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Chapter Seven - Folding Beds, Baptisms and More Sailors

Jennifer at around the age of one was speaking incredibly well. This might be because she had so much one-to-one contact with my mother who did not have the normal family commitments and therefore gave her undivided attention. We had always carried out the Scientology practice of telling her from earliest babyhood exactly what we were going to do. We never snatched her up suddenly; we always said things like 'Now I'm going to lift you up and put you on the bed and change your nightie'.... That sort of thing. We had still been at Willesden Green so she must have been about 10 months old when my mother got her woolly hat out and said 'Now granny is going to put on her.' and Jennifer said 'Hat!' When she was about fourteen months and Nicky, Sue's cousin, who was still up at Oxford, visited us in Bayswater, he gaped in astonishment when she went through her party pieces, and said 'It must be a trick'! We thought this was hilarious and said that if we could get her to play tricks on people, she would be even more brilliant.

Once when my mother took her into the bank and sat her on the counter, the teller called out to the other staff saying 'Come quickly and see the baby who talks that I told you about'. She always said 'hello' brightly to everyone, and once in her pushchair in Kensington Palace Gardens, where all the embassies are, she spoke to the Nepal ambassador and his wife. They were so charmed they invited my mother into the embassy garden and presented Jennifer with roses and a huge tin of biscuits. Also when she was about 13 months, I left my purse on a bench in Holland Park and got up to move away with the pram and she pointed to it and called out 'Mumbedy' (her word for money) so I was very grateful. Like all babies, she got lots of words wrong and I suppose in each family, one of the baby words becomes adopted forever by all the adults. Jennifer called an umbrella an 'umdumda' and I still often think of it as that!

Flintkote was a good firm to work for. They were always organising staff outings for us. Every Christmas the entire staff was taken to dinner at the River Room at the Savoy. That first year I wore my beautiful pale blue dress with hand painted flowers on it which I had bought in Durban and had obviously never yet had occasion to wear in the sort of life I had lived in London. Then every summer we were taken on a coach for lunch and a day out, to the Compleat Angler on the Thames at Marlow.

The loveliest thing about the spring and early summer of 1963 was my father's eight-week visit to us. He came happily unaware of how difficult things had been for us, taking us out at weekends and usually paying for the groceries. He and my mother seemed to get on better than usual and they took Jennifer to Kensington Gardens and the Round Pond during the daytimes. Sometimes they looked after Lindy Lou as well and had two pushchairs to manage. Lindy Lou was the first child of Cyril who had now married the lady friend who had spent that Christmas with him in our Earl's Court room.

When Flintkote took the staff to Jordans in Buckinghamshire where one of the Directors lived, my father and Jennifer came on the coach as well. The Flintkote staff cricket team played a match against the local team and the villagers provided food for all in a marquee. Ann3 brought her mother and we all explored the surrounding area together, and found the grave of William Penn. My mother also had more free time on the occasions when my father took Jennifer and me out for the day and she was able to investigate some of the places where one could not easily take a child. And sometimes, as on the occasion my father took me to Canterbury for the day to follow the Pilgrims' path with a guidebook, she stayed behind with Jennifer. The evenings were very pleasant when we all sat together in our nice room until my father returned to his hotel on the other side of Queensway.

I was very sad when he returned to South Africa. At about this time, my mother started saying that she felt she ought to return to him as she had been gone for nearly eighteen months. For some reason, maybe because I knew they did not really get on, I had never faced this prospect.

Naturally I knew both my parents wanted me to return to Durban and simply could not understand why I would want to suffer poverty and cold, bringing up a child in a strange country with no family around. Perhaps no one could understand. I loved London and did not have any feelings for South Africa, now the pariah of the world apart from anything else. I did not want a child to grow up in the atmosphere there, and I suppose most of all, I did not want to return pathetically, to be supported by my father, with a baby but no husband, to a place where I was known. Also there was every chance that I might bump into Graham having the time of his life with new girl friends. I hated the idea of everyone being sorry for me, which they certainly would have been back in Durban.

