OUR FIRST HOME

We returned home to North London and excitedly made our way to our new address in Archway, Upper Holloway. We knocked on the door and were ushered in by Mrs. Bottacelli who directed us through the door under the stairs, telling us to come up to her flat and collect our rent book, when we were ready. When we entered our room: it was magic. There were our lovely dining room suite and two rust coloured, caterpillar, fire side chairs, the interior sprung mattress, our bedding and our pots and pans. Daddy and Doug had made a lovely job of decorating the room. It was now light and bright and clean. Dad had even laid our linoleum for us. We found the shiny, aluminium, whistling kettle, and carried it through to the scullery, where the air was thick with the smell of boiled fish heads! We didn’t care; we were married at last, in our own home, and it was all real.
Our first teapot was made of white china and was encapsulated in an insulated, chrome ball, with holes for the spout and handle to poke out. This was very modern and was supposed to keep the tea hot for ages. Up to now such household items had been very sparse and basic, and still bore the Government utility mark. But the ‘contemporary’ era was upon us, and we were starting to get a bit of ‘style’ in our lives.
The kettle whistled and we made our first pot of tea. Out came our new, white tea set and we played Mums and Dads.
Soon the job of arranging our new home was well under way. Because we wanted to show off our new dining room furniture and comfy chairs to the best advantage, we decided not to clutter our bed-sitter with the inclusion of an actual bed. Bearing this in mind, we decided to leave the bedroom suite at Arthur’s mum and dad’s house, and only use the mattress.
Our room had a door, a window, a fireplace and a handy floor- to- ceiling cupboard which was not very deep, but high. In this cupboard we planned to keep our mattress and bedding.
Each morning, before we went to work, we would stand the mattress on end, fold it in half, then quickly stuff it into the cupboard and slam the door shut before it could leap out again! I don’t know if you have ever tried to fold a new interior sprung mattress in half. It really needed the joint strength of three all-in-wrestlers to achieve this feat, but there was only the two of us! Once the mattress and bedding were hidden, we had a nice, cosy lounge that looked quite normal and, and we thought, rather smart.
Come bedtime, Arthur would open the cupboard door and let the mattress out. We would then drag it over to the rug in front of the hearth and make up the bed, using all our lovely, new bedding. This was the only space in the room that would accommodate the mattress. It was a bit of a nuisance, but well worth the effort if we wanted to have a respectable lounge that we could entertain in. It did, however, have just one little downside.
One morning when we were late for work, it was very easy to convince each other that it was a good idea to leave the bed down till we returned at teatime. We came home about 6 o/c that evening and, when we opened our door, we couldn’t believe what our eyes ere telling us. Our mattress and the bedding were completely buried under a thick layer of black soot, as indeed was all the furniture.
We just stood transfixed, with a mixture of horror and disbelief. The rest of the evening was spent, cleaning, and sweeping and shaking things. We didn’t have a Hoover, just brooms and brushes. Looking back on it, I can hardly believe it happened, or that we managed to clean it up. But it did, and we did. We never left the bed down again though. Previous to our occupation, the room hadn’t been used for years, and so the chimney hadn’t been swept since sweeps stopped using little boys to do the job!

