大象传媒

We had neither a radio nor did we take a daily newspaper, so we did not know about the events leading to the declaration of the war. Just before the saying of Mass at St Edmund鈥檚 Church on Sunday, 3rd September 1939, the priest turned to us to say that we would be going into the adjacent school to hear an important announcement after the service had finished. Seated in front of a crackling radio, I heard Neville Chamberlain鈥檚 unfamiliar voice, which sounded like a throat infection: I was hearing an upper class accent for the first time. After a short time I remember a woman sitting near me who sobbed throughout his words and let out a loud cry when he said: 鈥淭his country is now at war with Germany.鈥� The priest, still in his brightly coloured vestments, seemed to glow in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Normally, when people left the church, possibly because of the relief from the Latin they did not understand, they created a buzz and the men talked of going to the pub. However, this time they left the school in an atmosphere of stunned silence. Many, no doubt, had fought in the 1914-18 War, or had suffered because of it, and were dreading the horror to come.

Later during the sunny afternoon, the men felt that they had to do something and occupied themselves filling countless sandbags to place against the ground level of our block of flats. I recall them saying what they would like to do to Hitler in the swearing language that I knew so well. Of course, as the future bombing would prove, the placing of sandbags at ground level would give limited protection from the blasts of bombs but would be useless if the building had received a direct hit. Our block was among the many houses and flats built in the very watery area of the Isle of Dogs, created by the natural U-bend of the Thames and the man-made Millwall and West India Docks. In such a terrain, shelters were not possible. At this time there were hardly any deep shelters in the East End: an obvious target for aerial bombing because of the vast docklands and industrial sites of many kinds. A week after the bombing started irate East Enders broke into the shelter of the Savoy Hotel in protest. The possibility of rioting later forced the authorities to open up the Tube as shelters.

After the excitement of the 3rd September, stalemate prevailed. Different tones of a nearby siren, 鈥榩ending raid and all clear,鈥� sounded regularly in what turned out to be rehearsals or false alarms. The arrival of the elephant shapes of many silver coloured barrage balloons, the size of double-decker buses, the issue of gasmasks and talk of unfulfilled danger gave this period the name of the phoney war. My father, hitherto always worried about lack of work and the temporary nature of dock employment, found himself with an almost regular job. We were often gathered together in the school hall and were told of our pending evacuation many times. I remember one teacher always making a circular movement over her stomach while she said: 鈥淒on鈥檛 forget to ask your parents to give you something to eat for your long train journey.

In June 1940 I heard everybody talking about Dunkirk in anxious voices. This clamour is associated in my mind with a label being pinned to my jacket and being driven by bus to Paddington Station with two of my sisters. (my youngest sister, only two years old, had to remain behind.). Leaving home was not a shock to me. I had spent periods in hospital for scarlet fever and other illnesses and had been sent to either LCC or Catholic homes on account of mother's frequent need to be in hospital or as a refuge from damp, bug-ridden, stinking privately rented houses. My view of life was largely the deprivation and the limited experience of the East End. It does seem implausible to me now that as a child I was not taken to see the City of London and the West End. I was so near, and yet so far, from knowing the splendour of one of the most culturally rich cities of the world.

As we travelled southwest towards Cornwall, my face was glued to the carriage window to experience the external beauty of the sunlit landscape and, in particular, the tempting sandy beaches of Devon. Although we did not know it, our destination was Truro. As we stood in a hall waiting to be allocated to our respective families, I know now how shabby we must have looked. People looked at us and turned away. As the numbers thinned, we three were almost alone in the hall. I learned later that giving to Dr Barnardo鈥檚 was done locally and this fact created a prejudice and a reluctance to take in the East End children. Within a few days of our arrival, I heard a man call us 鈥渂loody evacuees.鈥�

A Salvation Army family called Berridge eventually took us by the hand to their big house near the city centre I found out it was a B& B for lorry drivers. Mr and Mrs Berridge and their daughter were nice people. The daughter鈥檚 husband had just been called up and she was very sad. A few days after we arrived Mrs Berridge told me that she was annoyed because my school, with little tact, had informed her that she had Roman Catholic children and must not take them to non-Catholic places of worship. Whether or not she had any intention of taking us to the Citadel I do not know but I presumed that the tone of the letter suggested the inferiority of her own belief and it was this thoughtlessness that had offended her.

After a few weeks with the Berridges, I began to appreciate the regular meals, my clothes being washed, the availability of frequent baths and the novelty of a big house. All these factors gave me the unique feeling of well being. Until then I had rarely sat on a soft chair or walked on a carpet. The fresh air of Truro was a contrast to the foul air of the Isle of Dogs. I felt a sense of wonderment when I discovered the Victoria Gardens, which, apart from the occasional trains on the overlooking viaduct, was a quiet, colourful place. Although I did not know it, I was having my first experience of a sub-tropical garden. My eyes, instead of seeing wharves, high walls, the activities of the docks and all the accompanying noise and dullness, were looking at a small, attractive Georgian City situated on the banks of a river. My ears told me that the local people were speaking with a different sound and also with some expressions that I know now to have been dialect. Repetition, facial expression and placing the words with those I knew led me gradually towards full understanding.

During the summer holidays my idyll was interrupted by a visit of my parents. I am not sure what happened, people then did not explain things to children. I had the feeling that my stupid father did not want his children to remain with Salvationists. Of course, it is possible that the Berridges needed our rooms to accommodate more drivers, so we had to leave. I was very unhappy. During my final year in Cornwall I decided to see Truro again to relive my pleasure of 1940. I called on the Berridges: they were pleased to see me.

In October 1940, we found ourselves being driven south to Pool near Redruth to live with a Roman Catholic family called the Johns. They lived in a flat above their recently closed fish and chip shop. Mr Johns had closed the business in order to do war work in the nearby Climax Works to help to make engineering parts for the weapons of war. I was no stranger to nauseating smells but I found the strong stench from the aftermath of fried food in all parts of the house hard to accept: there was no escape from it. I had the feeling that the Johns were displeased with being burdened with three children and soon found some excuse to get rid of us. They took us to church, placed us in a Catholic school but were indifferent without being hostile. As there were not enough volunteers to take all the evacuees, the billeting officer had the power, if friendly words of persuasion failed, to employ his compulsory authority to force people that had the space to take in children. Although this is clear, I do not understand why it was so easy for people, often without a good reason, to hand the children back to the billeting officer. Evelyn Waugh, in his novel 鈥楶ut Out More Flags鈥� writes about the payment of bribes.

