The edited transcript of a tape-recorded interview Danny Howell made with Joan Kellow, at her home, 5 Kivel Court, Salisbury, on the afternoon of Thursday 23rd January 1997. First published in Danny Howell’s book Wylye Valley Folk Volume One (Bedeguar Books, July 1999).
Joan Kellow said:
“I was born during the Great War, on the 29th of October 1915, in a thatched cottage in the sleepy village of Crockerton, near Warminster, and I was christened Joan Anne Debnam. I can only recall things from the age of four and I was brought up to love and trust everyone, which I have found out since to be a positive mistake, because, being sensitive, I get easily hurt.”
“My mother was lovely and kind, and she was a very beautiful woman. Her hair was waist length, black and shiny, and she had a prize once, when she was young, in a competition for the best head of hair. She used to put her hair up around her head and it looked so tidy and framed her lovely face. She cut it short not long before she died. She was five foot four and she had an 18 inch waist. She wore the old fashioned dresses, the long ones, down to her ankles, and she always wore a pinny when she was working in home. She had her Sunday best to go to church in and she’d wear a big hat with a pin pushed through the back.”
“My mother was a very religious person but not over the top. She didn’t push her religion on to others but she used to read to us from the Bible. Us kids were brought up to believe in God. Mother was a Liberal when it came to politics and dad was Labour but it didn’t cause any friction between them. Mother was very content with the way her life was. She and father knew their place and they didn’t complain about the well-to-do’s. Mother’s temperament was very good. She was happy-go-lucky and she liked a laugh.”
“After leaving school she went into domestic service as a cook. She had all her wages (amounting to £12 a year) as a maid taken from her by her own mother. She worked for nothing really because she had to hand it over to her mother every payday. She used to get terrified on payday and would try to hide from her mother but to no avail. Two of her other sisters never went out to work and I can never understand that. My mum’s mother worked in a gentleman’s house, and mum’s sisters stayed home to look after the family home.”
“As I say, my mother was a very beautiful woman. I was told that she was the daughter of a noble lord who my grandmother used to work for as a maid when she was a young woman. Because of this, granny, and this is was what I was told, was entitled to live in her house rent free all her life but if she remarried after her husband died she would have to give up the house. Whether this is true or not I don’t really know but it was an often-repeated story told in our family.”
“My mother was the sweetest, kindest person on earth. Before she got married she worked in service at Lord Weymouth’s Grammar School, at Church Street, in Warminster, and, at one time, for a while, she worked in service at Shaftesbury. Before I was born she used to walk to and from Shaftesbury with my elder brother and sister in a pram, up hill and down dale, in all weathers.”
“Her name was Elizabeth Debnam but her surname before she got married was Ford. She came from Maiden Bradley. That’s where her parents lived and that’s where she was born. She had three sisters called Florrie, Bessie, and Doris (who was always known as Doke), and a brother they always called Chum.”
“I can always remember my dad and me cycling miles on a Sunday to visit granny (mother’s mother) at Maiden Bradley. Her surname to begin with was Churchill. Her father was James Churchill. Granny married a man called Charles Ford but he lost his life when he was gassed in a place underground where they made beer. That was a brewery in Maiden Bradley. The smell of something, the hops I suppose, stifled him. I never knew Charlie Ford. I never saw him. He must have died before I was born. Granny and granddad Ford had five daughters and two sons. The youngest son was killed in the Great War, about the same time as his father. I think his name was Jim. Granny never really got over that.”
“Granny lived along Church Street in the middle of Maiden Bradley. She was short and she was always making jam. She made all kinds of jam and she used to stir it up and boil it all in a chipped enamel bowl. The jam always tasted perfect and we always brought home two or three jars of warm jam to Crockerton.”
“Granny was a lovely looking woman. She was attractive. She married a second time but her second husband, Frederick James Lane, was a young man (what you would call a toyboy today). She was more than twice as old as him. They married at Maiden Bradley [on 1st July 1925] when she was 52 and he was 24. It was a very posh wedding. I was a schoolgirl at the time and all of us family went to the wedding. The reception afterwards was at the village hall in Maiden Bradley. I said earlier about granny having a child with a lord and being allowed to live in her house rent free with her husband until he died and she re-married. Of course, when she remarried, to Fred Lane, she had to give up her house. She had to move.”
“Granny’s new husband Fred Lane was a good, hard working man. He had been her lodger for some time and he worked on a farm as a labourer. We called him uncle Fred. He kept lots of chickens and took the eggs to market where they were sold. Unfortunately, coming round the back of the house for his dinner one day, he tripped and fell down a manhole and was killed. Poor granny was devastated. Since that happened I never walk on a manhole cover, I skip over them. They are supposed to be safe but I think different. Today you could sue if you fell down a manhole but in those days you couldn’t. And you couldn’t get any compensation or benefits. There was nothing. You just had to accept what had happened and get on with what you were doing. That’s how it was.”
“My father was James (Jim) Lawrence Debnam. He was born at Crockerton, at No.3 Crockerton. That’s where he was brought up. He had two sisters and two brothers. Dad’s family worked away on ships, doing hairdressing and cutting hair. My aunts on dad’s side of the family were stewardesses on the big ships which sailed out of Southampton. They were away for long periods. When they came back from a trip, each time, they would bring back wonderful presents. I can remember the Panama hats which were lovely and so were the fans. It was a real feast when aunts and uncles arrived. Salmon and chicken was a luxury in those days but that’s what they used to bring home for dad and us.”
“Dad was quite tall and he was clean-shaven. He smoked Woodbines until not long before he died. That’s when he gave up smoking but it was too late by then. Dad had mousy-coloured hair and he used to wear a cap. Unlike mother he wasn’t religious. No he wasn’t. He went to church but only for christenings, weddings and funerals.”
“My dad worked for the Dufosee family on a farm, to begin with, at Maiden Bradley but then he went off to fight in the First World War. The War broke out and it was the thing to do, to enlist and go off to fight for King and Country. My dad served in the Great War but he was wounded and had to be discharged. He had been shot in the head and this had a bad effect on him. It made him bad-tempered. He used to get agitated and you had to toe the line when he was around. You had to watch your step. He was happy enough with my mother but the War and what had happened to him and his mates effected him greatly.”
“He had suffered a head injury and he’d lost part of his left ear. He had seen the man who pointed the gun at his head and he saw him pull the trigger. Dad told me, later on, all about it. He told me it was a Turk who pulled the trigger on him. The bullet went through father’s head and he was left for dead. I always remember this: He said there were only six of them left fighting and they were overcome. They were kicked after being wounded and they were exchanged for some enemy troops. Later he was taken prisoner and moved to a hospital. He was given French newspapers to read and he felt sure they thought he was blind because the nurses insisted they were English newspapers. They gave him medicine but he poured it away. He said it was more like poison.”
“I was a baby when the War was on, so I didn’t know nothing about it. I had my photograph taken by a photographer called Charles Ashworth in Warminster. My mother sent the photograph to father, but he never saw it. It never got to him. He didn’t see me until he came back from the War, and the photo was finally returned to my mother five years after she had sent it. Father didn’t see me until I was between five and a half and six years old.”
“After the War dad became a postman but between his post work he tended his own large garden as well as doing a bit of milking for John Bourne at a farmyard near to where we lived. He did this at odd times, when Farmer Bourne needed him. I can remember going down the yard, in all the mud and cow muck, and seeing my dad fill up a can with hot frothy milk.”
“I went down the farmhouse quite a lot and I used to see old Mrs. Bourne. She wore long black clothes and a big bonnet. She was always so kind and she smiled all the time but I never ever saw her out of her rocking chair. She had a daughter called Mary and a son called John who ran the farm. The butter that the daughter made was out of this world. I used to stand and watch and I was fascinated. The skim milk was all frothy when she gave me some to drink. We always had our butter from there and that is why, to this day, I cannot eat any butter or margarine other than farm butter. When I go to tea somewhere I try to go without bread and butter if possible in case it is not farm butter, because if it wasn’t I would feel sick. I also like pheasant and all the first-class foods.”
“My dad’s garden was wonderful. He spent most of his time doing that. He had a big garden and he used to do other people’s gardens as well. He grew everything there was to grow. Strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, and black, red and white currants. We even had nut bushes, both filbert and walnut, and we also had apple trees including Beauty of Bath, Orange Blenheim, and a large cooking apple tree. We also had a Victoria plum tree. Dad grew every vegetable except spinach.”