THE END OF THE HONEYMOON AND START OF REAL LIFE

Cutting the cake

We’d left our honeymoon address with both of our mothers, and received a letter from each. It was the one from my mum that carried the awful news of our wedding cake.
On the Sunday after our wedding, as promised, Mummy started to slice up our cake for distribution to family and friends. We had chosen a three tier, horseshoe-shaped cake, thinking that it would be easy to portion. Mum made the first cut and lifted the slice away from the bulk of the cake. As she bent down to savour the aroma of marzipan and spices, she stopped in horror. There was an aroma, but it came from the green mould growing around the layers of marzipan and cake. All she could think of was the shock and embarrassment we would have suffered, had we cut the cake at the reception, as normal. Mummy hurried back to Hemmings Bakery Shop, one of a large chain of bakers trading in the nineteen-fifties, thanking God that we had forgotten the ritual of the ‘cutting of the wedding cake’ on the big day.
The mangeress of the shop apologised profusely, saying they would bake me a fresh cake, ready for our return from honeymoon. It was thought that we had been given a cake used for display purposes, but who knows?
Nowadays, one would have sued a company that made such an awful blunder, but such thoughts didn’t enter our heads. In fact, we didn’t even get a free wedding cake out of it!
The other bit of Mum’s news from home was that was the state of affairs in our new flat. Dad and Dougie (who was only fifteen years old) were spending every spare minute of their time clearing out, decorating and moving furniture into our magnificent, one-roomed flat. Mummy said they were working very hard and it would all be ready when we returned. What a smashing family I had!
The day before we were due to leave Eastbourne, we were very, very broke. After breakfast, we walked around the shops and along the promenade. As lunchtime approached, our stomachs began to rumble with hunger and we counted out our coppers, which was all the money we had. There wasn’t nearly enough for fish and chips, so we decided to buy the cheapest, but most filling thing we could afford – a loaf of freshly baked bread. We have had many fancy meals since then, but none of them was as notable as that last, honeymoon lunch. I will always hold in great affection, the memory of us sitting on the sea wall, side by side, giggling, as we saw the funny side of the two of us tearing apart and eating a loaf of dry, unbuttered bread. Ours must truly been one of the lowest budget, shoestring honeymoons ever.
That night, after dinner, we packed our clothes, souvenirs and future dreams into our grey, paperboard suitcase, and prepared ourselves for the journey home to Upper Holloway and, we hoped, a long and happy life together.

OUR FIRST HOME
We returned home to North London and excitedly made our way to our new address in Archway, Upper Holloway. We knocked on the door and were ushered in by Mrs. Bottacelli who directed us through the door under the stairs, telling us to come up to her flat and collect our rent book, when we were ready. When we entered our room: it was magic. There were our lovely dining room suite and two rust coloured, caterpillar, fire side chairs, the interior sprung mattress, our bedding and our pots and pans. Daddy and Doug had made a lovely job of decorating the room. It was now light and bright and clean. Dad had even laid our linoleum for us. We found the shiny, aluminium, whistling kettle, and carried it through to the scullery, where the air was thick with the smell of coiled fish heads! We didn’t care; we were married at last, in our own home, and it was all real.
Our first teapot was made of white china and was encapsulated in an insulated, chrome ball, with holes for the spout and handle to poke out. This was very modern and was supposed to keep the tea hot for ages. Up to now such household items had been very sparse and basic, and still bore the Government utility mark. But the ‘contemporary’ era was upon us, and we were starting to get a bit of ‘style’ in our lives.
The kettle whistled and we made our first pot of tea. Out came our new, white tea set and we played Mums and Dads.
Soon the job of arranging our new home was well under way. Because we wanted to show off our new dining room furniture and comfy chairs to the best advantage, we decided not to clutter our bed-sitter with the inclusion of an actual bed. Bearing this in mind, we decided to leave the bedroom suite at Arthur’s mum and dad’s house, and only use the mattress.
Our room had a door, a window, a fireplace and a handy floor- to- ceiling cupboard which was not very deep, but high. In this cupboard we planned to keep our mattress and bedding.
Each morning, before we went to work, we would stand the mattress on end, fold it in half, then quickly stuff it into the cupboard and slam the door shut before it could leap out again! I don’t know if you have ever tried to fold a new interior sprung mattress in half. It really needed the joint strength of three all-in-wrestlers to achieve this feat, but there was only the two of us! Once the mattress and bedding were hidden, we had a nice, cosy lounge that looked quite normal and, and we thought, rather smart.
Come bedtime, Arthur would open the cupboard door and let the mattress out. We would then drag it over to the rug in front of the hearth and make up the bed, using all our lovely, new bedding. This was the only space in the room that would accommodate the mattress. It was a bit of a nuisance, but well worth the effort if we wanted to have a respectable lounge that we could entertain in. It did, however, have just one little downside.
One morning when we were late for work, it was very easy to convince each other that it was a good idea to leave the bed down till we returned at teatime. We came home about 6 o/c that evening and, when we opened our door, we couldn’t believe what our eyes were telling us. Our mattress and the bedding were completely buried under a thick layer of black soot, as indeed was all the furniture.
We just stood transfixed, with a mixture of horror and disbelief. The rest of the evening was spent, cleaning, and sweeping and shaking things. We didn’t have a Hoover, just brooms and brushes. Looking back on it, I can hardly believe it happened, or that we managed to clean it up. But it did, and we did. We never left the bed down again though.
Previous to our occupation, the room hadn’t been used for years, and so the chimney hadn’t been swept since sweeps stopped using little boys to do the job!