In November 1940, we moved to Tuckingmill near Camborne. I was placed with a family called Knowles while my sisters were billeted with Mrs Edwards, a nearby relative. In the Knowles household there were two sons of about my age. Tony, the older one, was described by his father as very clever while his brother, Walter, was not commented upon at all. Walter, somewhat unusual, had a strange shape like Humpty Dumpty. He accepted me as a constant companion. I was often needed to be his congregation while he pretended to be a Methodist local preacher. Walter could not understand why I did not know what was so familiar to him. At the time I began to suffer from a severe headache that would not go away. The chill air and the winter sun made my eyes water, as well as very sore. Presents and cards at Christmas and birthdays were unknown to me. To be given a card and a construction kit as a present was an unexpected pleasure. The Knowles were fine but there was conflict between them about the children. I suppose Walter caused them great concern. Just after Christmas 1940 I became suddenly very ill. After a few days confined to bed, I was taken to hospital and then to Barnchoose in Redruth to await reallocation. My ears heard the word workhouse. I believe part of the building was still being used to take care of the old and infirm who had become destitute. (From my reading I have learned that in 1939 there were still 100,00 people in workhouses. The system finally closed in 1950: twenty years after 1930 Act abolished them) I learnt later that such people came from families who had either abandoned them or lived too far away to offer them help.

I noted the arrival of the early Cornish spring. The new buds, becoming flowers, were a signal that a new life was about to happen to me. One morning I was called to meet a smiling, very Cornish sounding, middle-aged man. His name was William Hayman, the billeting officer. He told me that he would immediately take me to a new home in Beacon. As I saw and then sat in his very small car I went on what I thought of later as a Mr Noddy journey, especially as I remembered that the car struggled to climb the steep Beacon Hill. Within five minutes I was in the terraced house of Charles and Evelyn Opie. Mrs Opie, having had a bad experience with a recently departed evacuee from Plymouth, was concerned that my arrival should not repeat the performance. In later years, Mrs Opie told me that I had stood like a zombie for a long time and it was with the greatest difficulty that she persuaded me to sit and have something to eat and drink. Either I had been discharged from hospital too early or I had gone beyond what I could endure.

The hospital had allowed me to leave without clean clothes. Mrs Opie, breaking her practice of a lifetime, deemed it necessary to make Tuesday also a washday. This break in her routine disoriented her so much that she left the electric iron on too long and it became discoloured. This upset her to the extent that she unsuccessfully asked my father for a replacement on the basis of if only, etc.

Within a few weeks of my arrival at the Opies, my parents came to see us in March 1941.
Again I was not involved in what was discussed about my future but at the end of their visit my two sisters returned to London with them while I was told to remain because I was still ill and too weak to return to London. My sisters have been tight lipped about the terrible experiences they had with their last two families in Camborne: it did involve corporal punishment, which meant they no longer wished to remain in Cornwall. A recent Radio 4 programme revealed that host families had physically and/or sexually abused 14% of the evacuees. It would be interesting to know if most or all of the abuse occurred in conscripted families. The sadness of the evacuation policy was that the supply of volunteers did not match the number of children. Were the people in the safe areas ignorant of the effect of bombing or was it the reality of 鈥榤an鈥檚 inhumanity to man?鈥� Such lack of concern meant that my sisters had to return to years of bombing, little schooling and the above average possibility of death or injury because, as I have already explained, of the inadequate shelters in the Isle of Dogs. In 1943, I was called back to see my sick mother. I had to suffer for six weeks what the rest of my family were suffering for years. I thought the sounds of sirens created a sinister chill within, the duet of the searchlights and the anti-aircraft guns did not stop the added noise of the exploding bombs. I was glad to return to Cornwall. Throughout their lives two of my sisters have had periods of mental illness. It is a matter of opinion how much can be attributed to their early deprivation, their evacuation, the years of bombing followed by the cruelty at the hands of the sisters in Nazareth House in Hammersmith?

Our move from Truro to the Camborne area meant that we were taken away from the children and teachers we knew. We were enrolled in a local school called St John鈥檚, which was situated on Beacon Hill just above Camborne Station. It was a small elementary school, of possibly sixty pupils with two teachers, Mrs Harrington and Sister Philomena. It was mixed and covered all abilities from five to fourteen. Sister Philomena, a violent and humourless woman, used the cane excessively. In the classroom, under her desk, were two dogs: one called Robin, a red setter and the other Bobby, a white Scots terrier. Both showed interest and maybe fear whenever they heard the swish of the cane. Sister Philomena always had the cane at the ready in one of the sleeves of her gown. I seldom knew why I was being caned. As a bad stammerer, I did not talk in class. Perhaps she caned me because I could do so little. However, I had rare moments of fluency if my mind was stimulated by something interesting. Once during the daily dose of boring catechism, she told us that we should love our enemies. My hand shot up and said; 鈥淒oes that mean the Germans sister?鈥� For that remark I was caned on both hands for what I thought was asking a serious question. The soreness, the pain and the anger created by caning brought all learning to an end for some time. Sister Philomena was teaching Roman Catholicism as fact and not faith. I recall her telling us that our church was the only true one (the present Pope recently said this) and that Protestants were not baptized or married because they had not received the genuine sacraments. My speech impediment allowed me to turn off the chanting of tables, which had all the din of saying the rosary. I was told to copy passages from the blackboard that I was unable to read and, therefore, did not understand. Spelling tests were based on lists of unrelated words whose meanings were never explained. I sat for long periods not knowing what to do. I recall there was a very large rug being made for a raffle for the convent summer fair. In class time, we filled the pattern by securing the many coloured strips of wool by using a special tool. I find it hard to believe that this was supposed to be the golden age of the 3Rs. I never saw teachers as friends: they were officials who gave orders. I cannot recall having a conversation with any teacher.

There were other evacuees in the school. A few came from Plymouth, there was a Maltese girl and there was a very pretty London girl who was rehearsed and dressed beautifully to sing 鈥楢lice Blue Gown鈥� to a visiting bishop. The local children wore a uniform but did not mix as group because of their large age range: they largely ignored the evacuees. Sister Philomena did not introduce us to the class nor did she rearrange the seating so that we could sit next to local children. My tatty clothes warranted a gift of a coat, boots and other items from a crate sent by the American Red Cross. Being an evacuee with an appearance of an American embarrassed me as well as ensuring that people noticed me. One older boy called John, a bully, took every opportunity to hit me because I looked vulnerable and so different.

