had their effect on the growth rate as did WW2… output gradually built up. Even though a greater percentage of single women were marrying their expectations had changed. The main cause for the fall in birth rate being contraceptives. The withdrawal method gave some control as did a search for a safe period, abstention being the only truly safe method at the time.

Marie Stopes and others formed the National Birth Control Council in 1930. Parents made a choice between children and an increased standard of living. Concerns by women for advancement in society – higher expectations, greater independence and growing self-respect.

The combination of a reduced size of families had implications for both living standards and social interaction; both sexes wanting greater ‘outside the home’ activities – men becoming increasingly domesticated – engaged in home improvements and shopping. Secondary Modern Schools in 1948 introduced boys to woodwork, metalwork and gardening, and girls to home economics and cooking.

In 1950, there was no fear about not finding a job after school for either boys or girls. Apprenticeships were offered by all firms with over ten workers employed in the same skill. Training was for five years for craft skills, technical skills, higher technicians and graduates.

In 1964, Industrial Training Boards (ITBs) were set up to regulate and improve training in industrial businesses colleges were inspected for quality of training. An ITB Training Folder retained all the student’s marks and attendance by a works overseer and college lecturer. The City & Guilds Institute still awarded pass marks, certificates and diplomas.

1.

Seeing the light of day.

Our playground, 31, Cumberland Road, North Harrow. Picture taken 1935.

I was born in 1935, to parents who already had one son, born just eleven months before. We lived in 31, Cumberland Road, North Harrow. My father, Albert Edward Kearey, 1889-1971, was one of eleven children, four of which killed in WW1. Albert, Cartage Manager at Marylebone Railway Station, continued his association with the army Volunteers, then Territorials, as a decorated Regimental Sergeant Major of The Kensingtons, 1st Battalion, 13th London Rifle Regiment; their Freemason Lodge Grand Master, and the Battalion’s champion rifle shot at Bisley. One of the founders of the Old Contemptables.

In 1940, Albert was promoted to the rank of Major and made second in command of the 17th London Division, Home Guard, loaned a car and home telephone and instructed to organize protection for London from the north particularly from parachutists – his District covered Epping Forest. (In wartime a Division would have been four or more Battalions of a thousand men each) His base The Kensingtons Barracks. As soon as the landings in France were seen to be successful with little chance of Germany pushing the allies into the sea the Home Guard disbanded.

1929. Albert 40.

Albert started life in Salem Gardens close by Kensington Gardens. Every Sunday he would hold the hand of a fellow pupil, walked to Sunday school at the age of four in 1893. Hisparents, Alfred, a painter and stainer and Martha a one-time teacher maintained a rigorous set of household rules. Two of her relatives were vicars her grandfather vicar to the Lord Mayor of London. Society ruled that women teachers could not continue with teaching after marriage. To help out the family’s income Martha started a home laundry business.

Most children attended Sunday school and attended one service, morning or evening. There were bible readings and religious instruction, they knew where to sit, what to wear and how to behave. He was supposed to learn the collect of the day – a psalm, and the order of service. The Beadles maintained order and kept the poor out. The aristocracy, escorted into the church by servers had their own aisles and boxed pews, some with a roof. The servers placed a blanket over their knees and gave them a bible and hymn book.

A year later Bert transferred to the junior school, then moved once again to be enrolled in the London Board School, Paddington. He became a star pupil playing the piano for the morning assembly. Starting work aged fifteen as a junior clerk in 1904, attached to Thompson McKay & Co., Carting Agents for the Grand Central Railway. As he progressed he became an expert at his job moving deliveries throughout London – knowing the city like no-other. His expertise was the use of horses, then steam driven tractors and finally petrol driven transport.

My mother’s parents Harry and Rosa started their married life in Tatworth buying Rosalie Cottage situated opposite the local village school. Harry, a one-time Military Police Sergeant in the South African War. All the children were taught in the hall where folding screens divided classes. Rosa Jane Collins (nee Beviss) b1872, gave birth to her tenth child Elsie in 1908, she was one of fifteen children born in Rosalie Cottage, opposite the school, on School Lane, Perry Street, Tatworth, South Chard. One sister died the same year as did twins two years before.

Midwifery became legally recognized in 1902, those women who attended a birth before then were untrained handywomen. Even when training was established a large proportion of births to the poor in cities and the countryside ended in stillborn deaths.

By the time I was born in 1935, my grandparent’s family in Somerset had seven siblings. It was the duty of every daughter, who did not go out to work, to help their mother attend to the housework and cooking. Much of the food eaten was home grown or provided by hedgerow or field. The doctor had the only car and the stream at the bottom of the garden the refrigerator. Cooking by paraffin, lighting by oil-lamp and candle, washing boiled on the stove in the outhouse… actioned by the dolly. The outside toilet had a string of newspaper and a bucket you filled from the stream.

Elsie’s school-days ended at fifteen, in 1923, to start work before the loom for ten years, powered by the local water-mill – the factory produced lace. Grandad was the works engineer making sure every loom functioned well and the water-pressure maintained – to drive the drive-belts and pulleys. The Perry Street mill is still there. In WW2 made parachutes and special fine mesh screens.

1933. Elsie, 25.

Invited to become Ladies Maid by Mrs. Roper of Ford Abbey at the age of 25, served her mistress for the next year. It was whilst accompanying her mistress to a Ladies-Night Dinner-Dance given by The Kensington Freemasons, that she met my father who was that year’s Grand Master… marrying him the following year in 1933, at the church of St John The Evangelist, at five corners Tatworth, where I was Christened, two years later.

In 1938, the number of hours worked by men in the printing industry was five and a half day week of eight hour per day – including a Saturday morning. The day started at eight and finished at six Mondays and Tuesdays and five-thirty Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Saturdays eight to twelve thirty.

That year the majority of hospital patients paid for their treatment only the very poor cold be assured of free treatment. The mortality rate of children in Great Britain improved with the introduction of the Midwives Act in 1936. By 1939 a third of all families earning under £300 a year had hot-water supplied by a back-boiler. The rest heated their water on an open fire or stove. Open fires remained the main form of heating, but electric and gas fires for supplementary heating were owned by sixty per-cent of households. By this time two thirds of household were wired up for electricity. The town’s policeman patrolled the streets, the police sergeant phoned in his report from the blue boxes, the street cleaners piled up their rubbish for later removal and the rounds-men lead their horse drawn carts. Gypsies still sold clothes pegs and lavender and Pinner fair provided a fortune telling tent.