COSTA DEL EASTBOURNE

Next morning. A tap on the door awakened us. Into the room came Arthur’s mum, carrying two cups of tea. Because all our new furniture was still stacked up around the room, there was no space for a bedside table, and Mum Chapman stood holding the cups while we sat up to take them from her. It was obvious that I had no nightdress on and I felt so silly. To give her her due, she never batted an eyelid, but I don’t suppose Dad Chapman had ever seen her running around starkers!
After some tea and cornflakes we caught a bus to the railway station, and it was Eastbourne here we come! We soon discovered that we had a lengthy wait for the train, so decided to stand in the street and take in the beautiful sunshine while we killed time. There we stood looking every inch newly weds. Me in my white, flowery hat, silver grey dress and shoes, and long, white gloves, and still wearing a spray of flowers; Arthur so smart in his white shirt and new suit. Even our suitcase was new.
We stood there, observing a ‘spiv’ who looked like a role model for George Cole in his St Trinian films. He was gliding in and out of the crowds, tapping people on the arm, trying to sell them something on the black market: probably, nylon stockings. We were fascinated, as we’d never seen a real spiv at work before.
In due course, we caught our train and arrived at Aunt Beat’s house. She showed us up to our room. We unpacked before going downstairs to the dining room, where tea and sandwiches had been prepared for us. She told us what time dinner would be served, and off we went to explore Eastbourne. As I said earlier, we had very little money to spend, just the remains of our wages, and Dumpy’s cheque (which made up the lions share of our cash).
The weather was wonderful and we spent dreamy days lying on the beach, gazing into each other’s eyes and whispering sweet nothings. We decided that it would save money if we had fish and chips for lunch each day, and so we would sit on the sea wall or in the Botanical Gardens, eating them out of steaming vinegary newspaper. Absolute heaven!
One night after our evening meal, we decided to treat ourselves by booking seats at the theatre. We chose a show called ‘Goodbye Boys, Hello Girls! It was advertised as the show where you could ‘Come and see Betty Grable, Dorothy Lamour, and Bette Davies in the flesh’. We couldn’t imagine how this was going to be achieved and, intrigued, thought we’d go along and find out. Of course, it turned out to be a drag show! We had never seen anything like this before (drag wasn’t commonplace, as it is now) and we were enthralled. So much so, that we booked seats for later in the week and went a second time!
It was on a hot, sunny day towards the end of our honeymoon, when Arthur said he would take me out on the sea in a rowing boat. Because I didn’t own a watch, and Arthur’s was ‘on loan’ to
raise extra money for our honeymoon, we didn’t know how we were going to keep check on the rental time. We couldn’t afford more than one hour and since we would be out at sea and not
near any clocks, this was a bit of a problem.
Suddenly, Arthur had a brainwave! We hurried back to the digs, where we borrowed Aunt Beat’s alarm clock from our bedroom, smuggling it out of the house and taking it to sea with us. Arthur set it for one hour and carefully placed it in the bottom of the rowingboat. Problem solved.

