I remember, when I was a small child, playing with my two sisters, Esme and Lily.  Esme was four years older than me, and Lily was six years older.

We used to play with Lily’s friend Masie Gee; she lived down the bottom end of our street, Doverfield Road (Brixton).  We used to dress up in the old clothes that her mother gave us and I felt very grand with high heeled shoes and a chiffon scarf tied around my waist!  Trouble was, when we played ‘mothers and fathers’ because I was the youngest I was always made to be the baby and had to lie on the couch and pretend to be asleep.

We were invited by Masie’s mother to her birthday party, and when we arrived there were two little boys and two little girls.  We all sat around the table and were given ‘seed cake’ and a cup of tea, but we didn’t like the black seeds in the cake and thought it was a rotten party!  We were expecting jelly and cream and iced cakes.

We played games after tea and there was one game that I remember quite well.  Masie’s mum put some things in a line on the floor; a vase, an ashtray, a book and a bag.  We were taken out of the room and a scarf was put around our eyes.  We ere then to be led back into the room and told to carefully step over the objects;  if we could do so without knocking any over we would win a prize!

Of course, unknown to the person blindfolded, the objects had been taken away leaving the blindfolded victim wobbling and stepping over nothing at all, much to the amusement of those watching!

We became excited as we waited blindfolded outside, wondering what was happening’ and more excited still as the first little boy was taken in.  Suddenly, there was a scream and the sound of loud crying from inside.  We snatched off our blindfolds and looked at each other with scared faces.  Whatever was going on in there we were not going to wait to find out, and we went running out of the front door and down the road.

Our mother was surprised to see us back so quickly as the party was supposed to last from three to six o clock and we were home at four!  Of course, Masie and her mother couldn’t make out where all the children had got to.  When she came to our house a little later on to find out what had happened, she and my mother laughed fit to bust.  The little boy had only fallen over and hurt his knee!

I’m sad to say that in the 1939 – 1945 war, Masie Gee was blinded by window glass shattering in her face from the blast from a bomb which fell at the end of our road.  She was only sixteen.

I remember next door to us lived a widow called Mrs Hardbattle.  She had two daughters about thirty and thirty five, neither of whom were married.  Their house inside was kept very tidy; not a cushion out of place, and the floors and tables were highly polished.

She used to get me to do her errands for her.  I wanted to just hand the shopping over and be off with my friends to play, but she would always make me go in and sit down while she put all the things in her cupboard.  She took ages it seemed to me!  I would be sitting on the edge of her chair so that I wouldn’t crumple her cushion.

Then she would come in holding a penny and tell me “to be a good girl and help my mother”.  She would hold the penny out but not let got of it.  So there we were, me holding half of the penny and she the other half; and all the time I had to keep saying “thank you very much, yes, I do help my mummy, thank you”.

Looking at her pictures and photos hanging on the walls while she talked, I saw they were all of old people and her two daughters looking very stern.  It seemed such a relief to me when she finally gave me the penny and I walked out as quickly as I could.

When I was younger – not yet old enough to run errands, my sister and I would play in our garden with a ball, bouncing it up the wall.  Often it would go over the top into Mrs Hardbattle’s garden.  I could never get her name right; I would yell out “Mrs Handbottle, can we have our ball back?”

My father had a fish pond in the back garden and he was very proud of his garden was my dad.  We had a nice lawn and flower beds, a rockery and a lovely arch of roses over the path leading to the back gate.

Anyway, to return to the fishpond.  Dad spent quite a bit of money on his fish and one day he found them floating dead on the surface.  He soon discovered the reason; Mrs Hardbattle had been spraying her roses and the spray had drifted over and settled on the pond!  When dad complained to her she became cross too.  “Picking on an old widow woman”, she said.

I remember we had a cat called ‘Tiddles’.  She had four kittens and one day they fell into the fishpond.  My mother got them out and wrapped them in a towel and then put them in front of the coal fire.  When they dried out they were like little balls of fluff, there were so sweet!

The night before Tiddles was expecting her kittens; my mother shut her in the cupboard under the stairs with an old blanket to keep her warm and cosy, and a saucer of milk.  When she started to give birth of course she cried a lot.  Esme and I thought mother was very cruel and nasty shutting Tiddles up in the cupboard!  When everyone had gone to bed we crept downstairs and let her out.