It was my good fortune to have been able to live with Charles and Evelyn Opie from 1941 to 1945. They were a childless couple in their late forties. They had a pleasant, quiet relationship and lived for one another. I did not cause them any bother; so I was able to do most things I wanted to do without any opposition from them. They had never expected to bring up a child nor had they volunteered to take one. I had the impression that they saw looking after me as a matter of duty. They were a church-going, good living couple who had been well cared for by their parents. As time went by I found their extended family were equally as nice. They were simple, parochial people who, apart from one honeymoon night in Plymouth and few days Charlie had spent in London visiting his sick mother, had spent their entire lives in the Camborne area. I noticed the local people called the non-Cornish: 鈥淯p the Country People.鈥� My father either could not or would not add to the 8s or 10s a week evacuee allowance and this may have been the reason why I was initially an itinerant in Cornwall. During my father鈥檚 visit in March 1941, Mrs Opie did manage to get him to pay for a Sunday suit for me. Mrs Opie knitted socks for me, cut and made clothes to fit from what she had available and Charlie ensured my shoes were in good repair. Later when I had an after school job I was able to buy some new clothes. After a while I was to be reminded again that to come from the East End did carrying a stigma with those people who come easily to prejudice. Mrs Opie gave to Dr Barnardo鈥檚: this charity did depict a sorrowful, frightening image of East End children. My origin was mentioned in the presence of Mrs Opie. Her sister, Winnie, regularly came for a cup of tea and a game of seven-card whist on her way home after shopping in Camborne. Mrs Opie took me to whist drives, so I had learned to play the game. Winnie, sometimes played the cards incorrectly. I began to correct her, which eventually made her so furious that she said to me: 鈥淲hat do you know, you are from the slums of London.鈥� I replied: 鈥淵es, but it is not as bad as your back kitchen.鈥� Winnie sprang to her feet: the cards went everywhere. She said; 鈥淓velyn did you hear what he said.鈥� Mrs Opie replied; 鈥� Winnie, the child is right, the child is right.鈥� Winnie grabbed her coat and left: she returned a few weeks later. Evelyn told Charlie about the incident. He could not stop laughing.

Charlie was in many ways an interesting man. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker because he was partially a cripple. By the time I knew him he was largely a cobbler or what we called in the East End a snob. His left leg had chair leg thinness, leading to a large bunion on the upper sole of his foot, which he kept under control by the use of sandpaper. He made special boots for himself. Charlie had false teeth. I do not how usual it was for someone under fifty to have dentures at this time but Alan Bennett, speaking of his toothless parents in Leeds in the 1950s, said that working class people use to have their teeth removed to save dental bills in the future. I saw a lot of East End people with random stumps in their mouths, which must have meant the lack of dental treatment. He walked the mile journey to his shop four times a day to ensure that he kept healthy and did not go lame. He told me his medical for the 1914-1918 War was going fine until they got to his legs His footsteps had the sound of a delayed staccato echo. The Opies were conditioned by the work ethic. They spoke of getting by and being spared. Charlie use to leave the house by 7.30am, returned for lunch and finally came home at 10pm six days a week. Sundays and the bank holidays were his only free time: no annual holidays. Charlie鈥檚 shop had an appearance of chaos. He did not issue tickets: he pencilled the details on each sole. Often he did not have shoes ready on time. As he had a gracious, smiling subservient way of apologising, his customers were not offended. I watched anxiously as Charlie put handfuls of tacks or small nails into his mouth as the most effective way of quickly hammering the soles and heels to the shoes. I thought he was at risk when some one entered the shop to speak to him. Charlie did not have the multi-purpose machine of brushes, cutters etc, so he had to do everything by hand which I saw as a long process. Whenever I hear the Cobbler鈥檚 Song I think of Charlie. 鈥業 sit and cobble at slippers and shoes from rise of sun to set of moon.... Cobble as best I may, cobble all night and cobble all day.... For prince and pauper, poor and rich stand in need of cobbler鈥檚 stitch.鈥� Charlie鈥檚 favourite tune was the hymn with the words 鈥楢ll Things Bright and Beautiful.鈥�

On Sundays Charlie put his aside his working clothes to look splendid. He wore a tailored grey suit and overcoat, kid gloves, his best shining self-made boots and Homburg hat. With Evelyn, equally well dressed, he set off to the parish church. As a craftsman, it was natural that Charlie should want to wear other handmade clothes. The Opies had many good quality household items: their front room, as was the custom, was like a museum or showcase, for it was used for rare visitors and on special days, like Christmas, when it was decorated with holly. Sunday or bank holiday visits were exclusively made either to relatives or they came to them: no other people were invited. I believe that this was more to do with custom rather than rationing. During my stay two families invited me out to tea. Charlie and Evelyn had many acquaintances but no personal friends. Other than referring to their next-door younger neighbours by their first names, all other adults were spoken of and addressed in a formal way by them and they were spoken to in the same way. Evelyn鈥檚 main contact with her world was through the pages of the weekly West Britain, which she read, with the aid of a magnifying glass, while making appropriate remarks to Charlie. The newspaper augmented the news and gossip she had heard or had been told during the course of a week. I suppose the fear of being gossiped about either acted like a brake or taught people to be every careful.

Mrs Opie was as hard working as Charlie: his long working hours were made possible by
her understanding and effort. Her life was lived to a strict routine. The granite house had walls so thick that we did not hear the neighbours on either side. There were three bedrooms, a front room, and a living room, a scullery and outside lavatory by the backdoor. A tin bath was used weekly for baths; every time consuming many kettles of water. They were boiled on the regularly used primus stove, started by strong smelling ethylated spirit, and the coal-burning stove. The living room, with the oven, was the only heated room in the house. The feature of the room was a large black and white print of Mr Gladstone in audience with Queen Victoria. In winter at bedtime a parade of water bottles challenged the cold of the opened door and joined the chamber pots upstairs where there was no electricity. Evelyn鈥檚 life was lived to a set routine as if she was a human version of the seasons. Monday washday had all the features of an assault course; timed to be, if possible, to be completed in one day. With the boiling of clothes, the blue bag, the tub, the washboard, the rinsing, the mangle, the hanging out to dry and then the ironing. Were clothes cleaner then? Spring cleaning left no part of the house untouched, for the through cleansing was combined with the renewal of anything really shabby and the use of paint and distemper, wallpaper from within and without.