THE RECEPTION & FAMILY FUEDS

The reception started off on shaky ground. Grandad Leach and Uncle and Aunty had fallen out years before our wedding, and had vowed never to speak to each other again. We didn’t know what to expect when they saw each other, and it was all very embarrassing for me with Arthur’s family present. Granny and Grandad had attended the wedding service, so were already ensconced in comfortable seats in the corner of the room when Aunty and Uncle arrived. Grandad Leach spotted Uncle immediately and, rising to his full height, hissed at Uncle: ‘Snake in the grass!’
Before any more hostilities could take place, Daddy stepped in and said ‘ Come on now, this is Leeta and Arthur’s wedding day, don’t spoil it for them.’ Eventually, and begrudgingly, they shook hands and a minor war was averted.
Mum and all her helpers had done us proud with the buffet, and Arthur, Dad and Doug had done a good job at tapping the barrels * the previous evening! We fitted fifty people into Mum and Dad’s lounge at Oakfield Road, and a good time was had by all.
I loved Arthur so much that it hurt. One reads of ‘floating on clouds’ and that is perfectly true, I still can remember the feeling that my chest was being grabbed and squeezed by a giant hand, and I did indeed feel as if I was floating on air. Every time I looked at him, my heart stood still. It was an experience that I feel certain could only happen once in a lifetime.

*It was usual when throwing a large party to buy beer by the barrel from the local pub. (Cans hadn’t been invented then). Bungs had to be extracted and taps fitted the night before use, a job enjoyed by the men who insisted it was necessary to keep tasting and testing the contents thereafter, to ensure a good flow! This was called tapping the barrel. When empty, the barrels were returned to the said pub.

The time was getting late. Arthur and I had planned to spend our wedding night in his old room at his Mum and Dad’s house. We were catching a train early the next day to Eastbourne, where we intended to spend a week at Daddy’s Aunt Beat’s B & B, The second week of our honeymoon was to be spent in our new one room flat, getting settled in.
We were so short of cash after the wedding, we were anxiously waiting for Aunty Dumpy to give us the cash she had promised us as a wedding present. Without this, we couldn’t go on our honeymoon. At last she came over to us and slipped the eagerly awaited envelope into Arthur’s hand.
‘Enjoy yourselves tonight, Duck,’ she said, and gave one of her raucous laughs.
We left he wedding party in a taxi with Arthur’s Mum and Dad. After saying goodbye to everyone, and promising to send cards, I kissed Mummy and Daddy goodbye and then I remembered that we hadn’t cut the wedding cake. Mum said that she would do it next day and send it out to all the guests, leaving us the top tier for our anniversary. I thanked her for everything she had done for us, and left home, feeling happy and, at the same time, very sad. I knew that my life would never be quite the same, ever again.

During our courting days, Arthur and I would often spend the evening at my home chatting to Mummy and Daddy over endless cups of tea. These were supported halfway through by one of Mum’s tasty cooked suppers, which Arthur loved. Dad would go to bed first. He always retired early, as he had to get up at about five o’clock in the morning. Mummy would stay up chatting to Arthur and I about anything and everything for a while longer. At about half past eleven, she would bid us good night, and off she would go to bed, leaving the two of us to have and hour or so on our own.
We usually had a kiss and a cuddle and talked about our plans for the future, or sat and sketched with the beautiful set of pencils Arthur had bought for me (one of those sketches still adorns my craft room wall), while we drank several cups of coffee. Later, Arthur would either cycle home to Newington Green, his battered old trilby hat (demob issue) jammed on his head, and trouser bottoms secured by bicycle clips, or he would have to walk, a journey which took well over an hour.
On the other hand, if we spent an evening at Arthur’s place the scenario would be oh so different. At a quarter past nine, Mum Chapman would announce: ‘Time for me to make the coffee, Will’. That statement was the signal that we had to leave very soon, as they wanted to retire for the night. There was absolutely no chance of them ever going to bed until we were well off the premises, and they never stayed up later than nine-thirty. I really couldn’t understand this because we spent every Saturday afternoon on our own at Arthur’s home and Mr. & Mrs. Chapman were well aware of this. Had we been able to spend our first night at my home, I know there would have been no embarrassment, and Mummy would have set us a ‘honeymoon breakfast table, complete with lace cloth and flowers. However, this was the Chapman abode, and I felt very uncomfortable going into Arthur’s bedroom with him and closing the door, bearing in mind that I had never even been allowed to sit in the kitchen with him on his own! To compound my embarrassment, a family friend had machine stitched the bottom of my black, honeymoon nightie together, so that I couldn’t put it on. I frantically tried to unpick the stitches, but she had done a thorough job, and I had to go to bed wearing nothing but my perfume!

