It does make me wonder how you all coped with life in those days . Little food cold Anderson shelters sometimes filled with water bombed and bombed and the fear of dying or living. I cant even immagine your life.
My mum saw the first doodle bug while walking with her friend and heard it cut out then eventually fell . She loved the yanks too . Mum lived near the docks in London. She hardly spoke about the war . My dad was prisoner for 2 years in Stalag 17 .
Thanks Mayflower
CHAPTER NINE
THE TRAIN JOURNEY
In August of 1944 I left school at the age of 14 to go into printing, I was only there three weeks when there was a shortage of paper.
We had to look busy doing something when the owner did his rounds and unfortunately I had been to the toilet and the boss was just walking in.
He said to me because I was a newcomer and the youngest working there ( I use that phrase loosely ) ,âWell while you are waiting for delivery you can go and clean the toilets out.â I have to say here that by this time I had grown into a cheeky b*****r who would not take any crap from anyone. I think I had caught the âspeak up for yourself bugâ from my mother.
I remember turning to him with my hands on my hips saying âI came here to learn the printing trade not to clean bloody toilets.â With that I got my coat and went home. I went to the Labour Exchange next day and told them that the job was not much good because we were standing around waiting for deliveries.
I finished up in at Towles hosiery factory transferring the logo on the foot of the socks and lisle stockings. This involved pressing the logo on with a red hot iron without scorching the socks or stockings. I got up to the speed of 180 dozen pairs a day. A dozen to the hosiery trade was 24 socks to one dozen.
That amounted to lifting the iron which was extremely heavy weighing about 4lbs for 4,320 times each day.
We had just ten minutes break in the morning and the same in the afternoon. Hours of work were 7-30am till 12-30pm, half an hour for lunch then back to work from 1pm until 6pm each day.
A ten hour day but with Saturday morning added it was a 55 hour week.
Saturday morning was a must, it wasnât voluntary . It came into the working week.
It was extremely hard work with minimal pay.
I was there for nearly two years and I had gained muscles on top of muscles with lifting that iron all the thousands of times a week.
During 1945, I met Cliff who was then 17, and although it was NOT love at first sight he seemed to cotton on to me because according to him I was different to other girls.
My first impression of him was of a red haired very fair skinned skinny bloke who reminded me very much of a Swan Vesta matchâŠ
He said he had never met a girl who was not frightened of anyone and who spoke her mind.
It did not get serious between us because I knew that I would be going back to London at sometime or other and he would be called up to do his two years National Service.
When he was called up in 1946 we made a vague promise to get together when he had finished his time in the R.A.F.
We did get together while he was still in the forces and after I moved back to London.
It was also in 1946 when my eldest brother was demobbed from the R.A.F. He had been in since 1940 and had been in Burma fighting the Japs. He came back a changed man.
I was staggered when he put all his gratuity money on a horse called Airborne running in the St Leger. It came in first at 66-1.
That was a fortune in those days especially with all his gratuity being put on it.
Unfortunately it was gone by the time we moved back to London with the drinking habit that he had acquired. He wanted to make up for lost years and to wipe the memory of his mates screaming as they died in agony.
I found out a lot of what he went through by the nightmares he had and calling out in his sleep.
It was not a nice thing to hear but he did not know he was doing it.
He had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide when he tried to settle in civvy street.
He was very difficult to live with.
In 1947 my mother had word from the London County Council that they had a house for her to come back to.
My father was already back in London living in one room in a boarding house because if he had not gone back to the docks within a certain time he would have lost the little bit of pension that he had worked hard for all his life.
My mother decided to catch the midnight train so that we could be at the Council Offices to pick up the key to go and have a look at the house. I was told that she wanted me with her. I was working by this time but I had to take time off and lose money although wages then were nowhere near as good as they are today. Even if I did lose two days work I still had to pay my board. It was 15s/- a week then or in todayâs currency would be 75p.
I only earned ÂŁ1 10s/- or ÂŁ1-50p a week so that meant half my wages gone.
I told her if I went with her she would have to pay the train fare. She agreed so I deigned to accompany her.
Before we set out she told me to carry a bag similar to a small holdall and not to let it out of my sight. I assumed it held a flask of tea and some sandwiches of dripping for when we got to our destination.
