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Chapter Nine - Comings and Goings

It had never occurred to me that I could give birth to anything other than a girl, because I had been an only child and so had my mother. Her mother was one of six girls and so I was very surprised when John said 'its a boy' when Michael emerged. I said 'Are you sure?' which annoyed John even at that special moment. I realised it was the wrong thing to say, and tried to mutter something about the cord making it difficult to see. He had wanted to watch the birth and was allowed to, although in those days this was not as common as it is now. Michael was a little smaller than Jennifer had been and his eyes at first were slightly crossed.

I knew how important it was not to exclude an older child when there was a new baby. At the Natural Childbirth classes, they had said we must not walk in holding the new baby, so John came up the stairs behind me at the Leytonstone house, carrying Michael. Jennifer, however, raced down and almost pushed me out of the way, saying 'Where's the baby?' I don't think that Jennifer was any worse than any other first child is when facing a new arrival. She says now that she was jealous and for a long time hated Michael and couldn't see what the fuss was all about. But all children go through this, even when they have not had the disturbances in their lifestyle which Jennifer had endured. The worst thing that happened was actually on that first night when we brought Michael home to Leytonstone. John's mother and Barbra as well as of course my mother and I were all in the room taking turns to pass round the shrieking Michael. Jennifer went to bed across the landing and later came out and said sadly 'I'm hungry' and we all realised we had not given her any supper. We all fussed over her then and corrected the oversight, but what a terrible thing it was for all five of us to forget!

Living in those grim rooms made life very difficult. John had bought a gas copper so we had hot water and often we all tried to bath in front of the fire in the large plastic baby bath as it was easier than going down to the freezing bathroom where one had to insert a shilling to get hot water.

Something happened in those rooms which I could never forget. Michael was wrapped in a shawl and screaming so John took him from me, and started to rock him and say things like 'Your daddy has got you now, so stop crying, its all right ...etc etc' and when this made no difference at all, John with his usual sudden surge of anger at any failure or disappointment, threw Michael across and onto the bed. It was only a distance of about four feet but it gave me a terrible fright. Luckily, being bound in a shawl helped but his neck could have easily been thrown back and injured.

Michael was anaemic and not very well, so he cried a lot during the night. Jennifer and John slept in the bedroom and I slept on a mattress in the other room with the carrycot next to me. Rain came through the roof despite our complaints to the landlord and I had to make sure I was not under the drip. At this inappropriate time, my friend Sue who had returned to South Africa eventually with her baby and had told her parents she and Dave had adopted her, asked me if we would put up Dave who had to come to London about a job and had no money to pay rent. I explained our conditions to her and said there was no way we could put anyone up, as people slept in both rooms and we shared a bathroom on another floor with other families. Also that I had a new baby, not to mention a grumpy new husband. She was very put out and said a real friend would have helped her and she dropped me from that moment. This seemed sad after we had been friends for so long but I was too depressed generally at that time to worry excessively about it.

The best and most surprising thing that happened in early 1966 was our move to South Woodford. My father in law suddenly went into the property market. He bought several houses at low prices and then obtained grants to put in bathrooms and improve them generally. The first of these he offered to us. We only had to pay £3 a week rent and we would have the basement and ground floor of a Victorian terraced house on three floors and there would be a lodger in the top two rooms. There was a garden too. It was too wonderful for words. Granddad was arranging to put a bathroom in on top of the kitchen which the lodger would share, and there was also an outside toilet. There was a side entrance and he had it made into a slope instead of steps so that I could easily get the pram down to the back door. The basement floor had two rooms apart from the kitchen, these we called the living room and the lounge. On the ground floor which was street level, there were the two bedrooms and the bathroom and upstairs were the two rooms which were converted for the future lodger.

Although later my mother came to recognise John's many sterling points and also to realise that he could not help behaving the way he did, she was very bitter about his behaviour at first. It was terrible to see the way he would snarl with his face contorted and bending over Jennifer's face, when she had mislaid her shoes or spilled something. I always intervened and he was always sorry afterwards for what he called 'over-reacting' but I soon realised that no matter what he said, the same sort of rows would occur over and over again. By the time Michael was a year old, and my mother again returned to South Africa, I had more or less given up hope of things every coming right, although for perhaps another year after that, when there were peaceful days, I had the occasional twinge of hope! My mother by the way returned to Durban the day before the escape of George Blake, the spy, from the Scrubs and also the day of the horrific tragedy at Aberfan. I remember crying and not being sure if I was crying for my mother or for those poor children who were killed. At that time I had not yet become interested in the story of George Blake!

John and all his family fully accepted Jennifer into the family. Barbra, Nanny and Granddad were as generous and loving as any family could be. John certainly thought of her as his daughter and treated her in exactly the same way as he did Michael. In fact I think Michael had a harder time and was more affected by his childhood. After all, Jennifer had a background of loving happy people around her for several years.
Michael was a lovely little boy at two. He was bright and spoke almost as early as Jennifer had. People raved over his speech as they had over Jennifer's and I was asked continually how I 'got him to speak so well'. He knew all his colours before the age of two and was very exacting in his speech. He didn't seem to make the sort of baby mistakes that most children do. He was able from an early age to play quietly by himself and he often stayed upstairs in his bedroom and only came down every now and then to make sure I was still there! This I thought was most unusual in children I had known.

John took him to the rail bridge near us to watch trains and he has been fascinated by trains all his life. John too was a train buff, though he was sad about the disappearance of steam trains. I too had loved the South African trains as a child and my father used to explain to me about gauges and how they were electrifying part of the line. This interest in trains was something John and I had in common and in fact we had quite a lot in common. It was his temperament that spoiled things, not any natural incompatibility. We both liked photography and music though he was more highbrow than I was, and shared a lot of the same ideals. It made me realise how unrelated shared interests are to emotional compatibility.