“Mother always had the cupboard full of jam and something she made from the raspberries with vinegar for our colds (which were rare). She also made all kinds of wine in stone corked jars. I remember seeing it with the yeast fermenting on the top, on the floor in the big well-house. Dandelion was one of the best ever wines. I should know because one day when I came home from school (mother had cycled to Warminster to get her groceries from the Co-op where even our clothes were bought out of the dividend), I went into the well-house and started showing-off in front of a school friend. I took one of the jars and lifted it up to my mouth and started to drink it. So did my friend. We found ourselves going all funny. By the time mother got home we were laughing drunk. We got into trouble over that and I never drank wine again in my youth.”
“I can also remember when, one day, my father complained about his legs. He had been kicked while playing football. He followed sport and he was football mad. He used to play for Warminster Town but I don’t know what position he played. He’d take part in the Easter Monday football tournaments at Weymouth Street in Warminster. He got kicked and that was the end of his footballing days. I saw my mother crying at his bedside and I felt so sad. I looked closer and saw he had three leeches on his leg. They were sucking all the poison out and they would not come off until they were full up, and then they fell off.”
“Father liked sport and he loved gardening. He did his own garden and did gardening for others as well. He was interested in anything out of doors and nothing else really. He wasn’t what you would call articulate. He wasn’t interested in reading books or anything like that. We used to have a newspaper. We had the Daily Herald and the Warminster Journal. Sometimes they were delivered or dad would pick them up on his way home from work at the Post Office. After we had finished with the Journal dad would pack it up and send it away for my aunties to read.”
“Our cottage, at No.3., just up the lane past Johnny Bourne’s farm, had three rooms downstairs. There was a couple of living rooms and a little kitchen place with the open fire for cooking. Mother had a big pot hanging over the fire and everything went in the pot. The smoke went up the chimney. We had lovely food. It tasted good, unlike the horrible stuff you buy in the shops today. Mother was a good cook. She was a cook; that’s what she did in domestic service. We had all the vegetables out of dad’s garden and mother would make lovely dumplings. Dad would catch rabbits and they’d come in handy for a meal.”
“Sundays were lovely during the strawberry season. We always had strawberries and cream for tea. My father was very strict at meal times and kept a stick (called a shallery) on the table. None of us had to speak during meals. I always laid out the tea for mother as soon as I came home from school. I loved her so much that I used to gaze at her from all angles unknown to her.”
“There were three rooms upstairs for sleeping. We didn’t have carpets. We had cold lino on the stone floors, and a few rag mats. Dad’s family used to bring us back mats from off the ships. That was the only mats we ever had. Mother had a besom for brushing, and all the household rubbish was buried in the garden. Dad made a hole and the rubbish went in there. There were no dustbin men. The waste from the toilet was also buried in the garden. That was to help the vegetables grow. There were no mod-cons in the home. Mother had quite a pride in her home and it always looked clean and tidy. I don’t know how she did it really. When I got older I had to help with the housework.”
“My grandparents, on my father’s side, lived in the little house adjoining ours, and there was a large well-house in between. I can distinctly remember the well-house because I often had to get the water up for my family’s use. That meant letting a large bucket down into the well with a long thick rope. You had to be strong to do it or you could have been wound down with it. I was nine years of age at the time and the only thing I hated about it was the depth of the well and the creepy-crawlers that came up with the water. I was told that boiling the water would make it clean and pure.”
“My granny (on father’s side) was a hat maker. She made hats at home for a shop in Salisbury. They would bring her out the material and she would make them to order. I can remember seeing the hats all piled up. I think they were sent to Salisbury on the train from Warminster. They were good hats but not the sort of things people would want to wear today. They were old-fashioned. Granny also made hats for other people, on the quiet, if someone came to her wanting one.”
“Granny liked sewing and playing the organ. She had two organs in her pint-sized thatched cottage. Granny and grandfer were our only neighbours, so we didn’t see many other people. The Burgess family lived a bit further down the lane and the Thornes, the Stokes’ and the Elkins were not far away.”
“My mother did all her shopping at the Co-op in Warminster. She shopped there to get the divvy. She didn’t shop anywhere else. Our clothes came from there, our shoes came from there, and the groceries came from there. I used to see mum going off on her bike to Warminster to do it. If our shoes wanted mending, dad would do it himself. He had a last and he’d get the bits of leather from Miss Francis’s shop at George Street in Warminster. You couldn’t afford to go to a boot mender. You never did that. Mother used to make a lot of our clothes. She was good at doing that.”
“I had two brothers and a sister. Les was my oldest brother. He was christened Leslie Lawrence Debnam. My sister Winnie came next and then me. Jack came after me and later on I had a step-sister called Monica. She’s very close to me, she’s more like a full sister and she came to see me only last week. Her birthday is the 15th of November. Her married name is Alston. She lives at 15 Westlands in Heytesbury and she brings me over the Warminster Journal.”
“I started school when I was about five. I went to Crockerton School until I was 14. That was the only school I ever went to. I had to walk two miles to school every day for nine years but they were such happy years. I was the schoolmaster’s pet. The schoolteachers were a husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Copley, and I loved both of them and I respected them. Mr. Copley had a curled-up moustache and he was more severe than his wife but he was good. Mrs. Copley had long hair which she wore up.”
“I’ve still got a letter Mrs. Copley gave me when I left school. I’ll read it out to you. It says ‘Joan Debnam was a pupil at Crockerton School all her school life & in every way was a credit to us. She was neat, clean & punctual, conscientious in her work & excellent in needlework & in the cookery classes. I should consider that she would prove an asset in any home & she has my best wishes for her success & welfare. Margaret K. Copley. Headmistress of Crockerton School 1918-1934.’
“Mr. and Mrs. Copley later moved to Northumberland. There was another teacher, a woman called Mrs. Trollope, and she had the hardest job, teaching the infants when they first arrived at the school. Some kicked her and cried to go home but she always had plenty of sweets in her bag and the children soon settled down. We had a register and you had to shout out when the teacher called out your name, and every morning we had a service first thing. Mrs. Copley took that. Mr. Copley looked after the boys in the other room. There were three classrooms. Mr. Copley took one class, Mrs. Copley took another and Mrs. Trollope had one. When I was older I assisted with looking after one of the classes of children. Why they picked me I don’t know. I used to teach the little ones. I was allowed to take the infant classes when the teacher went out. Each classroom had a blackboard. A big round stove provided the heating. The caretaker, Mr. Trollope, the husband of the teacher, used to fill the stoves with coke. He was my uncle. He also saw to the toilets.”
“In those days if we were out playing after 8.00 p.m. and any of our teachers saw us, we had to go up before class the next day for a ticking off. We were told off for playing with boys. It was a mixed school and we saw nothing wrong in playing with the boys and I loved being in a mixed class. I loved one boy very much and I thought I would marry him when I grew up. His name was Selwyn Randall. He sat next to me in class and if ever I didn’t know anything he used to help me out. The only trouble was he always had the cane for playing truant from school. I admired his pluck because he could take the cane without a cringe. He just smiled when he came back to his desk.”
“Lots of the boys used to drink the blue-black ink which we were supposed to use on our scratchy pens. The nibs always hurt your second finger when you were writing. I tasted the ink once and it was similar to vinegar. We also used to eat the briar stems and the sorrel on our way to school in the mornings. I don’t think we were hungry but it was the trend to do it. We used to copy the older children.”
“I loved history and the scriptures. Sometimes when I didn’t really know the answer to anything I’d wave my hand with the rest and blow my nose into my handkerchief with my other hand to avoid being asked. I was the schoolmaster’s pet and when I had any teeth out at school (which was a painful process with a big needle going up your gums in more than one place) the master gave me a silver sixpenny piece. That was worth a lot at that time.”
“I also liked cookery classes. They were held away from the school, not far from where the shopping warehouse is in Crockerton now. That used to be the brick works. Our cookery classes were held near there because there were no facilities at the school. I was also the one chosen to take the cookery things we made on cookery day to Mr. and Mrs. Copley’s home. The cookery place was quite a mile out of my own way home. I was happy to do it because they had a son who I was beginning to take a liking to. He was higher than me in my estimation. I felt below him but I lived in the hope that he may have come to recognise me as someone but he never did. He was treated at the school the same as the rest of us and it surprised me when his father gave him the cane, not just once but often. In the end Mr. Copley’s son went to college and I never saw him again.”
“I hated the school toilets. Boys used one side and the girls the other. They were side by side and there was a long dark smelly passage to get to them. I used to spend a penny as quick as I could. I always felt sorry for the caretaker who had to dispose of our offerings, year in year out.”