THE GREAT DAY ARRIVES

As the wedding date grew closer, Arthur and I went to see about the church arrangements for music etc. We were shattered when Father Kelly (who was to marry us) said that we couldn’t have an organ playing, as our wedding was on the same day as the church fete and the organist would be busy on the Tombola. I couldn’t believe it! How could I walk up and down the aisle without ‘Here comes the Bride’ or ‘The Wedding March’. I was almost in tears, but the priest was unbending.
I was relating this tale of woe to one of the buyers for C and A’s, and I was touched by his concern. He was one of Canda’s to men, and I hadn’t spoken to him before, apart from putting his calls through to him. He surprised me by saying that he regularly played the church organ at his local village church., and would be honoured to play at my wedding. I was both flattered and overjoyed, and hurried round to tell Father Kelly the good news.
Can you imagine how Arthur and I felt, when Father Bede admitted that ‘the church fete’ as just an excuse, and that the church felt that it was their duty to do all they could to dissuade me from marrying a non-Catholic. Then they pulled yet another trick from their ecclesiastical sleeve and informed me that, should I still want to marry in St. Peter’s, I would not be allowed to marry at the main altar, nor would I walk down the main aisle, either before or after our wedding ceremony.
Far from dissuading me from marrying Arthur, they succeeded in dissuading me from wanting to get married in the Catholic faith at all! Once again, we had to bite our tongues because we knew that Mummy would not allow us to marry in a Church of England church. Arthur already felt that he had been well and truly blackmailed by the Catholic Church, by making him promise to have all issue from our marriage baptised and brought up in the Catholic faith. (In fact, when we later had children, none of them was baptised into the Catholic faith!) And so the wedding took place, in St Peter in Chains church, with me walking to meet my future husband down the side aisle of the church, with all the guests from both families sitting on my left, and a blank wall on my right. There was no triumphant organ music to herald my arrival. Just silence. The wedding service started with the exchange of vows and ended just a few minues later. During the entire event, Father Kelly stood in surplice and Wellington boots, not having bothered to change when he left the church fete. He hadn’t even shaved! We signed the register and silently out of the church.

A measure of the splendour and pomp of our marriage service was although we were booked to be married at 3 o’clock, the next bride (complete with ‘Here comes the Bride’ and ‘The Wedding March’) was due to be married at 3.15pm! It was nearly eight years before I set foot in a Catholic church again.

Yesterday I came across my wedding veil. 57 years old and very yellow with age. My neice Sindie persuaded me to include it on my blog, so here it is looking very like Miss Faversham's veil!!!

THE WEDDING APPROACHES

There were more notebooks to fill and more lists to be made out. Since Mum and Dad couldn’t afford a wedding, Arthur and I had to save and pay for most of it ourselves. We worked out how many guests we could fit into Mum and Dad’s front room at Oakfield Road, and how much beer the men would drink; what sort of food we would need, and how much of it we could afford.
Of course, there was also my wedding dress and going-away dress, bridesmaid’s dresses, Arthur’s suit, cars, photos, honeymoon, flowers, wedding cake. The list seemed endless and the money short, so a lot of careful planning was necessary. Food was still rationed, and clothing and material could only be bought if one had enough clothing coupon. A considerable task for a nineteen-year-old but, with Mum’s help, I coped.
I decided it would be cheaper if I made my own wedding dress and going away outfit, together with the bridesmaid’s dresses. Mummy would help me with these as there were going to be five of them, plus a chief bridesmaid and a maid of honour. All four of my sisters wanted to be a bridesmaid and Arthur’s niece, Wendy, made five. My best friend from Williams Brothers was to be my chief bridesmaid, and we thought it would be nice to ask Ruby (the one who nearly married Bab’s American Godfather) as well.
She’d never been a bridesmaid, and had been a good friend to us over the years. They both supplied their own dresses, which wouldn’t match but, because things were in such short supply in those days, it didn’t really matter.
I sketched out ideas for the bridesmaid’s dresses, and designed my dress, veil and head-dress. Armed with a large part of our savings, Mum and I went to the West End of London, shopping for material.