Bringing up the children with a father like John made a lot of things more difficult for me. At first I used to tell him when he came home from work if I had had a trying day or the children were exhausting or irritating. I think most parents enjoy the chance of talking about the trials of their day to their partners. But I soon realised I was causing extra scenes. I did not tell him things expecting him to repeat what I had told him, and when he did, and shouted at the children, it made me feel as if I had been telling tales. I must point out at this point that his violent reactions were always verbal and never physical, but very alarming all the same. Soon I stopped telling him about their natural childish naughtiness. Also because he went on at them so much, I felt unable to show them any annoyance I might feel, even when they deserved it, because I thought they had more than enough from him. They were in fact very good children on the whole, but John always said I did not know how to discipline them and did not understand the reason why I felt I could not, even when I explained it to him.

Jennifer tried very hard to please John, as everyone always did. One day, he was shouting at her and he said 'You just don't care'. And she, desperately hoping to pacify him by agreeing, said 'No, I don't'. He saw the humour of this and luckily it calmed him down.

Michael used to sing songs and smile at strangers in the street until he was about two. Then his personality seemed to change. He became more reserved and cautious. I suppose its not fair to blame John for this, but I did think there might be a connection. John once snarled close to Michael's face when Michael did not know how to blow his nose, and sniffed instead. I had to intervene as usual as Michael was beginning to sniff more hysterically and did not know what he was meant to do.

And yet John loved his children, was very interested in their development and wanted to encourage them to learn about all that life had to offer. Over the years, I often thought about the song from 'Carousel' where the men sing 'Stonecutters cut it on stone, woodcutters cut it on wood, there's nothing so bad for a woman as a man who thinks he's good!' I never knew exactly why they sang that, but it certainly seemed to fit how I felt.
John was by now at a Teacher Training College in Essex. In the summer of 1968 when Michael was nearly three, John went to the States to help at an American Jewish Children's holiday camp. This was heavenly to all of us. The release from tension was lovely any time that John was away. Everyone seemed to relax visibly and breathe more easily. Michael kept saying anxiously 'He's not coming back, is he?' This reminded me of the dotty Ben in the book 'Rebecca' who kept saying regarding the drowned Rebecca 'She's gorn, she won't come back no more'. I had to keep telling Michael firmly that his father would definitely be coming back. I didn't want him to have any shock or disappointment.

Jennifer by now was at Junior School. We felt it would be better if Jennifer had the same surname as her brother, so John legally adopted her, although Graham's permission had to be sought first. Luckily Graham and Laina to whom he was now married, were in England at the time the adoption documents needed signing. They had a daughter, Petal, who was one year younger than Michael, and Laina continued to keep in touch by sending Christmas cards over the next few years.

The ten years following Michael's birth were not as filled with changes and events as were the preceding ones. I see them as a sort of kaleidoscope of images of tears, rows, school open evenings, tupperware parties, tears, rows, children's parties, stressful family holidays, visitors and visiting, house decorating, family get togethers, and tears and rows!
Of course there were high spots and low spots during this time. Its always a pleasure to watch young children developing and enjoying the funny things they say. Once when Michael was about four and we were approaching the checkout in a supermarket, he asked me earnestly 'what do sweets taste like that you haven't paid for?' I suppose I always said things like 'you can't eat them until I've paid for them' and he took this literally and thought they did not become edible until money changed hands!

One nice thing was that our new lodger, Maggy, belonged to an operatic society in Walthamstow and I went along to rehearsal with her, and then auditioned and joined the show which was 'Belle of New York'. It was the first show I had been in for about seven years. John again was perfectly behaved outwardly. He was keen for me to have an interest and said he did not mind babysitting every Thursday night. Of course it did not work out as smoothly as that implies. For several months, every Thursday, he would cause some sort of upset just when I was ready to go, or maybe suddenly ask me where some possession of his was, and would say he needed it that moment. Sometimes he would upset Jennifer a few minutes before I had to leave to get the bus. I felt very guilty once when she came and asked me not to go out to rehearsal as he was so cross. She said heart-rendingly 'I'm only a little girl'. I tried to pacify her and said that he would not hurt her and she knew what he was like and I did go out. Gradually though, as it became a regular thing for me to be in two shows a year, it all settled down. I was always very careful to have everything as perfect and as ready as could be, in order to avoid any chance of a row. Straight after breakfast, I would race round getting the housework done, make sure all John's clothes were ironed and put away, prepare the evening meal, put nappies out and night clothes when necessary, and do all in my power to make life as smooth as possible. It did not always work of course, but I think really John was quite pleased about my hobby as he had so many himself.

All through the years he was an outdoor type, he liked camping and mountaineering and sailing. He did quite often go away for weekends or days and perhaps he felt that it was only fair that I should have an interest too. As I have said, in principle, he was a good man with the right ideas, but unable to carry anything through without causing an upset. Anyway, at the operatic society, I formed new friendships and although the society had the usual cliques and little jealousies and atmospheres, on the whole I had a lot of happiness there. Maggy, Mary and I were ourselves part of a group anyway, I suppose.

Mary was only one week older than I was. She and I sang alto so we sat together whereas Maggy sat with the sopranos. Mary lived with her rather elderly widowed mother and her schizophrenic brother. Her father had died when she was a teenager so this had restricted her fun in her youth. She had worked in the bank since leaving school and had never had a boy friend.