As children my brother Stan and I went to the same schools from the age of five to thirteen, attended the same Methodist Church every Sunday, with our farthings clutched in our hands for the collection, and visited Grandma Kearey lying on her bed in Eastcote attended by Auntie Lil. We went on holidays together to Somerset by steam train from Waterloo Station, an exciting event, making our way to Yeovil, to then take the local train to Chard Junction. Walking the rest of the way to Grandma Collins cottage opposite the village school pushing the station trolly.

Our holidays were spent damming the stream, visiting relatives, picking mushrooms and berries. Special treats involved taking the bus to Sidmouth, Lyme Regis or Bridport. In the evenings the lamps were lit and cards produced, a game of whist, beat your neighbour or shove half-penny played before treading the creaking stairs up to bed holding the candle, trying to beat the shadows… to lie and listen to the foxes barking and the owls a ’hooting… to gradually fall asleep.

I began my education at Longfield Primary School, Rayner Lane, in 1940, the same infant and junior school my children attended thirty years later. That year the school playing field was dug up to lay concrete shelters where we spent a great deal of time playing cats-cradle, French knitting, singing round-a-lays and listening out for guns and bombs. Following my brother to Headstone Secondary Modern School… completed my four years… left just before my fifteenth birthday to start work as an apprentice Lithographic Artist, in June 1950.

Neither of my parents ever expressed a desire that their children should: seek greater levels of knowledge, advance socially, perfect work skills or make an effort to seek a more comfortable life style. They never approached the school on parent’s day. We were very much left to own devices.

My parents were happy with their lot and set in their ways. To copy their life style was all they asked of their children. It was only much later that their joint dismissal of house ownership let them down when they were both too old to do anything about it.

It was almost my ninth birthday, approaching the end of the junior school year, Overlord and D-Day about to be launched on the sixth of June. The roads alive with countless convoys of trucks all going south to be parked off-road and camouflaged, every space was commandeered to hold some form of equipment. Vast areas of Britain was set aside for American, Canadian and Continental troops. Expectations were high fear suppressed.

The night before the family had gathered round the fire – as usual in the kitchen, to hear the news and the rhyming quotations which followed. These were meant to alert those on the Continent, especially the Free-French, about air drops and alerts.

Dad was in a deckchair on the left of the fire polishing his uniform, his rifle propped against the broom cupboard, my brother and I sitting on upholstered corner wood-boxes attached to the fender, mum slightly to the right-centre under the ceiling light knitting – as we listened to Tommy Handley ‘It’s that man again’ (ITMA) the nations favourite comedy.

Later that year a doodle-bug dropped a few doors away, just after breakfast, and blew in the windows and doors. Dad was the first on the scene organizing the collection of wounded. Nan, who was a live-in help and cook to my father’s brother Will, living in his bungalow in Lancaster Drive, raced round with a tray containing an evening meal.

My second brother Derek was six months old and playing on my parent’s bed surrounded by broken glass and plaster. He survived the blast without as much as a scratch.

Doodlebud was an Americanism. It describes Germany’s first Vengeance weapon (V1) a pilotless plane reliant upon the amount of fuel put in its tanks to give distance to the dropping zone before cutting out. Its trajectory pre-set before firing from a ramp or dropped from an aircraft. The flying bomb could not be fired at an individual target only at a pre-assigned area. As a device to win a war or to make an enemy to give in it was useless.

From the age of ten to fifteen I began my first and last paper-round. Waking up at six-thirty to get to the confectionary shop, at the top of Argyle Road, by seven. I had the smallest round in the shop and was paid 6/6, (six shillings and six pence) for a seven-day week. My father stopped my pocket money the day I started. It was sufficient for me to go to the pictures, buy five woodbines, book-matches, four ounces of crème-line toffees and an ice-cream. I had to be careful the Employment Officer did not catch me because I was underage.

Often I hurried home from school carrying a loaf of bread my mother had asked me to bring home with me – I gradually ate the crust at the end of the loaf as I made my way home remembering that I wanted to listen to Children’s Hour on the radio compared by Derek McCullock (Uncle Mac) – Norman and Henry Bones the boy detectives, Wind in the Willows, Toytown, Out with Romany or the history of castles being my favourites. Always ending up with, “Goodnight Children Everywhere.”

My father bought me a black second-hand lady’s bicycle with a basket on the front. It was enormously heavy and I had to stand on the pedals – not sit down. Naturally it was hardly ever used. Stan had been bought a rather smart racing bike by Auntie Vera which was just typical!

Walking home from school with the rest of the gang Keith Macmillan jumped on my back, down I flew to the ground burying my face in the pavement breaking my two front teeth. It took two years of embarrassment with silver crowns to eventually have natural looking teeth.

My abiding companion David Villers (nicknamed China from the Cockney for ‘china plate’ – mate.) a daily school friend, from the age of five, for almost twenty years. We were inseparable often camping on Chorley Wood common or constructing gang huts in outlandish places there to discuss defending castles of the realm.

2.

Off to work.

I left school in 1950, after having been accepted as an apprentice Lithographic Artist just before my fifteenth birthday, fully expecting to be there for the rest of my life. Chromoworks Limited produced posters, show-cards, labels and greeting cards. I was just in time to help with the posters for the Festival of Britain. The printing industry operated four processes: lithography, gravure, letterpress and screen. Over the years one then the other took over the bulk of the work as the industry went through a revolution.

At the start of my apprenticeship the hours worked were forty-eight and a half hours per week which included a Saturday morning, a fortnight’s holiday and three days leave for bank holidays. Paid holidays were introduced very slowly. Eventually Holidays were paid for, abiding by the Pay Act, for one week only. The largest Trade-union at the time in 1938, was the Transport and General Workers Union with half a million members. Ernest Bevin’s attitude and interests made the Trades Union’s reformers rather than revolutionists.

Having joined The Boys Brigade when I was eleven, continued attending gym, drill, band nights and Sunday morning church service until I was seventeen. Within that period started work training to become a lithographic artist. David Villers went to a local further education college to improve his English and writing – to become a sports reporter. Whilst I joined the Royal Marine Forces Volunteer Reserve (RMFVR) – based in Moorgate, for nine years – continuing in the force whilst completing my National Service. Whilst this was going on I was still an apprentice for three years before National Service.

When I eventually did reached the age of eighteen, I started my National Service proper, in Devon, at the Royal Marine Infantry Training Camp. Previously I had gained my commando training as a volunteer at Bickleigh. When completed was asked “out of the three parts of the service – Commando, Sea service and Amphibious, which would I prefer to serve in. I chose Sea Service.

