CHAPTER FIVE: Into The Fifties

By the end of the forties, the country had dusted itself down and was making plans for the future. With the increasing availability of raw materials, businesses were beginning to expand and there was an air of optimism. Cornwall, however, remained in a state of inertia and, as always, employment prospects were poor and wages low. I think these were the reasons that my parents decided to sell up and move back to Essex. This time, there was no house for us to move into so we had to live in a caravan while my parents went about the business of house-hunting. The site on which our temporary home was parked was a large, tree-lined field, close to a river, not very far from Epping, where my sister had been born. My memories of the weeks we spent there are mostly pleasant; summer was coming, the weather was fine and there were plenty of other children to play with. The river was a great novelty; it was wide and fast-flowing and nearby was something I had never seen before, a weir. I used to regard it with grave interest because people said it was extremely dangerous and if you went anywhere near it you would be swept away and drowned.
In May 1951 the Festival Of Britain opened and all the members of my family went to the main exhibition site on the south bank of the Thames to see it. I’m afraid that all I can remember of the Festival, which was an attempt by the Government to promote a feeling of recovery from the War and encourage us all to look to the future, was that I was profoundly bored. To me, the only good thing about it was the splendid FunFair ( as it was called ) in Battersea Park. That, to a young child who had never before experienced anything like it, was thrilling beyond words. I wanted to have a go on everything. I was mezmerised, too, by the Guinness Festival Clock with its remarkable mechanism which sprang into life every fifteen minutes; although I counted the seconds and kept my eyes glued to the big hand, it never failed to make me jump when this happened. I enjoyed myself enormously and had to be dragged away, protesting, from all these delights. I was presented with some special stamps commemorating the Festival and although I kept them for years, I eventually sold them, together with my grandfather’s collection of cigarette cards, when I was a hard-up student.
It made a big difference to my life that paper was no longer such a scarce commodity. Now I could buy drawing books of good quality cartridge as well as coloured pencils and crayons. Unusually for a child, I had a notion of perspective and my schema, or way of representing the human body, was precocious; normally, a child’s schema exaggerates those parts of the body of which there is the greatest awareness, such as the mouth and the hands. I was influenced very much by the illustrations in my books and I particularly loved and studied intently the drawings of Charles Robinson and Arthur Rackham. My grandmother on my father’s side said it was not surprising that I could draw so well because her family was descended from either Constable or Gainsborough - she couldn’t remember which.
My other grandmother was pleased that we had come back to Essex and came to visit us often. I was relieved that she was too taken up with Jean to bother much with me; I was enjoying my freedom and the outdoor life. My parents, too, seemed more relaxed and, for once, the quarrels ceased and my mother became much more amenable.
It was about this time that I developed the habit of nail-biting. I don’t think it was for reasons of stress or anxiety: I was merely copying my mother who, when she was reading, would chew her nails to the quick. I thought it most unfair, then, to be chided for doing something she did. She nagged me unceasingly but I couldn’t stop; in the end, she threatened to paint my nails with a horrible tasting substance which, she assured me, would cure the habit. I didn’t believe that any such thing existed and so it came as a big shock when she produced a bottle of noxious looking, brown liquid which, she said, was called bitter aloes, and proceeded to apply it to my nails. Gingerly, I touched a painted nail with the tip of my tongue and instantly recoiled as though I had been burned for the mouth-shrivelling bitterness startled and nauseated me so much that I burst into tears. I sulked for the rest of the day but my parents ignored me. I tried to wash off the brown stains on my nails but the vile, bitter taste remained and I felt that I had never hated my mother so much.
That night, when Jean was being put to bed, my father began to tickle her. She screamed with joy as he rolled her up in her blanket, pinning her arms to her sides so that she couldn’t resist. Choking with laughter, the tears rolling down her face, she pleaded with him to carry on every time he stopped. I regarded them in sullen silence, feeling left-out and hurt. Later, before I cried myself to sleep, I resolved to run away the next morning. They would think I’d fallen into the river and been swept away by the weir. I imagined the scene: my mother would be crying and wringing her hands, full of guilt and remorse, and people would talk about them and say what cruel and callous parents they had been. It was a highly sastisfying picture.
In the event, I didn’t run away and the bitter aloes didn’t stop me from biting my nails; I simply grew out of the habit. Meanwhile, the summer came to an end and still we were living in the caravan. Term started and I was sent to a big school in Epping where there were so many children that I felt overwhelmed. Fortunately, I didn’t have to stay there for long because my parents found a house at last and, because it was quite a distance from my school, it was decided that I should attend another one which was much nearer to where we were going to live.
As soon as I saw our new home I knew I was going to love living there. It was a large, white, detatched house and the agent told my parents that it was reputed to have been a safe- house for the famous highwayman, Dick Turpin. It had a big garden with an enormous air-raid shelter on to the top of which I could scramble with ease. There was a glass porch with a grape vine growing in it but the grapes were green and so sour that they practically stripped the skin from the roof of the mouth. As soon as we had moved in, my father set about doing it up. The first task was to remove the hideously inappropriate staircase which the previous owner had installed and he was astonished and delighted to find, underneath it, the original one. He discovered, too, some old coins hidden behind some oak beams and was disappointed to be told, later, that they weren’t valuable. I had a bedroom to myself which overlooked the back garden and after the cramped conditions of the caravan it was a relief to have space of my own.
I was happy in my new school and the headmistress told my mother that in all her thirty years of teaching she’d never come across a child with such a talent for drawing. The walk to school was a short one and I didn’t mind making the daily journey by myself. The only drawback was that my mother wouldn’t let me cross the road opposite our house and so I had to shout for her when I returned in the afternoon. She was beginning to go deaf and sometimes I had to shout for such a long time that the neighbours would tell me off for making a noise. If only she could have been like all the other mothers who came every day to collect their children after school!
Jean and I both went down with measles (there was no vaccine in those days) and my mother told everyone that my sister made more fuss with her one spot than I did with my hundreds. Measles was regarded as a normal childhood illness and no-one seemed to be aware of the fact that it could be potentially dangerous. Certainly, we suffered no after-effects and I cannot remember feeling particularly unwell as a result of it, either. The disease which parents feared above all others was poliomyelitis, the effects of which were truly devastating, and if a child was feeling off-colour, the first question an anxious parent would ask was ‘Have you got a stiff neck?’ If you wanted to miss school for, say, a test you knew you’d fail, complaining of a stiff neck was guaranteed to get you off. It was a good ploy but the problem was you could only use it for a limited number of times.