We used to giggle a lot at rehearsals, we both seemed to see the funny side of the same happenings. And of these there were many. Temperament runs high among the contenders for parts and I can't believe it could be much worse if money and fame were involved. One fiery young girl had hysterics when she failed to get the leading part she had auditioned for, and had to be walked around the inner quadrangle of the college where we rehearsed by an older member of the cast. Much later that same girl, who in fact was very talented, had the part of Miss Adelaide in 'Guys & Dolls' and one evening during the show's run, she was in the dressing room very early as she came straight from work. I was one of the dancers and therefore in the same dressing room, also from about 6 pm. The costumes for the entire cast were kept in that room so everyone had to come there first to get their things before going on to other dressing rooms. I sat in a corner doing my make-up and listened to this prima donna telling each person in turn as they arrived, how furious she was that everyone kept telling her how great she was in the part. She kept saying 'I don't want them to say I was great, I want them to say everyone was great'. It was difficult for me not to laugh. She would start by saying 'I'm so angry' and people would say, sympathetically 'Why, dear?' and then she would tell them again how much it annoyed her to be isolated for praise. It thereby ensured that every single member of the cast knew how good everyone had thought she was in the part.

Once Mary and I became tearful with suppressed laughter at an Annual General Meeting of the Society because people became so heated over such silly things. Sometimes we got upset by some of the pettiness but of course there was a lot of fun to be had, just observing all the rivalry and bitchiness of the few. One of the things that annoyed me most was when I was about to go on in the dream dance in 'Carousel' and a girl who had failed the dancing audition asked me not to audition again as lots of people were keen to get in. This was because I had mentioned to her that I was nervous about the dance and did not feel confident, the sort of thing anyone might say. It was the nerve of it that staggered me, asking me not to audition again, presumably so that she would have more chance to get in. It made me more determined always to audition in the future.
In the show 'Iolanthe', every chorus female plays a fairy. There was a very old man who joined the Society for the show because he loved doing Gilbert & Sullivan. His wife was much younger and often played the piano at rehearsals.

The College was now in possession of a computer and as all the members of our Society were actually meant to be part of an Evening Class at the College, our names and dates of birth were filled in on forms at the beginning of each year. No student born before 1900 had ever previously enrolled for classes. This was in the late sixties. When this man entered 97 in the space for the year, meaning 1893, it made the computer crash as it was programmed to record the years since 1900.

Because of the excitement this caused, I felt I knew him although in fact I had never spoken to him at rehearsals.

One winter's day, when I was dressed in fur-lined boots, a woolly hat and thick woollen coat, I caught a bus and there - sitting in the long seats near the opening, was this gentleman and his wife. I smiled and said 'hello' as I clomped past to my seat. He looked a bit puzzled and his wife smiled reassuringly at him and said "it's one of the fairies, dear, one of the fairies'. This remark naturally interested many of the other passengers on the bus who turned round to peer at both the lunatic (presumably with his nurse) and the heavily bundled up and booted 'fairy'.

Mary drove a car and over the next few years, sometimes when John was away, either on his own or perhaps with one of the children, Mary and I used to have days out, with or without a child or children. She was very long suffering regarding my children who were sometimes badly behaved or sick in her car. John used to tolerate her visits but was never very polite or charming to her. He seemed to think most of my friends were stupid. She knew what he was like but said afterwards that she came to see me and knew she had to put up with him, though she often wished she could tell him how she felt about the way he sometimes spoke to me.

We were still very short of money, not only whilst John was at training college but even in the early years of his actual teaching. Luckily for me, at this time, Granddad sold his electrical shop where Barbra had worked and concentrated only on the electrical contracting business from home. There was only the bookkeeping and the wages to do now and so Barbra wanted a proper full time job in the City. So she taught me how to do the cash book, Bought and Sales Ledger and the wages and PAYE. This necessitated my going along two mornings a week. They had part of their garage converted into an office and Nanny was delighted to look after Michael. I think she always loved him the most, rather like my mother always preferred Jennifer, but Nanny was careful not to show it, . Anyway, getting the extra money was a great help to us and I worked there for about three years until the end of my third pregnancy. As I spent a lot of time with Nanny, we became much closer. I was so lucky to have such a nice mother-in-law and at least two of my friends have said they wished they had one like her. All through the years we often went on outings together, with the children, and looked at shops and always had lunch in a restaurant. She naturally paid for the lunch and wanted to give us this regular treat. We probably went out together three or four times a year. The children loved going out with her too. When my mother came over at various times she too was very fond of Nanny and they wrote to each other when my mother was back in South Africa.

There was one very dramatic family happening at about this time. Barbra had confided in one of her friends about Alan's marital status and this friend immediately told her own mother who apparently took great pleasure in dropping this bombshell to Nanny. You have to realise that Nanny and Granddad were the most respectable people and were born into that generation that is horrified beyond measure at any sexual misconduct. I know they had been very upset about my early pregnancy but at least I was not their daughter. They felt marriage was sacred and when they discovered that Alan had children as well and lived quite nearby in South Woodford, it must have been too appalling for them.

Granddad particularly was terribly embarrassed as he had told the local jeweller that his daughter went out with a policeman and had given the jeweller Alan's name. He said later that he thought the man had given him a funny look and when the storm broke, he realised why. At first Barbra did not know how her parents had found out her secret, and she may even have suspected us of telling, which of course we would never have done.
My mother and I had known about it all for some time and were naturally very interested in what it all meant, for instance, was he about to get divorced, how old were his children, and what would be the outcome. But when the truth broke, I was very sorry for Nanny, who was so terribly upset not only for herself but for Barbra. Nanny said 'Barbra is so unhappy and she has been crying all night. Look!' and she showed me a pile of wet tissues. Barbra had promised her parents not to see Alan again. I think she tried to keep her promise but after a few months, we knew she had started seeing him again. When she visited us, she would continually look at her watch and then suddenly jump up at about 9 o'clock and say she had to go. We knew he was picking her up outside.