Front row L to R: Sandie(weechuff), Tina(Croom), baby sister Gill, Babs(beetle), neice Wendy

I think Gill and Babs must have been having a mood, they don't look very happy!

It was to be turquoise and pink for the little girls, and we purchased yards of satin and net. The next job was to choose the material for my dresses. I even decided to make my own honeymoon hat! Mum and I were very busy for weeks, cutting pinning and sewing. I made all my clothes and Mum was left to get on with making the bridesmaid’s dresses.
I’d set my heart on wearing a long veil that would sweep the floor at the back, but it took ages to scallop the edges of the veil and sew yards of mother-of-pearl sequins all around the border. Having seen the price of headdresses and tiaras, it seemed a good idea to make that as well. Looking back, I must have been a game girl!

Daddy and I

Auntie and Uncle (from Blackpool) said that they would like to buy my bouquet, which was a very welcome suggestion, and Aunty Sissie and Uncle George supplied the gold flower baskets for the bridesmaids. Aunty Dumpy (my Dad’s sister) promised us a cheque for six pounds (quite a sizeable amount then) and we paid for the buttonholes, the cars, the cake, invitation cards etc.
The Catholic Church of Saint Peter in Chains was booked for July 7th 1951 at 3 o’clock. As a non-Catholic it was necessary for Arthur to visit Father Bede every week, to take instruction on how to be married to a Roman Catholic. He wasn’t very happy about this, but since I was only nineteen, under-age and needing parental permission to marry, we didn’t dare rock the boat by refusing.

I GOT AN AWARD !

I was honoured to receive the 'Superior Scribble Award' from Jay of thedeppeffect the other day.

This came as a complete surprise and I was so excited. I didn't realise that anyone other than family and a few friends read my blogs. Thank you Jay for making my day and for thinking I deserved such a lovely award.

Here is the next episode of my story:

OUR HUNT FOR A PLACE TO LIVE

Council housing-lists were a joke. You had to have lived in your area for ‘X’ amount of years to even get on the list, and then you had to earn points by being infirm, crippled, over crowded etc. My parents, with a family of seven children, lived in an upstairs flat, comprising three rooms and kitchen. They had no garden, no hot water and no bathroom, yet didn’t even make it past the first rung of the housing list. If having seven children and living in these conditions was not classed as a priority, what chance did we have?
We scoured all the newspapers and notice boards, listened-in on people’s conversations in the hope of overhearing news of empty rooms. We knocked on doors of houses that looked as if they had uninhabited rooms. Many evenings were spent just going from house to house, knocking and asking if they had any rooms to rent. It was like asking for the moon, and we thought we’d never get married. One week I sat and worked through my lunch hours, typing notices begging people to help us find a home, offering an invitation to the wedding as an incentive. We then walked up and down likely looking areas, posting them through people’s letterboxes. Needless to say, nothing came of this venture.
Arthur’s mother had a very old friend, Laura, who had been blinded years earlier and now spent all her days in one room, confined mostly to her bed. Although she owned the house she lived in, it was given over rent free to the Botacelli family. They were Italian Jews and I believed they owned a club somewhere in the West End of London. Mrs Botacelli looked after Laura and, in return, she let them take over her house. It war rumoured that she had left them the house in her will, for ‘services rendered’. Mum Chapman sweet-talked Laura into letting us have a room there. I don’t think that the Botacelli’s were very keen on us going there, but it was Laura’s prerogative.
In exchange for this accommodation, we had to be prepared, and indeed promise, to periodically sit with Laura in her room and chat with her. She was over eighty years old and completely blind, and we’d never met her before. Because of her blindness, her room was very dark and dingy, the furniture consisting mainly of a large, ancient bed and an old, upright piano. I would be able to cope with this situation quite well now, but it wasn’t an easy or pleasant task for a coupe of very young newly weds. However we were desperate and said ‘Yes, please’.
It turned out that the room that she offered us was a basement room that had been used as a cellar storeroom for years. It was dirty, damp, dark and full of rubbish. The room was reached by going down a flight of steps that were hidden behind a door under the staircase. At the bottom of the stairs were two cellar rooms and scullery of sorts. One room housed an even more ancient old lady called Miss Jones who was an old friend of Laura’s. Miss Jones owned an equally ancient cat, and was always boiling fish heads on an old gas cooker in the scullery. We were to share the scullery and cooker with Miss Jones. God – what a bleak, bare, basement scullery that was! The floor and walls were composed of stone and cement, and the walls were covered in peeling white distemper. In the corner of the room, next to the cooker, stood an old, iron bath tub, and a very old, butler sink. We didn’t grumble, we were just grateful that we had at last got somewhere to live and could set a wedding date: something we had never thought we’d achieve. From now on, it was all systems go for the whole family.