We arrived at the station at the correct time to be told the train was running late due to the ice and snow on the lines. This was the extremely bad winter of 1947. We have NEVER had one as bad as that winter since then. Snow was falling for weeks and double decker buses were having to be dug out of 30 ft snow drifts.
Electric cut off due to various cables being disabled with the severe weather conditions.
Water was frozen solid and so were the streams.
Folk were queuing up for a bag of coke to keep the fires going and on top of all that we were still on rations.
WHO could forget that winter?
Many folk were waiting for that train. Some were service men and women going for de-mob, others were trying to get home for leave and others were just commuting to London on business I should imagine.
The train duly arrived at 1-10am and we all piled on. I say piled on because it was already full to the brim with passengers.
Oh Boy ! This was going to be some journey. For starters there were NO lights. Folk were sitting in the corridors and if any one wanted the loo it was climbing over people to get to it after finding their way with lighters or matches and torches.
There was no heat in the train, the only heat was from someoneâs lighter when it was lit. My mother and myself had to sit on the floor in the corridor because there was no where else so we had to make the best of it.
I was guarding the holdall as if it had the Crown Jewels in it.
In a way, to my reckoning at that time of my life, food was my consolation for many things although I was not an overweight person.
The journey should have taken us 3 and a 1/4 hours but with stopping every so often we finally arrived in St Pancras Station at 6-15am.
By this time I was tired and ruddy irritable and badly wanted a cup of tea and a bite to eat.
The platform filled up very quickly with folks wanting to get to their destination as I stood waiting for my mother while she scrabbled in her handbag for something.
By the time she found what she was looking for most of the passengers had gone. We walked towards the exit but we had to pass the train driverâs box. The driver was still in it seeing to his engine and my mother went to him and shouted above the hiss of the steam âHere you are me old cock sparrow. Get yourself a drink on me for getting us here safe and sound!â She handed him half a crown or 2s/6d that would be roughly 25p in todayâs coinage.
The train driver said âGawd Bless yer Mrs! I have worked on the railway for 30 years and thatâs the first time any one has done that.â
I stood looking on and I can remember feeling embarrassed but at the same time I felt very proud of her. The half a crown was worth quite a bit of money then and although it may sound piffling to the reader it was hard earned and it could buy quite a bit in those far off days.
When we got out of the station an all night cafe was open and we went in there for a hot cup of tea and a scrambled egg on toast.
I felt in a better mood after that although I felt grubby.
We caught the bus over to Southwark to the council offices and picked up the keys to a house in Peckham.
When we got there and I looked up at the house my heart sank, it was three storeys high.
As I was the one that did most of the housework I was none too pleased at the prospect of more rooms to clean.
Anyway we let ourselves in to look round and found that it had no bathroom which was the norm for those days.
It had a very long passage-way with the front room leading off it and a kitchen, as we called the eating place then, plus a scullery right at the end of the passage.
The stairs led off the passage way to two flights of stairs which led up to four bedrooms.
It was rather similar to the house we had when my mother had the accident with her finger.
It was bitterly cold in the house and my mother was upstairs investigating. I had put the hold-all down in the front room and decided it was time we had a cup of tea in hopes that it was still hot. I opened the bag and I could have screamed at the top of my voice at the sight that I had carted for all those miles.
A bag that contained a lump of coal about 12inches wide by 6inches deep, some dry bread and a packet of salt.
I was SO angry I went to the foot of the stairs and shouted to my mother âWhat the heck have I carted this coal, bread and salt all this way for? I wanted a drink but this is in the bag instead.â
I felt as though I could have brained my mother in that instance.
No wonder my father used to get his hair off with her.
My mother came down the stairs and said nonchalantly, âThe coal will mean that we will always have a fire, the bread will mean we will never go hungry and the salt will be sprinkled all over the house to bring us good luck.â
I stood agape at her because I knew that she was very superstitious but NOT to this extent.
I thought she was losing her mind and I said, âWell, you could have fooled me because I am freezing cold and starving hungry and donât feel lucky at allâ
We finally finished up in the pie and mash shop that was situated at the top of Rye Lane having something to eat. We then went to see my father to say that we had arranged with the gas people to have the gas turned on for a certain date.
After that we made another gruelling journey back home.
I found out afterwards that the house had been bombed but had been built up on the old foundations.