Sometimes he phoned her at our place and of course I knew his voice. At Christmas time, it must have been difficult for her. She always helped her mother with the dinner, the baking and the evening tea when all of us went to their house. But then at about 8 o'clock she would mysteriously leave without saying to anyone where she was going. Barbra is the sort of person who nobody would ever question. I knew that if I had had a secret like that, everyone would have questioned me relentlessly. This whole situation continued until Barbra left home and had her own flat, and even then the Christmas day arrangements stayed the same, and she did not leave the family home until the evening.

Barbra and I were both very interested in our family trees. I was equally as interested in John's and her side as it was of course two of my children's heritage. I knew my own was very difficult to trace as I had mainly Irish and Scottish blood and those ancestors had gone to South Africa where records were not as carefully kept as they were in England. English official records started in 1837 and earlier than that date, we soon found how difficult and slow the process of tracing births, marriages and deaths was. John's side being mainly English was much easier at least until we got back to 1837. Barbra and I used to go to Guildhall library in her lunch hour sometimes. She did a lot of research and sent me copies of everything she found. We were both extremely enthusiastic about all this.

I was asked to leave Somerset House once when Michael who was lying on the floor of one of the galleries, playing with a car, swung his feet back and forth behind him and kicked a man, obviously unintentionally. The man made a terrible fuss and an attendant said children should not be there and would I please leave. Well, I did, immediately, but I had to gather up my papers first. He almost frogmarched us down the stairs and a lot of people who knew nothing of the preceding incident must have wondered what on earth I had done. Of course I could not keep away, I was desperate to find out more, so put a cap on Michael's head about two weeks later and returned, warning him to keep a very low profile. He was a very quiet well-behaved child and he certainly co-operated. The same attendant patted him on the head and did not recognise us!

Also, at about this time, Maureen got married and moved away to Stevenage in Hertfordshire. Jennifer was one of her bridesmaids and we all went to the wedding in Wembley. I was sad because of course it was the end of the Tuesday visits, but I was happy for Maureen, and soon Mary fitted into the Tuesday night slot. If by the way Maureen has seemed a shadowy character who simply filled Tuesday nights, this is not fair to her. My father liked her very much and said what a restful person she was. This is so true, she was always restful and still is. She is one of my favourite people to meet and look around the shops with, when we have occasional days out in London. She is intelligent, kindly, a good listener, sympathetic and easy going. I was not fond of her husband when she first married as I had heard from her mother that he wanted Maureen to drop her old friends. Naturally I took this personally and thought he felt us beneath them. At her wedding his mother cried to me about how wonderful he was, and seemed not to realise what a treasure he was getting by marrying my friend. However I think Maureen and David have been happy enough, as well as financially very comfortable and have a lovely daughter who lives near to them in Hertfordshire, and David has in recent years been helpful and kind to me. He is another person who is 'into' the family tree.

In the spring of 1968, my father paid us another visit for about six weeks. This was the first time he had met John and I think he liked him very much. He did not seem to notice the atmosphere and John usually behaved better when there were other people around anyway. To my father the important thing was that a man should be responsible and go to work and earn money and of course John could not be faulted in this respect. Michael liked my father too especially when he had a ride on my father's shoulders. My father was very bald on top and Michael who was holding on to his head said carefully 'my skin on my head is under my hair!' which we all thought was very funny.

But the biggest thing that happened in the decade of my thirties, was the birth of Cathy. I had not wanted to have another child. As the rows and scenes accelerated, all I ever hoped for was that I would be able to get away somehow, perhaps when Michael was about 12. This seemed a long time to have to wait for peace, but just as when I was young, I had daydreamed about Hollywood and knowing film stars, now my daydreams were all concerned with having a place to run to, a secret small flat, perhaps above a shop, where I could go and have a bit of peace away from it all. I knew it was impossible and I had no money, but still I kept picturing this tiny place with a sink, toilet and bed to which I could go to hide when things got too much.

When I discovered I was pregnant again, I was extremely upset. We were not relying solely on the rhythm method any longer and yet it still happened. John was quite pleased; I think he hoped for a girl of his own flesh and blood. I knew that now I would have to stay much longer in what I considered an intolerable situation. This time the morning sickness lasted the entire nine months. In fact I was even sick a couple of hours before I went into labour. It was a worrying pregnancy from the start.

We went on holiday to the Kent coast and John was one day in a very grim mood I think due to the miserable weather and we were all on tenterhooks trying not to irritate him. He wanted us to climb down some cliffs near Folkestone. I thought I should not be doing a thing like this in the tricky early months of pregnancy but did not want to upset him so I stumbled down after the others without objecting. Later when we got home, I started bleeding. He called in a local doctor who said I must lie absolutely still for several days if I did not want to lose the baby. This I agreed to do; I was quite relieved as it meant I could stay at the holiday flat in peace and read. John however got extremely angry after the doctor had gone and said I had deliberately done something which was dangerous and that it must be because I wanted to lose the baby.