I looked forward to Christmas that year with great excitement, despite the inevitability of my parents quarrelling. There were two things I desperately wanted, but knew I could expect to receive only one of them. One was a doll with long, blonde hair, articulated limbs and blue eyes with thick, black lashes; she was dressed in pale blue with white lace underwear and she was so beautiful that I loved her from the moment I saw her in the shop. The other was a magnificent, Tudor-style dolls’ house complete with latticed windows and painted black beams. Each room was furnished with tiny chairs, tables, cupboards and beds. Those little beds, complete with miniature covers! I longed for the dolls’ house with all my heart yet, at the same time, I longed for the doll, just as much. My mother kept asking me which I wanted but I couldn’t make up my mind.
‘Better leave it to Father Christmas to decide then,’ she said.
Actually, although I hadn’t confessed to my parents, I had ceased to believe in Father Christmas some time ago because a shadowy figure carrying the anticipated sack of toys had tip-toed into my room on a previous Christmas Eve and stumbled against my potty.
‘Bugger!’ the figure had exclaimed.
I awoke in the early hours of Christmas Day and in the darkness furtively felt about for my presents; my hands seized upon a large, rectangular box and I knew at once what it contained. So, I had my doll! I sighed with pleasure and was just climbing back into bed when I spotted a large object on top of my chest-of-drawers. It was the doll’s house! I had received both the doll and the dolls’ house! I could not believe my good fortune and as I fell asleep trying to think of an appropriate name for my beautiful new doll, there could not have been a happier little girl in the whole world.
After Christmas, we made a trip - quite on impulse, it seemed to me - back down to Cornwall in order to spend a few days with Auntie Frances and Uncle Cliff. During the journey, the car broke down in some isolated spot and because it could not be fixed until the following morning, we had to find somewhere to spend the night. After some desperate enquiries, a man offered to put us up for the night in the spare room of his house. He was a dealer in antiques and the room was filled with ornaments and bric-a-brac. He lectured me about not touching anything and I was deeply offended because I considered myself to be a very well-behaved child and, anyway, I wasn’t the least bit interested in his precious ornaments and had no desire to tamper with them.
We were exhausted by the time we reached Falmouth so Jean and I were put straight to bed. Auntie’s house was cold, dark and spooky and in the middle of the night I was awoken by a strange, rustling sound; I peered cautiously over the edge of the bed just in time to see, scuttling away into the shadowy gloom, a pair of large rats. In the morning, when I got up, I thought, perhaps, I had dreamt it but, that night, the same thing happened: there were, beyond any doubts, rats in Auntie’s house! I decided it would be better not to mention it to my mother.
I don’t know what it was that made my parents decide to visit Falmouth in the middle of winter but I think it might have been that they, like the rest of the country, were gripped by reports of a dramatic event which was taking place in the Atlantic, a few hundred miles off Land’s End. The World War Two Liberty Ship Flying Enterprise, bound from Hamburg to the United States, was caught in a severe storm which lasted for several days and caused the ship’s cargo to shift. Unable to right itself, the ship was helpless and so an S.O.S. was sent out. The waves were so mountainous that the lifeboats which went to the rescue were unable to pull alongside and that meant all those on board had no choice but to jump into the sea. The Captain, however, chose to remain on the ship in order to await the arrival of the salvage tug, the Turmoil. With only one man aboard, there was no possibility of connecting the tow line and so the tug’s mate, Ken Dancy, had no alternative but to try to leap on to the deck of the Enterprise. Although this was an extremely dangerous and daring feat, after several attempts he succeeded in boarding the sinking vessel. A long, slow tow back to safety began but another storm developed, the tow line parted and the Enterprise began to break up. At last, Captain Carlsen and Ken Dancy were forced to jump from the ship’s funnel into the sea and were picked up by the Turmoil, from the deck of which they witnessed the final, dramatic sinking of the ship.
The remarkable bravery of Captain Carlsen seemed to have inspired the entire country. By tradition, Falmouth has always given heroes of the sea a big welcome and when he finally came ashore, the town went mad. The streets were packed with people waiting to see him and because of my brittle bones my mother had to hold me close so that I wouldn’t be jostled. As the car carrying him approached the spot where we were standing, the cheering became deafening.
‘Go on!’ urged my mother. ‘Shout “Three cheers for Captain Carlsen!” as loud as you can!’
As if I would draw attention to myself by doing such a thing! I glared at her, furiously, and such was the intensity of my annoyance that I must have been the only person in Falmouth not to cheer and wave at the heroic captain.