âŠ
1947 was THE worst winter I can ever remember. Folks were queuing for over an hour in freezing cold to get a bag of coke to keep warmth in one room.No central heating then. There was 30 foot of snow in places and things had got SO bad even potatoes were rationed. My future hubby was in the RAF then and he was sent home on indefinite leave because they could not get the planes off the ground with the amount of heavy snow we had.
I am putting the front page of the newspapers on here from that year.
My goodness Maywalk, we could do with some of that attitude today, Iâm telling you. Folk donât know they are born these days - expecting everything handed to them on a plate. Lovely story.
Life was so very tough on everyone and to be so cold and hungry too . I cant immagine . To think I think my life has been hard I now see Iâve been very lucky
Sorry that I have not managed to get in today waiting but I am for the doctor. All being well I will be calling in tomorrow.
CHAPTER TEN
THE MOVE
It was 25th March 1947. Moving day had arrived and I was none too happy about going back to London. I remember the date well because it was my fatherâs 47th birthday. I was coming up to my 17th birthday.
We started out at 8am and the roads were so bad it took us nearly an hour to do three miles. We got as far as the next little village when the pantechnicon broke down.
Oh boy! This was going to be some removal day.
The driver had to use the public telephone box to report to the depot for another pantechnicon to come out to have the furniture transferred to it.
All this was taking place in the middle of a small village called Quorn.
I wanted to scream at the top of my voice that I did not want to bl**dywell go back to London.
I think it was about 11am when we started on our way again because my mother and myself were travelling in the driverâs cab with the driver while his mate was having a kip in the back.
My youngest brother had been called up in 1944 and was in the tail end of the war in North Africa.
My sister had got married to a chap in Loughborough and had a little boy so there was only my mother and myself plus my eldest brother who had been demobbed in 1946 who was keeping the driverâs mate company in the back of the van.
The journey was arduous and the floods that were in the fields as we passed were horrendous.
Icy roads, floods, as well as blocked roads made the journey longer.
I could see dead sheep and cows that had been marooned in the heavy downfall of snow that we had that year.
It was certainly a year that I have never forgotten for various reasons.
We arrived at the house in the dark at roughly 6-30 pm. It had been a very LONG weary day.
The first thing that we found out was that there was no electricity put in. It still had the gas mantles from the year dot. What annoyed me was the council promised to have it done for us when we let them know when we would be moving in.
This was done a few weeks previously by letter from my mother.
To make matters worse there was NO gas laid on and it with no lights or heating it made life very complicated.
Luckily enough there was a shop open just opposite that sold candles so we had candles all round the house to see where we were going and to get the beds up because my father had joined us by this time.
Meanwhile my mother had brought some coal with her and she got a fire going. She found the frying pan from a box that was packed and some bread and sausages that the butcher had given her as a going away present.
YES, you are allowed to laugh because it must sound like a comic opera to the reader.
The people who we had gone to live next door to were very good to us. They made a pot of tea for us because they too had the same sort of problems when they moved in.
Their name was Bird and they had a son called Richard. Once we really got to know them you can imagine what Richard got called.
It took a long time to get that house as straight as we wanted it to be and neither my brother nor my father were much good at laying linoleum or anything else in the DIY department for that matter. NO fitted carpets in those far off days.
I got a job at an export factory. It was from this factory that was situated near the Old Kent Road that I wrote this poem because one day I went to work with a swollen face from an infected tooth.
The following poem was the result.
THE COST OF A SMILE
A certain dentist was being discussed and his expensive fee
It brought to mind this incident of what once happened to me.
It reminded me of when I lived in London many years ago
I turned up for work one day with toothache feeling very low.
My colleague named Eva looked at me and saw my swollen cheek
âItâs the dentist for you,â she said not giving me chance to speak.
âThere is a dentist on the Old Kent Road,â my foreman firmly stated
My protests were ignored and it looked as though I was sorely fated.
As I was led into the surgery like a lamb to the sacrificial altar
A six foot six giant loomed over me ready for the slaughter,
He had arms like tree trunks and each hand as big as a spade
All my hopes of getting out alive were fast beginning to fade.
âOpen your mouth nice and wide and look at the tropical fish.â
This statement to me at that time sounded more like a death wish,
A black and white fish caught my eye as it darted round the tank
And suddenly the pain had gone, my mind was a complete blank.