“The girls used to do sewing and in the summer it was lovely because we were allowed to go up under the pine trees which grew in the play yard and sew there. We’d sit there, sewing, and that’s when I did my very best stitches. It was a lovely atmosphere. There were coloured butterflies and big humming bees to keep us company, as well as the birds.”
“We used to play lots of games. I loved cricket. That was lovely until the ball hit my leg. It was hard and it hurt. We had a proper cricket ball and bats. We also played badminton in the school yard. I was a tomboy. I had one special friend, Hilda Baker, and we both had a pash on our church vicar. When he visited the school we would tremble with excitement but he never knew it. During the winter my mother used to bring my dinner to the school in a basin. It was always rabbit and dumplings, with all the fresh vegetables, and I never tired of it. My whole school life was a success. I became the best writer and was also the best in needlework.”
“My sister, Winnie, was three years older than me but we had very little in common. She was very domineering and I was against this, which made me a bit of a rebel. My brother was four years older than me but I loved him. He could shoot pigeons and rabbits, and when he went to work he gave me sixpence a week, giving the rest of his wages to mother. I think he earned about ten shillings a week. He did try for a job as a telegram boy with the Post Office but we were all disappointed when he failed to pass. He didn’t fail because of his brains but because his left foot was flat. In those days they were very careful who they employed at the Post Office. For instance, you would never see a postman with glasses on. Today you see all sorts, even postmen with long hair. I loved to see a homely postman in the old uniform. They’ve even changed that now, to grey.”
“Christmas was a beautiful time. I always remember the lovely food we had and it was all home-made. Every Christmas I had a pair of woolly gloves for the winter (which was often blessed with six foot high snow). I thought the world of those gloves. I also used to get a round box of assorted sweets (sugared almonds being my favourite then).”
“I had my big doll’s pram which was a craft in itself, well made, with a beautiful shiny finish. I owned two china dolls and never got to owning more than two. Of course, being china, if you dropped them they just smashed to a hundred pieces which is what happened to one of mine. After that I had a scolding from my father and had to borrow my sister’s doll. One day I took it to school, unbeknown to my parents, and, alas, another girl wanted to hold it and she dropped it in the playground. I was stricken with terror. Whatever would I say when it was found out? I knew how angry my father would be. When it was discovered I was sent to bed for four nights directly after school with no tea. Luckily for me my mother came up to the bedroom with something for me to eat and drink, without my father knowing.”
“I had a dove in a large cage outside our house. The cage was attached to the wall, high enough for the dove to be safe from other animals, especially cats, which may have wanted to eat it. I was very fond of that dove and was heartbroken when, one morning, I went out to feed it and found the cage door open. The wooden peg was missing. Either the dove had flown away or it had been eaten. I cried for days and I couldn’t eat.”
“We had a big wood near where we lived called Southleigh Wood and it belonged to Lady Heytesbury. She was a very kind lady and she lived in a very large house in the grounds. We had to get a permit from her to enter the woods, so as to pick lilies of the valley which grew all over the woods. It was about a mile and a half from my home and we had to cross over the river Wylye on just a plank. I always hated this because I hated water and I couldn’t swim (I still can’t). Still, there was always a lot of children going together to pick the lilies, mostly on a Saturday, and we spent hours from home that day. The lilies smelt lovely and they are to this day my favourite flower. The violet comes next, then the rose and then the carnation. The only thing that scared any of us in the woods were the adders and during the hot summers there were plenty to be seen. I remember one staring at me with such cunning little eyes that I had a job to take my eyes off it and I nearly got mesmerised. I shouted for some of my friends and the snake vanished.”
“We also had some streams around the village and we used to get a jam jar with string tied on it and catch the minnows which were small tiny fish to us. It was great fun. We couldn’t afford one of the nets that you could buy on the end of a cane. I always went back to the river with my fish later to throw them back. I had my moments capturing and then releasing them.”
“Sometimes, on my way home from school I did some shopping for a bedridden old lady called Mrs. Holton. She was a lovely person. She lived next door to us at No.22. She always waved as I went by to school and when I came back I would always look hard to see if she would beckon me in. She used to ask me to buy just a few things like vinegar, candles, rice, and bread and cheese, but she always made sure I had a small bag of chocolates. I thought that was wonderful because we could never afford to buy loose chocolates. They were in a striped bag with a red string through the top for you to carry it. I thought cor, what the gentry must be having? And I used to get a bit of liquorice too.”
“I did Mrs. Holton’s shopping at Mrs. Gray’s which was a couple of doors away, just up the little slope. It’s a house now. Mrs. Gray’s shop was really just a room in her house and she used to sell most things. As well as groceries she also sold oil and paraffin. I still can’t think what people did then with all the vinegar they used to buy. I used to have to take an empty bottle for the shopkeeper, Mrs. Gray, to draw some off for Mrs. Holton.”
“Mrs. Gray was an old lady. She didn’t have a husband because she was a widow. She ran the shop on her own. It took a long time shopping by the time the shopkeeper had weighed this and that, rolled up the candles in a bit of newspaper, and added up the prices on a piece of old paper. The cost was in halfpennies in those days.”
“I was never short of chocolate because my father gave me twopence every day of my life to get a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate to eat either on the way to school or back. The bars were thick, with the word ‘Cadbury’ written right across them. I prefer the old bars to the squares they make in a bar now. Sometimes mum would let me get some lardy cakes from a baker called Mr. Holloway at Warminster Common. Those lardies were lovely. The ones you get in the shops today are a load of rubbish.”
“On our birthdays we always had a sing-song because my sister could play the piano. We had a Duckson & Pinker make. My eldest brother could also play but I couldn’t. I wanted to but my mother couldn’t afford lessons for me. I used to sing and friends invited to our parties would join in. The table was a treat. Mother would make everything, as usual, and the cake was decorated and iced beautiful. My brother and I would have a dual birthday party because his birthday was in October, same as mine. Yes, I was very fond of my big brother.”
“I always looked upon my brother as being the bravest boy on earth. One day he caught an adder in the garden and he chopped off its head. He skinned the snake and he nailed it down on a piece of wood where he also had mole and rabbit skins. I was very curious about the snake’s head, so after my brother had buried it, I went up the garden and dug it up. I was surprised to see it was still alive or so it seemed. The feelers kept coming out of its mouth. I quickly re-buried it.”
“The big event in Warminster, twice a year, was the fair. It came every April and October and was set up all through the Market Place, on both sides of the street. It was lovely and it was always packed out with people. They had every type of stall you could think of. It was a steam fair with roundabouts including the big horses. I used to like the toffee you could get at the fair and I particularly remember the little glasses you could look in. You peered through an eye piece, turned a handle, and you could watch some moving pictures. There was also a boxing booth and local people were challenged to have a go. I used to save up a few pennies to go to the fair. You didn’t have enough really, only sixpence. Most people saved up to go.”
“When I was eight I went to Warminster October Fair with my parents as usual. I seemed to break away from them and I got lost. I was thrilled with the roundabouts and the funny distorted little dwarves and the fat lady which you could go into sideshows to see. They were something special to my eight year old way of thinking. Of course, as I only had about ten old pence to spend I couldn’t see or buy much, but I was happy to wander around with the crowd. Often, at the October Fair, we would fall into our cousins but on this particular occasion I didn’t meet any of them. I looked up and down for my parents but to no avail. I looked for over an hour. I thought they must have thought that I had gone home (because I was never afraid of the dark), so I stopped on at the fair taking it all in. Luckily I picked up a sixpence off the ground and I bought some fairings which I ate in one go. I loved those brown crisp fairings. The Gipsy behind the stall who served me looked at me as though she knew I was lost. I was getting a bit worried as to how my father would be about it.”
“When the fair died down I started wandering home and it was a very dark night. I had to walk two and a half miles home to Crockerton. I kept into the side of the road because there were no pavements then and no lights. There were plenty of people on bicycles going by me, and I had to keep right into the side of the road, touching the bank, or I could have been easily knocked down. I had enough road sense to know that, even though I was only eight. As I got nearer home the sound of the music from the fair was getting fainter. Suddenly I heard a horse and trap coming in the opposite direction. It wasn’t very fast, just jogging. When it got near I shouted out ‘Goodnight,’ and a voice said ‘Is that you, Joan?’ I was glad to hear my dad’s voice and he was pleased to hear mine.”
“Apparently when dad got back home and discovered I wasn’t there, he had borrowed the pony and trap from Mr. Zebedee, the farmer near our home, to come looking for me. I went home in the trap to a hero’s welcome. My mother was crying. She held me and kissed me. My brother and sister came down from upstairs in their nightclothes and they looked pleased because I had been found. It was late by then. It was way past my parents’ bedtime. The working classes used to be in bed by 10.00 p.m.”
