大象传媒

My father went into hospital later in 1944. By which time I was in hospital having my tonsils and adenoids removed. I remember my mother saying that once when traveling between hospitals at Roehampton and Epsom, she was given a lift by an American or Canadian serviceman who collected her on his return journey and dropped her off at home. It was quite usual to give and accept lifts from strangers then.

My father was in Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, which was a military hospital during the War and was a major limb fitting centre. We used to visit my father every Sunday. We walked into Epsom to get a bus to Tolworth where we changed to a bus for Roehampton. There were no high rise flats or housing estate opposite the hospital. Waiting for the homeward bus we could hear the Owls hooting in the trees.

We had to walk down a long, wide polished corridor. There were slopes leading to the wards on either side. My father was in the last ward on the right. The patients wore hospital blue with red piping. There was a sharp bend in the corridor and you couldn't see round it. One day we were walking along and at the bend bumped into two men sharing the same wheelchair. My mother was shocked and must have involuntarily said something but the men assured her that they were quite happy.

There were one or two single rooms at the entrance to my father's ward and in one there was a man in a wheelchair who did beautiful embroidery, regimental badges mainly. My mother did embroidery and would liked to have bought some but just couldn't afford it. He told us that he could not lie down to sleep. I was puzzled by this and wondered if he sat in his wheelchair all night.

The Canadian nurses on the ward gave me comics and chewing gum. They would also ask what I would like to eat and I always asked for toast or a crust of bread which I really liked.

V.E. Day arrived. I do not remember anything special about it until the evening. My mother and I together with friends Mr & Mrs Housden from Tonstall Road, walked to the Blenheim public house in Manor Green Road and sat in the garden with drinks. I spent a long time pushing someone's baby in it's pram round and round the garden. We then walked back to Tonstall Road where there was a bend in the road and a very wide pavement behind the old isolation hospital. There was a huge bonfire and people dancing and singing around it. I always associate the song "Don't Fence Me In" with that night. (Though I couldn't imagine why anyone wanted to have a fence put round them like a tree.) I became very tired and would not let anyone else but my mother carry me. It was amazing to see such a huge bonfire and lights on after dark.

A celebration was arranged in the Court Recreation Ground which included a marching band. My mother was at work and I was persuaded by Mary next door that it would be all right to go round to the park and watch the band rehearsing. When we got to the park I decided that I'd better get home or I would be in trouble. I got nearly home and met my mother looking for me. I got smacked and sent to bed.

However, my mother did take me to the celebration in the park and we saw the band playing. There was a demonstration by the Fire Brigade. They had a smoke filled tower with alternately open and closed sides and a woman at the top calling for help. I don't remember anything else about the afternoon. For a long time afterwards I had nightmares about the tower and fire and I was the person waiting to be rescued. Of course I always woke up at the point of rescue so never knew whether I was safe or not. Another long term nightmare was a pile of writhing snakes on the far bedroom wall. I was also terribly afraid of the dark and had to have a nightlight. Invariably I woke up to find that I had also wet the bed. Would I have been like this if I'd grown up in peace time? I doubt it.

The first thing my mother did when the War ended was to knock our Anderson shelter into the ground. Our neighbour behind us, Mr Tipping recently demobbed from the Army, heard the noise, came over the fence and finished the job for her and the area was covered with grass.

It must have been a financial strain to pay the fares to hospital every week. I don't know how long my father was in Roehampton but he was moved to Epsom Hospital. He was placed in a geriatric ward in what had been the workhouse. The ward was at right angles to the main hospital entrance. By holding a mirror above his head he could see reflected the comings and goings at the entrance. This was about all he could do and read a newspaper. I went on my own once to visit him.

Unknown to my mother his family, his sister Edith, wrote to the M.P. for Epsom Mr Chuter Ede, saying that my father was an old soldier but he was not old and should be placed with younger people. The first my mother knew about it was when she received a postcard from my father to say he had been moved to Queen Alexandra's Hospital, Cosham, Portsmouth.

Arriving at Portsmouth the first time we had to ask directions and were told "See that lady over there, she goes every week." We joined her on the bus. At the hospital we said goodbye to her as her husband walked across the grass to meet her. My mother said "Wouldn't it be nice if daddy could meet us like that." I couldn't answer I had a great lump in my throat. It was the first and only time she commented on his health to me. All I could think was how lovely it would be to have a proper daddy who could walk and be just like other daddies. I wanted to be a normal family but somehow deep inside me I just knew it was never to be.

The wards were wooden huts in the grounds of a large old mansion. The only heating was a round stove in the centre of the hut. Each bed had earphones for the radio and I tried to untangle my father's but he got annoyed with me fiddling. That was the last time I saw my father. My mother could only afford to visit once a month and I was left with neighbours.