âThere you are, rinse your mouth and get down off the bedâ
I looked at him in wonderment while trying to clear my head,
âIs it out?â I asked, in awe âbecause if it is I never felt a thing.â
I was feeling on top of the world and to me he was a king.
God knows what he had used to get rid of the flipping pain
But I knew where I would go if it ever happened again.
I paid the fee of half a crown or twelve and a halfpence today
And quickly made my exit to enjoy the rest of the day.
Now I am fifty years older I donât go to the dentist any more
I can put my choppers in a bag and post them through his door.
copyrightâMaisie Walker 2001â all rights reserved.
âŠ
I also found out where my friend who came from London and who had been evacuated to Loughborough but not at the same time as me.
Her family had returned a year before us.
I hated the house that we had moved into because it was me who had to do the housework.
It was three storeys high and took some cleaning.
My mother was never there on a Saturday morning because she got a job as forelady over the cleaners at Scotland Yard so I was the sludgebump.
We had not got much furniture but my father who had been in WW1 was a stickler for cleanliness.
I think it was because he rose to be an RSM.
I do believe he thought he could be the same with his family.
He had an irritating habit of running his finger along the window ledges to see if he could find dust on them.
Having coal fires there was much more dust and pollution in the air at that time.
He was also fanatical about the white hearth stoned front door step.
The step had to be done everyday with the hearthstone â this was like a solid white lump of chalk that had to be moistened with water before applying to the step.
Woe betides anyone who stood on that doorstep if they called.
The insurance man ALWAYS stepped over it because he remembered the ranting he got from my father for standing on it.
One Saturday morning after cleaning the whole house through I was just scrubbing the long passage which was my last job as my father opened the front door and came in.
He just lost his temper and wanted to know why the so and so house was not cleaned.
Something snapped in me at his remarks.
I saw red and without even thinking what the consequences would be I picked the bucket up with the floor cloth in it and threw the lot all over him saying at the same time âI have been a sludgebump for long enough. Get someone else to do it because I am getting outâ
He was so taken aback that his daughter could show a tantrum he never offered to stop me when I grabbed my coat and bike and flew out of the door.
YES I did run the bike wheels all over that blasted step. I had cleaned it and I was going to dirty it.
I finished up at my friendâs house having a wash and tidying myself up but I had to borrow a dress from her.
It was nearly midnight when I went home. I was all prepared for a showdown with my parents.
I was by this time coming up to my 18th year but being treated like a slave.
I had everything sorted out in my head what I would do if my father raised his hand to me or my mother come to that.
As I opened the front door and took my bike in the passage my father looked out of the kitchen and said â Ah, I am glad that you are home because I owe you an apology for today. I was out of order. Iâm sorry for laying into you.â
I WAS STUNNED.
Everything that I was going to say or do just disappeared.
I walked into the kitchen where my mother sat at the side of the table smoking a cigarette and she said âI wont be working Saturday mornings in future.â
Blimey! What had gone off between my father and mother I never did find out.
I was nicknamed Spitfire by my father after that incident.
âŠ
Couple of photos showing the snowfall of that year and trying to move back to London during that time.
You are quite the raconteur! Give us more!
Thank you again for opening the door on your childhood and youth and letting us in.
Blimey that snow !
Loving it
CHAPTER ELEVEN
POST WAR YEARS 1947-49
We had been back in London for about six months when I was getting ready for work one morning sitting on the chair sewing a button back on my coat.
My brother, who had been in the RAF out in Burma for quite some time walked into the kitchen and dragged me out of the chair saying âGet out of my so-and -so chairâ
I was surprised at the vehemence that he was showing and asked him who the hell he was swearing at.
He raised his hand to swipe me across the face just as my mother walked in with the teapot and pint milk bottle on a tray. I just picked the milk bottle up and hit him across the neck with it. I was seeing red because it was all uncalled for.
My mother managed to put the tray down and she started on me calling me all the little mares under the sun.
I ran into the passage to get my bike and I shouted at my mother â Stick your ray of sunshine right up your ae because I wont be staying to be treated like that by him or any one else.â
I shot out quickly to work before she paralysed me.
The same brother was de-mobbed in 1946 after being called up in 1940.
What a changed chap he was from when he first went in the R.A.F.