“My father, being a postman, had to be in Warminster Sorting Office by 4.00 a.m. the next morning. At that time he was not getting £4 a week because you only got that when you had been appointed, and that meant he would probably have to move to another village. The Postmaster General could do this once a man was appointed.”
“On Sundays we went to church three times a day. The trouble was we didn’t really know what religion to follow. Firstly we went to Chapel, which was only down the bottom of our lane where we lived. A very nice, white-bearded, old man took the teachings. He was Edwin Crofts. I loved going to chapel. The Harvest Festival was something to be proud of. There was all the corn and fruit and vegetables, plus an abundance of flowers, in all colours, and there was a very sweet smell to it all. It was really magic or so it seemed to me. My grandmother on father’s side was the organist at the chapel for years, which is probably why we had such a good connection with it. I was sad when we left, in favour of church.”
“For one thing, the church was next to the school which I attended every day and the lovely friendliness was gone. The tunes, or rather the hymns, were not so nice. I joined the girls’ choir at Crockerton Church and found myself tied to it even more. We had choir practice and Bible reading, so that was two evenings of the week taken up. I still went to visit Mr. Crofts at the Chapel. He lived in an old house next to it and he had the most marvellous apple trees which I had the pickings of. He was so dreadfully kind and his wife was just as charming.”
“Later on we found ourselves going to Evangelist meetings quite a distance away but we loved it. The singing was lovely and we were quite fond of good-doers (or so we thought). My sister and brother came as well. I found myself attracted to the boys. I was more or less a tomboy myself, always playing cricket and climbing trees, and I was always getting told off by my elder sister. I found myself rebelling even more.”
“At that time I could play the organ. My grandmother had two organs and she used to let me try my hand. The only trouble was I had to play hymns. The two most outstanding ones were Ride On, Ride On In Majesty and Rock Of Ages Cleft For Me. I also had to clean my grand-father’s boots on Saturday mornings. My granny, unknown to him, gave me a shilling each time. I felt very rich and when she died I missed her greatly. She did not have a happy life because my granddad was a drunkard and she was always searching for him at night or rather early morning. He never did change his ways, even after he went blind.”
“We moved down into the village after my granny died. We went to No.21. It was a lovely house, opposite a farm, and I got very friendly with the boy, Dennis, and the girl, Phyllis, who lived at the farm. That was Dennis and Phyllis Zebedee. Mr. Zebedee was a wonderful man. The farm was called Green Farm and the Zebedee family had it after the Dawkins family moved to Mill Farm at Bishopstrow. I soon found myself having tea quite a lot with Dennis and Phyllis. I would eat the bread and butter because it was farm butter. One day we were playing hide-and-seek in the empty sheds. I was in the yard where they used to keep the animals, having fun, but Dennis spoilt it because he threw a large brick and it hit me on the head. The blood was streaming down my face and I was taken across the road to my home, where I had to lay down on the table. I remember my mother fetching the doctor, which cost seven shillings and sixpence then. My mother used to pay four pence a week into a hospital club to cover things like that. Someone used to come round every week to collect it. It was Doctor Blackley who came out to see me. He seemed a long time arriving. Of course he had a two and a half mile journey before reaching me. I had three stitches put into the wound and I have the mark to this day. To hide it I changed the parting in my hair to the boy’s side. Dennis was punished for what he had done. He had a good hiding with a stick, which I felt was wrong.”
“One day we found, in the Zebedee family’s farmhouse, a lot of money in an old table. We took the table apart and money was falling out of all the cracks and crevices. We played with threepenny bits, sixpenny bits, shillings, pennies and halfpennies, plus a few farthings. Our first reaction was to keep the money but we found we couldn’t be dishonest, so we handed it over to their mother. She rewarded us by giving us sweets for weeks after that.”
“Every Saturday we went to the pictures. We went to the Palace Cinema in Warminster. It was in the Athenaeum. We had to walk two and a half miles to get there. It was three pence to get in. It was packed with children and it was a job for the staff to keep peace and order. If the film ever broke down, which very often happened, everyone would start shouting and making a commotion. I always used to sit in the front row because I didn’t want anyone in front of me spoiling my view. Just in front of me, set down in, was a woman playing the piano accompaniment to the films because they were silent films. She was an old lady and she was very good at playing the piano. I remember those old films very well. I used to enjoy them. They were very exciting because the heroes were always falling off cliffs, or nearly falling off, and then we had to wait until the following week to see the next instalment. When we came out we had an orange given to us by the manager. So, all the way home there was lots of orange peel dropped in the road, and it was quite a mess.”
“The film called The Constant Nymph was a favourite of mine and another I remember so well was called King Of Kings. John Boles was my favourite actor then but I had also fallen in love with Rudolph Valentino’s photo as the Sheik. I heard so much about him then and have since, but I was very disappointed with the book on his life which I read in 1971. I was also keen on Errol Flynn as an actor. I don’t bother going to the cinema today, now we’ve got television and cable in home.”
“Life went on and it was very rosy and happy. My father had a garden at our new place, 21 Crockerton, and it was just as nice as the other. He was gardening mad. I used to go poaching with my father and I was never afraid of the dark or the moon casting numerous shadows. I used to wait at the other end of the rabbit burrows, while the ferrets chased them out. It was exciting but I now consider it cruel. Father also used to take a gun and shoot as well. One night he shot an otter down at the river Wylye and my mother had it cured and wore the fur round her neck.”
“While we were living at 21 Crockerton my mother had another baby. It was a boy and he was named Jim after my father James Debnam. I remember the nurse arriving on an old bike. That was Nurse Giles from Warminster. She had a black bag hung over the handlebars. I was told that the nurse had brought my new brother in that black bag. I was so jealous about this arrival that I sat on the bottom of the stairs and cried bitterly. I had been the baby for eight years and my nose was put out.”
“Next door to us there lived an old lady called Mrs. Holton. When mother cycled into Warminster to do her shopping at the Co-op, she left me with Mrs. Holton. Mrs. Holton called me Little Red Riding Hood because I wore a red cape with a bonnet attached to it. Mrs. Holton had a three-burner oil stove for cooking and it was always warm and comfortable in the house. She was always cooking lovely rice puddings. They were beautiful. She used to put them in overnight and they cooked slowly and were all brown which I liked. She also had syrup for tea and I can remember so well the lion stamped on the tin. That was Tate & Lyle’s syrup. That was a luxury in those days. She also had cream biscuits, which were rarely bought by ordinary folks back then. For these reasons I liked staying with Mrs. Holton. She was such a kind person.”
“Life went on as usual. School on weekdays, the pictures on Saturdays and church on Sundays. One day, out of school, a school mate and myself went inside the old turnpike house at Rainbow Hill. We went upstairs and to our horror we saw an old woman dead on the bed, with her eyes wide open. We both touched her hands and they were like a dab of ice. We couldn’t believe she was dead and on her own, so we ran out and shouted for the neighbour. I still remember the dead woman’s face and there was no comparison to my granny’s when she died.”
“My mother soon realised it was a mistake when she moved from 21 Crockerton back to the old house again at No.3. Gone were the friendly faces of the neighbours and the happy life. This old house, as I said, was built inside the edge of a common. We didn’t see many people except for when people came round with horses and carts selling stuff. We used to see a lot of Gipsies. They would come round telling fortunes and selling clothes pegs they had made.”
“We had to amuse ourselves. We always had books in home when I was growing up. We also had a wireless but that was the old cat’s whisker with headphones. Us kids had to fight over who was going to have the headphones. We had a gramophone as well with Nipper the dog on it. Dad bought it secondhand. We weren’t allowed up late. We listened to the wireless or the gramophone when dad was out on a Saturday night.”
“Crockerton was a real peaceful village. It was a lovely place and I loved it. We could roam where we wanted to and we could do what we wanted within reason. The people in Crockerton were very nice and they didn’t bother us. Mr. Crofts, the Chapel man really stands out in my mind. He was a wonderful man. He had a big white beard all round his face. His wife was wonderful too. The old people were very tolerant of us kids, except for my grandfather. He was horrible. If he saw you take so much as a plum out of his garden he would tell our dad and get us into trouble. My grandfather treated my mother terrible and called her names.”