This was so terribly unfair. However unhappy I had been about being pregnant, I would never have done anything to lose a baby. I said 'But you knew I was pregnant, why did you make me climb down a cliff?' and he said he did not realise and I should have told him and it was all my fault. Its true that John's abuse was verbal but he did hit me once and once only and that was when I was pregnant with Cathy. It was an argument about the maternity trousers I had bought. He was very critical about clothes and said that mine were the wrong shape and old fashioned. I was disappointed he didn't like them because I had been pleased to get something new, which I presumed were fashionable. It was the stupidity of the subject matter of our rows that upset me more than anything.

How could anyone work themselves into a rage about the shape of someone's trousers. I could understand a man getting angry if his wife was unfaithful or got into debt or drank too much, but our rows were extraordinary. One year we made paper chains at Christmas and the children and I were very excited and put them up. John was in a rage and said they were not symmetrical. It was difficult for me to find a central point as the ceiling had beams that did not seem to be symmetrical either. I was very upset and said I would never do them again and he could put up the decorations next year. However when the next Christmas came round, he asked if I was going to decorate the room and when I said I thought he would rather, in view of his disapproval of the way I had done them, he said 'I don't care how you do them, I must have just been in a bad mood that time'.

He often did things like this, and it was difficult for me. I am not rash in speech. I only say things I mean and do not have moods. I also have a long memory. This does not mean that I do not forgive, but I certainly do not forget. And an awful row certainly fixes in my memory very strongly and I try not to re-create the situation which previously caused offence. Sometimes he would get very angry if I told him about something interesting I had seen on television. He would start shouting that they 'couldn't have said that' and seemed to be angry with me rather than with the programme presenters.

John was a member of the local community association that produced a monthly newsletter about events in the area. Then he became secretary and had to actually produce the newsletter which was a folded piece of A4 paper that probably many residents considered to be junkmail and would put straight into the waste paper basket, human nature being what it is. He asked me to type it for him on my portable typewriter and asked Jennifer to illustrate it. We both did what he asked, which was that Jennifer should illustrate each item at the side of the text. There were about four items, one was a future jumble sale, one may have been a sponsored walk, that sort of thing. They were not that easy to illustrate, but I thought Jennifer did quite well. At that time we had no facilities such as a photocopier to work with. Jennifer had to draw the pictures on to the page which I then put into the typewriter and tried to line up John's draft text against the side of each piece.

He was out at the time and we thought how pleased he would be when he found we had finished, but far from being satisfied, he was very critical and excited and said something was 3 mm out, but my memory is very vague as to exactly all that was wrong with our efforts. At first we laughed, we could not believe it, and we said, 'no one will notice' and he said 'I will notice' and worked himself up into a temper. I was so angry at this after our efforts at helping him to produce his newsletter, that I thought I knew one way this could not be repeated - I threw my typewriter on the floor and broke it! I had never been the sort of person to throw things in anger and was quite surprised at myself, but felt some satisfaction too.

Sometimes the whole family would be eating and he would start up a conversation and get himself worked up and start thumping the table in rage, whereas a minute or two before we were all eating calmly. I thought how bad it must be for our digestion.
Barbra usually kept out of all rows. She is a very discreet person who would not like to interfere, but on one occasion when she was visiting and John had been unnecessarily harsh with Jennifer, Jennifer ran upstairs crying and Barbra actually followed her up after saying simply 'Oh John!' I asked Jennifer later what Barbra had said, and as I would have imagined, she had spoken about totally different things and had tried to take her mind off the upset. This would be Barbra's way, or maybe it is an English way. When there is a dramatic crisis, you change the subject and say 'Would anyone like a cup of tea?' My mother once in a similar situation, spelled things out much more clearly to Jennifer and said 'You are a lovely little girl and you must not believe what that man says to you, he is the one with the problem, not you'. Jennifer recently reminisced and said 'Do you remember how someone cried at every mealtime?' What a sad waste of energy it all was. I'm sure John wanted to be loved and appreciated by his wife and family and he made it so impossible. He often said sorry and even gave presents, but it was no use.

I always felt the children and I were in one group and John was over the other side on his own. We were all nervous and conferred a lot as to what we should do to try to pacify him and sort out whatever the current storm was about.

When I announced to my in-laws that I was pregnant again, Granddad said he was putting the house in our name and we no longer had to pay any rent. We also explained to Maggy that we would need the extra space and of course she had months to find another place to live. My mother had arrived a while before the expected birth and was staying in our house this time. So when Maggy left, Jennifer moved upstairs into one room and my mother went into the other.

In March 1971, Cathy was born at Ilford Maternity Hospital and she was the smallest of my three babies, weighing 7lbs 7ozs. The birth went very well and she was absolutely beautiful. One nurse came into the ward specially to see her as she had heard how pretty she was. I was quite dotty over her. I used to push her along in her pram and gaze at her, enraptured. I was grateful to John for giving me two lovely children and nothing can take that away. However, she was not an easy baby, she seemed to cry much more than the other two had done and this did not ease off until she was about four months old. Jennifer loved her from the start and Michael did not seem at all jealous. In fact he was fascinated with her and wanted to watch all her bodily functions and he learned to use the bottle warmer and helped me get her milk ready once she became bottle fed.

My mother only stayed until Cathy was four months' old. I can't remember why she was in such a hurry to return on this occasion. Perhaps she simply missed her many friends in Durban. It was July when she left so the weather was not a problem. I went with her to Waterloo Station where she caught the boat train in those days. She, like my granny before her, was terribly worried about being late for trains. I mean, unreasonably worried!

My mother would not go on the underground and thought that buses from South Woodford to Waterloo would take too long, so she booked a taxi for 5 am. She had to be at Waterloo by I think 11 am. I was a bit irritated about this incredibly early departure but took Cathy in the sling and the usual travel paraphernalia of bottle, flask with boiling water, mug in which to stand bottle, disposable nappies etc.