He suffered from terrible bouts of malaria as well.
SO sad to think he had come back as he was.
That did not excuse his aggressive behaviour though, and it made me aggressive in the fact that I would give as good as he dished out.
It was just by a fluke that I found out that if I totally ignored him and talked over him or through him that hurt him much more than wanting to brain him.
Anyway to get back to my tale.
When I got back home in the evening my brother acted as though nothing had happened and started talking to me as though there had been no fracas that morning.
I ignored him and I would not answer him but I did tell my mother in front of him that I would be going back to Loughborough to live because I was cheesed off with the life there and the eternal rowing.
I went back to Loughborough a fortnight later to live with an old neighbour.
I was at that time writing to my boyfriend who was in the RAF.
I had met Cliff while out with some girlfriends before I moved back to London.
We became friends and hung about together with nothing more than friendship in mind at first because I knew he would be getting his calling up papers.
While I was in Loughborough our friendship got more serious, although by this time he was in the R.A.F.
My sister was living with her husband and little lad in a rented house and she asked me if I would like to go and live with her. It was just coming up to Christmas time in 1947.
I was glad to go because the neighbour who I went to live with was over run with bugs.
These darn things used to hide from the light and only come out at night. They looked similar to a lady bird but my goodness they had a bite which brought up big weals on the body that itched like hell which could turn septic.
I understood now why my mother fumigated everywhere whenever we moved.
I had not been lodging with my sister for long when her hubby decided to go to London to live in the top two rooms in the house where my parents lived. So I finished up back in London after being away from it for about four months.
I had to go with them because I could not get anywhere else to live. I think my mother was pleased to see me back so that I could do some of the housework.
Once back there I got a job at a pen factory in Hackney Wick. It was a futuristic factory owned by a Scotsman.
It had quite a few toilets for the women and a woman was employed to wipe every toilet clean after the women had used them.
There were two big fountains in the toilets that had a foot press to work them. I had never seen anything like it.
We had special coaches to pick us up in the mornings and to take us home at night.
It was a journey over Tower Bridge every day but I loved it because I wasnât biking to work and getting my bike wheels caught in the ruddy tram lines.
If there was any hint of smog a message came over the tannoy for all Peckham girls to get to their coaches which were waiting to take them home.
This could be at 2pm in the afternoon because smog in London at that time was a sure killer.
I can remember one day when the smog started coming down thick and fast. It was just 2pm then and we boarded the coach for the half hour drive home.
It was absolutely terrifying because the smog had deadened all sound and we found that we were going up the Tower Bridge as it was opening.
We all sat at a peculiar angle until the bridge closed again. Everyone had a hanky or scarf tied round their mouth and nose.
That smog even baffled the fog horns on the ships.
I got in home that night at 7pm.
I was by this time engaged to Cliff and he very often came home on a 48 hour pass to find me scrubbing the floors. He said one day âAs soon as I am de-mobbed we are getting married because I canât stand the way you are being used as a maidâ
It was a grim Christmas Eve in 1948 because Cliff had come to spend Christmas with me and my family.
A row developed between my father and mother which involved my eldest brother.
He wasnât there because he had started courting and had gone to his woman friendâs house for Christmas.
Cliff and myself were in the front room while my parents were going at it hammer and tongs in the living room.
Cliff said that he would go and have a word with them to ask them to tone it down because it was Christmas Eve. I told him to stay out of it because knowing my mother she would not appreciate it.
However he still decided to try.
I heard him knock on the door and say â Ma and Pop, will you call a truce because its Christmas time.â SILENCE
Then my mother yelled at the top of her voice âWho asked you to come and interfere between my husband and me you ginger haired git. When I want your bleeding advice I will ask you for it.â
Oh my word I felt SO sorry for Cliff.
He came back with his face as red as the hair on his head as I said, âI told you NOT to.â
Not a happy Christmas at all that year.
However Cliff was due to be de-mobbed in the June of 1949 and he said that as soon as he was and got a job he would find us rooms so that we could get married.
One day while working at the pen factory the usual visit came from Andrews the Scottish owner. I had a box of rejects at the side of me and the foreman picked them up and put one of my cards in it.
It was just as Andrews came to him and took one out to examine it that I realised what had happened. The foreman was a brown noser and always tried to look busy doing nothing of importance when Andrews did his rounds.