Training began at Whale Island, learning how to fire a 4.7, gun before joining the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious for eighteen months. My remaining months I spent attached to the Amphibious Section training to be a Landing Craft stoker servicing engines. Initially, by not deferring National Service came-out of my apprenticeship to become a Journeyman, in 1956, when I was twenty-one, at the same moment finishing my National Service.

Starting back in the printing industry that September in 1955, was a time when the Trades Unions were striking for better conditions. This coincided with the newspaper printing industry which was going through its many changes, to give way to the faster lithographic process (from a raised image to surface printing) for printing web-offset newspapers. The poster printing side of the industry was also giving way to photographic processes to reproduce large posters.

Christmas at home, in the fifties, still involved the use of paper chains, balls and bells. Both my parents rejoiced, as Christmas approached – creating a high-point of the year. The Christmas tree, an essential part, lit by candles, and cards hung draped across the fire-place – all a ‘glitter; the pantomime booked, the witch booed, Prince Charming cheered, and the fool laughed at. Aunts invited and grandparents fetched, all to engage in pulling the crackers, reading out the cracker’s jokes and trying to find the silver sixpence in the pudding.

The Royal message and anthem at three. It was fun as the coal fire burned and crackled brightly. The mid-day meal and tea taken with the fire, lit in the dining-room as it flickered in the hearth. Every effort was made by my parents to ensure Christmas Day was treated as a special occasion to be remembered. The obligatory bowl of nuts and decanter of wine graced the sideboard.

It was also the time for smog, the yellowed fog which permeated everything. As a boy it was my job to walk in front of father’s car with a lantern to indicate the middle of the road. He, meanwhile, kept his eyes on the kerb. Christmas was a time for presents, good tidings, great joy and dances… You could however rely on icy roads and frequently snow. An oil lamp was placed under the outlet pipe of the water tank in the loft as a pre-caution.

Television was still in its infancy, after being closed down during the war, gradually found its feet, promoting a national interest in ‘the modern look’ in design. Programmes about house decoration promoted lined doors, no dado or picture rails, boxed in stair-rails, natural wood fire surrounds, picture-windows and white paint. Fashions in dress emphasised the figure and greater use of artificial fabrics.

The increased production and sale of cars promoted an abundance of garages, concrete drives, removed kerbs and grass verges. Roads began to be lined with cars where once children played and the milkman’s and baker’s horse travelled door to door. Be modern, was the cry, the swinging sixties are about to take over. It was an age of utility and cheapness, poor workmanship, loss of hand skills and pride of accomplishment.

The British Clean Air Act of 1956, began, not before time, to introduced greater use of central heating and new methods of producing electrical power. The bedroom my brother and I slept in had a fireplace with a tile surround, the fire was only lit when either one of us were ill, which wasn’t often. The wooden windows and their glazing bars iced up every winter so much so that the windows couldn’t be opened – there was more ice on the inside than on the outside.

Soon after leaving school I attended dancing lessons above Burtons of Harrow… lining up with the girls on the left and boys on the right. The waltz, foxtrot and quickstep played by Victor Sylvester on the studio gramophone took over my Thursday nights. If a boy wanted a girl-friend that is what one had to do… slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, moving anti-clockwise round the upstairs room hoping not to tread on toes or bump into other dancers. How innocent and proper we were asking the girls for a dance which ended the evenings class.

Wembley Town Hall, had its own resident dance band, often invited bands of the day also appeared. Ted Heath, Jack Parnell, Johnny Dankworth, Ken Macintosh and Eric Delaney the best. Dances were very much a normal event playing mainly the waltz, quickstep and fox-trot with the occasional tango… the order controlled by the Master of Ceremonies (MC).

At that time The Drag was the latest dance to hit town and the dance floor crowded as we shuffled round… occasionally a butterfly waltz or general excuse me dance, perhaps a grand-chain introduced – to give variety and allow introductions. More often than not the boys stood one-side of the ballroom the girls opposite, each separated by the band or the bar.

My friend Ken Pearce worked at British Thompson Houston (BTH) we decided to attend Wembley Town Hall that Christmas 1956. About that time, it was not unique that boy met girl at a dance, an introduction which was the way of the world for close on two hundred years.

The dance floor changed from barn floor to hall but that’s about all. There were other places where the sexes intermingled, fairs, markets and religious buildings but to provide congenial facilities: Town Halls, Village Halls, Church Halls and Hotels provided space and comfort.

Young couples in the past were expected to court their partners and perform unwritten codes of behaviour, a two-year courtship was the norm. Intimacy was frowned on especially early on in the period. It was common to discuss collecting a bottom drawer of presents and linen to start equipping a home. The couple would gradually become included in their parent’s social events. It was a conforming routine advertising to the rest of the citizens that the couple were serious – preparing for marriage.

This was a code initiated well before 1960, handed down throughout society by both the church and class-status of the individuals. Gradually this behaviour has been eroded giving individuals greater freedom to the degree ‘that anything goes’ a choice between conforming and striking out on one’s own, restrictions abided by or freedoms sought.

The swinging sixties were just round the corner. A time of freedom shaking off pre-war formality, more women at work children left to their own resources, ridged social codes allowed to slip. It was a time of rock and roll. Britain followed America’s lead: their social vibrancy, their cinematograph films, and language. Unfortunately, the Vietnam War sullied America’s international reputation.

3.

Dancing into love.

One Saturday in December, 1956, a special Christmas dance was held at Wembley Town Hall. Ken Pearce and I arranged to meet there. It was here that I first met Sally, with her friend Marion Inkpen, who also worked at The Bank of England. I was desperate, the last dance had been called, there was a rush for partners – as usual all the best looking girls had been snapped up, I had not been fast enough. The waltz began…

I turned round and there was Sally, wow, I had missed her, standing, talking to her friend. I prayed that she would accept my invitation to dance. My silent prayers were answered. “Yes, I would love to.” We held hands and advanced upon the floor to join in the circling couples. A usual for the last dance it was a waltz… one, two three, one, two, three, as our hands came together – our faces touched…

Thank the lord she could dance as we glided round the dance floor chatting. I didn’t even have to go through – “do you come here often, what do you think of the band, do you like the place?” My invitation all that I could have hoped for. “Can I walk you home?” “No I’m afraid not I promised to go home with my friend.” “Would you like to go to the pictures next weekend, there’s a musical with Howard Keel, Seven brides for seven brothers?” “Yes, I would love to.” I wasn’t sure that it was me she was looking forward to or the musical but it was progress and my heart was singing… We exchanged telephone numbers.