One major problem about my mother's plans was that if she left, I would not be able to afford the rent for the double Bayswater room on my salary alone as of course my father was supporting her all the time she stayed in London. So again we were on the move! We realised we would have to live in two separate bedsitters so that I would be settled by the time she left the country. I had the usual accommodation-seeking problems due to having a child but eventually found a very scruffy basement room in World's End, Chelsea and my mother easily found a room near Fulham Broadway. Of course it was much more difficult for me to have to take Jennifer to Fulham first and then get to work on time as it was the furthest away my mother had ever been from me since Jennifer's birth. There was no lock on my door in that Chelsea room, it looked out on a strange small yard where a resident sculptress was making something that looked like a Coathanger Man with waving arms. The ascot type water heater in the bathroom was terrifying and made strange noises. It was the type I later saw in documentaries about grasping landlords being sued for not checking safety in their houses when there had been an explosion. I never stayed in the bathroom while the bath was filling. Jennifer no longer slept in a cot and the room was too tiny anyway so that was just as well. The trouble was there was only a very narrow single bed in the room. I stood a suitcase up alongside the bed to make extra width and put Jennifer against the wall and then my knees that overlapped the bed could rest on the suitcase, which I covered, with a blanket.

Living in Chelsea, albeit the unfashionable end, was quite pleasant. At weekends my mother and I used to go to Hurlingham Park and one day I said I would like to explore the river away from Chelsea instead of towards Cheyne Walk, as I was sure that there must be some sort of embankment walkway. It was a very hot day when we tried this and the only memorable thing about this walk is my mother's poem about it later, which went as follows:

'Down by the Riverside

We're walking along the river, a little high up
Away from its bank, separated by the Electricity Commission,
We might get within sight of it, cutting between the tin fences,
But we might be arrested on the docks unless we get someone's permission.
The black tar on the side of the swollen gas tank
Smells like a ship and reminds me of the water,
We seem to be in the dreariest part imaginable,
But no! 'It's really a lovely embankment', says my daughter.
Oh!! The beautiful river (if we could but see it!)
The ripples would be there and the waterside greenery,
So far the asphalt's hot and the North Thames Gas Board
Smells of its wares even more than the Oil Refinery.
What a wonderful walk, what striking views,
Oh what a stroll, what a memory, what air!
The atmosphere must be absorbed to be believed,
Like Yeats' beauty, it's more than I can bear!'

We had no plans to move again, although the Chelsea room was hardly congenial, but a
lady, who had previously left Flintkote, rang me unexpectedly at work and said that she now had a baby and that she and her husband were caretakers at a Hampstead lodging house. She said it was very nice and clean and she had thought of me. The last time we had spoken, I think I had still been living in Stoke Newington. We went to see the room and although it was small and at the top of the building, it had a lovely view over West Hampstead and was in a pretty tree-lined road and a much better prospect in every way.

My mother as usual found a very nice room nearby. I think this was now Jennifer's sixth address since her birth, and she wasn't yet two! The problem was that it was getting very difficult to share a single bed with a growing child, and still be fresh in the morning for work. I realised that I would have to buy a folding bed. I had previously had a credit account at John Lewis in Oxford Street, which I had been allowed because I had said I was the householder when they asked me about my address. This was a misunderstanding, as I had not realised the significance of the term 'householder'. I was now aware that in my circumstances I would not be given credit. I had faithfully paid off the previous account on the due date every month so I needed to go back there again where I was already known and trusted. I thought if I were to give a different address, questions might be asked, so I felt it was essential to collect the bed in person and take it away not mentioning my change of address. This was not easy of course, but then nothing ever seemed to be! Ann3 and I went in our lunch hour and I told the bed people that I had a van at the back door and needed the bed that night. Ann and I struggled with it all the way up Charlotte Street and then Fitzroy Street to get it back to the office. This was quite difficult in crowded midday streets. One of the sales reps at work offered to drive me home the next day in my lunch hour to dump it there and this was done.

Jennifer slept in the proper bed and when I was ready for bed I unfolded the zedbed for myself. This took up every inch of space in the room and blocked the doorway too. But it was much better all the same. Before my mother left, I also had to find a day nursery for Jennifer, and managed to arrange for her to go to a new one opening near Finchley Road station, which was convenient for me as I could go directly to work after dropping her off. Of course I was very worried she might not be happy there, as she would still be under two years old in the December when my mother actually planned to leave.

