大象传媒

I was the first baby to be born Mill Road Framlingham, although I am the youngest of three children. My parents were Bernard and Lillian Osborne. My father worked at one time for Miss Revitt who lived at the Round House, my mother was the daughter of Mrs Heffer who ran the Farriers Arms public house in Double Street.

My early childhood years were very war related. I knew nothing about peace time. I can remember, when I was old enough to run errands for my mother, going for a loaf of bread at Mr Bonnys the Baker. On getting to the shop there were all these strange large lorries parked outside with lots of large black men in them. I had never seen a black person before and had heard my parents talking about the Germans. So I ran back home (without the bread) and told my mother that the Germans had come. In actual fact they were the first Americans to come to the area. They were building the runways at nearby Parham airfield.

The Americans were very kind to the civilian people. We used to have some of them and come and have a meal with us sometimes, whhich they appreciated very much. Once when I was very ill with Pheunomia all I kept fancying was an orange, which was very difficult to find. One of American guests heard of this when he came to visit us and promptly walked back to Camp and found he then walked back to Framligham with for me, then back to camp once more. All this in the blackout and with snow on the ground. A truly good Samaritan.

Christmas was not a bit like that of the children today. Toys were in short supply, that is the money was available to buy them, as many of the Fathers and Mothers were in the forces.

My father, who had a small-holding used to raise a few chickens, turkeys etc, to kill for Christmas. We always had to had to have the biggest one, because no-one wanted it as it was it was too big to go in the oven. My mother used to prepare it with stuffing, etc, and then it was wrapped in a big cloth and on Christmas morning my father would take it down to Mr Bonnys the Baker who would then cook it in the bread oven. Many people used to do this, especially if they used electric or gas ovens, as it saved on fuel.

I used to wait at the front window and watch for my father to come up the hill carrying the lovely hot turkey wrapped in grease-proof, then brown paper, and finally in one of mother's large tablecloths. I would call out "daddy's coming" and that was the signal to start serving up the vegetables and Yorkshire puddings.

The turkey used to serve us for meals for quite a few days, ending up with mother's home made soup with split peas and dumplings. Just the job for a cold winter's day when I came in from school.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.