It was after the pictures and the walk home that the dice were tossed, a pair of sixes… Don’t get me wrong, it was not to be like the film ‘Normal People’, I walked her home and kissed her goodnight at the back gate. It was a period in my life that has never been improved upon – doing a job I loved and a girl on my arm!

That back-gate held us in its grip for many evenings, before the garage built. I walked home the five miles whistling a happy tune, with a spring in my step; what a relief and how exciting the future was to be! I could now concentrate on the rest of life and work.

At last a girl-friend, life was on the up and up – thank God! I had not long been dumped by Barbara Clark – who was still engaged to someone who had gone to Australia; before her, Janet Wooley who was the beauty-queen of Wembley – perhaps Sally would now stick? I had found the whole courting scene a most desperate business, I was quite hopeless, shy and needy. I had no experience of what was expected nor how to please. Sally had proved to be an easy, willing partner and inclusive… to make our partnership, at this stage, welcomed, even loved… to eventually lead to marriage and a family.

Sally

Sally and I lived about five miles away from each other. Harrow-on-the Hill split the distance between us – the hill became a central player in our courting days. The area was previously known as Greenhill relying upon the building of the Metropolitan Railway Line in 1880, to bring forth the development of the existing satellite hamlets and villages… which eventually formed a ring of Garden Towns round London – one such being North Harrow, where I was raised, and Sudbury Hill for Sally.

Sally was born in Chichester. Her father, Welshman, Harry Fewin Morgan, 1900-1961, had trained, after leaving school at sixteen, to be a bank clerk for Lloyds Bank in London, before being transferred to Lloyds Bank Chichester in about 1925. Harry had enlisted into the Royal Signal Regiment in WW1 as a signaller stationed in the Middle-East. Born and raised in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales, later moved to 28, Rugby Avenue, Neath, in 1918, when he returned home after demobilization to take up his job as a bank clerk which had been held for him.

Harry had done well at Junior School, a keen rugby player and cyclist, an admirer of Soviet Russia’s efforts during the war; joining their club in London – after being introduced to future Russian Leader Molotov. During WW2, Harry, a conscripted Air Raid Warden (ARP) in Greenhill, had to attend the local Fire Station twice a week.

Harry’s father, Robert Lloyd Morgan, 1862-1936, was promoted Chief Postmaster of Brecon, taking over from Mr M. Hagan; the job his father John had previously retired from years before, including the family Printing Company. Robert remembered postmen being paid eleven shillings per week, starting at the post office in the days when no postal orders were possible, the parcel post not even considered. Brecon is today in the modern county of Powys in the county of Brecknockshire. The county town boasts Iron Age and Roman forts. Its first direct coach postal service from London began in 1756.

Sally’s mother, Rita Winifred Morgan, family name Hutchence was born in Hampshire, the last of six children, born to well to-do parents… who later divorced – causing the family to become financially straightened – by reduced circumstances. Two of the boys went to Grammar School as did two of the girls. The children had to go out to work as soon as their education was over to provide for the family. The eldest daughter eventually looked after the father in his old age.

The family moved to Woking in Surrey, where the mother went out to work to keep the family. It was there that Rita and sister Grace went to Grammar School. Grace who thereafter became known as Paicie became a first class scholar left school to attend teacher training college. Rita also did well at school obtained a job as a librarian working for the Times Book Club in London. Both sisters competed together each believing the other had all the luck. Rita longed to become a dancer on the stage, a dream she gave up but never forgot when she met Harry.

Rita, on the look-out for a likely partner for the school-leavers dance, spied Harry walking to his bank, past her school window. She invited Harry, who naturally accepted, to be her partner, a happy union resulted – getting married in 1931, Harry was thirty and Rita twenty-two.

Their first home together was in a house with a large garden called ‘Garth,’ Highland Road, Summerdale, Chichester, about a mile and a half from their local church St. Mary’s, East Lavant, where their first child Sally was baptized on the 17th September, 1932.

Saint Mary’s Church, East Lavant.

The family stayed in Chichester for four years, until Rita was pregnant with Roger. Harry had been offered a transfer to Lloyds Bank at Greenhill, as senior clerk, which he could not turn down for fear of losing his status at the bank. (These offers to bank employees were not turned down if you wanted to advance in the banking business.) The family moved after viewing 27, Priory Gardens, Sudbury, in 1936, it was a bus-ride distance from the bank. Harry, who was always engaged in drumming up more business for the bank was active in the town knowing all the businessmen – becoming a keen member of the Rotary Club. Later, Harry became the Lloyd’s Bank Manager at Greenhill.

1944. Sally 12, Roger 8, and Rita 34.

Before Roger’s birth Sally had received all the attention of her parents, particularly her father who doted on her. She resented having to share their attention making life for Roger very difficult. Rita decided to escape the bombing during the war evacuating with the children to Windlesham putting Sally with the local primary school. It was here that Sally found greatest happiness being top of the class enjoying the rough and tumble with the boys, appreciating country life and the facilities afforded by the school and the school grounds.

Sally’s parents had a daughter who demanded attention if playing a sport had to win with no quarter given – to prove herself. When Roger was about eight there were so many quarrels, they sent Roger to Kings College, Cambridge. He had passed his singing tests with flying colours. Henceforth Roger shone, enjoying being at Kings, he welcomed the formality and the skill necessary to become their choirboy of the year.

There was not a vindictive bone in his body a most lovely fellow. When he left, he joined the local drama club who concentrated on Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. Roger and his mother would be together Rita playing the piano and Roger singing. It was there that Roger met Thelma, later they married.

Our childhood experiences however were quite different. Sally’s home life was undoubtedly lower middle class mine certainly working class. Nevertheless you would not recognise that divide if you had met my father when he was off to one of his interests; pin-striped trousers, bowler hat, furled umbrella, highly polished shoes, leather gloves, watch-chain across his middle and silver topped walking cane, all of the very best quality. Similarly, in any uniform, he was immaculate – Albert meant to hold his head high in London.

My mother, was a home lover – stayed at home with her cat and kittens; shopping, preparing an almost set number of menu’s that were replicated throughout England, roast beef Sundays, cold cut Saturday, mince Monday, left-overs Tuesdays, stewed steak Wednesday, warmed up Thursday, fish Friday and Saturday corned beef in batter. Elsie tended her garden during the day and sewed, knitted or crocheted in the evenings – quite content with life. Years later, on Sundays caught the bus to attend the Christian Science Church at Rayners Lane.