Eileen was very glad I was back in that North Western part of London as she was again finding it difficult to have Little Graham looked after on a Saturday. Now she was able to bring him to me in Hampstead before she went to work. This caused a new problem. He arrived at about 7.30 in the morning and he and Jennifer jumped and jumped and shrieked together and the man below complained to my landlady friend who was sympathetic, but said it had to stop. So I had to be dressed and ready to take them to the park at Kilburn Grange at the crack of dawn to let them exhaust themselves there before breakfast. This was fine as the autumn weather was quite pleasant, but it would soon be an impossible situation and I was very worried.

And that was when my second fairy godmother comes into the picture. One Saturday, I went on a nostalgic tour of Earl's Court and Kensington, looking at the places I had lived in and streets we had explored in our early London days, and of all people, I bumped into Margaret, one of the ladies from the Distressed Gentlefolk. She didn't know of course about Jennifer, as we had not kept in touch. However, we went and had coffee and she was very friendly and I invited her to come and see us in the Hampstead room. I was not ashamed of it although it was small, as it was a lovely road and a very clean building. She came to see me and we had some food and she thought Jennifer was delightful. I told her all the ways my life had changed and that my mother was leaving soon. She said I must come and have tea with her and it was all very pleasant. A few days later, I was astonished to receive £50, an absolutely enormous amount in those days, about a month's salary. She wrote a charming letter and said she had more money than she knew what to do with, and hoped we could find somewhere larger to live. Well, with rents still at about £4 a week it meant I could put four weeks deposit down on a place, it was also the thing then to have to pay 'key money' to get anywhere decent to rent, a sort of deposit against breakages, but I had never had this kind of money before.

Shortly before my mother left, she said she thought it was a good thing to have a baby baptised in the Catholic Church. She thought the ancient words had some sort of occult power of protection. I arranged to have the ceremony performed at Quex Road Catholic
Church in Kilburn. I had to find Catholic godparents. My Irish Landlady and her husband were unable to do it on the day we had arranged so I phoned Shirley from Flintkote, the little person who had once been on the stage, and her equally small but uncrippled husband who were both Catholics. They agreed to come and it was a very quiet and small event but we had photos taken on the steps of the Hampstead building in Greencroft Gardens and I was pleased to think that this ceremony might give Jennifer some special protection throughout her life.

Then I had to face my mother's departure. She went by mailboat and the only good thing about it was that she missed that awful last bout of smog that occurred in the December and went on for days. It would have been terrible for the bronchial problems from which she had always suffered. There was yellowy dust in the air all day and at night I wrapped scarves round Jennifer's mouth as well as mine and we could hardly see our way or where the pavement ended and the road began, it was terrifying and seemed quite different from the fog that Pixie and I had so enjoyed three years previously.

I saw an advertisement in the London Weekly Advertiser in the Accommodation Section, which interested me a lot. A mother with a young daughter wanted to share a flat with another in the same position. There was only a box number, no area was mentioned.
I wrote away and soon got an answer from a Shirley Cooper who lived in Highams Park, an area I had never heard of in North East London. She was separated from her husband and had a daughter of three. She said she had received dozens of replies but mine was the only one she felt she could reply to. We agreed to meet and I suggested Selfridges on the Saturday, as I was having a Polyfoto done of Jennifer there. We had lunch and liked each other straight away.

The only problem was it had never occurred to me to live out of reach of the Underground. Willesden Green, Harrow and Stoke Newington had seemed quite far out to me and only Hampstead, Chelsea, Bayswater and maybe St John's Wood seemed good places to live. But Shirley said she had to be near her mother and anyway she worked at Highams Park. She had even rung up about a flat, which sounded suitable and had two bedrooms, a lounge, kitchenette, and its own toilet and small garden. The upstairs of the house was a separate flat and the bathroom would be shared between the two flats.

We went out to see it and I met Shirley's daughter, Susie, who was a nervy little girl, unused to other children and who seemed to think Jennifer was some sort of toy. She kept holding her round the neck and pulling her about. But in spite of this, Jennifer seemed to like her. I realised I would have to give in to Shirley regarding the area, as the flat was so ideal in many ways. I also thought how nice it would be to have reciprocal baby sitting. The flat was unfurnished though and all I had was the folding bed. Shirley had stuff she could bring from her marital home of course. Shirley wanted the front bedroom and I was pleased, as I preferred the back room with its built in electric fire and French doors into the garden.

