Some things I remember of my childhood.
I am so pleased to tell you that I am now an 'indie author'!
And I have sold 57 books!
A month or two ago, I had no idea what "indie" meant. Now I know it stands for 'independent'!
'Independent' in this case, means not supported for editing, proofreading, marketing, advice, etc. No one to hold your hand!
Recently, however, Amazon, through its USA site, has been offering these specialist services to authors, including me, as bundles from £500 to £5000.
AI offered its services too, but I declined, saying that I wanted to write my book myself!
I am, however, personally very independent, usually referred to as 'stubborn', not through choice, but by necessity.
My family had been bombed out when they were living in Ilford, east of London. Mummy, my brother, 2-year-old Richard, and I were out posting a letter when the 'doodlebug' went through our house in August 1941. I was four. Mummy and Daddy rescued a couple of rugs, a sideboard, an armchair, and a table from the house. We were moved to Hendon, northwest of London, and my father was stationed at Hendon Aerodrome. I remember that the first flat we lived in had rats, then we rented a nice house, which I lived in until I was 17.
I was sent to a boarding school near Ware, in the country. I was in a kindergarten class and remember doing a lot of singing, especially, 'How much is that doggy in the window?' I remember having to wear a liberty bodice and lisle stockings. I was told my father missed me, and I was brought home after a year, and sent to the local convent. My father died soon after this.
Becoming an orphan at the age of seven, the eldest of three children, brought many responsibilities. My mother had a nice voice and found work as a telephonist, in the next London suburb, working long hours, including night shifts.
I had to look after my brothers, aged five, and fourteen months. I used to make the baby stand on a chair and hold the back of it, while I changed his nappy. I had to cook their meals. Mummy told me to boil the potatoes for 20 minutes. If they were not cooked, I was too ignorant to continue to cook them, so I made Richard swear to secrecy when I threw the hard potatoes behind the air-raid shelter! Although my father had died, we still had a joint at weekends; it was my job to collect it, together with a large bone for the dog. One day, I got the newspaper-wrapped parcels mixed up, and Rex ran off, no doubt with a big smile on his face, while I got the cane! Rex was an Alsation. When I was five, he used to take me to school. I went into a telephone box near the school gate and told him to go home.
My brothers were placed in an orphanage in 1945. I continued to live at home with Mummy. I went to a convent school as a 'charity' girl, free of charge. My Saturday jobs included washing clothes in the kitchen sink, standing on a chair, and using a washboard to scrub the clothes. Lumps of yellow soap were placed in a wire cage with a long wire handle and swished around in the water to make bubbles. On Saturdays, I scrubbed the hall parquet floor with a solution of soda. One day, years later, in the science lesson, as we were all gathered around the teacher's desk, I brushed against the hands of one of my classmates. They were soft, unlike mine!
I wasn't allowed to play in the street like the other children in our road, but sometimes I did get to play hopscotch with a little girl two houses down from ours. Birthday presents were a silver sixpence, and Christmas meant an orange, an apple, and a shiny penny. Easter was a new facecloth and toothbrush. I wanted to go to dancing lessons like my school friends. Mummy did send me to a few tap and ballet lessons, but they soon fizzled out: the same applied to piano lessons. I was allowed to go to a few lessons with an 'aunty', the mother of a school friend.
When I was seven, I had my tonsils and adenoids removed. I'd been having lots of sore throats. I learned to spell 'sugar' from a bag on a shelf above my bed. We didn't have any visitors in the hospital.
Sometimes I was allowed to stay overnight with a schoolfriend who lived in a block of flats. In the evenings, I sat with the family, around the kitchen table, and packed razor blades, thin, greasy ones that had to be slid from their pile, and covered with greaseproof paper, before putting them in little boxes. It was a way to earn some extra cash.