“The purpose of moving back to No.3 was to be nearer granddad, to look out for him now that he was older. The thought of facing that well-house again was sickening. I dream of it even now. Grandfather seemed to hate my mother but she did all the meals, the washing and the housework. She never told my father she was expecting another baby. She was 41. The baby was called Jack. He was a seven months’ baby. Mother was very ill. Jack weighed one and a half pounds. He was the smallest in the world. He was put into a box by the open fire. We called him Jack-in-the-box. He was too small to feed or wash. He was wrapped in cotton wool in olive oil and fed with a fountain pen. I remember the Vicar coming to the house to baptise him because he was not expected to live. That was the Reverend Brocklebank. Then Jack had a double rupture and had to be rushed to hospital. Mother had to go with him. Luckily he survived. He’s now 70, his birthday is the end of this month [January].”
“At that time, when Jack was born, my elder sister, Winnie, had left school and was training to be a governess with children at Cowes, for Lady Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. So, she had to come back and look after us. That did not go down very well with me. We never hitched it. When mother and Jack returned home we learned she’d had one breast off because of a cyst, so called, and she never had the same strength as before.”
“One day, Winnie decided to go on a cycling tour with a girlfriend but she only got as far as the bottom of our lane. I was laying in the common, watching the clouds go by, imagining all the images in the clouds, when, all of a sudden, I heard a loud bang. I guessed what had happened. My sister had been knocked down by a car. The driver was from Longbridge Deverill. My sister had been dragged for 25 yards under the car. It was dreadful. She was taken to Warminster Hospital and was put on the danger list. We were all sent for. I remember seeing her eyes, they were all black and we thought it was the end. Her scalp had been lifted off from her forehead. After four days of being unconscious she luckily recognised us. When my sister came home she always had headaches but she recovered and went back to Cowes.”
“A year later she was sent home again. My mother was weakening. There was so much trouble, one way or another. I was staying away from school, looking after mother but I was not old enough. I was now 12. I remember my sister crying and I knew something was really wrong for her to cry. She was always so hard-hearted. She told me ‘Mother is dying, Joan.’ It was a shock to me. All our relatives were sent for and we all sat round the deathbed. I went downstairs because I didn’t like it. Later, they shouted to me. They said mother had asked for me. I was dragged up to her bed and I remember her eyes. They were all scaled over but she still looked beautiful. She pointed to my eldest brother, Leslie, and said ‘You will be the next, Leslie. I can see you on the path.’ She was unable to say what she wanted to say to me, so I never got any message from her. My mother died on 27th September 1928.”
“We were all so sad. Mother died of quinsy which choked her. Today we are more advanced in these things but not then. I hid myself away in the big built-in bread cupboard and I cried solid for 24 hours. I heard them say ‘Leave her, let her get it out of her system.’ I had to follow in the funeral procession and I swayed on my feet. I wanted to jump in the grave with mother. It just didn’t seem that she could be dead. Not her, that sweet natured soul.”
“My future looked black. Mother was dead. I was very unhappy. My sister was looking after us. She was 16 and she did her best but I hated going to bed. There was no one to kiss me and tuck me in any more. Little did we know tragedy was about to strike again.”
“The prophecy mother made on her deathbed about Leslie was to come true. It was a Sunday, a very cold day, in January 1929 [the 20th], when it happened. There was snow and ice everywhere. We all went to church as usual, morning, noon and night. My eldest brother, Leslie, went to church with his girlfriend, Vi Shorto, and afterwards they went for a walk towards Shearwater. The pond was frozen over and there were several boys and girls sliding on it. My brother was on the main road, beside the pond, courting his girlfriend. He heard a cry ‘Help,’ and he left his girlfriend and dashed over the ice towards a boy who had gotten into difficulty. Les realised he needed a stick for the boy to hold on to, so he came back to the edge of the pond and broke a branch off a tree. He went back towards the boy but the ice broke and he fell in. He had hold of the boy’s hand, though, but Les was wearing a heavy overcoat which weighed him down. They both went under and were not seen again. The alarm was raised and Lord Bath sent workmen out with hooks to drag the pond. The two dead boys were found together the next morning. Les was 18. I had felt cold all night and the news in the morning was such a shock. My favourite brother was gone, just like that. What was God thinking about? I was told the best go first which didn’t really make things any more reasonable. And the words of my mother came tumbling back.”
“My father could not have been dealt a heavier blow. His wife gone, leaving a year old baby, and now one of the breadwinners gone for good. The village people collected for father, and my brother had a military funeral because he was in the Territorials. So, just three months after the shock of my mother being taken, I had to walk in a funeral procession again. This time I walked with Nurse Giles who had brought me and my sister and brothers into the world. I hated the Last Post being played and the guns being fired over the grave. Leslie was buried on top of my mother at Crockerton. [The inscription on the gravestone reads: ‘In Loving Memory of Elizabeth Debnam who went to rest Sept 27th 1928, Aged 42 years. Peace Perfect Peace. Also of Leslie Debnam who nobly gave his life in attempting to save another. January 20th 1929. Aged 18 years.’] Dad thought there would be room for him in the same grave one day, but it didn’t turn out like that. The grave wasn’t deep enough for three. The money the villagers gave bought a lovely stone with a surround, and the words were ‘Greater love hath no man than that a man lay down his life for his friend.’ The boy he tried to save was 12 years old. He has a stone erected too, near the entrance door to Crockerton Church. His name was Dickie Pike. His parents were more well-off than us. He was their only son and he happened to be on holiday with his granny when he lost his life.”
“We tried to bury our sorrow and I suppose father felt he must get us a new mother. I had long black hair when mother was alive but when she died I rebelled and had it cut off. I always regretted it. By this time I had a pash on our School Attendance Officer. His name was Mr Gilbert Noyce. If I stayed home from school I used to hide in the hedge up the top of the garden when he called about me missing school. He always joked with my headmistress and his smile and his laugh were music to my eyes and ears. In time I fell in love with him but he did not know. It wasn’t love like they talk about today. Not love and sex. No one told me anything when I was growing up. I didn’t know anything. Until I left school and went to work I didn’t know anything about the world. I wasn’t told about the birds and the bees.”
“One day I ran away from school. Two men in a lorry picked me up and offered to give me a lift to my granny’s at Maiden Bradley. Alas, they stopped at Shearwater and I heard them discussing about how they were going to take me into a field. I was old enough to recognise danger, so I got out of the lorry and ran off towards the woods. I went like hell and I started climbing a tree to hide in. I was afraid the cracking of the branches would give me away. One of the men stood right beneath me and I stopped breathing, hoping the birds, especially the pigeons and doves, would do their stuff. Luckily for me the man moved off with the other one. I stayed up the tree for some time and I was relieved when I heard the engine of the lorry start up and it moved off. I walked the rest of the way to Maiden Bradley, refusing all lifts and feeling a lot wiser. I was nearly at granny’s house when I looked over a hedge and saw my cousin Jim (he was a cousin on my mother’s side of the family) working the land. It was lovely to hail him. All my school holidays were spent with him. I stayed at my granny’s for three days and the school authorities were searching for me. When I got back home there was a policeman waiting to see me. He asked if I was happy at home and wanted to know why had I run away. I was very frightened of his uniform. However, all was forgiven and life went on.”
“My father re-married. My sister was against it. She had to go back to work again and she got a job in London as a domestic servant to a M.P. She rarely came home after that. My new mother, Norah, never knew who her parents were. She had been abandoned as a baby and was found on a doorstep at Pound Street in Warminster. The Prince family took her in and brought her up as one of their own. Norah had lived a sheltered life and she found it hard taking on a ready-made family. I found myself doing extra work too.”
“By the end of 1935 I had left school. I could have gone on to Trowbridge High School because I had passed an exam but my family couldn’t afford the books which were needed. I don’t regret not going on to high school because I always wanted to do office work and I’ve done office work, so it doesn’t make any difference now. I’ve got no regrets.”
“I went to work in domestic service at a convent, at St. Monica’s in Warminster. I think the schoolteacher got me the job there. She said it would be a good job. It was horrible and I hated it. I was only there three days; it was awful. I was soon out of there. The smell of the place was bad enough. Everything was wooden. Wooden tables, wooden cutlery, wooden spoons, and wooden egg cups. I had to clean the sewing room and the hard coconut mats on the floor were always full of cotton. It was terrible trying to brush that up. I used to have to pick up thousands of bits of cotton. The rooms were painted dark brown and looked old and dingy. It was horrid and gloomy. Those nuns were horrible. The nuns seemed to be saying prayers all the time. I don’t know what possesses them to lead that sort of life. I couldn’t. I could never go into a nunnery. I should imagine that prison (if you believe what you read in the press) would be more comfortable than a nunnery.”