The long vegetable strip was Evelyn鈥檚 domain on account of Charlie鈥檚 disability. I was given the jobs of weeding, cutting the grass with hand shears and each August I was sent off among the derelict tin mines, with their ruined engine houses and numerous warning about mine workings, to pick blackberries in a big basket which seemed incapable of being filled. In my first week, Evelyn gave me a bucket to collect what I did not understand from the field near the house. I pick up what she had pointed. Having done nothing like this before in my life, with disgust on my face, I said to her, in my stammering way; 鈥淪hit.鈥� My word was received with amused shock. I was not allowed, nor did she teach me, to engage in the growing process.

Evelyn鈥檚 effort provided freshly cooked vegetables to accompany the dish of the day. Wednesday was always a pasty day, a self-contained meal with no sweet but tea with sugar. Pies were made from the garden or bought fruit in season or from the blackberries or other fruits she had bottled. Onions were bottled annually. There were homemade saffron buns and cake plus splits (bread rolls) with cream made from the daily milk from an adjacent farm. As a special treat, whenever the fisherman from Newlyn shouted his wares, we had marinated pilchards. Their delicious taste is still with me. Neither Charlie nor I were allowed to aid the preparation of meals, lay or clear the table wash up or do any of the housework. My daily tasks were to collect milk from the nearby farm, run errands for them and accompany Evelyn shopping or go with her to any activity while Charlie was working. At least she was no longer on her own. Of course, had I been a girl evacuee I would have been expected to do a lot more work. There was always plenty of food: I never heard the word shortages in Camborne.

At home I had been frequently ill, felt miserable, never really enjoyed my food, had hunger, invited fleas and had the urge to scratch. The overall effect of freshly cooked good food, limited sweets, always wearing clean clothes and having to walk a double return journey of a total of five miles to school each day gradually turned me into an healthy child but I was a long way from becoming a confident one. Before I came to Cornwall I was rarely given sweets, so even the 2.ozs wartime weekly ration did not attract me. I believe the sugar rationing helped to preserve teeth. In my lifetime I have just lost three of my teeth. In later years Mrs Opie used to tell me; 鈥淵ou never had a day of sickness while you were with us.鈥� It laid the foundation of good health throughout my life. Charlie smoked but the drinking of alcohol was seen as sinful. I assume that this was the legacy of Methodism. The restricted availability of good nutritional food improved the health of the nation. It is often said that the health of the nation improved during the 1939-45 war. It is evident today that people eat what they enjoy rather than eating the foods that ensure a sound body. However, it should be pointed out 50% of the pre-war families did not have enough money to feed themselves properly.

None of my teachers sought help for my stammer which concerned me far more than my
deprived origin. My inability to read and write well enough was never commented upon; so no remedial assistance was ever given. Even now if a child does not keep up, even if it is for unknown problem or lack of maturity, he or she can so easily fall behind bit by bit over the years. Our class-work was rarely looked at, corrections and answers were mostly given orally. No homework was ever set, no reports were ever written and parents鈥� evenings were never arranged. I believe the elementary schoolteachers I knew thought that we were factory or manual fodder who needed just the minimum. They were not highly educated or specialists and, I suppose, their job could be described as having, as we use to say in the army, all the marks of a cushy number.

Sister Philomena was becoming too much for me; so Mrs Opie had me enrolled at the Homer Row School for Boys from Marylebone. Mr Murphy, sometimes assisted by a nice young woman, presided over a school of about fifty: at this early stage of the war children must have been making their way back to London. Mr Murphy, a small man in his fifties, had an elaborate ritual with his cigarette holder before he decided to smoke. Instead of the cane, Mr Murphy mode of punishment was to hit the boys around the head. (I have always felt ill at ease with teachers who use violence.) His loud, smoke affected voice, though tuneful, dominated the Latin of the sung Mass. My time with Mr Murphy is a memory of long playtimes. I spent hours using a compass to design all sorts of patterns within circles, which I coloured in by using and mixing the colours in my paint box. He occasionally gave out the Lambs鈥� Tales from Shakespeare. Although I was unable to read most of the print, I enjoyed the stories of 鈥淭he Tempest, Midsummer Night鈥檚 Dream and Romeo and Juliet. Purely on the basis of how he was feeling, Mr Murphy gave out songbooks. I learnt to sing The Ash Grove, Barbara Allen, Begone Dull Care, Early One Morning, John Peel and many other folksongs. My stammer prevented me from speaking but never from singing.

One day a visitor was engrossed in conversation with Mr Murphy. I noticed that he pointed to me and another boy. A few weeks later he sat us at separate desks and told us we were about to sit an examination to go to the technical school. Although I should appreciate Mr Murphy鈥檚 recognition of my potential, I cannot understand why he allowed me to sit an examination without the required tuition: the examination contained topics I knew nothing about. I felt quite sad on that day. My then literacy and numeracy did not reflect my true ability. I left school at fourteen well below the standard of a good primary child and, therefore, far below the standard required for secondary education. It was not until well into my eighteenth year that any meaningful learning was possible for me. As the war turned in the Allies favour, the bombing of London became less frequent. Like the players in Haydn鈥檚 Farewell Symphony, the boys gradually returned to the capital. In November 1943, Mr Murphy left to rejoin the majority.

To take a break from my education story I would like to relate what my eyes saw when I compared Camborne, and what I noticed in Cornwall, with the East End. If the Jews and the babel of languages from foreign seamen are excluded, the Isle of Dogs and east London was a largely single class society with its own cockney accent. I had no reason to doubt that my life was the same as every other child. Although the Camborne-Redruth area had industry, a few tin mines and had an urban appearance, it was surrounded by a rural hinterland within easy reach of the coast in every direction. The general use of the local granite gave all the towns a solid appearance. Camborne, like Truro and other Cornish towns, had attractive roads and streets with big detached houses, with names as well as numbers, driveways, beautiful gardens, creating an atmosphere which would not need a pawnshop. The many different Methodist chapels, with their separate names and, I believe at that time, with their original congregations, confirmed the schisms of an earlier era. The farmers, with their distinctive leather leggings, came to town on market days. My most vivid memory was the arrival of the wild primroses in the early spring. The origin of the foreign names on some of the houses came from the 鈥楥ousin Jacks鈥�: the name given to those redundant Cornish miners who had left for the Empire and the USA to use their skills where they were still needed. Charlie had two brothers and a sister in Montana. He used to refer to them as; 鈥淥ut America.鈥� The Camborne School of Mines was a prominent building in the town centre. Much to the annoyance of the boys, the local girls considered the students a good catch because such a marriage suggested a life of affluence abroad.

