As well as garments for all the family, she knitted dolls’ clothes and would buy little, naked, Rosebud dolls, made from celluloid, to dress. When she’d finished the clothes, she would knit tiny blankets. She would put these, together with the doll, into a little basket. I was losing interest in dolls by then but I was so enchanted by my mother’s handiwork that I begged to have a dressed doll in a basket, too.
On market days, my sister and I would accompany our mother to Bishops’ Stortford. I liked the town and the curious, treacly smell which permeated every corner. That was malt, my mother said, which was used in the making of beer. I liked the smell in the baker’s shop, too, of the new bread and the cakes. Once, while my mother was chatting to the assistant, my sister reached up to the counter and grasped with both hands a large, wooden tray filled with fancy cakes. Before anyone realised what was happening, the whole lot crashed on to the floor. I was filled with dismay and embarrassment: this was far worse, even, than the time at Sunday school when she had said ‘Amen!’ in the wrong place when the rector was praying. My mother, too, was flushed with embarrassment and was deeply apologetic. But the baker and the assistant were so charmed by my sister that they laughed off the incident and told us not to worry. They simply picked the cakes off the floor and put them back in the tray as if nothing had happened.
On one of the stalls in the street were dozens of baby tortoises and I always begged to stop to look at them. One day, the man in charge was trying to bandage his thumb which appeared to have been cut rather badly.
‘That needs a stitch, really,’ said my mother, examining it. She took the bandage and the man held out his hand while she strapped up the bleeding thumb. He whispered something to her and she blushed and giggled, like a girl.
‘But I’ve got two little girls,’ she protested.
The incident went to her head and she was so full of herself that she spent the rest of the morning strutting about with her head high as though she were royalty. I was deeply ashamed on her behalf. To make matters worse, on the bus on the way home, the woman sitting opposite us leaned forward and said to her:
‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but what beautifully slim ankles you have!’
‘Slender ankles are a sign of good breeding,’ smirked my mother as we climbed down from the bus. My mortification knew no bounds.
When she was five years old, my sister started school. I don’t think she liked it very much and dinner times were a daily ordeal for her because she was a very finicky eater and would have lived entirely off sweet things had she been allowed to. Particularly loathesome to her was the cheese pie and she couldn’t understand how I could find it so savoury. I was used to walking to school in the mornings but my sister found it too tiring and so we had to catch the bus. I objected to having to be in charge of her and if I misbehaved at school and was reprimanded, she would waste no time in telling my mother. I called her ‘Sneak’ and urged my friends to do the same.
During the time we were living in Little Hallingbury there occurred a total eclipse of the sun. People were not warned as they are nowadays of the potential damage to the eyes caused by looking at the sun through inappropriate media such as smoked glass or photographic film and our mother thought she was being very clever by suggesting that we looked at the reflection of this rare astronomical event in a bowl of water. So, at the predicted commencement of the eclipse, my sister and I went out into the garden carrying our bowl of water, crouched over it and waited. We waited and waited. Nothing happened: the day was cloudy and threatened rain, with very little chance that we would glimpse the sun at all, no doubt a good thing as far as our eyes were concerned. Very soon, we got bored and went off to play.
I couldn’t persuade my sister to share my enthusiasm for anything to do with space and space travel. I even invited her to come aboard my ‘spaceship’ which was, in fact, a large elder tree at the bottom of the garden and in which I used to spend many happy hours hiding in the leafy branches, letting my imagination take me on exciting journeys into the unknown, but she thought I was silly and would go off to entertain herself. Then, on the radio - which my mother still called the wireless - a new, forthcoming serial was announced. It was called ‘Journey Into Space’ and I thought it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me in my life.
From the first episode, I was captivated; in fact, I could not accept that the latter had come to an end. Surely, they couldn’t expect anyone to wait a whole week until the next episode? I could not imagine what I was going to do with myself until then. For the next few weeks my life was obsessed by ‘Journey Into Space’ and I would count the hours before each weekly episode. Uncannily, the story was very similar to what was to happen to the ill-fated Apollo Thirteen mission inasmuch that it was about a voyage to the moon which went badly wrong: the only difference was that a friendly alien did not come to the rescue of the Apollo Thirteen crew. After the final, thrilling episode I felt that my life no longer had a purpose and I refused to believe that there was to be no continuation of the series. I was lifted out of my despair when I began to read a book I had borrowed from the library about a boy with six fingers who came from another planet. The book enthralled me so much that I read it all over again and took to studying the hands of strange boys in the hope of discovering my own alien.