We reached Waterloo Station at 5.40am. It was quite fascinating. It was light and there were still tramps on some of the benches. The cafe kiosk had not opened and although it was quiet, there were quite a few people about. I suppose it was quite an experience seeing a large terminal come to life. The police came by in twos at about 6 am and moved the tramps away. The kiosk opened and I bought coffee for us. Cathy woke for her feed at 6am as well and I fed her there and changed her nappy in the Ladies' Room. At about 7am piped music started and gradually the travellers changed from looking like cleaners to businessmen with briefcases. I had to get home for the next feed so left my mother there, still with a long wait for the train.

After she left, Jennifer moved from the top large front room to the back, as being larger, it might be easier to let out to get a little extra income, and for a year or two we attempted to have lodgers, but more about these later.

A few people disappeared from my life soon after Cathy's birth. Pam and Bertram, who in the happy privacy of their own home, had now produced a second child, emigrated to Australia in search of what is commonly called a 'better life'. Little Shirley, Jennifer's Godmother, and her husband, John, moved to the South Coast near Brighton.

The most spectacular removal, though, was that of the other Shirley who together with Susie, disappeared from the flat in Walthamstow. Her marriage had gone wrong again and Shirley had met another man. Although this had not lasted, she had not been reconciled with her husband, who had moved out of the flat. In fact I think she was actually divorced from her husband by this time. I was quite friendly with her husband and one night he came round to see me saying that he couldn't understand it, but Shirley had agreed to meet him for a drink and had not turned up. When he had called at her flat, there had been no answer and over the next few nights the flat had been in darkness and again there was no response. He was rather concerned and thought I might know where she had gone. I told him she had booked tickets for our next show 'Fiddler on the Roof' which was only in about two weeks' time, but I had not actually heard from her since. In the end he contacted her family who had just found out about her flight.

Apparently she had gone to America with a male friend of hers and taken Susie too. Everyone was astonished. She had not given notice to the landlord about her flat. Her car was still outside and she asked if her sister would tie up all the loose ends, and sell all her possessions for her.

Eventually she wrote to me and explained it all. She said that she had met this Texan a few years back, who had had an accident to his hand. Shirley had worked as a medical secretary at a large hospital in Leytonstone. She had joked with him and once had showed him around the local area. She said she did not consider him particularly important but every year when he came to London on business, he had contacted her again. His job was a demolition expert so I can't quite see why he had to come to London every year. Maybe it was just an excuse to see Shirley again. This particular year, Shirley was worried because Susie had developed school phobia. She had refused to go to school, and had been sent to the Leyton Maladjusted Unit. Then she refused to go there and the Education Department said she would be taken into care if Shirley didn't make sure she attended school. When this man, Buff, turned up again on his annual visit and asked her to marry him, she agreed. He said he would buy her and Susie everything they needed as soon as they reached Houston and so it must have seemed a quick way out of her problems. She said she went to Heathrow with a small plastic carrier bag, containing two toothbrushes, underwear and some make up.

I was really sorry she had gone, she was one of the 'fun' people of my life. Such funny things happened to her. Once she had driven down to Devon with her mother and Susie for a holiday. On the last day they checked out of their hotel, packed their two suitcases in the car and started to drive back along the coast. It was a lovely day so she suggested they stop after a while and have a last few hours on the beach before continuing. She changed into her bathing suit and they sat in the sun for about two hours. When they returned to the car, it had been broken into and their cases were missing.

She left her mother and Susie in the car and went across the coastal road to a telephone booth. She found the police number in the booth and rang to report her theft. The man asked where she was so he could arrange for a constable to meet her and take a statement. She said she didn't know exactly where, and he suggested she go outside while he would hang on, and see if there were any landmarks she could describe. There were thick tall bushes alongside the pavement so she walked around the corner into the side road past the bushes, and peered behind them. There she saw the local police station, a small country one in a converted house. She could see through the wide open door, a policeman leaning over a reception desk and holding a telephone. She walked up the path towards him and he motioned her to wait as he was busy, but she mouthed 'Its me' and pointed at herself until he understood. Later her cases were returned. All the decent stuff was still intact, only cheap trinkets had been taken.

I hope she is making the Texans laugh now. She often comes back to England although she still lives in Houston. She and the demolition contractor got divorced and married others, then divorced again, got together again and until his death, lived together quite happily. Susie however came back to England and is now living back in Woodford.

We had two lodgers in the first few years of Cathy's life. The first one was an eighteen year old girl who couldn't read or write and had been in care all her life. She was from the Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was John's idea that this would bring in money and yet be a noble thing to do as he would be able to help her with her reading. As so often happened, things did not work out as planned. She did not want to learn to read. She was only interested in dancing and boyfriends. I had to bear the brunt of dealing with her in many ways. There was a boy in a Borstal institution who wrote to her and wanted to visit and I had to read the letter for her. He and several other young people visited her one night when John was away for a week. She frightened Jennifer by bursting into her room to borrow her record player just as Jennifer was going to sleep. Jennifer heard the visitors making thumping noises and then Carol said 'Don't throw that, its mine'. The next day I felt very fraught. I had managed to get Carol a job packing handbags in a local factory. I filled in her application form so that they wouldn't know she couldn't write.