Nan, mum’s friend since working for Mrs Roper as a cook, would once or twice a year spend a week or so with us sleeping in the box room. This was a welcomed break for mum who looked forward to her visits. Together they would read the tea cups with neighbours and friends. An occupation that was very seriously taken and believed.

Our living conditions and expectations were also miles apart from the Morgan’s. The kitchen hearth, with roasted chestnuts, crumpets, and jacketed potatoes in the ash box, sharing the News of The World whilst listening to ‘In Town Tonight’ on the ancient radio. This, the centre of my universe; whereas, before the fire, with flap-jacks and sherry, in the comfort of the carpeted sitting room, sitting on the sofa reading The Times for Sally.

In 1951, Sally finished off her education becoming a pupil of one of the country’s leading Independent Schools, Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for girls, staying there for eighteen months playing hockey and lacrosse for the school team as captain. In her spare time, joined the local Sports Club and their tennis club and within a short period became engaged to Brian. They remained engaged until he broke it off, after seven years. Brian had spotted Sally in the company of Alex, an old friend, in a fit of jealousy called off the engagement.

My last six months for National Service was played out at Poole, Amphibious School, in the Beach Masters Section, which tested my knowledge of semaphore – we were expected to be experts at signalling landing craft coming into land. My two years National Service were up in 1955. I had to transfer to Portsmouth Barracks to be demobbed into civilian life. It wasn’t long before I was back at Willesden working once more at Chromoworks. A year later, whilst engaged to Sally, I had to attend a fortnight’s landing craft training in Malta as a Volunteer.

My introduction to Sally’s parents made one Sunday in spring, 1957. It was the year of The Suez Crisis and I was worried that I might be ‘called to the colours’ as a landing craft mechanic. At that stage I was a Z reservist likely to be called up at any minute.

Sally played the piano after tea, as accomplished as her English spelling – although she hated playing in front of anybody. We decamped after tea into the sitting room – sitting on the settee pulled up before a roaring log fire. A glass of sherry and ginger nut biscuit placed at my elbow. Frequently I stood beside Rita as she played the piano, to turn the music over, which became a common occurrence when invited to tea. That evening Rita practiced the cello, in the now cleared dining room, for a spring concert. Harry read The Times afterwards, started on the cross-word.

Sally was every bit as keen as I to get married and make a home for each other. Looking back there was absolutely no arguments or disagreements between us we fitted together like a perfect glove an easy and charming partnership. There was no television, evenings were for talking and reading. The radio strictly reserved for the Home service. Harry was looking forward to early retirement when he reached sixty the following year.

Rita was very aware that her daughter required almost continuous activity to keep her happy, realizing she was passing her fears onto me. Sally had to impress and be admired especially by men. She could manipulate her father – always to give in to her. Sally was not a home-maker nor gardener but eager to be playing sports outside the home. It was when Rita and Harry went on holiday that Sally and I spent a night together in Sally’s bed. Roger thinking it great fun was all for it, and I was grateful.

Warner’s holiday camp, Isle of White. Sally 24, I was 21.

4.

Marriage and family.

Saturdays were put aside for lacrosse. Sally sitting behind me on my AJS motor cycle holding her lacrosse stick like a jousting lance with pennant flying. Her team, the ‘Southern Ladies’ were well up the league table. There was no wonder, Sally played like a thing processed woe-betide any-one who got in the way, with a quick flick of her wrist the ball in another team-member’s net. There was no quarter given. She was out to win! I met Sally just as she was finishing working for the green-grocers in Sudbury Town.

Sally’s mother wanted her daughter to have all the things she had wanted for herself: independence, freedom, fearless living. Rita was quietly confident knowing she had a proven intelligence but shy of social interaction. It was her dissatisfaction that pushed her into wanting her daughter to reach out and improve herself. Sally questioned other women sought approval from men exhibiting a devil may care attitude in her own behaviour.

Her father, a bank manager for Lloyds Bank had got her a position in The Bank of England. She hated it: the formality, the dress code, the rights and wrongs of a big commercial bank and couldn’t stand the underground railway being increasingly claustrophobic. So she packed up and earned a living – saved to provide the fee for a commercial secretary’s course at Pitman’s College.

She saw her last year out before going to work at Wembley Hospital in the general secretary’s office. She loved it and it was there that she met Jo Selway, radiographer. It was Jo’s pregnancy with Jane, and Stan’s wife Jean, pregnant with Steven, which caught on with Sally. But all that was to come later. That did not stop Sally from riding her bike to Wembley every day. Cedric a first-year intern drove a two-seater Heinkle bubble car. I believe it was Betty from the office who was later to be Simon’s godmother.

Saint Matthews Church, Harrow Road, Sudbury.

Shortly after becoming married Sally’s parents removed the fencing between their house and next door to build a garage. It was Rita’s intention to learn to drive which took two years of lessons by a retired policeman. The object was to become less reliant of buses and trains and to be mobile!

Her green Morris Minor thereafter took her everywhere picking up Rebecca from school and bringing her home, shopping sprees and transporting her cello to the next concert. Rita had no intension to stay confined but to get about and lead an active life. Eventually the car was kept outside on the drive as the garage interior became too cluttered.

Our greatest love was to go to the cinema to see a Hollywood Musical. Nothing could better the experience nor the quality of dance. It was a time for twenty years of fabulous tunes and brilliant singers shining forth after the war, years in Britain that needed a boost to forget the horrors of war. They were unrepeatable for their excellence every part given maximum attention to dovetail dance and song. We also spent time with Reg and Pearl Passey. Reg was one of Chromoworks journeymen living in Watford he cycled to work every-day on a quickly moto-cycle.

That summer I had to spend a fortnight in Malta, on landing craft exercise, Sally, charmingly sent me an airmail letter every day covered in ‘I love you’ messages; at home she was knitting me a Fair-isle jumper of great complexity. I was captivated! The second year saw a lead up to marriage. Our courtship was to last almost two years, and during that time we had a number of holidays where we slept together.

Our only unfortunate accident on the bike occurred when returning home one weekend rounded a bend near Mount Vernon Hospital to skid on a pile of leaves in the road. I jammed on the brakes, Sally flew over my head and the bike ended up in the gutter. I had a broken wrist and Sally a fit of laughing.