“I then went to work in domestic service as a maid at a lady’s house at Longbridge Deverill. I can’t remember her name but she was a very rich person. She had a cook and a gardener. I didn’t last there long. I knew as soon as I started there that I wasn’t going to stay there. I was supposed to work every day, for all the hours going. I didn’t want domestic service work. I hated housework. As far as I was concerned my hands were for much more clever things. I wanted to do sewing. The old house the lady lived in was supposed to be haunted, which made it worse for me because I believed in those things. I left within a week. I didn’t tell the lady I was going, I just went. I ran away and I didn’t go back, so I had no pay from there.”
“I believed in ghosts and strange happenings. My father once told me of the time he and his mates had gone to church on a Sunday, having been told by their parents to go home straight afterwards. They didn’t. Instead they climbed up a tree to pick some hazelnuts. The tree shook of its own accord and it frightened them. They ran away with what nuts they had picked. When they got home they cracked open the nuts and there wasn’t a kernel in any of them. Isn’t that strange? My father also told me how a big black dog used to follow him whenever he passed a certain house in Crockerton. When he stopped the dog always disappeared. My father was no liar, so how do you account for those things?”
“As I say, after less than a week at the lady’s house in Longbridge Deverill I left. I got a third job in domestic service at a house at the very top of Bell Hill, Warminster. It was up from the Bell and Crown pub. I can’t remember the name of the lady there. I got bit by a dog while I was working there. It was a Jack Russell. I still have the mark, it’s the size of a half-crown, on my right leg. I left that job after the second day.”
“I then had a spell of six months in Savernake Hospital, at Marlborough. It was in the middle of Savernake Forest. My back was very bad. I think it was due to my brother Leslie pulling the piano seat aside as I went to sit down. A stupid joke that was. I was on a frame for four months, and then I had two months learning to walk again. I also had my tonsils out while I was tied down on the frame and I nearly choked with the blood. And I also had two teeth pulled. Savernake Hospital was a nice place but you had to do what they told you to do. Matron said what had to be done and you jumped to it. She was in control. The nurses were wonderful. There were quite a few patients in the hospital. They used to do skin grafts there. My sister visited me once or twice at the Hospital. She was then working in domestic service in London.”
“After recovering I then went to a job in domestic service at Goodwood, near the racecourse, in Sussex. Somebody I had met in Savernake Hospital had told me about the job. I applied and I got it. I went by train. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I didn’t even know where Goodwood was. The guard on the train helped me.”
“I hated having to do general housework. I had to have a special uniform and this was made by a lady dressmaker at Crockerton. It cost my father a lot of money. I never re-paid him, as I only stayed at Goodwood one week. It was horrid. I had to feed an Alsatian dog. This animal never trusted me, or I him. He seemed to sense I had been bitten before. All dogs seemed to go for me. I had to feed this Alsatian and he bit me on the left hip as I bent down. I left straight away. I’m terrified of dogs but I love cats. I find cats loyal, friendly and such good companions. They are very much like teddy bears.”
“When I got home from Goodwood I saw my father working in the garden. I wondered what he would say, as I’d left this job, like all the others before. I was most relieved when he looked at me and said ‘Well Joan, you didn’t like it did you?’ I said ‘No, I didn’t.’ He then said ‘Never do what you don’t want to.’ Since then I never have.”
“I thought why the hell do I keep getting shoved into domestic service when it’s a job I hate. Having had four jobs in domestic service I didn’t want any more of that. I wanted to go into a factory and learn a trade. If you learn a trade you are never out of a job. So, I went to work at Jefferies’ Glove Factory in Warminster. I just walked into the factory and asked if they had any jobs going. They said ‘Yes,’ and that’s how I started there. I used to see Mr. Jefferies quite often. He was a little man, he wasn’t very tall. He used to speak to us girls and I got on alright with him. It was like a big family working there.”
“First I had to hand-sew the gloves and then I learned how to put the fur inside. Then I went on the machines, making gloves. I preferred the hand-sewn ones; they looked neater. The factory was full of machinery. You were on piecework, so you had to be fast. You had to do quite a lot of gloves to get your money. The pay was alright. It was seven shillings and sixpence a week. That was good as far as I was concerned. Miss Lil Prince was in charge of the women and the girls. She was an aunt of my step mother Norah. She was a bit of a tartar really but I wasn’t afraid of her. You had to do your work or you would be out. If you were late for work, say because your bike had broke down, you had something deducted out of your wages. We were paid weekly. You didn’t go to the office to collect your wages. Somebody brought it around to where you were working. That was to save time.”
“There were men and boys working at the factory too. My brother, the one who drowned, had been employed there for a while. While I was working at the Glove Factory a stone plaque was hung in there in memory of my brother Leslie. Later it was put in Crockerton Church. The church is now a house and I think that is wicked. My stepmother Norah was asked if she wanted the plaque. It was offered to her but she didn’t want it. It’s on the wall in the Drill Hall (the United Services Club) at Imber Road in Warminster now.”
“Without giving any notice I walked out of my job at the Glove Factory and went to work at the Silk Factory in Warminster. I was at the glove factory for about one and a half or two years. I wanted to learn the silk trade. My friend, Glad White, who worked at the Silk Factory at Pound Street in Warminster told me they wanted someone up there. So I went up there and got a job. Glad White lived at Boreham Road, Warminster, with her mother. I think it was No.21. Her father wasn’t there because her parents had got divorced. She’s married to Stan Pearce now and she writes to me at birthdays and Christmas.”
“I went to the Silk Factory to work but I didn’t bother giving in my notice at Jefferies’. The first week I was at the Silk Factory I had a fit because the boss from the Glove Factory came up to see me and asked me to go back. I wouldn’t. I had learnt all there was to learn about gloves and I thirsted for more knowledge. I wanted to do something different. It was a lovely job at the Silk Factory.”
“It was a big place and the work was easy. The only trouble was that you had to stand up all day, as opposed to glove making when I used to sit down. Two brothers were in charge and I liked them. Their name was Best. I suppose there were 150 people working there. The factory was divided up into different departments. I worked on the spools. I had 20 spools to look after. The raw materials were brought in and we had to weave the silk. The overseer, Ivy, had a boyfriend who drowned in the lake in Warminster. He got cramp and drowned. That happened [on 21st July 1933] while I was working at the silk factory. I can remember her crying. Her boyfriend’s name was Alec Wickham and he worked at the Post Office. My dad knew him.”
“I used to cycle from Crockerton to the Silk Factory and back. I used to cycle home for dinner too. We had an hour for dinner. That wasn’t long by the time you got home, got your dinner ready, ate it, and then cycled back. I got my bike from a man called Moore who used to come round selling bikes. It cost me half-a-crown a week. Mr. Moore would come round each week to collect the money. The bike had solid tyres, so you didn’t get any punctures. It was black and had a light, but not a battery one, on the front. That bike was my pride and joy.”
“I paid for my bike out of my wages and gave the rest to my step-mother. She gave me back sixpence a week for pocket money which I spent on sweets. There was a sweet shop in the Market Place in Warminster that I used to go into. I never had any new clothes in they days. I had to wear hand-me-downs. My step-mother got them from somewhere.”
“While I was working at the Silk Factory my father got appointed at Warminster Post Office and was moved to Wylye. He was a postman there. He didn’t earn much money even though he had been promoted. He was only getting about four pounds something a week. High wages! Gosh, when you think about it, some postmen get over £200 a week now.”
“Father lodged at Wylye first because he couldn’t get a place of his own. He lodged with Mrs. Gaisford. She was a widow. Then they built the Council houses and he went in No.3. They had a post office in Wylye but it was near the end of the village, not in the centre where it is now. Wylye is bypassed now but before there was a lot of traffic coming through it. There was a terrific amount of traffic during the War. There were two or three shops in Wylye. They were a clothes’ shop called Harford’s, a baker and grocer called Frank Barter, and a grocer called Larry Ball. There was also a butcher called Henry Witt.”
“My dad’s post round included Fisherton Delamere and he had to go to outlying places, sometimes just to deliver to one house miles from anywhere. And he had to do Wylye and Bapton. He had a big area to cover in all weathers. He got suspended once because he said something silly to a woman once. He knew her. She was a friend of his. She was pregnant and he said ‘Oh, you’re in the pudding club again,’ and she took it the wrong way. He said it quite innocently. He had to stay off work for a while. The funny thing was, about two days after she reported dad, she came down, with her husband, to see me. I was in bed having my daughter Hazel and this woman wanted to make sure I was alright. I couldn’t make it out. People are funny.”