We moved in just before Christmas. A man with a van charged reasonable rates to take us, and it was quite a pleasant journey across London and I did not realise at the time that he was interested in me. It was still the early sixties and I suppose he thought any young blonde with a baby must be easy game. Shirley made enquiries for me at the local day nursery and they couldn't take Jennifer in until the first week in January so for about two weeks I had the difficult prospect of going into town in the morning, going out again to Finchley Road, walking to the nursery, then going back into town. Of course this journey had to be reversed every evening too and we were both very tired by the time we got home to Highams Park.

On Boxing Day, what came to be known as 'the big freeze' started and there was no thaw until February and even that was short-lived. We had no telephone at first and I went to the station to a call box to chat to Eileen, who by moving, I had again let down about looking after Graham on Saturday mornings. I had never felt so cold as on that Boxing Day, my fingers were stinging when I tried to dial but it was also impossible wearing gloves! I had some time off at Christmas luckily and once Jennifer started at the Handsworth Avenue day nursery, things got a lot easier despite the freeze. The frustrating thing was that because of the deep snow, I couldn't explore my new area. It was near Epping Forest and I loved finding out about places but it was not until March that we went for a proper walk and looked around.

At that time, and possibly still, cows were able to amble about in the Epping Forest area. It was something to do with ancient rights to graze. It could be dangerous and motorists often complained, quite understandably. However it could lead to some amusing situations. I heard that someone waiting for a bus saw a few cows going through an open gate into someone's front garden. Knowing what havoc this could do to plants, she went up to the front door and rang the bell to warn the occupant. She then saw the bus coming down the road and raced back to board it. As she sat down and the bus started to move off, she saw the owner of the house open the front door only to see a cow which by that time had gone right up to the front door and was facing her. She really must have wondered how it had managed to ring the doorbell.

Astrologically, Shirley, my new flatmate, had a lot in common with me. We both had Sun in Cancer and Gemini rising, but she had Mars on the ascendant and I had Venus so she could be much more impatient and irritable than I was. In looks we were very different. She was a platinum blonde, tiny and glamorous always in high heeled shoes, and a leopard skin coat, I suppose a sort of Barbara Windsor type from the Carry On Films. Well that was to look at anyway. In reality she was quite prudish and I think even more narrow minded than I was. My eyes had been opened a lot and I was quite able to accept almost anything other people did without being shocked or worried, though I was still fussy about my own standards. Shirley was also very very funny in a zany sort of way. I was disappointed when I found that Susie hardly ever stayed there and was always with her granny, and that Shirley liked going to pubs and never came home before about eleven at night. This meant I was unlikely to be able to get out very much, if at all, at night.

However, we had such a good time and we laughed so much when she came home till about one in the morning that I was always tired, and the lady next door, a Mrs Rose, said she could hear us laughing through the walls. Part of the arrangement with Shirley was that if I came to live in Highams Park, she would fetch Jennifer from the local nursery which closed at 5.45 pm. I had to get home from Fitzroy Square and did not finish until about 5.15 pm. At first this worked out quite well. Shirley worked locally so it was no real problem to her. However, after a month or two, Shirley asked when I would be looking for a local job. I was astonished. I would never have wanted to leave Flintkote with its lovely outings and meals and the friends I had made there. But Shirley seemed to think it had only been a temporary arrangement that she would fetch Jennifer. This was a real misunderstanding, and could have led to harsh words between us as I was very disappointed, but because I liked her so much, I accepted it and began to look for another job that would finish early enough for me to get to the nursery in time.

The job I found was in Hackney on the same train line as Highams Park. It was secretary to the managing director of a Laundry. It was less money than I had been getting but of course the fares were less too. The manager, Mr Brown, was pleasant and hired me on the spot. He took me on a tour of the Works and I saw the clever machines that ironed and folded shirts and I learned about bagwash which was the cheap way of having your laundry done enclosed in a mesh bag. I met the lady who dealt with Customer Service and did not take to her at all. I think her motto was that the customer was always wrong and probably lying!! I met the girls in the general office who stamped the journeymen's cards for collection and delivery and gradually got to know them very well. Sometimes there was nothing for me to do and I went and helped them stamp the cards and also worked on the switchboard.