After a few weeks, she just stopped going to work , and followed me round all day saying 'I'm bored'. When I told her she would not get paid if she didn't go to work, she said she
knew they would pay her as other people had come in on a Friday for their money. Of course when she went in on the Friday, she was handed her cards. She used to make phone calls to an Aunt of hers, describing how hot it had been at work, although she
knew I was in the room and could hear her lying. It was very difficult for me to get anything done or have any peace as she always stayed in our part of the house. In the end I rang the Social Services and begged them to remove her. They came round very quickly and she was put into a rooming house in Stratford East. She remained friendly to me, and wanted me to visit her at the new place. She phoned from a callbox to invite me and I said 'OK, where is your room?' She said 'well, its above a pram shop in the main road' And although I knew Stratford quite well, I really wished I had a bit more information. So I said, remembering Shirley and the policeman 'Carol, look around outside the phone booth, is there a street name or number you can see?' There was a pause and she started to read slowly 'G E N T L ... ' and then shrieked 'Ooooh, its a toilet'. That actually was a clue. I knew the Public Toilets on a sort of island near Maryland station and I did visit her a couple of times.

I often wondered what would happen to a girl like that. The Social Services would stop paying her rent when she was 21 and then what would happen. Would she become a stripper, a shoplifter or would she be lucky enough to find some man who liked her and would support her in the years ahead?

After Carol, we approached London University and agreed to take in a student. She arrived to be interviewed, looking demure in a quiet dress and carrying a handbag. She told me her father was a Cheltenham City Councillor and she certainly seemed a very suitable candidate. She and I got on reasonably well, but John did not like her very much and she certainly seemed to take an instant dislike to him and spoke to him in a maliciously teasing manner as if she saw through all his little weaknesses.

What I did not approve of was her, in my opinion, promiscuous attitude to sex. She was about 22 at the time and told me she had slept with about 27 different men in her life, but that they were only men that she really loved, but I noticed that she loved different ones every few days. She even said that her friends complained she was a prude because she was particular who she slept with. Jennifer was a teenage girl and I did not want her to think this way of behaving was the norm, so we told Penny that if she wanted to bring men home for the night, she would have to find somewhere else to live. This was a family home and she had to abide by our rules. It was a single room and we did not want overnight visitors.

One night when John and I were in bed but not yet asleep, we heard her come in and although there was very little noise, it was obvious that there were two people presumably walking in step to try to sound like one. Once upstairs and above our heads, we could hear their voices although they spoke quietly. She only had a single bed so presumably they were on the floor. The noise of their sexual antics was thunderous. There was no way anyone could have slept through it and John always had problems going to sleep anyway. Eventually the noise died down, but then in the early hours it began again and although John slept through it, it woke me completely. In the morning I was really angry with a mixture of tiredness and also annoyance that she had deliberately gone against the rules despite a warning. I did not mind what she did in her private life as long as it didn't interfere with our sleep and our upbringing of Jennifer, and thought she had taken the wrong sort of accommodation. I went charging up to her room after Jennifer and Michael had gone to school and hammered on the door shouting 'Come out, both of you'. In the end she came to the door still half asleep and I yelled 'You'll have to go, you've kept us up half the night with your copulating and I don't want Jennifer to think this is how people behave. We don't even know who he is or where he's been and he will be using our toilet'. I very seldom get angry and it makes me very shaky and tearful afterwards.

Being with John over the years taught me to be able to express anger and for that I am quite grateful to him, as I had never been able to do this before. I suppose John is the person who made me angrier than anyone else ever has in my life because I felt there was no way I could win so there was frustration and hopelessness mixed with the sense of injustice and anger. But lack of sleep that day made me able to show anger even to someone else. Penny was very annoyed and said she would go as soon as she could find somewhere else. She said the word 'copulating' was insulting. My main concern was that there were so many different men. It would not have worried me if Jennifer had seen that our lodger had a boyfriend. But Penny's lifestyle seemed to be a different matter. And of course the house was not built to be sub-let and noise from above would always have been a problem. Penny owed a lot of money for her telephone calls and when John tackled her about this, she behaved with great dignity and said 'Do you suggest that I would leave without paying my debts'? Certainly, she did leave without paying, so it was not that silly a suggestion. After Penny left, Michael moved up into the top front room as he was getting too old to share with Cathy and that was almost the end of our landlord and lodger days. We did later have temporary foster children. We were passed as ideal foster parents because of John's occupation but I had the main dealings with them and their brief stays were uneventful.

My mother wrote to tell me that Elsie, my singing companion from Hertford Hotel, and now a widow, was coming to England to visit her sculptress daughter, Lesley, for an extended holiday. Elsie must by now have been about 73, the same age as the century. She had asked for my address but had left the country before getting it from my mother. Being experienced at researching the family tree, I used my knowledge to try to find her, wherever she was in England. All I knew was that her daughter had married at some time between 1959 and that year. In the more modern marriage indexes, the partner's surname is shown in brackets, so after a lot of searching I found a Lesley South had married a Peter Strong.

I applied for the marriage certificate and found they had been living in West London. I knew she had had children, so I started on the birth register, looking for children with the surname 'Strong' born subsequently and found two. I applied for the birth certificate of the most recent and found they had been living on a boat, moored at a small marina near Hammersmith Bridge. I set off immediately on receipt of the certificate in the morning post with Cathy in the buggy I had a map and went down a lonely path towards the river, where I saw a man coming towards me and felt rather nervous, as no one actually knew where I was that day. But meeting him was a stroke of luck as he told me that the boat I sought was no longer moored there but that he had seen it at the side of Kingston Bridge. Without his help the trail would have grown cold.