You can imagine the mess the next morning when mother came downstairs; there on her best armchair was Tiddles with her four little kittens and all of the mess that came with them.

As well as Tiddles we had two budgies.  Dad used to let them fly around the room; my sister couldn’t bear it and she would hide under the table.  One day one of the budgies landed on her head and she had a screaming fit!

Esme was the sister I played with the most.  We used to sit in the evening around the table;  my mother with her sewing machine making a patchwork quilt, or making a nightdress for us, or clothes for our dolls.  My sister Lily would read a book while Esme was knitting and my father and I played cards.  Dad used to put his records on; it was so nice and cosy in the winter with the big lights turned off.
 
My dad had a wind-up gramophone record player and a big collection of records, mostly classical, but a few he had bought for us children.  I remember ‘Play Fiddle Play’, ‘The Good Ship Nancy Lee’, ‘A Couple of Soldiers My Baby and Me’, ‘The Floral Dance’ and ‘Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?’  The records were not like the ones you buy today, they were made of black acetate (a bit like plastic) and were big, about 12 inches across.  The gramophone was quite loud and didn’t need electricity to make it work.  But you had to keep winding it up after every record.

My dad’s older brother and all of our cousins lived right next door to us.  Uncle Fred and Auntie Maude had three girls and one boy; all of them quite a lot older than us girls.  I remember one day I went to play next door with my youngest cousin.  I was three or four and she was ten years old.  She sat me down and we played hairdressers.  She cut a lot of my hair off! I didn’t mind and was eating some sweets she had given me.  When my mother saw me she was hopping mad.  “All your lovely curls gone!”  Mum gave next door a good telling off!

My dad had three more brothers; one was called Jack, he was single and always in hospital.  He had brain damage from the army; his friends (so called) were playing about and threw him up in a blanket and he came down on his head.  He had, so I was told, a bit of bone pressing against his brain.

The next brother was called Walter.  He lived down the end of our road and had one son.  The next was Will and he lived at Morden and had a son and daughter.  He was the show-off of the family, the one always playing the fool.  Then came my dad, George and then Fred who lived next door.  They were all taxi drivers.

Dad always took us out on Sundays for a run in the country.  People in the small villages were not used to seeing a London taxi cab and used to stare at us.

I remember dad taking us to Oxford and Cambridge and seeing quite young boys of eight or ten all dressed up in top hats and striped trousers.  My sisters and I giggled at them, they looked so funny to us!  My father was a good family man; didn’t drink, maybe sometimes just one when we went for a drive out somewhere on a Sunday.

Mum and us children would sit in the pub garden and dad would bring us some drinks and crisps.  He never smoked either, but he did like a drink called ‘Tizer’.   He had quite a passion for that and another drink called ‘Zesto’ which he also used to like.

I remember we went to a place called Whitstable and on the way we had a picnic just by the taxi, sitting on the grass.  My sisters and I went running into a field to pick some flowers and I trod in a cow’s pancake!  I went crying back to mum and she cleared it up.  What a thing to be a mother, the things they do for their children.

Later on when I went to work as a helper at a children’s nursery, I was combing a little girl’s hair; I didn’t realize that some of the little ones had nits!  Of course I caught them too and my poor mother had to clean my hair for two weeks before I got rid of them.  She wouldn’t let me go back to work at the nursery after all that trouble.  

Secondary School

When I was eleven, I was sent to Lyam Road Secondary School.  My first teacher there was called Miss Groves; when she asked my name she said “oh yes, your sister Esme Jones was in my class.  Well, I hope you are better at spelling”, but I wasn’t!

When we were older we were sent to cookery classes.  We were not taught the basic things such as good egg dishes or how to cook potatoes in different ways, or how to make neat dishes or salads; it was all silly things like coconut cake or jellies.

We also had Domestic Science (housework!) classes.  It was ridiculous really.  The teacher would say, “Now girls, I want you to bring some dirty aprons and handkerchiefs in and we will teach you how to wash them.”  Well of course most of the mums were far too proud to send dirty washing to the school and would send clean and neatly ironed aprons, towels and hankies ……… so we didn’t learn much in that class either.

I’m sure that if my schools had had much smaller classes we could have learnt more and I would have more knowledge that I have now.  My sister Lily’s spelling was good, but Esme’s and mine were and still is terrible!