It was shortly after we had returned to Essex that I had my first encounter with a bully. In a neighbouring house lived another girl, about two years older than I was. I had never spoken to her and was surprised when, one afternoon, she knocked on our door and asked my mother if I could go to her house to play. I was reluctant to go but didn’t know how to refuse; besides, my mother seemed keen to get rid of me and, as always, I was wary of incurring her displeasure. The girl took my hand and chatted to me pleasantly as we walked down the road; suddenly, as soon as we were out of sight of my house, her manner changed.
‘I had a swing for Christmas,’ she said, ‘and you’re going to push it while I sit on it.’
The swing was impressive but when I asked if I could have a go on it she shook her head and sat down, ordering me to start pushing.
‘Harder!’ she demanded. ‘I want to swing higher!’
I began to feel afraid because every time she swung backwards she did it with such violence that I thought she might hit me; my arms grew tired and I wanted to stop but she urged me on and on.
‘Push! You aren’t pushing hard enough, you lazy girl!’
My lower lip trembled and my eyes filled with tears. I wanted to go home. Suddenly, she planted her legs on the ground and leapt up from the swing.
‘I’ve got to go indoors to do something,’ she announced. ‘Come with me!’
I followed meekly as she led me into her house and up the stairs into the bathroom; with great deliberation, she slammed the door and locked it.
‘Sit there, on the bath!’ she ordered and then, to my astonishment, she sat down on the lavatory. I was horrified. You never, ever, used the lavatory while someone else was looking on. It was something you did in private and never spoke about. I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment and lowered my eyes.
‘Look at me!’ she commanded and reluctantly I obeyed. Suddenly, she gave a loud grunt and the room was filled with a horrible smell. I thought I would die from shame. When she had finished, she ordered me back down the stairs, out into the garden and back to the swing.
‘Now push me properly this time!’ she demanded. But I had had enough. A great surge of anger, resentment and defiance welled up inside me; I did not like this girl and I saw no reason why I should be obliged to spend another second in her company. I dropped the swing, turned and ran as fast as I could back to the safety of my own house. As I neared our garden gate, I heard her running up behind me.
‘Margaret!’ she called, ‘Margaret! Come back!’ her tone was pleasant, coaxing. But I ignored her and ran indoors, breathless. I was afraid my mother might send me outside again but I think she realised that something had happened.
‘You weren’t gone very long,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you want to play with her?’ I shook my head and was thankful that she didn’t question me further.
I learned a useful lesson that afternoon: children who seek the company of younger children are bullies in the making. They are unpopular and ill at ease with their peers so they seek to raise their self-esteem by dominating children younger than themselves. I never allowed myself to be bullied again.
That summer, my mother took my sister and me pea-picking. My father drove us to a field where there were several other families working and although I made a half-hearted effort to help, I soon grew bored and went off with the other children to play. I rather admired the way they nonchalantly pulled off the occasional pod and ate the peas inside but when I attempted to do the same, my mother called out: ‘Don’t eat those! Raw peas give you worms!’
We also went potato-picking but this was much harder work becaused it involved bending down and my mother decided that one day was enough even though the money was good. I was relieved because I’d seen her putting stones, when she thought no-one was looking, into the bottom of each hessian sack before filling it with potatoes and I knew that I would have been overcome with shame had she been found out.

Eventually, my father finished restoring the house and later, when strangers came round to look at it, I began to suspect that my parents were planning another move; my suspicions were confirmed when we started making trips into the countryside to look at properties for sale. One day, we went to a village on the Essex / Hertfordshire border called Little Hallingbury where there was a thatched cottage due to be sold by auction. To me, it looked like an illustration in a book of fairytales and when my mother asked if I’d like to live there, I jumped up and down in excitement. Although the thatch was in good condition, the interior was in need of renovation but my father was confident that it was not beyond his capabilities. Their bid was successful and a few weeks later we moved in.

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