On the following Sunday we went to Kingston in Granddad's car and found the boat covered by a tarpaulin. A lady on the next boat asked if we needed help and told us that the Strongs no longer owned the boat and had sold it to a lady who lived in Raynes Park and luckily she told me the name of the lady. People were much more open and trusting then than they are now. Although I did not know the exact address, Directory Enquiries gave me the phone number of the only person of that name in the area and when I tried it, I was again lucky. The new owner of the boat told me immediately where Lesley's family now lived in Berkshire and also gave me the phone number. I rang Elsie but for some reason never told her how many weeks it had taken me to locate her. She never even asked about it and I felt silly somehow. She must have thought someone in South Africa had sent me Lesley's address or that she had told my mother. We didn't actually meet as she was not too well and could not get to London on her own, but we spoke a few times. She returned to South Africa and not long after was found dead in the room of the Retirement Home she had moved into. So I was glad we had at least spoken to each other not too long before.

In the early seventies, not only did people disappear from my life, but others returned and surprisingly one of these was Laina. She was very distressed as she told me that Graham had found another woman and had asked for a divorce. At this time, Petal was eight years old. Laina and her daughter had come back to England and Laina was very much involved with Scientology so she was able to get accommodation near East Grinstead in a special hostel for Scientologists. She came to South Woodford to see us one day, bringing Petal. Jennifer knew that Petal was a half sister of hers but did not seem particularly interested. All the children played quite happily together and Laina told me her story.

Graham had come home every night and she had not for a moment imagined there was anyone else in his life. Later she found out that he and his lady friend had taken a flat so they could meet in their lunch hours. As in so many fictional stories, Laina had actually found a letter from the lady to him in his pocket and had tackled him with it. He had said something like 'Oh, yes, I was going to tell you, I'm in love with her and I want a divorce!' She was absolutely horrified and for a long time tried to persuade him that it must be infatuation and that they could work things out between them. She did not want to agree to a divorce at all. However, one day the new lady love, Heather, turned up at Laina's flat saying dramatically 'Please release him and give him his one chance of happiness'. (This bit made me smile in view of his past history). Anyway, Heather was pregnant and Laina finally gave in and agreed to the divorce. She was now in a similar position to me in that she wanted to get far away and not see Graham and Heather together and happy. She had quite a financial struggle in those early days especially as neither she nor Petal had adequate winter clothes.

I was very sorry for her but deep down could not help feeling just a little bit pleased. Not at all because of Laina, I did not want to see her hurt, but I felt that Graham's behaviour vindicated me. Even if I had clung to him relentlessly and had followed him to South Africa, he would have left me again in the end anyway.

Before Cathy started school, I wished I could get a part time job that would enable me to earn a little extra money. Granddad had now retired so that job was no more. The only thing I could really do where a child could accompany me, was to be a cleaner. A lot of people would fall about laughing at the thought of a South African brought up in a hotel being a cleaner. I have never been a 'natural' at housework. Of course I try but as a professional cleaner I think I was pretty hopeless. The Jewish lady in Ilford who finally employed me was very pretty. She too had 3 children, two girls and a boy. Her house was absolutely spotless and perfect. I am sure having a cleaner twice a week was a status symbol and not at all a necessity. I flicked a duster here and there and washed the bath and wiped spotless window sills and cupboard tops. Then we had coffee and biscuits together. I think she enjoyed my company but was rather irritated that my children were apparently brighter than hers. Cathy used to watch television as I worked and it was all quite pleasant. One day she asked me politely if I would move some of the furniture especially in her son's room. I don't know if she already knew, but when I moved his chest of drawers, I found a lot of half eaten roast potatoes down there!

She must have been quite relieved when I told her Cathy would soon be going to school and I would be leaving her in order to start a proper secretarial job. One good thing came of this cleaning job. She had a very thick lined duffel coat that had belonged to one of her children and sold it to me for £2. This I sent off to East Grinstead for Petal as it was the right size for her age. I could see the amusing side of this too. Is it usual for women to buy coats for their ex husband's children by other women?

Sometimes when John was away with one child perhaps hostelling or walking in the hills, I would take the other two away for a short break. Cathy and Michael were very excited when I said we would go to a B&B in Westcliff for a week. We still had to be very careful about money and I had each day's spending in separate envelopes and the main money for the lodgings put aside and of course we had return train tickets. When we arrived at the place, hot and tired, the landlady said there had been a muddle and she was overbooked. The children looked terribly disappointed, then the lady said she would phone a friend in Southend who had rooms to let but that it would cost an extra £1 a day. I was furious and said I only had the right money set aside and I would go to the police - a very silly thing to say I suppose. However, I heard her on the telephone to her friend saying in an excitable Irish accent 'she says she's going to the police'. Anyway between them they decided that we should stay in Southend at the earlier agreed price and off we went. It was not nearly as nice a setting, a rather seedy place but quite near to the seafront. The lady did not like us from the beginning and was very annoyed when the children woke early on the Sunday morning and wandered downstairs to explore.

I thought it was going to be a rather unpleasant holiday. In the evenings when the children were in bed, I sat downstairs in the dining room with the other residents, a shoe salesman from Northampton and two permanent residents, veterans of World War One who used to argue about how old they were. One of them told me when the other was out of the room 'he says he's 87 but I know he can't be more than 85!' Anyway, the awful landlady once mentioned that she had a second job, selling cigarettes in a kiosk on the front at night and she was worried as she had so much ironing to do, so I said I would do her ironing. She looked thrilled and said she would give me £1 a night and I could sit in her room which had a better television set. So for the rest of the week I ironed each night, and therefore we had extra spending money and the lady ended up kissing the children goodbye and asking us to come again!

Read on... Chapter Ten
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