“I stayed on at No.3 Crockerton, next to my grandfather’s cottage. Grandfather led one hell of a life, trying to frighten me in every way by moaning in the well-house and banging the doors. I was becoming a wreck with my nerves and I kept remembering my granny’s, my mother’s and my brother’s coffins which had laid in the front room. I just couldn’t sleep any more and I had to cycle two and a half miles to work in the mornings. I hated going back to the house at night. So I begged father to give up the house at Crockerton and let me go to Wylye to live with him. I knew that would mean a ten mile cycle ride to work at the Silk Factory in Warminster every day but I was strong-legged and prepared to do it. Anything was better than staying on with that devil of a grandfather next door. So I moved to Wylye and rode to and from work in Warminster.”
“Queenie Elloway worked at the Silk Factory. She died recently. And Glad White worked there. I used to have her old clothes. When she had new I had her old ones. The girls at the factory were good to one another like that. We worked from half past eight until six at night. It was a long day. They had an annual outing by charabanc. We went to Bournemouth and Weymouth. That seemed like another world. We used to walk about on the sands. Everybody walked about with all their usual clothes on. You didn’t see anyone in bikinis like you do today. It would get hot but as long as you had something to eat and drink it didn’t matter. I love Bournemouth. That’s my favourite seaside resort.”
“My workmates at the Silk Factory dared me to go on the wall of death at Warminster Fair. You sat on a motorbike, on the front of the seat, with the motorcyclist sat behind you. I sat on the front of the motorbike and to my horror I saw a second bike following us in the pit. So I shut my eyes tightly and hoped for the best. People in the crowd above were throwing pennies and halfpennies over us as we went round in the pit. When it was over the man who owned the wall of death gave me a ten shilling note. For a few minutes I could not stand and I was white as a sheet. I had to pushbike home in the moonlight. My father was annoyed because I got home late. Little did he know what I had been up to. I felt that losing my mum and my favourite brother I just didn’t care what happened to me at that time.”
“I stuck it out, riding to Warminster and back to Wylye, until I heard of a job going at the Carpet Factory in Wilton. That was no further to cycle. My bicycle cost me £4. That was two shillings and six pence a week out of the wages I had earned at the Glove Factory. I loved that bike. I never regretted working at Wilton Carpet Factory. It was so interesting. I thought it was wonderful. First I was a spotter, looking for holes and I did that all day long. I was the only girl among the men doing that. Then I was switched over to the sewing room with six girls and women. That was the best ever job. I was more or less my own boss but there was one woman looking over us. She didn’t do anything except watch us. She had an easy time. Her name was Doris Sanger and she lived at Wilton. Her sister married Mr. Button from Warminster.”
“Several of us worked on one carpet, sat side by side. It took six weeks to make a carpet. Carpets today are rubbish. They’re produced on machines now and you can get errors. I had strong hands and fingers and could sew the Wilton and Axminster carpet seams so easy. In those days they were 27 to 36 inches wide. Broadloom carpet was not thought of then. Wilton was a plain carpet then and had the most lovely shades. It was smooth and fine in texture and was very good to sew. I had no trouble with that. Axminster was patterned and you had to make sure you sewed the design in correctly. I sewed large tacks in it first, so that the flowers or leaves or whatever was in the pattern were correct. I can always spot an error if there is one in a carpet when I go into a pub or a hotel. Errors always stand out to me like an eyesore. I liked the patterned ones the best. The carpets were made to order. People would say what pattern they wanted. I remember once the Queen, now the Queen Mother, came around the factory and saw us all. We had to do lengths of blue carpet for the ship The Queen Mary. We also did a large, round carpet designed by Rex Whistler, and six of us bound it by hand. I’ll never forget it. It had heaps of cherubs on it.”
“Life at Wilton Carpet Factory was lovely. I never wanted to stop working. We did carpets for all over England. At one time I was working with nine men, fitters, keeping them all in work. It was a busy place. I started with 7 shillings and 6 pence a week and when I left to get married, in 1938, I was on 19 shillings a week. Whenever I wanted a pay rise I had to go up to the office. In fact, two of my friends came with me but I did the talking and we would all get a rise. We were worth it. The irony of it was the three of us all got married at the Registry Office in Salisbury at the same time and all left the factory.”
“I had plenty of cousins and when I was 17 I got engaged to one. I gave him up because I was brought up to believe that cousins who married produced daft families. My cousin’s name is Jim Elliott. He lives at Frome now and he’s been married three times now. After I stopped going out with Jim I started going out with someone else. He was my sister’s boyfriend! He switched from my domineering sister Winnie to me. It was not my fault. However, my father stepped in and said this man was too old for me, which he was. So, this chap didn’t conquer me or my sister. He was a Londoner and seemed full of knowledge. Well, he knew it all. He was very broadminded but it was too much of it. I didn’t like that. He was a real Cockney. I didn’t want him but he did the pushing. He got the old heave-ho and he went.”
“The woman in charge of us sewing girls got friendly with me. She knew my father. She lived just round the corner from the Wheatsheaf pub in Wilton, at North Street, on the right, not far from the bridge. When the bad weather started she got me to lodge with her and her father. I didn’t have to give her anything for my keep. She didn’t want anything. I lived there rent free and she bought me my food. She took to me. She was alright but her father wasn’t. He was a dyer at the factory. It was okay at first but her father started to make advances towards me. He was a handful. I had a job to keep him at bay. She was unaware that he was like that. At weekends we all went out to the pictures together. I hated it because I had to sit in the middle of them and her father kept touching my knee. I felt very uncomfortable and I got to hate him. He also tried to bribe me with a money-box full of notes and silver. He brought it down the stairs and showed it to me. I could have killed him. That’s why I left. I was courting with a boyfriend, my future husband, and I told him. We got married and all that business with the old man was left behind.”
“I met my husband-to-be while I was working at the Wilton Carpet Factory. He was a groom for Major Morrison at Fonthill Stables. He came to Wilton to visit the Sangers and that’s how I met him. My husband to be was a very handsome man and we courted for a year before we got married in 1937 or 1938. It wasn’t love. There was never any love in them days. People didn’t love each other. It sounds strange but it’s true. I was going to pack him up but the moon came out and he insisted, so I still went out with him. He was more keen on me than I was on him.”
“We got married in Salisbury. We didn’t bother with a reception and we didn’t have a honeymoon. We didn’t have the money for any of that. We just went to the Registry Office and got married and that was that. We got someone off the street outside to be our witness. I got married in May. There’s a saying ‘Marry in May and regret the day.’ That’s true. I can laugh about it now but it wasn’t a good marriage.”
“After I got married the Second World War started. I don’t think I would have got married if I’d known a war was in sight. My husband was nearly a year younger than me. He was good looking and full of fun. He volunteered for the Army because he knew he would be called up anyway. At that time we were living at Preston Candover, near Basingstoke. As soon as your husband went to war employers turned you out in private service. So I came back to Wylye and stayed with my father and step-mother and her family of four – three girls and a son. Unfortunately the son died of meningitis and diphtheria. He was one year old. My own son was two and he was rushed to hospital with suspected diphtheria but it turned out to be mastoids. It was quite a drama.”
“My husband was in the R.A.S.C. My army pension, with two children, was 29 shillings a week, so I had to get work. I became a part-time postwoman at Wylye all through the war and did my own newspaper delivery business. The papers came from Deacon and Jay in Salisbury. They were sent to Wylye by train. We lived by the railway so I only had to lift the papers over the hedge from the station. That was fine. There was a profit from the papers. It was a nice little earner but I never paid tax or nothing. I did the papers as a side-line. I had to deliver in Wylye and out towards Salisbury. I delivered to the soldiers who were in camp around Wylye, at places like Boyton. They had huts. The Americans paid sixpence for one paper. I also had to ride through Bapton Camp where there were black soldiers but that didn’t bother me. I had to deliver the papers to the guard room and the men came in from the various huts to there to pick up what they had ordered. And I had to go up there on my bike with telegrams. I used to whistle away.”
“I was paid okay and there were no bad payers. I never starved. I made friends with the Yanks and they made sure I had plenty to eat. I made a particular friend of one Yank and exchanged letters and Christmas cards with him up until 1985. That was until I had a shock. He asked me to stop writing to him as his wife had got so jealous of our pen-ship. There was only friendship between us, nothing more. His name was Wilbur Smith. He lives in Baltimore and I’ll never forget him.”
“I delivered the papers using a pram. I had my daughter Hazel in the pram as well. Dad helped deliver too while he was doing the post. After a while I gave the papers up. The shop in Wylye took half of it over and Mr. Dowdell took on the rest. The Post Office pay wasn’t very good. I only got two shillings and ninepence for cleaning the phone box out. I had to do that every week. I had to work a tremendous amount of hours and I had a daughter to bring up to. My stepmother Norah used to look after her while I went out on my bike delivering.”