All of a sudden Andrews shouted out âWhat effing rubbish is this? Who the so-and-so hell is MJ?â I stood up and said, âI am and that was a box of rejects that he ( as I pointed to the foreman ) has picked up just to look busy. I would appreciate it if you did not eff and blind at me because I can do the same. If you pulled him ( pointing to the foreman ) down from where he had crawled up your ae and if he was any sort of a man he would tell the truth and he would say what he has done.â
Andrews looked at me agog and said âGet down to my office.â This I did but had to go down three flights of steps while he made his way down on the lift.
As I walked in his office I was expecting my cards.
I wondered if I was hearing correctly because Andrews said âI just wanted to tell you that I like a person with spirit and you lassie have it. I admire you for sticking up for yourself and I DO know what Bill (the foreman ) is like. Now take yourself back upstairs and letâs forget it.â
I went upstairs in a dream because I had never known a boss like that.
From then on he always made a point of saying âGood Morningâ to me and when he found out that I was getting married and I would be leaving he came to me and told me to get my coat because he was taking me to get my wedding present.
He bought me a beautiful Persian carpet that measured 7ft wide by 8ft.
He even had it delivered to my home.
Life is full of surprises.
âŠ
If ever I went for a new job way back then I had to take with me some sort of document for character reference and the only thing I had was my school leaving letter which I still have although rather dog eared.as you can see. I hope you can read it.
âŠ
A short message to all who have been reading about the first years of my life.
Tomorrowâs chapter covers our farcical wedding day and is THE last chapter of the book I had published that you have read on here.
I hope you have enjoyed your trip back in time and for those who have asked me if the book is still obtainable I can say that it IS but it does not have all the photos and extra information in it as I have put on here.
Originally it wasnât meant to be because I just wanted it for my family and any ancestors to give them some insight as to life way back in the 30s and 40s.
When the chap who got it printed for me read it he was so impressed because it was local history and he suggested getting a few copies printed. I finally decided to dedicate any proceeds after printing costs taken out to my local Childrens Hospice. I am happy to say that it has raised quite a large sum over the years towards equipment for these youngsters who have a very short lifespan.
I have been asked if I wrote any more books and had I had them published. Yes I have and what I have had done all proceeds go to charity.
I have also written about the ups and downs from when hubby and I finally got wed and found somewhere to live in Loughborough at that time, although it was rented rooms. It takes the reader through the years and how things have changed and what life had in store for us.
It certainly was not a dull life and many comical as well a serious happenings have been filed but I never got round to getting them published because I broke my other hip in three places in 2015 when hubby was at the peak of the rotten Dementia.This left me very disabled and with having Osteoporosis for over 50 years my bones have got very fragile so after losing my lovely hubby in 2016 I kept in touch with the outside world with my computer.
I realise my contribution to the group is not to everyoneâs taste but the offer is there if you want me to carry on with any tales from the last 6 decades.
Keep Well and safe everyone.
Brilliant
I look forward to reading this every day 
Thanks folks.
Not sure what has happened to the post because some of it is in bold print⊠Flumoxxed .
Shouldnât worry about that. Computers have a mind of their own 
CHAPTER TWELVE
OUR WEDDING DAY.
The year of 1948 passed very quickly and it would not be long now before Cliff would be de-mobbed. Not only was I looking forward to him being at home I also wanted to get away from the incessant rows between my mother and father because I was the one who cleaned up after them.
Not a very good atmosphere to live in but funnily enough no one could say anything bad about my mother to my father and it was the same with my mother about my dad.
They could knock hell out of each other but NO one dare interfere.
They were both fiercely loyal to each other.
It was their life I suppose and their way of keeping the adrenalin going.
They were married for 59 years.
In the August of 1949 Cliff visited me saying that he had two rooms for us in Loughborough and we could get married as soon as we could get the banns called.
So from then on it was all systems go.
I told my family and my mother decided to start putting an odd tin of Spam and various other tinned stuff away for that day.
I do believe that many folk thought that because it was so quick it was a shotgun wedding but it definitely wasnât. Cliff had kept his promise when he said that once he got a job he would find rooms for us and we would be married.
My youngest brother had been demobbed by this time and he was engaged to a young lady named Beryl who worked her way up over the years and became a lecturer at Lewisham College. She wrote books on advanced needlework and became well known for her bead work.
