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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Lucky To Be Alive At 92 Years Old

by Action Desk, 大象传媒 Radio Suffolk

Contributed by听
Action Desk, 大象传媒 Radio Suffolk
People in story:听
Joe + Violet Stroud
Location of story:听
Victoria Park - London
Article ID:听
A4042739
Contributed on:听
10 May 2005

In all the fifty years I have been married, my wife worked as a full time house wife without complaint. She did the cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing and shopping, even giving me breakfast in bed most mornings. Rarely did I give a helping hand, reasoning that she was the housewife whilst I bought in the money to run the home - an equal partnership I thought.
Last month my wife had an operation and my ideal world ended abruptly. I had my first full-time introduction to the horrors of house work: doing the dishes day after day, shopping,washing and ironing every detestable chore. All those years of relentless housework and me insisting on a clean shirt everyday. What a terrible burden to impose upon ones wife!
Worst of all, whilst playing the housewife, I seemed to have no time for leisure of any sort! No time to read, no time for a quiet snooze, no time to do my own thing. In fact all the very things I used to take for granted, there was simply no time for. Things will never be the same again having learnt the hard way that a mothers work is never, ever done.
Thankfully my dear wife is now recovering. so nowadays, I get the shopping without complaint and giving a helpinghand always thanking God for all those years we have shared together. A long time ago wages were low and we worked long tedious hours for them. There were no televisions, Radios, holidays, carpets on floors or even bathrooms - just a cold tap out in the yard. It certainly brought colour to your cheeks. Life was harder - if you had a couple of bob, you were quite rich. In those days coal fires, good neighbours, no locked doors, Paperboys and milkmen used to whistle as they came down the yard and a night at the flickers was a wonderful thing. All that seems to have gone now. Near Victoria Park bombs dropped, 200 yards away - the back of my house was flattened and other houses. I took my wife's hand and said we were going to my mothers in Brandon. We left everything, my wife wanted to take the bird and other things - but I said "we were lucky just to be alive". I went back home a few months later and everything had gone - but just to have our lives, we didn't mind.

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