By now, my sister’s hair had grown very long; it was also very thick and our mother had to tame it by braiding it into two, heavy plaits. One day, our parents took us to London Zoo and while we were visiting the chidrens’ corner, an inquisitive goat ambled up to Jean and set about eating one of her plaits. She screamed so loudly that a keeper came running up to investigate the cause of the commotion; fortunately, the goat was prised off and my sister placated with ice-cream.
There was a German couple living in Little Hallingbury, not very far from our cottage. People said that they were good Germans because they had not fought against us in the war and had been anti-Hitler. Although they loved children, they had none of their own and no-one thought it extraordinary when they invited all the children in the village to a party. They entertained and fed us well but I think most of us felt a little awkward and out of place, despite the obvious effort which the couple was making to ensure that we enjoyed ourselves. Before it was time to go home, the man picked me up and sat me on his lap. I immediately stiffened and strained away from him as he began to massage my stomach.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘let me feel your tummy to see if it’s nice and full!’
With each circular movement of his hand he went lower and lower. My discomfort was turning into panic and I tried to wriggle myself from his lap. At last, I think the man realised that I knew he was doing something inappropriate and released me. I removed myself as far away from him as I could get and saw him seize upon another little girl and begin to do the same thing to her. I was relieved when my mother came to take me home and when she asked me if I’d had a nice time, I told her that I didn’t like Germans very much. Adult behaviour baffled me: on the one hand, they warned you every time you went out of the house not to talk to strangers yet, on the other, they threw you into the arms of people who, even to an artless and trusting child, were manifestly overstepping the boundaries of propriety.
One cold, March day Jean and I were in the orchard helping my father to saw up apple boughs for firewood. Stepping backwards, I tripped over a piece of wood and fell awkwardly. I knew at once that my arm was broken and, supporting it with my other one, I went to find my mother. After it had been X-rayed at the hospital, I thought they would plaster me up and send me home, as they’d always done before. But a doctor came into the room where we were waiting and called my parents aside. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but he looked very serious and I began to feel afraid. My mother walked back to where I was sitting and put her arm around me.
‘ The doctors need to do a little operation on your arm,’ she said, gently, ‘ and I’m afraid that means you’ll have to stay in hospital for a day or two.’
‘But I don’t want to!’ I cried. ‘I hate hospitals!’
It was useless to protest, I knew: trying not to cry, I allowed myself to be led away by a nurse. The damage to my arm was serious because not only had I smashed the elbow but also the injury was very close to the site of the radial nerve and my parents were warned that I might lose the use of my arm. Fortunately, the surgeons at Bishop’s Stortford hospital had had plenty of practice on the wiring up of broken bones because my Uncle Albert was a patient there, too. Over the years he had had so many repaired fractures that bits of wire used to poke out of his skin. My operation was difficult and took a long time because the surgeons had to thread all the broken fragments of bone on to a circle of silver wire. Afterwards, I was quite ill and was put into a room next to the Sister’s office. Hospitals were grim places when I was a child and strict discipline was maintained under the iron rule of the Matron, a fearsome figure in a meticulously starched and ironed uniform crowned by an elaborate headdress which looked as if it had been constructed by an expert in the art of origami. Visiting hours were limited and all sweets were confiscated and put into a large tin so that they could be shared out fairly. One evening, my mother gave me a bar of chocolate; it was my favourite, Cadbury’s Milk Tray, and consisted of six little shapes, each containing a different filling. The coffee-flavoured one was the best. I hid the chocolate under my pillow but Sister discovered it and whisked it away. When my mother came the following evening, I burst into a flood of tears because I thought she might find out about the confiscated chocolate and start a row. Sister came into the room to see what the noise was about.
‘It’s always the same,’ she announced, without sympathy, ‘they’re perfectly all right until the mothers come and then they cry.’
One night, I awoke with two urgent needs: one was for a glass of water, the other for a pee. I lay in the dark, too afraid to call out, until at last two young nurses came into the room to check on me. I couldn’t decide which of my needs was the more pressing but, in the end, opted for a visit to the bathroom.
‘Please may I be excused?’ I asked, timidly. The nurses thought this was very funny and laughed as they helped me out of bed. They were waiting to tuck me up again when I returned.
‘Please could I have a drink of water?’ I asked. The nurses laughed again. ‘You’ll need another wee-wee, then!’
While one of the nurses helped me back into bed, the other went out and returned a few moments later with a glass. I took a thirsty gulp and discovered, to my surprise, that it was orange squash, a rare treat in those days. I don’t think they realised just how much I enjoyed that drink; afterwards, they wished me a good night and went off down the corridor, laughing and chatting quietly. To me, they had seemed like angels and their kindness had touched me so much that I went back to sleep in a much happier frame of mind. The next morning I was so improved that they moved me out of the side ward and into the main ward where I immediately got on like a house on fire with the little girl in the next bed, who was the same age as I was.