She was a beautiful dressmaker and although she was younger than myself she made my dress and the bridesmaid dresses within two weeks. I had to beg clothing coupons to get the material for the dresses and the shoes.
I had just a very plain âAâ line dress just below the knee with peeped toe high-heeled shoes. My bouquet was Chrysanthemums.
The bridesmaids wore a deep turquoise blue with smaller bouquets.
Cliff wore his brown de-mob suit.
Beryl was my chief bridesmaid and Cliffâs sister was the other.
It was nothing spectacular because we neither had the coupons nor the money to have fantastic doâs.
They were not heard of years ago. You had to make do with the front room as the reception hall.
While I was in Loughborough for the few months when I left home, my eldest brother got married in a registry office to which NONE of his family were invited.
He and his wife did come to my wedding but I was on pins in case he had too much to drink and started a fracas. As luck would have it they did not stop. It sounds nasty, I know, but Billy had come back from Burma with SO much aggression, it was unbelievable the way he treated the family.
The day dawned bright and clear on the 17th of September 1949.
We were to be married at 4pm at St Pauls Church, Peckham. It was post war years and we were still on rations.
My mother had been round to all those she knew to see if they had any spare food coupons to make up a buffet of sorts.
The London barrow boys had been a great help because when they knew I was getting married they supplied cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce and many other vegetables to go into a salad.
Our house in London was where the street market used to be so the barrow boys had got to know us, especially when I took cups of tea out to them when the weather was bitterly cold.
If they knew I was in any time they used to shout out âGet on the joanna ( piano or as they said it pianner) and give us a tune Gal.â They were a great bunch.
My future husbandâs two brothers, sister and his mother were to arrive at 11am at St. Pancras Station.
No problem there because they all arrived on time ready for a bite to eat and change their clothes after a quick wash.
My future hubbyâs father didnât come because he classed me as a foreigner.
Meanwhile, my father had gone off for a drink at the nearest public house with his brothers. My mother was cursing him up hill and down dale because he had gone and left her to it. She, with the help of my sister conjured up quite an edible array of goodies for the guests to come back to.
No fancy receptions in those days, apart from the fact we could not afford them even if we could have had one.
My mother brightened up when my father came home with his brothers laden with eight crates of beer. Where to put them was another problem in case anyone tripped over them. They finished up in the scullery stacked on he side of the old copper. Problem solved we thought.
By 3-30pm everyone had gone to the church and it just left my father and myself.
At 3-40pm the wedding car drew up outside the door and as I emerged all 10 of the barrow boys were lined up singing âThere was I, waiting at the church.â
It was hilarious because all the pedestrians stopped to see what was going off. After the door was opened on the wedding car by the biggest barrow boy my father and myself got in to start the journey to the church to clanking of tin cans that some bright spark had tied to the carâs rear bumper.
With much clattering and shouts of âGood Luck, Galâ from the boys we proceeded on our way. We arrived at the church dead on 3-55pm.
Once in church, my father, who was usually very particular to make sure he had his hanky was turning round asking who had got all the b****y hankies?
He had one in his top pocket just peeping out as they used to wear them years ago but evidently he had come out without the one that my mother had put on the piano for him. My mother was ready to slay him for blaspheming in church.
My mother started crying her eyes out and the ceremony had not even started. Someone fainted in one of the pews and was being administered with smelling salts. We finally managed to say our vows and get out to have our photos taken.
Was I glad to be going back home!
The wedding proceeded with the buffet and a speech from the best man (my brother) and when we had all had enough to eat the room was cleared for the typical Cockney knees up after we had all come back from the pub.
We went to my fatherâs Uncle who owned a pub, which was a tram ride away so the whole wedding party filled one flipping tram to go and make merry.
When it was chucking out time from the pub we had the same journey back on the tram.
As soon as we got in someone got on the piano and started playing all the songs that the Londoners liked and could have a knees up to.
When it got to 1am, some of the guests had dwindled and I thought they had gone home. It was only when I went through the long passage I found quite a few sitting on the stairs in a drunken stupor.
The others were still making merry and suddenly there was an almighty crash from the scullery. Someone had not put the copper lid on the boiler properly where the beer was situated and about 12 bottles fell in smashing the flipping lot.