There were three parts to the staff canteen, the large one where the laundry workers sat, the posh small one where Mr Brown, the Customer Service lady and the Works Manager sat, and where apparently I could have joined them, and another smallish one for the girls in the office. The levels seemed to be rigidly defined and I was treated with particular respect because I was a secretary. I always sat with the other office girls. There was Jean who had tattoos on her arms and bright red hair. She was ashamed of the tattoos and usually wore cardigans even in the hottest weather. There was Doris who lived not far from me and who I visited once or twice, and my favourite, Frances who was a friend for several years. She was quite a bit older than the rest of us and did book keeping out in a corner of the general office. Lastly there was Susan who was planning to get married.

Later on, I was invited to her wedding in Clapton and was very pleased, but it was rather embarrassing the way I was treated. She seemed so proud that I was there and kept telling everyone that I was a secretary as if that was something marvellous. Frances and her husband Pat arranged for one of their relations to look after Jennifer at a house in Leyton and we had a lovely time and went to a pub in Lea Bridge Road after the wedding and sang songs as we walked to the house, where I also spent the night. So working at the laundry generally turned out better than I might have expected.

Also during the Spring of 1963, I was surprised by a knock on the door one evening and it turned out to be the man who had moved me there from Hampstead with his van.
He had obviously remembered the unattached blonde and he happened to be out in the direction of Highams Park again. The whole relationship lasted a very short time. It added a little excitement but in the end my prudery got the better of me. I just did not like him, although it was nice to have a man interested in me again. And I did not want to have a full sexual affair with a man I didn't like. I realise that maybe the two things are separate and it shouldn't matter but it still does to me.

After a few visits and a lot of rolling around on the floor, as there was little furniture, I said I didn't want it to go any further and I really thought I shouldn't see him any more. He was very annoyed and told me at great length how sought after he was by other women, how he had a child in Canada and the woman there rang him constantly and how popular he was generally. I thought that this was a strange way for him to pursue a girl. I would have been more likely to succumb to a sad man who said he was very lonely and really only cared for me! I told him that as he had so many other women, doing without me was not going to be a problem, and he went off in a great huff! During the early weeks of the floor wrestling, however, I had once asked Shirley if we could sit in her front room where she had a bed settee as it was so uncomfortable in the lounge. She was not pleased at all and said it might lead to 'things' and she thought he would think it very inviting to go into a girl's bedroom, so we never did. But I did write a poem about the incident! Here goes:

Auntie Shirley's quite a gal,
She's so much more than just a pal,
She knows my heart's not made of stone
So never leaves me all alone
My Chaperone!

She's so afraid that I'll arrive
Arms full with bundle all alive
She sees the omens from afar
Her bedroom from me she will bar
My guiding star!

Ole Pompadour'd have to look to her laurels
If Shirley's opinion regarding my morals
Is right, and as soon as we spotted her bed
I became horizontal from feet to my head
I wish I was dead!

My man is a symbol of sex and seduction
She thought, quite soon after the first introduction
But now that I'm warned, if he started a trick
I'd be up and away from his charms double quick
My conscience prick!

She may have forgotten that since I was eighteen
I've known dozens of males and yet not started matin'
I've been led to temptation for hours round the clock
In places far worse than a room with no lock
She'd get a shock!

The poor man says the floor is cold
But Shirley thinks he's being bold,
I feel so safe, it's really grand
Just like a ship that's close to land
My helping hand!

The man says 'Darling, I won't hurt you'
But its Shirley who really looks after my virtue
Just when she thinks I'm about to be caught
She dashes in quickly, and cuts the scene short
My Rotten Sport!

One might think I'd be swept away
Forget the price I'd have to pay
But when I felt the end was near
I'd hear her warnings in my ear
I'd never dare!

And so we'll proceed to sit on the floor
With a nasty cold draught coming under the door,
Never mind if he says our romance he'll defer
As a much warmer home he would greatly prefer
I'll still have her!!

Shirley was a little offended about this poem. She also began to write poems by the way, almost everyone I have ever known has gone into rhyme at one time or another. My mother sent a little verse to Shirley about an incident at the nursery, which I had written to her about, and so Shirley wrote the following back to my mother:

'We found a flat, we sorted out
We've settled in, it's grand
The station, shops and nursery
Are really close to hand.

We watch tv and potter round
We laugh and Beryl sings
We don't mind being on our own
The doorbell sometimes rings

Of course we think we're both quite mad
But Beryl's made me worse,
I'm used to being quite insane
But why must I write verse?

Your daughter started all this off
Then you replied in turn
Now here I am and trying hard
I've got a lot to learn.