My father died at Portsmouth in February 1949 aged 55. I was just ten years old.

My mother had received a phone call via the neighbours, to go at once. I was left with the neighbours and our lodger went with my mother to Portsmouth. They did not arrive in time. The neighbours had said to her not to go but she had replied that she had looked after him all those years and she had to go.

By the time they returned in the evening I was not well and could not stand any light on my right eye. I was put to bed and had a terrible nosebleed, which no one could stop even resorting to putting cold keys down my back. My mother said I was delerious and kept staring at the ceiling and saying "I can't do my sums mummy."

I was again in Epsom District Hospital with Lobar Pneumonia and was there when my father's funeral was held in Portsmouth. The only people there was a friend of my father's Mr Tugwell, a man from the Home Office as my father was an old soldier and our lodger and my mother. None of his family attended though my mother always claimed she had eaten humble pie and told them.

Years later when I reflected on things I wondered what my father had thought as he lay in bed during an air raid unable to move.

In the early post war years my mother went selling Poppies for the British Legion, door to door. Everyone bought but at one house we had the door closed in our faces. Maybe they too had had a bad war or were hard up, but they had no need to be so rude I thought as the door closed.

Broad sunlit uplands after the War? My mother continued with her cleaning jobs and said to me "You want to learn something at school. You don't want to end up like me cleaning other people鈥檚 doorsteps for a living."

The winter of 1946/47 was the worst for years. Snow and ice for weeks on end and very little fuel. My mother contracted Pneumonia and went into Epsom Hospital. I was taken in by the other next door neighbours and spent the most miserable Christmas of my life.

In 1947 I went with Miss Parker to stay with her friend Mrs Studdert in Weston Super Mare. Why we went I don't know but we were there long enough for me to go to Whealdcroft a small private school which I loved. We spent a lovely Christmas there. Mrs Studdert's nephew was in the R.A.F. and came to visit and we all went for a walk along the sea front which still had some war time defences on the beach. He was in uniform and wearing flying boots. When I was told later that he had a much patched teddy bear which went with him on all his flying missions I was most impressed.

My mother obtained a cleaning job at the Epsom Brotherhood. There were committee rooms, large kitchen, small hall known as Myers Hall, with billiard hall above and the much larger Ebbisham Hall which had a large stage and was used for dances, concerts and shows. On her half day off she cleaned the shop of Humphreys Electrical opposite the clock tower in the High Street for which she earned an extra 2/6d (about 25p).

When my mother started at the Brotherhood the Ebbisham Hall was derelict. The buildings had been occupied by the Army and there a great deal of repair work going on. The stage curtains were in tatters, windows broken and the dance floor damaged.

That was how we got our lodger. He was in charge of all the carpentry repair work and needed lodgings whilst working in Epsom. He also had an injured leg due to a war wound and couldn't bend his knee.

In 1950 a new caretaker was appointed at the Brotherhood and in 1951 my mother married her boss. Leonard Charles Whitehorn, from Banstead, was a lovely man who became my stepfather. He had worked all his life in the Merchant Navy for the Union Castle Line to South Africa. He started as cabin boy to the Captain. He hated his first voyage and having to do his own washing, but he had borrowed 拢25 from his father for his uniform and was determined to pay it back. He remained with the Company for nearly thirty years ending his career as Acting Chief Steward in 1949. The ships were used as troop ships during the War and he was also in convoys across the north Atlantic as well as to South Africa. He suffered an injured leg when crushed between the lifeboat and the ship's side which resulted in a period in the Masonic Hospital in London.

Eighteen months after they were married my mother was knocked down by a bus whilst she was standing on the pavement waiting for the bus. She picked herself and shopping up and saw that the driver was laughing as she boarded the bus. When my stepfather found out what had happened he reported it to the Bus Company but the driver had not reported the accident. My mother would not agree to being examined by a Transport doctor so they were unable to pursue a claim. My mother's health deteriorated and she spent a month in Epsom District Hospital. My father was told she only had a year to live and he did not tell anyone. The problem was very high blood pressure, though whether any of her health problems could be blamed on the accident we shall never know. She had only started smoking during the War.

2nd June, 1953, was Coronation Day and the beginning of a new Elizabethan era according to the newspapers which were depicting a bright future after the War years and the difficult immediate post War years.

Bright future maybe, but Miss Parker who had taken me out for many interesting days, widening my horizons and giving me an interest in history, died unexpectedly in July 1953.

My mother died at home on 20th October, 1953, just a month after her 53rd birthday. I was 14 years old.

My stepfather suffered several years of ill health until 1963 when he died at the age of 58 from chronic Bronchitis caused by smoking 60 Capstan Full Strength cigarettes a day. Cigarettes were cheap on board ship.

The War years had taken their toll.

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