I saw people going to work in smart clothes alongside those heading for the foundry. I was aware; too, that some children were called clever, had passed the scholarship, wore uniforms and went to the county schools. Until the implementation of the 1944 Act, it was possible to pay fees to go to the council grammar schools. Those going to the private schools wore more elaborate uniforms, which looked as expensive as their school fees. Many children wore their uniforms in their free time and one saw them being paraded by their mothers in town on Saturday mornings. People looked healthier, had better teeth, they did not smell of beer, did not look downtrodden, smiled a lot and seemed to like one another. It was a pleasure to be living in clean air without the industrial pollution enclosed in fog. I was beginning to understand the social divisions or the class system. As the months went by I was called by name in the village.

Once most of the Homer Row boys returned to London, the remaining few were transferred to St John鈥檚. It was my misfortune to be with Sister Philomena again. I found myself being regularly caned with such unkind remarks as; 鈥淵ou will finish up on the gallows.鈥� I was feeling a strong sense of injustice, which led to action on my part. One morning she shouted and again summoned me to face the class. As I left my desk, I had decided that she was not going to cane me. I dropped my hand as she brought down the cane, giving her my corporal punishment. In anger she said; 鈥淵ou will now be caned on both hands. I dropped my hand again. Sister Philomena was in such a rage that she raised the cane as if to hit me on the face or the head. I grabbed it from her hand and let it fall. With unbelievable calm, I said; 鈥樷�淵ou are not going to cane me anymore.鈥� I ran up the hill to Beacon. Evelyn could clearly see I was very distressed. I told her what Sister Philomena had said and done over the months. Having spoken to Charlie at lunch, Evelyn took me back to school. Like all cowards and bullies, Sister Philomena stood motionless and silent while Evelyn reprimanded her, with such words as; 鈥淵ou call yourself a religious woman.鈥� We left.

William Hayman, the billeting officer, came to investigate. I do not fully know what was said and done but I know that my father was contacted. He agreed that I could go to the last evacuee school in the town, a non-Catholic one. I presume that the local Catholic priest allowed my move to save Sister Philomena. Perhaps he had no choice. The tragedy was that she continued to teach and probably continued to be cruel to children. I was fortunate, for had not Evelyn and Mr Hayman intervened, it was possible something terrible could have happened to me. Mr Hayman, in the post-war years, became the Labour MP for Falmouth and Camborne. Some of the St John鈥檚 pupils called me 鈥淭raitor鈥� whenever they passed me.

In due time, I became a pupil at the other evacuated school which was making do in the hall of the Wesley Chapel. The religious teaching was confined to a daily prayer and a hymn with no suggestion of superiority over other faiths. Another male teacher called Mr Barton assisted Mr Fowler, the head. He used to read 鈥楾he Cloister and the Hearth鈥� to us. Mr Flowler, a kindly man, often with a sweet in his mouth, was very anti-chewing gum because one of his girl pupils had, in the distant past, dropped her gum into a typewriter with the obvious consequences. He never shouted and did not use corporal punishment. He often took us for nature walks, to play cricket and, as a water colourist, he was keen on art. I spent many afternoons at that school making a theatre and/or cinema out of a shoebox, postcards for scenery, pieces of cloth to make a curtain, wire, bulbs, a battery, paints and other material to complete my make believe. I was happy for the first time at school. The presence of girls does make the mood of a school gentle.

My mind was fixed in the present tense: I did not think of the future. Nobody asked me what I wanted to do. Evelyn did predict a little, for she often said to me; 鈥� You don鈥檛 like to get your hands dirty.鈥� I was probably written off because of my stammer. With the benefit of hindsight, I am left with the feeling that the elementary schoolteachers saw us as factory or manual fodder and thought we were capable of just the minimum education: in most cases they did not even make that a reality. It is possible that they found the task too difficult? As a child spends a minority of his or her time in school, other influences are more important. Had anybody cared to observe me, they would have noticed I was showing an intellectual bias. Shortly after my arrival at the Opies, Evelyn gave me the money to go to the cinema, as a reward for being helpful. In the mid-afternoon I found myself watching Major Barbara by G.B.Shaw. Although I was seeing the familiar sights of Limehouse, I was spellbound by the beautiful language. I was hearing clear articulate speech for the first time and was fascinated by it to such an extent that I saw the film again and again until the National Anthem. Unknown to me, Evelyn became concerned at the onset of the blackout. A neighbour, joined by Charlie, tried to find me. They initially went to the wrong cinema. Although the usherettes tried to find me, I was not discovered until the lights came on. The Opies were amused and amazed at my unconcern: they did not punish me. As an adult I have seen the film again as well as the play. My young mind would not have understood most of the words let alone the political thoughts of G.B. Shaw.

My parents did not have a radio; so the Opies鈥� big set with all the wavebands, with a world map in the right-hand corner, was a lighted wonderment for me. I was able to listen to the news, ITMA, In Town Tonight (the announcer, after the flower girls stopped talking about 鈥渓ovely violets鈥� used to say; 鈥淲e stop the roar of London鈥檚 mighty traffic.鈥� I thought that cannot be true.), The Brains Trust, Target for Tonight and music and changed bands to listen to William Joyce or Lord Haw-Haw (a fellow graduate of Birkbeck College) and his 鈥淕ermany Calling.鈥� Without wholly understanding, I admired the good, flowing speech that I did not have myself. Charlie and Evelyn liked music. I heard the Climax Male Voice Choir regularly: my constant memory of them is men in their Sunday suits, with what seemed ruddy, scrubbed faces, wearing starched collars while they sang 鈥楾he Soldiers鈥� Chorus鈥� from Faust. Large numbers of the U.S. Army were assembling in Cornwall for D.Day. The Americans relaxed manner was noticeable because it was so different to the way I expected people to behave towards strangers. They showed kindness towards children and always had chewing gum available to give to us. Although I liked its initial peppermint taste, I thought to chew it on a continuous basis would ally me to the cows in the fields. I had the opportunity a few times to hear the all black choirs from their segregated units. The Cornishmen sang in a stately, serious hymn like way but, in complete contrast, the Black Americans had all the rhythms of Scott Joplin, George Gershwin and the jazz age. The movements of their bodies in tempi with voices turned the Methodists Chapels where they performed from sedate places of non-conformity into palaces of swing. I was hearing Negro spirituals for the first time. The great composers, particularly Handel, became known to me. I enjoyed hearing performances of Judas Maccabaeus and the Messiah. In the latter, I recall the trumpeter anxiously pressing his valves as he waited to play 鈥楾he trumpet shall sound鈥�. After attendances at many concerts, I knew the vocal ranges of the soprano, the tenor etc. I did express a wish to learn the piano. Alas, it was not possible.