Thank you for your lovely poem
I really did enjoy it
Best wishes and my kind regards
From a struggling would-be poet!'

Maybe it's surprising that I was so happy in 1963. I did not have the conventional trappings of an interesting life. Money was always short and I did not often go to parties, theatres or have any romance apart from the very short interlude with the moving man. Most nights I just came home from work, and after Jennifer went to bed at about 7pm, I watched TV until Shirley came home and we had our nightly laugh. However there were lots of visitors and that made a big difference. Maureen travelled all the way across London every Tuesday as usual, and Maureen's mother had a spare table delivered so we could eat respectably. My cousin Ann came out a few times to spend a Saturday or an evening and also sent me a large bed that a friend of hers was trying to get rid of. So sleeping became a lot more comfortable. She also sent an old arm chair and a rug.

Posh Margaret, from the Distressed Gentlefolk who it turned out was a first cousin of a,
or the! Archbishop of York, visited a few times with the man in her life, who by a strange coincidence was also a friend of my cousin Ann. His name was Bill and I showed them the local sights and we went on forest walks. Eileen with Little Graham often visited, as did Pixie. At weekends Jennifer and I were often invited out to stay with people. Pixie and her friends had now moved to Ealing in another large lovely flat and we often went there. The scientologists moved to the East Grinstead area at about this time and I had the adventure of going down on the train sometimes to stay with Jenny and her family and sometimes with Cyril and his family. Victoria soon had a brother and a sister, and Lindy Lou had a baby brother Sean.

The television was very good, I thought then. I watched 'That was the Week that Was' avidly, also 'Maigret', 'Dixon of Dock Green', 'Dr Who', and 'Dr Kildare'. I liked the soap called 'Compact' too. So most of that year, I was really quite contented. My favourite personality was Bamber Gascoigne who hosted "University Challenge", a quiz programme. I thought he was gorgeous and wrote some verse to him. I was thrilled when I had a postcard from him sent from presumably his home address in the Holland Park area. He invited me to one of his shows taking place in Chelsea and suggested I come round and say 'hello' afterwards. But with my worn down shoes, unfashionable clothes and unable to afford a hair appointment, I thought it better not to go.

A big cloud on the horizon was my guilt over my parents. I started having sleep problems and imagining that everyone was pointing a finger at me and saying I was wrong to have stayed in England and it would be my fault if anything happened to them and I was not there to help. This was in the background all the time. I started to get strange symptoms, pains that moved around, and at one time I felt that my insides were dropping out and I needed to sit down all the time. We had a lovely doctor in Highams Park. Shirley had had a crush on him when she was younger. He said that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and prescribed tranquillisers. I think that all my problems were a reaction from all the stress of the previous two years. It was because I was reasonably comfortable and contented that it all had a chance to come out. The tranquillisers made me much worse. I would get to work at the laundry and have to slide around on my swivel chair to get from my desk to the filing cabinet as walking seemed too great an effort. One day I was unable to remember how I had got to work and gradually went into a sort of decline.

One Friday at about lunch time, the most terrible headache started. I was sick as well and the girls at the laundry paid for me to have a taxi home. Shirley fetched Jennifer and also rang Pixie who came over as soon as she could. I can hardly remember anything about that weekend at all. Frances from the laundry and her husband came and took Jennifer out all Saturday and brought her back in the evening. It was very kind of them. She had a lovely day. Pixie must have put her to bed. I slept on and off and had nightmares and the pain in my head was too awful. Pixie had to go back later on Sunday morning, but by then, the head was a little better and I was just sleeping. Now I think it must have been my first migraine attack and was a particularly nasty one.

When I woke at about lunch time, Shirley was not about and I was really hungry as I hadn't eaten since the Friday. There didn't seem to be any food in the house and so I took Jennifer to Liverpool Street station where I knew some eating place would be open and we had baked beans on toast. Shirley came home later and on the Monday she went with me to the doctor and he looked at me and said 'Well, those pills did not seem to do you any good' and he gave me Sodium Amytal, a very strong tranquilliser which actually did work. I realised I must pull myself together as I had a child I was responsible for and could not indulge myself with anything like a nervous breakdown, and I gradually began to get better and came off the tranquillisers.