THE BEST IS YET TO COME

One of the first things I did after becoming engaged was to start a ‘bottom drawer’. In days gone by, this was known as a ‘Hope Chest’. Young girls on reaching puberty were given a wooden chest. Into this went various items of fine linen, stitched, embroidered, and trimmed with hand made lace by the young lady in question, in the hope that she would one day marry and use these items in her own home. The modern version of this was the bottom drawer or, for me, a large suitcase.
Each payday, when I received my wages; I would look around the shops and choose something to buy for my bottom drawer. It might be as big as a tea set, or as small as a wooden spoon, whichever caught my fancy or, more likely, whatever I could afford that particular week.
Arthur and I had a notebook, which we’d designed and devised over numerous cups of coffee. Each page was headed with the name of a room, such as lounge, bedroom, kitchen, and beneath each heading, we listed everything we could think of. Firstly, things that we needed and secondly, additionally things we would like to have. As each item was purchased or given to us (we received a lot of engagement presents), we ticked them off in the book and wrote down how much they had cost us. I still have this notebook, and the low prices we paid for household items are really amazing.

I had now been working for Williams Brothers for over a year and had never received a pay rise. We were saving really hard to get married, and I decided to ask my boss for more money. I felt quite nervous; I’d never had to do this before. The boss was a woman not liked by the staff, which did little for my confidence. I stood before this ‘dragon’ and felt about two feet high. She let me have my say, then politely pointed out that, since my switchboard hadn’t and wouldn’t be getting any bigger, there really didn’t seem to be any grounds for giving me more money.
I was deflated, disappointed and angry, and beat it hot foot to the employment bureau, a few doors down the road. When I told them how little I was earning, they were absolutely aghast.
‘We can get you much more than that,’ they said, true to their word, they did.
I went to work operating a double-position switchboard at Canda, a clothing factory in Islington. Canda was the trade name for the manufacturing side of C and A Modes. String the letters C and A together and, hey presto, you have Canda! There was a little more travelling to do, but my wages jumped from three pounds five shillings (£3.25) to five pounds, an amazing and very welcome pay rise.
Our most daunting task as a newly engaged couple was the task of finding somewhere to live. This had to be achieved before we could set a wedding date. There was absolutely no chance of buying a house, the cheapest being two thousand pounds, so that people like us just weren’t in the running. We could only hope for rented accommodation, but that too was virtually unobtainable due to the acute housing shortage that followed the war.