My sister Lily was very good at spelling, English and lots of other things, but Esme and I were not.  Lily was the clever one at school.  She went to night school and was taught typing and shorthand and when she left school, she got a job over in the West End with a firm called Jaegar.  They had a chain of clothes shops and were famous for their skirts.

Our House

I remember my father and mother’s house, Doverfield Road in Brixton Hill.  It was a terraced house, quite big inside.

My bedroom, which I shared with my sister Esme, was quite a good size and looked out onto my father’s well-kept garden.  Under the big sash windows was a dressing table with a large oval looking glass and little drawers either side and three larger drawers underneath for clothes.  We had a big double bed with brass knobs at each corner.  Sometimes they would glow in the dark, and we would imagine that they were eyes looking at us and hide under the bed clothes.

Along the wall facing the bed was a marble top table with pretty green tiles and pink roses along the back.  On this table was a lovely big water bow, a washing basin and soap dish.  Underneath the marble top was a cupboard to keep towels in.  We never actually used the marble top wash table because we had a bathroom.

Next to the marble top table was the fireplace which was only used if we had colds or were ill.  On the other side of the fireplace was a big cupboard where my mother kept her cleaning brushes and dusters;  then came a large wardrobe with a full length mirror on the outside of the door.  There were two or three chairs around the room, and lino (linoleum) on the floor with big rugs on either side of the bed and in front of the fireplace.

We had very long, thick curtains with small lace curtains covering the lower half of the windows.

On the wall at the back of our bed there was a lovely picture of Lady Hamilton (Lord Nelson’s lover) cuddling her small daughter.  On the wall above the marble top table was a picture of a woman in a light, long flowing dress, standing on a balcony looking out at the Adriatic Sea.

In our bathroom there was a big white bath, a white wash basin and a toilet; a high wall cistern with a long chain which had a small rubber ball on the end.  One wall was completely covered with a mirror; about four feet high and four feet wide.  We had a big airing cupboard and the bathroom floor was covered in lino with a rug by the bath.  I think we had a copper boiler over the sink which gave lukewarm water.

The little bedroom which looked out onto the street belonged to my sister Lily.  The furniture was all wicker:  dressing table, small table and chair.  Her single bed was made of wood of course.  I remember that her wallpaper was delightful; very small birds of different species and peacocks here and there.

I must have been a little nuisance because when Lily was out I would go into her room and look at and touch her things.  She had wonderful things like cut glass scent sprays, little pots of mysterious powders, sweet little dolls and lots of pictures and books to look at.   She would complain to our mum; “That Elsie’s been at my things again”.  Poor Lily!

In our front room was a beautiful mahogany sideboard with an oval mirror.  There was a mahogany table, a soft couch with a drop end, mahogany armchairs and a big wide fireplace with two mantle shelves;  one high up near the ceiling and one lower down. The fireplace incorporated a half oval mirror and had holly leaves and buds carved in white columns at either side.  There were green ceramic tiles on the inner side of the white wood columns and also on the hearth floor.  The fireplace was quite lovely, but instead of a coal fire it had a big electric fire with imitation coals on top.

The ceiling had a plaster frieze around the edge and a rose in the middle around the electric light.  The room had a large bay of six windows, one of which looked out onto the porch.  The windows had long, white lace curtains and inside the bay were two lovely pale blue lace curtains draped back.

We had a large glass bookcase with some really beautiful books in them and a mahogany standard lamp.  On the sideboard were two cut glass sherry or wine decanters, really quite beautiful.  Also a Royal Doulton vase and pot for flowers and a pretty white marble figure of a lady doctor.  There was also a lovely wooden pedestal, always with a vase of flowers on top.  It was a beautiful room, but always so cold!  We had no central heating radiators or any other form of heating except for a coal fire.  We always wore lots of clothes inside the house except in summer.

Our staircase was nice too.  You walked along from the front door to about the middle of the hall and then turned to walk upstairs.  At the bottom of the stairs was a polished wood balustrade with a flat top on which was another white marble figure of a woman reading a book.  In the hall I remember a mahogany coat stand with a mirror, a glove box and wooden umbrella stand.  There were pictures of Scotland with cattle grazing in the heather and hills in the background.