In the bitterly cold early part of 1963, when as I have said, there was very little furniture
in our lounge, there was another problem. There was only an archway from the lounge to the kitchenette and then another archway into the passage and little conservatory at the back. This conservatory had an 8 inch gap running round it just under the glass roof so in fact there was no real barrier between the snow and wind outside and the lounge. I felt this had to be rectified and decided to make a door. There was probably something more sensible I could have done, but I did not know what at that time.

I went to a Do-it-Yourself shop and asked a man there. He seemed surprised and sold me a door size piece of hardboard and some wooden pieces he said I would have to nail to it to make it stand rigid. It was a terribly difficult job. I had tears rolling down my cheeks with effort and worry as I banged at it with a hammer I borrowed from the couple upstairs. I put wooden pieces all around it and one across the middle. But it fell over every time I stood it in the doorway so I had to tilt it and then the draught still came through. In the end I bought two cupboard knobs and screwed one to each side of the door so I could lift it and move it sideways and back again, as it refused to slide. Then I put a hook on the wall at the side and another on the other side and put string across the two hooks to stop the door falling forward. It was a bit of a performance to get into the kitchen but it made a great difference to me on those bitter evenings and it was a good talking point amongst visitors. It also cost very little!

Shirley had once told me rather cautiously that she had a man friend (a sailor) who she had known for many years. She insisted he was only a friend, even when his ship docked and he came and stayed in her bedroom. This is the sort of thing one would not normally believe, but I did believe it after he told me the same thing. He said she undressed in front of him and it wasn't fair to a man, and she had strange ideas about sex and did not understand how he felt about her and it was rather insulting to him anyway.

On the whole I got on quite well with Percy with whom I spent more time than he spent with Shirley as she was out every evening. This situation went on for several weeks as he was finding difficulty getting a suitable position on a ship. He was in charge of the physical training of the crew, and passengers too if they were interested, on ships and it was a job he loved. He was then about 42. I sometimes shared my soup with him and he was useful at pointing at the parts of my hair that needed re touching with peroxide as I couldn't see the back of my head properly. In the evenings, we watched tv like any real couple and his main hobby was recording songs from the radio one after the other on to his tape recorder. I often thought how odd it was to be spending so much of my time with a strange sailor. The only harsh words we had was once when he got annoyed because Jennifer spoke while he was doing a recording and I said that it was after all our flat and he was not paying anything! He even made calls to Southampton from our newly installed telephone! Eventually he found a suitable job and sailed away into the sunset. I think he kept in touch with Shirley for a few years and he also visited my parents later when his ship docked in Durban.

It was also in 1963 that I found a relative. When I was young, my mother had always told me how her father had died when she was only three, in a place called Ongar in Essex. I looked on a map and saw it was not that far away. I thought how lovely it would be to find relations so near, so Pixie and I decided to go there one Sunday in the early summer. My grandfather had actually been Scottish but after emigrating to South Africa and marrying my grandmother, he had fallen ill with diabetes in the days before insulin was generally used. He had come to England to consult a London doctor, staying with his brother who had moved from Scotland to Ongar. But unfortunately this was to no avail and he died whilst only in his thirties. My mother therefore did not remember him at all.

Pixie and I and Jennifer in the pushchair of course, all set off and walked from Highams Park to Woodford. This was quite a way for a start. We then caught a No 10 bus, which in those days used to go all the way from Victoria to Abridge in Essex. We had a picnic in Abridge and then walked on hoping to get some sort of bus from Passingford Bridge to Ongar. But it was a Sunday and after waiting over an hour, we realised we would have to walk. We did not reach Ongar till about seven in the evening. We had stopped at a small police station where they had been kind and given us all drinks. All we found in Ongar was a building with the address of the Parish Council printed on a board outside, which I noted down. So the day seemed a bit of an exhausting waste of time.

When I got home I wrote to the Parish Council and was delighted when they wrote back and said there was a Mrs Adamson living there who might or might not be a connection.
This time I took Jennifer on the train to Ongar and walked to the address I had been given. A lady who looked remarkably like my mother opened the door. This was strange as there was no blood relationship between them. I told her who I was and she did not ask me in but seemed amazed and said 'So you are little Daphne's daughter' and I said how much I had hoped I would find a family connection and she said 'Well, you have now' but still she did not invite me in. I gave her my phone number. I guessed she would take time to think about it all before going any further, and I was right. She rang up later and apologised for being so surprised and asked us to lunch and that was the beginning of some very happy days and weekends at Ongar.

