大象传媒

"In towns they did more [have entertainments]. In the village, the village pub supplied it with the various people, service personnel that used to come in. Of course, there was a big party when the war ended, and all the village turned out, but my mother wouldn鈥檛 go. She said 鈥渨e鈥檝e got nothing to rejoice about鈥�. Still. My grandfather used to go to the cinema in Slough, each week, matinee he鈥檇 go. He was only into the war, he died in [thinks] 鈥�41. He loved his films 鈥� Loretta Young was his favourite. Birthday and things like that people would get together, and there was still people getting married 鈥� there were lots of service people getting married. They鈥檇 all chip in with a bit of their rations to help out. Of course if my American cousin, one was a private secretary to a big American diplomat, and you didn鈥檛 ever know whenever she was coming. She used to visit my parents, because they were staying with Whitney Straight, who lived in the village where my parents lived. She used to bring a parcel of goodies: slabs of chocolate, coffee, coffee beans and things like that, tins of fruit. But I mean if people had a blackberry, sort of in their garden, which they would normally cut down and try to pull out, they鈥檇 encourage them to grow. My father had one, we had beautiful blackberries, as big as strawberries growing on it. They were considered to be weeds in your garden, but they did help out. You used to probably get a little bit of suet, two pennyworth of suet from your butcher now and again, you鈥檇 make a big sort of dumpling thing and have this fruit inside it. If you were lucky enough to get a little can of golden syrup you鈥檇 have that one it. Because, dried fruit was rationed, well everything, everything edible was rationed. There wasn鈥檛 a thing. I don鈥檛 think cigarettes were rationed or tobacco, as stringently as food was, but food was. We got by anyway. She [my cousin] was secretary to Avril Harriman, he was a diplomat, he鈥檇 come over, but it was all hush-hush nobody knew, and she鈥檇 arrive. She used to stay at Whitney Straight鈥檚, I believe he was a racing driver, but he had a house on the edge of Osterley Park, like the north end of the village green. She used to stay there when she was over here. [Cousin's name was] Eileen Clements."

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