In the school holidays, I still had to look after my brothers. I remember Richard having a tantrum in Woolworths, wanting something displayed on its open countertops. He threw himself on the wooden floor and screamed and screamed. A lady came up to me and said 'What have you done to your little brother?! Richard broke his leg when he was seven, walking across one of our icy slides. He had to spend the night in a wooden splint, with crutches, because hospitals didn't open at night, and hence, no plaster casts were available.
I discovered the local library on the way home from school, and read books there. In the beginning I didn't belong to the library, so I couldn't take books home. Mummy was still at the telephone exchange but now had a clerical job, no longer worked nights, and was also in charge of a savings scheme. I started with 'Little Grey Rabbit', progressed through Enid Blyton adventures, and Biggles, to Georgette Heyer novels from the senior library, telling my mother they were History books! This clandestine reading continued well into my teens, when a very nice Jewish man let me stand in his shop after school and read the brand new science books on his shelves.
My brothers had the Eagle comic when they were home for the holidays. I liked the centre spreads of ships and aircraft that stood up when the comic was fully open. I begged my mother for 'The Girl's Crystal' when I had a good report at the end of one term, but it was soon stopped. I still went to the convent, hampered by poor sight, headaches, and being seated at the back of the class, because I was very tall, being my adult height of 5 ft 9 inches at eleven years of age. I failed my 'eleven plus,' but the nuns kept me at school. We sat at individual wooden desks in rows and were not allowed to talk in class. Punishment was staying behind after school and having to write essays on subjects like disobedience, religion, and difficult abstract things like 'leisure'. I seemed to be doing a lot of this essay writing!
I couldn't see the blackboard, and discovered, when I finally got glasses, that I had written completely wrong words in my French vocabulary book. All my work would have suffered. However, I was good at elocution and memorising poems, things I could see up close!
Most lessons were 'talk and chalk'. I did very badly in all subjects in the 'mock' exams, and it was not until between the mock GCSEs and the real exams that I started wearing glasses. My work improved with my sight, and I passed most of my exams, failing only Maths, French, and German.
I had an Auntie Maud. She wasn't a relation, only a friend of Mummy's, a spinster who had become deaf in the war, and had lots of cats all over the house. I remember the horrid smell of their food being cooked for hours on a gas stove in the tiny kitchen. Auntie Maud was an artist, but I only saw her colouring maps for the government. She showed me how to cut stencils, grease them with bacon rinds, and colour the maps that had ' Top Secret' and 'War Office' printed on them. I think they were of Burma.
Being tall, I got a job delivering newspapers before school while I was under 14. Later, on Saturday mornings, I sold cakes in a local bakery, and at night I was an usher in a cinema, showing people to their seats, until one evening, I noticed a science teacher from my school sitting in the back row. When I was about 15, I sometimes met a few friends, and we went to the newly arrived 'coffee shops', in the daytime. I borrowed my mother's clothes, and Mummy let me, when I was about 16, have some shoes with one-inch 'kitten' heels. I was so tall, I was served first and chuffed to be called 'Madam'.
I bought myself a bike with my 'babysitting money', earning 5 shillings a night, looking after a little Jewish boy. His father always walked me home afterwards, usually eating raw green bell peppers. Lots of 'strange' fruits became available, and chicken was a luxury for us, which we had at Christmas. Jewish families I knew had chicken every Sabbath.
After my 'O levels', I started work at Sellotape's, cycling along the North Circular Road to Elstree, next to the film studios. I thought I had failed all my exams, so I found the job myself and worked in the laboratories, hoping to be allowed to join an apprentice scheme and study the sciences. I remember they had a sports day and I won the long jump. When the GCSE results came out, I had enough grades to leave Sellotapes and go to Hendon Grammar School, with a small government allowance of 5 shillings a week for uniform and books. I couldn't study science subjects because I lacked maths, so I ended up studying Geography, History, and Economics. I also passed German and French in the November re-takes.
My best friend at Hendon Grammar School was Miriam; we were kindred spirits in the huge Comprehensive Sixth Form, with male teachers for the first time in our lives. She was from a Jewish high school, and I from a convent!