However, Sally set the rule that we would not have intercourse, to save ourselves for married life, and quite frankly we were both very happy sticking to that decision. Our final fling was once again to the Isle of White to Warner’s holiday camp where I bought a marcasite engagement ring. How pleased and proud I was – I was engaged!

It was expected that all couples expecting to get married should go to classes. We wanted to conform and do our best to make our marriage work. It was also expected to be interviewed by the Vicar or Priest and this too was arranged. As time drew nearer to the appointed day – the first Saturday in the month of March, 1957, Sally’s father gave us choice either we accept £500 or a slap-up wedding breakfast. We chose the money. We knew we had to save hard to get a mortgage.

The wedding was literally a small get together in the garden of my in-laws. My parents attended and so too Sally’s aunt. The church services and hymns selected by us and Roger agreed to be my best man. I had bought a new suit and Sally a new costume, hat and blue top coat, gloves and handbag. She hated the whole formality, appeared to be quite nervous (as the photograph shows) out of her more casual attire and admitted to feeling quite ill thinking about having to get on the underground train to take us to Waterloo Station.

However, the wedding went off smoothly. I took the bus from Harrow and ended up in the church on my own, Sally and entourage swept up in a hired car which was a relief. Roger, my best man, followed on. My parents too arrived by bus and the afternoon was spent in the garden ending with champagne and wedding cake. Sally dressed according to general rules and hated it, stresses which were further increased by having to take the underground train to Portsmouth via Waterloo Station

A week’s honeymoon at Cliff Tops Hotel, Shanklin, Isle of White, was shared along with another half dozen newly married couples. Sally laughed at my hopeless fumbles and total ignorance, I was shamed and distraught. The following day Sally sat on a warping post on the beach – she had never to me looked so relaxed and at ease! I don’t think Sally ever went on the underground ever again. We got back from the honeymoon with £40 in the bank and as explained having to save hard over the next year or so. To reach our deadline of two years before starting a family.

Although Theodore van de Veld’s book Ideal Marriage took forty-three printings, the Church’s book Threshold on Marriage sold over half a million copies: guilt, embarrassment, frustration, unhappiness and sheer ignorance was and is still a common feature of many women’s attitude towards sex even though they were expected to be sex symbols.

Women had accepted that a measure of equality and independence had been obtained within a society that was still male-dominated and an educational system that was wasting talent. Not before time this is gradually changing. The pandemic of 2020, will bring about cultural changes, advancements in health and hasten women’s liberation.

Our first home, coming home from our honeymoon, was on Harrow Road, Sudbury Town a good half mile down the road from 27 Priory Gardens. The couple who owned it lived downstairs. They quarrelled every night Sally gave up after the first few weeks and went back home. The noise of chairs being thrown about was certainly not conducive to our inexperienced love making and Sally was not going to put up with any sort of complication.

That spurred her father on to put one hundred percent behind finding us somewhere else quickly. Fortunately, the Lloyds bank at Pinner was losing a member who had to give up a bank’s flat in Meadow Road, and that is where we ended up for two years.

We were watched over by Mrs Turner her son a road sweeper and daughter a home help who had to put up with Sally clearing her throat every single night interspaced by Mrs Turner banging on the ceiling with a broom handle to stop her. Love making never had to face such negative conditions.

Sally would set off each day to cycle to Wembley Hospital whereas I would motor cycle to Sun Litho, Ruislip, having moved from Chromoworks. I had bought a second hand black and white television which sat upon a wooden orange box disguised by an embroidered table cloth. This was to be our evening entertainment for the next two years.

We had discussed the sort of programme we wanted to carry us forward until we started a family. There was no argument it was jointly agreed. The main issue was saving for a home of our own and whether what we had saved was going to be enough, including converting the Provident Life Insurance, for a deposit. At the rate we were jointly saving it would be possible, but only just. Houses in North Harrow were costing just over £30,000 which meant we had to find 10% and afford the monthly repayments.

Naturally the two years included Sally not becoming pregnant. We went on a number of holidays ending up at Timberscombe in Devon where the photograph shows Sally sucking a gigantic lollipop. It was also the place close to Dunster Castle where Sally lost her championship round stone. Another of my/our challenges. We spent a whole day searching a field for it. That should have warned me that Sally could never give-up/lose anything.

Sally thought it a good idea to start a family early just to make sure. She had such super ideas. I agreed wholeheartedly! But could we, would we, dare we succeed. No, it took far longer than ever expected even throwing the bones and lighting the red fire, pillows, position, hotter, colder- it was believed by the medics Sally was on edge, tensed-up – which prevented conceiving, I am absolutely sure they were quite right.

5.

The first born.

Eventually Sally was pregnant, although that still did not prevent her from cycling to work every day. Motorcycling was now considered too dangerous for a family especially having a pregnant wife or transporting a child – the BSA 500 Shooting Star had to go the way of all good two wheelers I had to progress to a car. Fortunately, there was a Driving School in Pinner High Street and that is where I gained my license driving a Standard Pennant for the next ten weeks ending up a registered driver. Now all I had to do was sell the motor bike and buy a car.

Unfortunately, when Sally had to give up work six weeks before giving birth my wage had to cover the mortgage – it was going to be a tight squeeze and overtime became a necessity for any item, including holidays, over normal essentials. The six weeks came round quickly. As with all first pregnancies and births we had to get to the hospital at the appointed hour… excitement and trepidation came at the same time.

Even if I sold my motor-bike I didn’t have enough money for a car – along Pinner Road Colin Reuter had a salesroom – for his used car business, he advised me to buy a Ford Thames Van for £150, all I could get for the BSA, which, as it turned out, was perfect for carrying the cot and wheelchair and all the attendant baby clutter. It was getting close to put it all to the test.

The van lasted for two years before Rita told me that next door, she had a car salesman who had a business in Sudbury Town – that she would introduce me. Once again fortuitously a red Vauxhall Victor became the family car for many years. Still, all that was to be in the future the van had to attend Harrow Hospital for Simon was taking his first gasp of air – it was a perfect birth and all was well.

Sally and Simon left hospital to stay at 27, Priory Gardens, for two months whilst I stayed in Pinner. At last the time came round for them to leave 27 to join me. Piling into the van with Simon in his cot at the back we made our way home. On arrival we unloaded and pushed the pram up the garden path into number 9’s front door, then tried to get the pram up the stairs. We pushed and pulled, twisted and turned, but it was no good – It wouldn’t go. Sally ended up in tears and we about-turned to go back to Sudbury. This turned out to be a godsend because it caused Sally’s father to pull out every stop to get us out of his house and into our first real home.