EATING OUT

We were saving very hard, but every now and then we would allow ourselves a special treat. Eating out was not something that we did very often, but there were affordable bargain meals available, even in the West End of London. For us to have a meal ‘up West’ was a real adventure and something we did perhaps every couple of months.
Our favourite eating-place was Lyon’s Corner House at Marble Arch. There were two fashionable restaurants in the Lyon ‘s complex. One was the egg-and-bacon bar; the other was the salad bowl. We would stand and watch the chefs resplendent in their tall white hats, cooking eggs and gammon bacon on huge griddles set behind plate glass windows. They flipped the eggs over with great panache. However, we never ate in the egg-and-bacon bar, as it was a set meal for a set price.
The salad bowl was a very different matter. There were two set meals one priced at two shillings and sixpence (12 ½ p), the other at three shillings and sixpence (17 ½ p). For the princely sum of half a crown (12½ p) you could help yourself to as much salad as you could pile on to a large plate, together with a roll and butter, and as many cups of coffee as you required. The latter was served by a waiter who appeared at your elbow, white napkin draped over his arm, and poured from a silver coffee pot, For an extra shilling (5p) you were entitled to add to this menu a bowl of soup and your choice from the sweet-trolley. I might add that this was no ordinary salad, but exotic things that I’d never seen anywhere else. Smoked salmon in little pastry boats, roll-mops, olives, things set in aspic. The meal was eaten with silver cutlery in the luxurious setting of deep pile carpet, intimate lighting, and soft music played by a real live pianist sitting at a grand piano! When you are seventeen years old, hard up and in love, what more could you ask for?
We once shared a table at the salad bar with a vicar complete with dog collar. He arrived at the table bearing a plate laden with the biggest salad that we had ever seen. He must have been either very poor or very greedy. His meal was carefully constructed, using little pastry cases filled with salmon as the foundation, and layered with vol-au-vents, roll mops, things set in aspic and every pasta, rice and potato salad available, Carefully woven in to this creation were all the normal salad ingredients such as lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber etc. The whole concoction stood some eight inches high! We watched, fascinated, as he ploughed through the meal, washing it down with several cups of coffee.
Another café we frequented was in Islington, where we occasionally ate Saturday lunch. It stood opposite the entrance to the Angel tube station. And served the most delicious egg and chips for half a crown, this included bread and butter and a cup of tea. Not as splendiferous as Lyons, but just as delicious.

Sometimes in the summer, we would hop on a bus in Harringay, and for two shillings and sixpence (12 ½ p) we could travel all the way to Southend–on-sea. It was a long ride and we really enjoyed the journey. As long as we could have a cup of tea, a bag of chips and a Rossi’s ice cream when we arrived, we were on cloud nine. We’d stroll along the front and the pier, hand in hand; me in my off the shoulder blouse and white sling back high heeled shoes, and Arthur in his shirt and slacks purchased by him in Italy. We thought we were ‘the goods’
Oh, that I could wave a magic wand and do it all again! Time rushes by so rapidly that you don’t notice that these are precious moments, let alone appreciate and treasure every second, as you should.
Writing these memoirs has enabled me to unlock so many forgotten moments of my life. Not necessary earth shattering moments, but silly. Heart-warming memories that I am so grateful not to have lost for all time.
Like coming out of the cinema as a very young teenager feeling that I was Betty Grable who had just taken her fourth curtain call on opening night, or Jean Crain after she realised that she really did love the studious guy with glasses, and not the cocky heartbreaker her took her to the High School prom.
Like buying my first78 rpm record of Benny Goodman’s ‘Slow Boat to China’, and feeling to important standing in the record booth at HMV. I listened, letting it play right through to the end before saying’ Yes, OK. I’ll take it,’ knowing from the onset that I fully intended to buy it.
Like watching my first-born join the other children on her first day at school, biting my lip to fight back the tears, realising this was the moment she started to be her own person and ceased to be ours alone.
This realisation was bought home to me even more so, some fourteen years later. Lynne had moved out of our house to share a flat with her then boyfriend John G. We received a late night phone call from John, saying that Lynne had been taken into hospital with mystery stomach pains. We dropped everything and rushed to the hospital to be greeted by Lynne, laid out on a hospital trolley, looking quite ill. I rushed to her side, intent on holding her hand and comforting her,
All she said was: Where’s John? I want John.’
That was the moment I knew that she was no longer our little girl, and that she now belonged to someone else. I felt completely devastated.