My mother was late that night but I hardly noticed because I was having such a good time with my new friend and her parents. They seemed to me such lovely, generous people and made me laugh so much that my sides hurt. They’d brought a selection of sweets which we stuffed into our mouths when no-one was looking.
‘I bet they don’t share the sweets out!’ said my friend’s mother. ‘I bet that nasty old Sister has them all. I don’t call it fair.’ In fact, she was wrong: the next morning, Sister produced the famous tin and ceremoniously handed each child one sweet.
That evening, my mother said that she had some sad news.
‘Nanny has gone to Heaven to be with Jesus,’ she told me.
‘Poor Jesus!’ I thought. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to put up with my grandmother’s nagging for all eternity.
My grandmother had broken her wrist at about the same time that I had broken my arm and had died suddenly, a few days later, from a blood clot. It must have been a great shock to my mother who had had enough stress and worry to cope with on account of my operation and hospitalisation. I was too young, though, to appreciate this.
My broken arm gave me no trouble and a few weeks later the surgeon said my plaster could come off. My sister had accompanied my mother and me on that trip to the hospital and when a nurse led me to a room at the end of a corridor my mother was too engrossed in conversation with someone else to notice that Jean had followed me. The nurse lifted me on to a trolley, cut the plaster cast with a pair of giant scissors, prised it apart and pulled it off. Next, she carefully removed the lint bandage. Suddenly, there was a high-pitched, ear-splitting scream; startled, she spun round and saw my sister. Jean’s screams were so loud that medical staff came running from all directions to see what was the matter. The sight of my gory arm and the long scar embroidered with a row of big, black, spidery stitches had horrified my sister so much that she was inconsolable. Abandoned on my trolley, I felt indignant because of all the fuss they were making of her. I was the one most deserving of attention and I was being completely ignored. It was decidedly unfair.
Not long after my misadventure, Jean, I and our parents, on a trip to London, went to a restaurant for lunch. We had hardly sat down when my sister began to wail. The other diners turned round to stare as my mother, embarrassed, tried to calm her.
‘It’s the nurses!’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t like the nurses!’
We realised then that her distress had been caused by the sight of the waitresses in their white aprons and she had mistaken them for nurses; evidently, she had been more traumatised than anyone had thought by her experience at the hospital. It took a long while to reassure her that the waitresses weren’t nurses.
My accident and the follow-up visits to the hospital meant that I had missed a good deal of schooling and my mother was worried that I might have fallen behind. Arithmetic was my weakest subject and so she accepted the offer of Mrs.Tobit, Mavis’ mother and a teacher, to give me extra coaching.
‘You don’t want to fail your scholarship on account of poor arithmetic,’ said my mother. I didn’t really understand what this scholarship business was all about; it had been mentioned once or twice before, a long time ago, but now the subject was being brought up again and again with disturbing frequency. It now loomed on my horizon like something dark and ominous and I did my best to put it out of my mind.
That summer, the happy months we had spent in Little Hallingbury came to an end; the cottage was sold and our parents told Jean and me that we were going to move back to Cornwall. A big removal lorry arrived with ‘John Julian, Cornwall’ painted on it and all the neighbours stopped to stare because none of them had been told that we were going.
‘We’re moving down to Cornwall because of Margaret’s health,’ said my mother.
We squeezed ourselves and the remainder of our belongings into the car and set off, leaving Widdy behind with the new people. In those days, a journey to Cornwall from London took at least seven hours; often, you would have to stop to let the radiator cool down and then you’d have to knock on someone’s door to beg for water or look for a stream if you were in the country. Tyres, too, were prone to puncture on long trips and it was nearly always necessary to stop to tinker with something or other. Our previous car had been an Austin Seven and it was so small and square that we named it ‘The Matchbox’. It is highly unlikely that it would have made the trip from Little Hallingbury to Cornwall.
We stopped on Dartmoor for a picnic and I now that I was older, I was able to appreciate what an extraordinarily beautiful place it was. The air resounded with the singing of larks and yellowhammers and there were foxgloves all around us just coming into flower. I had never seen them before and I was fascinated. I wondered why they were called foxgloves but my father, who knew most things, had no idea. I found out later that the word fox in this instance is derived from the word folk which is how they referred to fairies in the old days. I half believed in fairies and was charmed by the idea of the speckled, pink flowers being used for gloves. When the time came for us to continue our journey, I was sorry to leave Dartmoor. We had had to make a number of stops and it was getting so late that my father decided to make a detour and spend the night at his brother’s in Brixham. I was delighted. It was all turning out to be a wonderful adventure and I no longer felt regret about leaving Little Hallingbury and forgave my mother for telling the neighbours that my health - which was, if fact, very robust - was the reason for our departure.
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