Harry, Sally holding Simon.

Sally, from very early days suffered from stomach ulcers. A problem with the lining of the stomach which reduces the stomachs ability to shield the lining. This may cause bleeding or a burning sensation. So that everywhere we went I carried cream crackers and milk. Naturally anything which worsened the state like going without food or increased worry increased an acid attack. This lasted all her life carrying Gaviscon or Settlers wherever she went became a necessity.

Sally, being aware that it had taken considerably longer to become pregnant with Simon the two-year spacing went out of the window. We tried early and low and behold – surprise, surprise, Sally became pregnant introducing us to midwife Nurse Foulds and her tests, a stalwart friend to see us through many pregnancies as the family grew.

David was soon to oust Simon into the box room as he took over the crib. As a family we visited 31 Cumberland Road to visit my parent’s. It was in walking distance or should I say pushing distance of the push-chair and pram so it was a regular stopping off place.

I left Sun Litho for W. R. Royle & Sons in the Angel Islington. This was yet another two-year change to bolster my pay role. Now, instead of being a lithographic artist I was now a Photographic Colour Retoucher, still attached to pre-printing techniques in the printing industry, doing as much overtime as possible often only reaching home after ten o/clock.

These changes and retraining schedules continue as the industry went though it’s revolution. From stone to photography, from film to foil, then image to digital processing, the printing unions whose job it was to protect jobs were active making life very difficult for technical advances to take place.

Harbury, half of Harrow and half of Sudbury: 68 Norwood Drive.

At work Trevor Scrivens amused us all describing building his own garage. It triggered an idea for me – to do the same. That summer holiday I started to dig out the foundations. Not having a cement mixer started to mix-up by hand seemingly tons of concrete to then fill the wall foundations, a task that went on forever… shovelful after shovelful, a never ending job helped by a few bricks. Fortunately Sally’s father helped with the drive mixing the concrete in the road.

I made a planning application to add a 4^th bedroom in the attic serviced by a staircase up from the third bedroom. It worked out very well giving Simon space for a work table and a bed for Benjamin. Space for beds began to be at a premium the three girls had the main bedroom in the front of the house – not the best situation. I removed the fireplace and chimney breast from bedroom three to give Sally and me room for a double bed and chest of drawers. Appling for another planning application to extend the kitchen and change the hall larder into a downstairs toilet gave us further space and convenience.

In 1972, Simon was about to take his eleven-plus examination when we were informed that there was a chance for him to be accepted as a candidate for the Churchill Award at Harrow Public School. In the event Simon did well and passed his eleven plus which meant we had to decide which Grammar School he should attend. Finally we chose Harrow Grammar which had the best name for top grade pupils.

Whilst all this was going on my application for Simon to apply to Harrow Public School for the Churchill Award. How wonderful, it was accepted, much later we heard Simon had passed the selection board and had to attend an interview. This he passed too. Some weeks later a letter appeared in the box which offer him a place the following term we were invited to visit the school and to be shown around. Simon and I were all for it but Sally demurred saying that it would break up the family. In that event I had to turn the offer down.

On weekdays, if I wasn’t working overtime, I would get home by about six, just in time to bathe the three youngest children Ruth, Benjamin and Rebecca all in the bath at once, one at a time to hold onto the taps for me to do one leg at a time. It was my favourite time ever – the bathroom alive with chatter and laughs each child waiting for me to dry them one at a time and to dress them in their pyjamas to be allowed to leap into our double bed waiting for the story to be read.

The three heads lining the pillows giving me space to prepare the scene for the story. Wind in the Willows, Toad of Toad Hall, Paddington, Just William or ‘We are just six’, poems. Brother’s Grim, fairy stories, illustrated by Anderson. They were wonderful.

The story of Mole, fed up with spring cleaning, breaking out of his winter home to take in the sun and fresh air – to wander off, to bump into Ratty, and be taken to sample the river – rowing, picnics, and river life, making their way towards Toads mansion.

The part in the book where Mole and Ratty wander into the wild wood and pass close to Mole’s home, that tempts Mole to show Ratty every single item with such pride – but Ratty is in such a hurry to get on, rushing Mole, who breaks down into tears and sadness after looking forward to a chance to show off his home. Such intimacy and togetherness made life worthwhile in the most difficult of times.

Our family holidays were a feat of organization. Usually there were a five family holidays a year one was always held at the YMCA Eastbourne the others chosen from a library book of country farm holidays. These were selected by the number of signposted walks or trails taking in a village, church, castle or castle mound, and perhaps a tumuli.

Whilst at the farm the days were spent taking one of the pre-selected paths everyone taking part on competitions: selecting wild flowers into a bouquet to be placed on a chosen grave at the church, finding the most attractive set of leaves or roundest stone. The alphabet sung as a chorus the verses being a nursery rhyme chosen by each participant. Lunch was one of the highlights of the day sitting in the church, porch or convenient seat. Judging the walk to coincide with lunch-time became an art.

These holidays were finally ended by Rachel refusing to get out of the car when she was about twelve. That was the end to the farm holidays. I must say that it was a relief not having to always think of things the family could do to keep them all occupied.

About this time the printing industry was beset again by a series of strikes in the newspaper industry which had a knock-on effect to other parts of the industry. I decided then that I had to do something to guarantee a wage. On reading The Chronicle spotted an advertisement about a vacancy at the London College of Printing for a Lecturer II in the pre-printing section.

The interview came up about the same time we were meant to be off to Eastbourne I had to return to London to attend the interview in London. The family was then complete with six children and naturally the costs to maintain the routines gathered up over the years were increasing.

I was still buying the family’s clothes using Kay’s Catalogue. To some extent it was very much like todays buying of clothes online the convenience very apparent and the selection of items vast.

It was essential that I kept employed to maintain the home and all the subsidiary teaching aids like going to nursey school for the youngest and keeping up piano lessons for all. My insistence on all the children learning to swim was being kept up and Ruth’s eventual pony riding class. This was a new hobby celebrated by the Pony Club tie, boots and crop soon to be mastered by Ruth although the club’s invitation to up-grade to teach her jumping was turned down.

The hope was that all the children would go to good schools with a concentrated effort on homework was the plan. (This failed later when not enough effort was made to check that homework was issued and completed) Our weekly trip to the library and attendance at Red Lion Square to listen to classical music linked to trips to the Commonwealth Institute, galleries and museums. Thankfully W. R. Royle & Sons, branched out, to include prints to their previous stock of greeting cards. This bolstered their offerings that opened up a new market.