As no pocket money was ever sent to me by my parents, I had to rely on earning a little money by running errands for the Opies. For Charlie I collected or delivered shoes and bought rubber soles and heels etc on his behalf from another mender who held more stock. After a while I had an after school and Saturday morning job with Wilfred Thomas, a painter and decorator with a shop. Mr Thomas was the first adult who spoke to me in a serious way. He gave me a book of Low鈥檚 cartoons, anthologies of poems and other books. He painted and sold oils of local rural scenes. His pictures were not flat, for a lot of the paint stuck out from the canvas. I saw him use both his hand and brush to apply the paint. He gave me one of his paintings. He had just started learning the piano and was full of regrets that he had not started earlier. He kindly loaned me his bicycle whenever I needed it. It was possible to travel at great speed down Beacon Hill and slow up just before the level crossing and the station came into view. The one thing to note about Mr Thomas鈥檚 shop was the normality of business: in both decorating houses and the sale of goods. I helped Mr Thomas to empty crates of sawdust-covered cans of paint, distemper, varnish and Japanese lacquer and other goods applicable to his shop. All the time I delivered orders to his customers. My lasting memory of Mr Thomas was the ever-present spots of paint or distemper on his face and eyebrows.

Having never been given money except for the odd pence, 鈥業 learnt the value of the dollar (pound),鈥� as the father in one of E. O鈥橬eill鈥檚 plays said. The weekly money allowed me to buy some clothes. I bought from Woolworth鈥檚 a series of six books at sixpence each called 鈥楾he Story of Britain,鈥� told in pictures. The books showed me the visual history from Prehistoric to Modern Times with comic like captions. As well as the framework of each period, there were illustrations of the customs, architecture and the pictures of the notable people. I also bought jigsaws, comics, and an album to save stamps and was so desperate to read that I borrowed books from the library. I tried the William books and school stories. My reading was not good enough. My desire for education would take a long time. Starting from such a low point on the social scale, probably intellectually immature as well, I did not know I was a long way from the sweet smell of middle-class literacy.

My life was very much improved by joining the St John鈥檚 Ambulance Brigade Cadets. As it had a medical content, it attracted the more thoughtful, sensitive boys. Under the expert guidance of Mr Tremelling, the Cadet Superintendent, I had many happy years learning First Aid and all sorts of subjects. We went on visits, did camps and attended all sorts of functions in the hope that we might tie a tourniquet, use splints or at least open our First Aid kits. I was bored by the lack of flow in rugby matches. Having started, the game had some of the features of a brawl to stop anything happening. The most important thing we did was to collect a special type of seaweed to grow penicillin. Annually a cadet First Aid competition was held. Teams of four came in turn into a room where an accident had been staged. The team leader, by asking the panel, had to find out what had happened to each casualty. In a limited time, we tried to ask the right questions, and give the correct treatment. Our standard of care and the use of equipment were also examined. The team, which usually won, was from the Truro Public School. However, in my final year Truro came third and we won first and second places: I was in the latter team. I learned how to wear a uniform and our limited drill taught me how to march. Edwina Mountbattern, who had had a long association with the Order of St John鈥檚, inspected us once. I had always appreciated the sight of pretty girls and women but I thought Edwina was beautiful. I know now that she had had the best of everything; so what she had been granted by nature had been magnified many times by nurture.

The Camborne area took the war very seriously. The Home Guard trained whenever possible, the ARP lived in hopes of more to do than to check the blackouts. Mr Thomas worn the uniform of a special constable, Charlie took his turn at fire watching and Evelyn put on the WVS armband. All these uniformed people loved to gather together for church parades. On special National Savings Weeks: Salute the Soldier, Warship Week and one for the RAF, the whole uniformed community including myself plus any available armed forces, sometimes with a band, marched towards and down the main street. Admiring relatives and friends cheered from both sides of the road. A barometer was displayed in the main square to show how much had been saved and if the target had been reached to buy aircraft, tanks and even a warship. Although the camouflaged Holman鈥檚 Foundry and the Climax Works were engaged in war work, I never heard a siren. However, a German pilot, most likely off course, decided to offload perhaps his last bomb on his way home. It fell and exploded about a hundred yards between the terraced row where I lived and the practice mine used by the School of Mines. I remembered looking at a large crater. The remarks I had heard showed a desire to have parity with the people of London. We all realized that we had been near to a direct hit and almost certain death. I overheard quiet remarks about relatives being killed, wounded or missing in the war. One of Evelyn鈥檚 nephews wrote to her from The Middle East: his words were transferred onto microfilm and then printed.

In August 1944, Evelyn quietly told me that my mother had died. As I had not received any letters, seasonal cards or presents from my parents, I felt no grief because I had largely forgotten them. My mother has always been a very ill woman: my father had expected her to die early. He told me that a V1 had landed and exploded in front of the hospital. This pilot less robot had killed many patients in the field of its blast including my mother. One of my sisters told me that our mother was seriously ill when she was taken into hospital in June 1944. To protect them from the then waves of V1 bombs or what the local people called doodlebugs, my sisters were evacuated to the Bury St Edmunds area of Suffolk. Once again they had an itinerant life around families who did not want them or could not cope with as many as three children. Their final abode was with a mother with five children: her husband was in the forces. The eight children were left on their own for long periods with enough money to buy bags of chips. The woman was otherwise engaged with the sons of the stars and stripes. The Americans when they visited the house were kind and generous to the children. My sisters were aware that some neighbours told their children not to play with them. My sisters had to wait until the end of the war before they heard about their mother鈥檚 death.