All this took place at 2-30am but funnily enough it never woke those who were sound asleep on the stairs.
By 3-30am Cliff and I were ready for bed and the wedding bed was on the top storey of the house. We bid goodnight to those who were still supping ale and made our way to the bedroom. Oh Boy! Did we get a surprise because there were four people in it already snoring their heads off, two at the top and two at the bottom of the double bed. They were all women thank goodness.
The bed was sagging down with the weight of all four folk and was hitting the chamber pot underneath the bed, which with every movement was clanking and pinging.
We started giggling and decided to leave them to it so down we trotted much to my motherâs surprise. She said that she would get us a bed to lie on and promptly marched upstairs in to her own bedroom where my father and his two brothers were snoring their heads off in the double bed. My mother tried to waken them but with SO much beer down their throats they were dead to the world. I have to say here that in those days we used to have what was known as a palliasse ( a mattress filled with horsehair ) as the base on the bed which covered the springs and on top of that was a flock mattress.
My mother was SO cross that she could get no answer from the three stooges, as she called them, she performed a superhuman feat by just grabbing the flock mattress and lifting it high up in the air.
All three men fell out of the bed on to the floor with such a thud and the bewilderment on their faces was a picture. I was in the room with my mother as all this was taking place. There I was at 4am doubled up with laughing.
I could not even help my mother with the flock mattress as she struggled down to the kitchen in a temper and threw it on the floor by the kitchen table, saying triumphantly, âThere you are you can get a few hours kip on thatâ I had heard of some queer places in my time to sleep but for a wedding night ( what was left of it ) to be spent on the kitchen floor lying on a flock mattress.
WELL.!!!
By this time though Cliff and I were absolutely shattered and decided to make the best of it. My mother came in with a blanket to cover us over.
The time was 4-30am. We certainly were not in the mood for any conjugal consummation because we could not stand up with tiredness never mind anything else.
We both dropped off into a very restless sleep because I had the chrome fender up my bottom that went round the fire hearth and Cliff kept banging his head on the table leg.
At 6-30am we were rudely awakened from our troubled slumber by my brother-in law who practically stood on our heads to get the cups and saucers out to make some tea.
Then someone came in for the sugar.
Then some other person came in for the plates.
It was like a bus station with SO many folk wandering in and out.
We had enough by 7am and decided to get up but we had to barricade the door while we got dressed.
After we were up it was another performance to get some hot water to have a wash. This in itself was a work of art because we had no bathroom and we were queuing up to use the kitchen to get washed with hot water from the kettle.
We were going back to the Midlands on the lunchtime train where we had two rooms to live in. We had also got to struggle with the massive carpet that my old boss had bought me.
It was a good job that Cliffâs brothers were with us to help carry the load because we all travelled back to Loughborough together.
I must mention here that we had 5 teapots bought us for wedding presents.
We were still on rations so the teapots would last us a ruddy lifetime.
Houses were in very short supply after WW2 so we were lucky to get two rooms with a married couple who had four children.
That is the story of my wedding day but to top it all we had paid the photographer ÂŁ7-10 shillings for the photos but we never got them because we found out the photographer owed quite a lot of money to the landlord and he did a runner. We only got two proofs.
We had been married for three weeks when I heard on the radio that all weddings that took place after 4pm were not legal.
Oh Blimey! I got panicky because I could not go through that farce again.
I went to our local National Insurance office to find out about this. I could not phone them because poor folk never had a phone.
I was very relieved to know that we were in the time limit. Ours took place dead on 4pm.
Donât ask me why it was illegal after 4pm. I have no idea. I think that rule has been lifted now though.
It gave my hubby and I many laughs over the years when we look back because he said who could get amorous with a table leg bashing their head at every move.
We will have been married 56 years in this year of 2005 if the Lord spares us.
,
Since writing the above hubby and I had 67 years together although he never knew me for the last 18 months of his life due to the rotten Dementia.
Photo of hubby and I just about to cut the cake below.
Thankyou all again and to Admin for allowing the tales to be put on here.
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Beautiful story and a beautiful couple, Maywalk. 
You look beautiful in your wedding photo, and Cliff looks very handsome. Thank you so much for sharing this with us,I have really enjoyed reading your story. 
Beautiful story beautiful couple