In 1975, I took the plunge and answered an advertisement for a Lecturer Grade II in the Retouching Department of The London College of Printing. To attend the interview left the family holidaying at the YMCA, Eastbourne, and travelled back to London. At the interview the panel admitted that they had made a mistake. There was no vacancy for a Lecturer II but only for a Lecturer I, was I interested in that? I said that I was, knowing that the salary was going to be much less but the job would give me security and pension.

The fact that I was a Manager of a busy London studio using the latest equipment paid off for I was offered the job to start that September. I left as pleased as punch not fully realising just what I was setting myself up for. I had left school with no qualifications, to work my way up the hierarchy was going to be tough. Sally was pleased, but had no idea what it was going to mean.

That month Sally applied for a full-time job at Northwich Park Hospital in the secretary’s office. A week later we heard she had been accepted to start the following week. When she received her first month’s pay cheque, she wanted to keep all her earnings. I had to explain that to keep the ball in the air she was going to had contribute towards the family’s expenses. This did not go down very well!

6.

Lifestyle changes.

I started that September teaching at the London College of Printing only to be told that the latest plan was for all new teaching staff to attend Roehampton College to work for a teaching certificate on a day a week course throughout the year. I asked Sally to check over my first essay. She put it down saying that she did not understand a word. I could see I wasn’t going to have any help there.

That weekend I built a desk under the stairs to the top floor, to be my perch every evening, weekend and holiday. My quest for qualifications involved anything that would give me credence. I knew nothing about educational matters, sociology, philosophy, psychology nor the chemical action to reduce halftone images let alone the wonderment of the physics of light. I was going to have my time cut out! So started my new job.

Teaching evening classes was obligatory in both the main and secondary college. My teaching programme included classes at Back Street, Farringdon, close to Hatton Gardens. On many occasions I walked from the Elephant & Castle to Farringdon, over Blackfriars Bridge, occasionally meeting Simon working at his accountancy office. It was 1975, I was forty.

Sally had been out to part-time work for a number of years. Now a full-time contract at the Rheumatology Department specialising in musculoskeletal disorders was offered. She was in her element getting back into her original specialism taking her back to Wembley Hospital in the early fifties. She engaged herself fully with the rest of the staff, their outings and dances. At was at this time that Sally’s energy towards the children started to be eroded by outside the home influences.

I had researched taking a job in Devon thinking a larger house would give the children a bedroom each and in later life the house could be converted into a guest house. It seemed to me the answer to all our problems of space and a future for the growing children and for our retirement.

Originally Sally was enthusiastic but as time went by and the possibility grown – a vacancy had occurred in a printing company in Devon, Sally refused to move. I then looked into moving back to Meadow Road where a five bedroomed house was on the market. Once again Sally was keen until the moment a decision had to be made then she refused once again to move.

It was clear that we had to stay where we were. Taking a group of students on a visit to a printing company I was invited by the management to take on a part-time job, proof correcting their colour work. I told the firm I would look into it and so started to gather equipment around me in the garage to set up a small retouching studio.

This turned out to be a way to keep my hand in and to make some extra money. Sally meanwhile had been asked to be secretary for the arthritic club that was attached to the hospital one evening a week she was out doing her bit for a charity. On many of her lunch hour breaks she went over to her mother’s, to sit in her garden.

Throughout the early years of marriage, whilst the children were young, as a family would visit Eileen and Eric Saul, and their two daughters in Chesham, Stan and Jean, and their boys in Dunstable, Derek and Carole in Abingdon, not forgetting Cedric and Jo Selway, children Jane, Michael and Richard in Harlow. Grandmother’s sisters Paicie and Bren with son Raymond in Woking included in a six-monthly visit.

It was Paicie who remained a family stalwart who, if she could leave her cat Sam would meet up at Rita’s sitting room. Our visit to her was greatly looked forward to for there was always a mighty feast to consume as Paicie shuttled backwards and forwards keeping everyone’s plate well stocked up. The trains from Waterloo to Portsmouth passed at the bottom of her garden gave the visit extra spice. She promised to buy a bicycle for the children if they passed the eleven plus.

But most of all it was to Cedric and Jo Selway that as a family we bonded with the children performing on their instruments. The dining room side table groaned under the weight of jellies and trifles, biscuits and cream cakes. Who could forget such spreads? The swimming pool cover was rolled back and the garden in Harlow a joy to behold.

Those early days saw the family on the go never a dull moment and never a weekend without something special to do or see. Gradually like all good things it came to an end as the children grew up having their own special things to do and friends to visit. However, the photographs prove how delightful the children’s growing up years were. Looking back, as this site is meant to do, it was fun and stimulating and should not be forgotten, but cherished and stored for a grey day – to be lightened, by remembering those happy times.

Sally started to play netball again on a Saturday afternoon. I would push the two youngest to watch the match excitedly pointing the figures of their mother when she had the ball.

The dining room table was now fully occupied at every mealtime. The serving hatch, another little job for me, permitted the plates to be loaded onto the table, and a wooden extension applied to each side of the table catered for the eight places needed. With us both having a full-time job and all the children at school plus their extracurricular interests life was full.

We all know that life keeps on at you. There is no stopping to get off the escalator. The older one gets the more one becomes aware of being unable to do things quite as well or quite as fast. Not only was I engaged in teacher training but a councillor for Victim Support for Harrow, and just completing a badminton coaching course.

Everyone has to earn money to pay for food, your home, its contents and transport are added to the list. If you want a companion that has a cost, as do children or pets. At some point you are going to leave work and pay for your retirement so that has to be included. These are all perhaps necessary for your happiness the pressure over the years stays on…It’s up to the individual to choose a path but remain adaptable to change.

A written piece like this cannot be passed by without some reference to the country in which we live and the struggles endured. George Orwell wrote in 1941 ‘Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred. England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege largely ruled by the old and the silly’. That is still true.

John Stevenson in The Penguin, British Society 1914-45, page 472. ‘England resembles a rather stuffy Victorian family. A family with the wrong members in control’. I don’t think the last seventy-five years since 1945 have made much difference, his analysis still holds true.’

Sally 37, Simon 10, David 8, Rachel 6, Ruth 4, Benjamin 2, Rebecca 6mths.

This photograph shows quite clearly the family in 1960, and Sally’s happiness. We grasp the memory and hold it tight.