Aunt Mabel had been a Babbage before her marriage to my great uncle, George Adamson. She was a connection of Charles Babbage, inventor of the first digital computer, possibly a great niece. In those days before computers were in vogue, I had never heard of him. There is a section about him now at the Science Museum and because of my interest in computers, I only wish he was a connection by blood rather than by marriage, but unfortunately he is not.

And in 1963 I discovered jumble sales! I had not known there was such a thing until one Saturday the Nursery held one. I went along and found loads of lovely children's clothes all costing tuppence or fourpence. I was amazed and bought lots of pretty things for Jennifer. There were lovely tartan skirts, matching jerseys and thick tights. I also bought some things for myself though there mostly children's clothes were on sale. I told everyone about it with wild enthusiasm but my friends all seemed to know about such things and viewed them with slight distaste. I still think it was a wonderful idea although of course Charity Shops have now replaced them. How good it is not only to recycle things, but also to help a charity and be able to afford really nice things that one wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

I have often thought that my life has been like a game of Snakes and Ladders. Maybe this is the case with everybody but I am not sure about that. I can see that its better than always being at the bottom and never finding a ladder at all, like many people in the world who even today are living their entire lives in fear, poverty, drudgery and hunger.

But it often made me sad the way things kept changing in my life. Every time I had a nice place to live or a pleasant job, it changed. Often it changed again and things improved. But I would have preferred a steady upward curve in the graph of life.

It was a sad day when towards the end of 1963 we heard the laundry was not doing too well. It was quite old fashioned and I suppose as more people got their own washing machines, less were using laundries. A note was sent round saying the laundry would be closing in about two months and if we agreed to work until the end, we would get an extra week's salary. I immediately decided to work until the bitter end. I knew that it would always be easy to get another job.

There was only one good thing about the closure of the laundry. We were allowed to raid the OVERS cubbyholes. This was where mislaid items out of torn mesh bagwash bags or any other pieces not matched to their owners were kept, in case there was a claim. There were pigeon holes for table cloths, sheets, shirts, towels etc. and for a long time I had had my eyes on the Chef's Hat. It was a real high starched one and I just wanted it, however pointless that may seem.

Of course as well as the wonderful hat, I also acquired some really good quality pieces of linen, which was a great help. With the extra week's money, I bought a room size carpet and carried it home across the level crossing rolled over my shoulders whilst pushing the pushchair. I think they could not deliver at a weekend and there would be no one at home to receive it during the week. It was of fairly poor quality, but improved the warmth of the living room a great deal. The carpet did not completely fill the room so I started to buy floor tiles in packs of four and laid them around the edges. When I left that flat, I naturally took my carpet with me and I realised it would look a bit strange to the next tenants, but there was nothing much I could do about it.

The next job I got was not one of my happy ones. It was in the Wages Department at Brown Brothers near Shoreditch. I had never had to clock in before and felt that was an indignity. The office was almost Victorian in the way the desks were arranged. A cold grey sort of man with the unlikely name of Percival Titmus, sat in a glassed-in office at the far end and we all sat in rows facing him. I was right at the back.. The desks were quite far apart and people hardly ever spoke to each other. A nervous young girl showed me the ladies' room on the first day and said kindly 'you can go whenever you like' as if this was a wonderful, and possibly recent concession! It was a boring job sending out routine hiring and firing letters and filling in P45 tax forms, and I was not that busy a lot of the time. Often I sat in the afternoons pricking myself with a pin to try to keep awake.

Everyone was afraid of the woman in charge of the office. I thought of her as The Leader as no one moved or went to tea in the canteen until she decided it was time to move. We girls sat at a table she picked and whether we had finished our drinks or not, we all rose when she decided it was time to go back. She made all the conversation and was very catty and malicious about everyone and everything. Once when she was away ill for a week, it was amazing how different and pleasant everything seemed and I thought it incredible that one person could affect the atmosphere so strongly. At lunch times, however, I got friendly with some of the other girls who were all younger than I was. I felt like a chaperone when we went and sat in the park. They were all between 16 and 18 and I was by now getting on for 27. They talked about the boys they liked and seemed to think I wouldn't be interested as I was so old and 'past it'. It made me start thinking that it would be nice to meet a man somehow, though I couldn't see that there would be much of a chance in my circumstances.

Read on... Chapter Eight
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