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The Time Capsule - Working Life

Working for the Post Office, 1914

This story is about my Auntie Nell, who is 102, (103 on July 2nd).
 
During World War 1, her brother (my late Uncle Bill), was in the army.  All of my mother's generation remember him coming back from the trenches infested with lice.
 
While he was away my Auntie Nell went to work at the Post Office in Horseley Heath, Tipton, (now Sandwell).  She told me how she had to pay so many pennies a week to purchase her own bicycle and also how, if the telegram she delivered contained good news, she would always get a penny tip, but if not....
 
She is very frail now, but still remembers those days as if they were yesterday, even though she sometimes cannot remember what happened yesterday.
 
I hope my generation will remember their youth with such fondness - mine being the 1960s - a very good time to be young, because although Auntie Nell's generation endured two world wars, the Depression and a poor standard of living, they did seem to be so much more content with their lot than we are today.  I don't think they knew what 'stress' was - or did they?
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