One of my maternal aunts offered me a home in Stepney. I knew it would be difficult to re-settle in London and this proved to be the case. I accepted it as yet another move. All went well until my aunt began to argue where I should work. My aunt an employee of the borough council, had arranged for an electrical apprenticeship for me with the council. My father had a friend at the CWS in Aldgate who had offered me a job. I was not asked whether I wished to take either of the jobs on offer. My father insisted. My aunt was angry: it was not long before they were arguing again. Unknown to me, my aunt wanted my father to supplement my wage of a 拢1 a week. I received my exit order from my aunt one evening when I returned from work. She said, in the sound of her family; 鈥� You have to go and live with your father.鈥� I showed no sorrow and she gave no explanation. I had become conditioned to adversity. My father鈥檚 flat was a shabby, excessively dirty, foul, tobacco reeking hovel. The lavatory pan was covered in a yellow, furry coat. I assumed the flat had not been cleaned since my mother had been admitted to hospital. My Cornish 鈥楥leanliness is next to Godliness鈥� no longer applied: I was living again in slum conditions. I spent my first free Saturday afternoon trying to clean it and ensured it did not become dirty again. My father noticed my effort but was neutral about the improvement. I deducted the cleaning materials from my wages, which he accepted, with a mild protest. My father rarely lit the fire and often there was no fuel. Food was rationed: whether my father bought any depended on how many meals he had had at work. The best I could hope for was tea and sandwiches. He initially gave me an inadequate amount until I decided to give him six shillings a week for almost nothing. He found one of my wage packets, showing overtime. I refused to share the extra money with him. I knew that I could not remain the Isle of Dogs and the East End. Added to my difficulties, the V2s were still being dropped on London. The sound after the explosion made this rocket the terror weapon of the bombing, for no warning was possible. I had two narrow escapes. Once while travelling on a bus home along the Commercial Rd I saw a wedding group outside a church (I learnt the next day that both bride, groom and some guests had been killed by a V2 shortly afterwards at their nearby reception) and another time a V2 dropped near where I had delivered messages in the City near Smithfield. I had that cold feeling of having heard both the explosions. At the time I was small. My father, a gambler on both horses and greyhounds, suggested that a friend at Newmarket might start me as a stable boy with possible training as a jockey. As I grew to 5鈥� 10鈥� and 12sts, I would have needed a shire horse to race at Epsom. Steve Donnahue and Gordon Richards, the famous jockeys of the time, remained names and not colleagues.

The flats and the neighbouring area had a ghostlike appearance: the only movement I heard were the No 56 double-decker buses. They regularly seemed to rise and fall in a happy thump as they went over the bridge on their timed U shaped journeys around the island. From knowing many people in Camborne I knew nobody. The pre-war neighbours I had known as a young child had left or perhaps been killed. Of course, my separation from my fellow pupils in Truro meant that I did not know anybody as a friend. During my time with my father I cannot recall any neighbour speaking to me. I felt as if I did not exist. The East End had suffered the most from the Blitz, the V1s and V2s and, perhaps, its people were still weary and in such a state of shock that the community spirit and human decency associated with area was at least greatly modified. As both my paternal and maternal grandparents had died before the First World War I was denied an important source of help.

I was an office boy at the CWS in Aldgate. Earning a pound a week, one of my jobs was to deliver cheques for thousands of pounds to wharves and City offices. It was a strange feeling to mete out so much and have so little. As I travelled by bus and/or walked around the City and the East End, I saw the aftermath of the Blitz: large areas were almost open spaces with weeds growing through the remaining rubble. There were ruins and buildings showing the scars of war. There was less food in London, everything was strictly rationed, alongside a flourishing black-market. Food was a real problem for me. Nora, the young manageress of the canteen, without asking me any questions, sensed there was something amiss. She both placed extra food on my tray and then undercharged me or gave me the same money back in different change. When I collected my washing from the CWS laundry, the women waived payment. At that time the CWS were still using carthorses. My office was near the stables. I fed then lumps of sugar or crusts and visited them in their stalls. As I walked around the area, largely ignored by my fellow men, the horses recognized me whenever I came near them.

As the months went by I felt that my life was lonely and hopeless. I knew I was not of much use because of my inability to speak. My educational standard limited my work to taking messages, collecting items and spending hours copying out instructions to allow the drivers to pick up and deliver goods to the Co-Operative Shops in the London area.

I went to the Labour Exchange to see if I could live and work somewhere outside of the East End. They took my details but nothing came of it. One day I heard someone at work talking about boy soldiers. I went to the recruiting office to ask if I could enlist as a boy. The officer ask me if I would like to join a military band. The thought of learning a musical instrument appealed to me. The officer helped me to do the 3Rs test. My father, having been forced to go to sea at fifteen because he had lost both parents within a fortnight of one another, saw nothing wrong with me going into the army at fourteen. He gladly gave his consent for me to play crochets and quavers at home and abroad.

I hate to consider what would have become of me had there been no war in 1939 and if the army had not later given me a chance. My parents in their different ways were unable to cope with four children. There is no doubt that my father was exploited by his employers. Both his jobs, merchant seaman and stevedore, were of a casual nature. He was paid while at sea and paid while loading a ship. Once both jobs were completed, he was laid off without pay. Both employments carried no sick pay, no paid holidays and no occupational pension. As my father did essential work for the survival of this country in both world wars, including being torpedoed, I feel that an injustice was done to him. During the short time I lived with him I discovered he was well informed about the world. His Irish origin ruled out any patriotism: he worked to survive; he did not apply for any of his medals. Although he welcomed the Labour victory in 1945, his comment was that 鈥渢hey do not have the money.鈥� I suppose what he was trying to say was that wealth and privilege would remain in the same hands. He did doubt the existence of heaven, for he said; 鈥淣obody has ever come back.鈥� He recognized that having four children had placed him in an impossible financial position. Placing my sisters in Nazareth House was his way on placing the onus on the Roman Catholic Church who is weak in economics and strong on childbirth. Although my sisters saw more of my father that I did, the two who married in his lifetime did not invite him to their weddings and asked me to give them away. Apart from a few visits, my relationship with my father was poor. During my many years abroad, as in Cornwall, I did not receive a letter or card from him. He caused me great embarrassment by asking his local nuns to write to my Commanding Officer to persuade me to give him an allowance. My reputation was saved because I was giving my younger sister an allowance. My father鈥檚 attitude was: 鈥淚t was worth a try.鈥� Just after my father died a union official told me that, even in the worst of times, he was seen as solvent by his fellow workers and was given the name of 鈥榤oney bags.鈥� His circumstances were grim but I feel he could have been more helpful and not abandoned his children to the charity of others. To fully know the furniture of the mind of another human being is impossible. As for myself, I would gladly settle for a motto I saw on a coat of arms belonging to a Coughlan: it read: 鈥楩ortis in Arduis.鈥�

Epilogue.
Nora.
After I had done my six weeks basis military training and had the clarinet assigned to me as my instrument, I was granted ten days leave. During my leave I went to see everybody I knew at the CWS, including the horses, because my quick exit to the army had not given me the chance to say goodbye to everybody. Nora was most upset when she saw me in uniform. At fourteen, I suppose, I looked out of place in it. Nora told me on the very day I joined the army her family had decided to offer me a home. I had not told her or anybody else of my circumstances. Had her offer came a week earlier or had my place in the Cameronians came a week later, I doubt whether I would have joined the army. Harold Wilson, a former prime minister once said: 鈥淎 week is a long time in politics.鈥� A week changed the whole course of my life.

Nazareth House, Hammersmith.

This is a charitable institute run by the Roman Catholic Church. It had a section for orphaned and illegitimate babies, apart for very old people and a girls鈥� home. It was under funded to the extent that the nuns made frequent visits to nearby restaurants, hotels and other catering places to beg for food. Many of the nuns were both unkind and cruel.

As it was expedient for me to join the army, my father had arranged that my sisters should go direct to Nazareth House from Suffolk. Schooling was fitted in after the girls had taken care of the babies and the old folk. Their duties also included cleaning the house. My seven-year-old sister had pads attached to her feet and was required to polish the corridors and skating up and down them.

The most alarming feature of the home was the excessive use of corporal punishment by the nuns. The girls were dragged by their hair and hit with a chair leg. Bed-wetting was punished in this way. My younger sister failed to report her chilblains and was hit. My sisters reported this harsh treatment to my father on a visiting day. He took no action. It is likely that he could not afford to upset the nuns because he was paying so little, or at times nothing, to them. My middle sister eventually challenged and hit one of the nuns. Nothing happened to her: the nuns did not tell my father. All incoming and outgoing mail was censored.

I was serving abroad for most of the time that my sisters were in Nazareth House, so I did not know how cruel and unpleasant their life was in this so-called religious home. After I had learnt how badly my sisters had been treated I tried to persuade them to inform their parish priests and if necessary take their complaints up through the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Although I stressed the fact that Nazareth Houses were still treating children badly, they refused to do so. They probably feared that I would land them in court as witnesses. My sisters had married professional men: I believe they feared their East End background being made public and such information would have made their lives more difficult in our class conscious society. A Nazareth House nun was found guilty of abusing children in a recent case in Scotland. I believe hundreds of other cases will be lodged against the order.

Prudishness in the home was unbelievable. The girls had to take baths wearing their slips. As pre-martial sex is forbidden to Roman Catholics, it is surprising, but perhaps the norm in those days, that no sex education, even informally on an individual basis, was given to the girls. They had to cope with the onset of menstruation with the help of the senior girls. A few of their contemporaries became prostitutes and two of my sisters unknowingly made themselves vulnerable. At the time I returned from serving in Malaya, I went to see them in their recently rented room in Chichester St in Pimlico. The bell rang at frequent intervals and each time one of my sisters went to open the front door. After several times one of my sisters said: 鈥淭he other girls have lots of boyfriends.鈥� It became obvious to me that they were living among prostitutes and, in their ignorance, did not know it. I know that my sisters did not fully understand when I tried to explain why they should move to other accommodation. The other girls in the house did not make any attempt to involve them in their trade: in fact they were all kind and helpful to them.

My Aunt in Stepney. (Before my finals I applied to teach in the Division 5 (the East End area where I was born and spent my early childhood) of the London County Council.

What was unusual about this area was that it had many old foundation schools (then direct grant grammar schools) endowed by the City Companies (e.g. Cooper鈥檚 Company School in Mile End) and other philanthropists. As so few East End children were able to pass the 11plus, many of the places were taken by affluent pupils who seem to enter the East End from the neighbouring middle-class suburbs. The schools intended for the poor, as with the original public schools, had been largely taken over by those with more than a few bob.

In 1963, five of the secondary moderns, housed in the old run down elementary schools (e.g. St George鈥檚 in the East.) were closed and all their pupils were transferred to a new tower block school in Stepney Green. Along with others, I became a member of staff of this new school. It was built on a bomb site next to my aunt鈥檚 block of flats. One of my classrooms on the second floor was at eye level with her flat and veranda. If my aunt was still alive, it was evitable that I would either see her or meet her on the street. Early in my second term one of the boys said to me: Do you know Mrs- Sir? 鈥淵es.鈥� Is she your aunt? 鈥淵es.鈥� A week later he brought a verbal message asking me to visit her after school on Friday. My feelings, my maturity and my learning told me that this woman had been cruel to me. I did not want to see her again. However, I discussed the invitation with my then girlfriend, a genteel girl from a happy, caring family who thought that my aunt might be trying to say she was sorry for what she had done to me. Although I had serious misgivings, I knocked on my aunt鈥檚 door. Within were three of my cousins. My aunt, looking very much like my mother, quietly said: 鈥� I am glad you have done so well Bill.鈥� My aunt, always argumentative, began to criticise my late father. I thought it was a case of the pot calling the pot black. Had I been on my own with her I would have spoken my mind. Instead I left as naturally as I could a little later. As I walked in the cold winter air, I felt the tense atmosphere I had just left. I had two aunts and uncles and twenty cousins from my mother鈥檚 side of the family who choose neither to help me nor know me. Families are like people, for a minority are very good, the majority are indifferent and there is the minority who are very bad. 鈥楾here is nowt as strange as folk.鈥�

Charles and Evelyn Opie.
Both had long lives. Charlie died at the age of seventy-five in 1968 and Evelyn died at the age of eighty-five in 1978. They had both worked very hard and enjoyed their retirement by moving to house in Camborne in a road opposite the parish church. As they grew older it meant they had easy access to their place of worship as well as having the shops near at hand.

I continue to see them throughout the years. Until I married their home was the only place I could think of as home. Whenever I decided to come I knew they would be always pleased to see me. On each of my visits I often saw and spoke to people I knew as a child. Seeing people occasionally confirms the ageing process because you notice they are older while realizing the same thing is happening to you.

Bill Coughlan. 2000.

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