大象传媒

In 1940 my widowed mother got a cleaning job, she was told she would have to take a turn at Fire-Watching. This meant that my mother had to go out at 2am and leave my sister Ray who was 11, and myself who was 3 asleep in bed.

My mother thought that we children slept through and didn鈥檛 realise that she had gone. Until one night she tried to get out of bed to go on duty, but realised something was holding her back. Upon investigating she realised Ray ( who shared the double bed with her ) had tied the straps of her night-dress to the straps of my mothers nightdress.
My mother did her Fire-Watch stint, but the next day she saw the manager and told him she could no longer do the job, as she could no longer leave her young children in the middle of the night to Fire-Watch.

鈥淵oung Children鈥� the manager said. 鈥� I didn鈥檛 know you had young children, you don鈥檛 need to Fire-Watch Mrs Jess. Anyone who has to leave children alone are exempt.鈥�

At the time of taking the job my mother was afraid to say she had children in case they didn鈥檛 give her the job. She was desperate to supplement her income from the State which was 18 shillings weekly. 10 shillings for her, 5 shillings for Ray and 3 shillings for me.

This story was submitted to the Peoples war site by Rod Aldwinckle of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Marion Jess and has been added to the site with her permission.. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions

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