“Hazel was born in 1941. She’s 55 now. My son is 57. There’s three years and three days between them. Hazel was born on 1st December. My son was born on 28th November. He now lives in Sussex. He doesn’t come to see me much now because his wife had a heart attack but she’s recovered now and my son now works for himself. He had a good job in an office but he didn’t like it so he didn’t stay.”
“When I was the postwoman at Wylye I caught two spies who were lighting bonfires up on White Hill. They were doing that to alert the German planes as to where the ammunition dumps were. They lived next to where Perlina Willmore lives now. Their name was Mr. and Mrs. Hann. I delivered lots of post to them. I used to think they’re getting a lot of post. They never spoke and they kept themselves to themselves. They seemed a bit queer. They were Londoners and I had my suspicions about them. I couldn’t make out why they had come from London to live there. They had no obvious connection with the village. You never saw them during the day, only at night. I started following them. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Wicked wasn’t it? I followed them night after night. I saw them lighting the fires on White Hill and I informed on them. I wrote to the Army and reported them. I never heard no more about it but the Army got them.”
“I once saw a German plane crash. It spin-dived into the ground near Grovely Camp. It kept popping off underground and the stench was terrible. There were bodies underneath it all. We had our fair share of bombs at Wylye but nothing serious. One night 13 bombs fell but they missed us. Dad built a big dug-out for us and the neighbour, whose husband was away in the war, used to come in there with us. We had a loaded rifle in the dug-out. Dad said if the Germans came they wouldn’t get any of his family alive. It makes me laugh to think about that now.”
“During the war, my sister Winnie [Dorothy Winifred Agnes Debnam] who had survived the bombing in London, joined the Wrens [W.R.N.S], and she used to come to visit us at Wylye when she was on leave. She had Landrail on her hat. She knitted hundreds of pairs of socks for the Forces and she was very good to my two children. She was still just as bossy though. She never got over her first boyfriend, who she had got engaged to in Warminster. He jacked her up and she didn’t bother about men after that.”
“I remember the last time she came on leave to see us at Wylye. That was in 1943. She came for two weeks and she seemed okay. We went to Salisbury and we had our photos taken. The blackout was on and she was in uniform. Two weeks later father and I received a telegram asking if we could travel to Govan in Glasgow and then to the Mackintosh Hospital to see her, because she was very ill. Dad and I got relief workers to stand in for us at Wylye Post Office. We got special warrants to travel by train and it took ages to get to Glasgow. Throughout the journey I kept saying ‘Please God, let her be alive when we get there.’ When I saw my sister I did not recognise her. She looked awful. She did three breaths and was gone. She was only 30. Somehow I wish I had never gone to Scotland. It was fruitless and there was not a last word between my sister and us.”
“Dad and me found lodgings for the night in Glasgow but I never slept at all. Daytime wasn’t much better. I couldn’t understand the Scottish lingo and the porridge we had to eat was full of salt. We had to get the train back and my sister, in her coffin, travelled back with us. There was a Union Jack draped over the coffin. The coffin was taken off the train at Warminster Station, to go to Crockerton Church, ready for her funeral. Father and I looked out of the carriage window at Warminster and watched the coffin being taken off. It was an uncanny feeling. Then dad and I went on to Wylye Station. The funeral at Crockerton [on 10th November 1943] was a military one, with the sounding of the Last Post and the firing of guns. This reminded me of my brother’s funeral and I really hate the Last Post. If I hear it anywhere now, especially on television, I put my fingers in my ears. [The inscription on Winnie’s gravestone reads: ‘Dorothy Winifred Debnam, 30743 Wren, WRNS, H.M.S. Landrail. 5th November 1943. Age 30. A loving daughter laid to rest, For every one she did her best.’]”
“I’m told you can hardly see the gravestones in Crockerton Churchyard now, because it’s all gone to rack and ruin. They say the grass is ever so high and there are brambles everywhere. Isn’t that awful? A church is a place of God. I was angry when Crockerton Church was made into a house. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to make a stand, to defy it, but I was too old to do anything about it. There were lots of other people who felt like me about it too.”
“When my sister died I was getting hardened to anything that happened. My favourite saying was ‘What is to be will be.’ That way you can face up to anything. During the war you lived one day at a time, not knowing what would happen the next. I didn’t worry about a thing. I did my post work and the paper round. I went to the pub for a drink and I went to dances at Codford. There were Yanks galore and they had plenty to spend. We made the best of it. When it came to demob time I took the telegram off the phone at Wylye Post Office, myself, which said my husband was on his way home. I was so excited but the war altered the men. They were not the same as when they joined up.”
“After the War my husband worked on the railway at Wylye for six months. He had to do that. He couldn’t get out of it. He had to do the plates on the line. The Station was a busy place. Mr. Chapman was the Stationmaster. I used to like to see the steam trains. The post used to come in by train. Sometimes, if a train was in the Station and I wanted to get to the opposite platform I would crawl under the train. That didn’t bother me. The lines weren’t live or nothing like that, so there was no danger from that. The farmers used to bring their milk in with horses and carts and the milk would go out by train. And the schoolchildren, going to Salisbury and Warminster, would travel by train. As I say, Wylye Station was a busy place.”
“Then we had a bombshell from the Council. We had to move out of our house because of overcrowding. During the War no-one cared who was living where. So, Major Morrison took my husband back as a groom, but this time at Motcombe Stables. We moved to Motcombe and I got a job at Port Regis School. I did that for five years, waiting at table, washing up and cleaning the dormitories. I loved it. There was plenty of good food but only £2 a week wages for working shifts. The film star Robert Donat’s two sons were at the school and I met him when he visited. I poured out coffee for him. He was very handsome.”
“My son passed for Shaftesbury Grammar School and my daughter was at the village school in Motcombe. She was picked to be Coronation Queen but it never happened because we moved. My husband wanted to get a bit higher up and earn some more wages, so he got a job at Hereford and we moved there. That was at Much Birch, about seven miles outside of Hereford. He worked at a big house there, doing the horses. I was at home, doing housework and things. We had the head-groom living in with us then. He used to have his coal delivered and it used to get dumped on the floor inside the house. I couldn’t believe it. After Much Birch we went to Basingstoke for a few weeks. My husband had got a job there with horses. It wasn’t very nice there and the people weren’t very friendly, so we left there, we did a bunk, and we came back to Wylye until we went to a little place called Barcombe, near Brighton.”
“My husband had bettered himself again. He had taken a job with Holes and Davidore. They were milk people. At Barcombe we had a house rent free and we were given logs. We were miles from the shops and you got to the bungalow by way of a long, rough track. I asked for the road to be done and I also asked for the wages to be paid on a Thursday instead of Saturday. Saturday was too late to change a cheque and get food for the weekend. My husband’s wages were £7 a week. They paid the wages on Thursdays after I asked.”
“My kids went to school at Lewes. I was working in a big house again and I did not get on with the cook very well. Apart from that I had it easy and there was plenty of free food. There was a German servant living in at the big house and I got on with her okay but she was taken ill. I used to hear her screaming. Apparently she had been taken prisoner of war by the Russians but had escaped. Her nerves were shattered from the way she had been treated.”
“One day I was cleaning the silver (which I hated doing) and I saw an advert in the newspaper for a carpet-sewer’s job at Uckfield, near Brighton. I went there the next day and saw the boss who owned the business. It was near the Railway Station and the sea and it was lovely. I got the job and that’s where I learned to machine carpets. At Uckfield I worked for two brothers called Carvell. Theirs was very high class stuff. They did mostly plain carpets but the curtains they made were mostly floral ones. They always persuaded people to have a plain carpet with floral curtains and I must say how nice it looked. We did a lot of velvet there as well and pelmets. There were a lot of wealthy people around Uckfield and therefore we always had plenty to do. I always remember that after we had done one particular carpet and laid it at a little cottage, the two fitters carried in a settee and two chairs which had been covered with beautiful greeny-blue satin material. It looked lovely and was beautifully done. Well, calamity struck. There were a lot of climbing roses around the doorway. As the men were carrying the suite in they caught the settee on the thorns of the roses and it was torn and spoilt. It had to be returned to the workshop and re-done. I felt sorry for the boss and the fitters. Their faces, after seeing what they had done, still stick in my mind. I laughed about it but it did us out of a tip from the people and we didn’t get any coffee and biscuits which we had at most places. People were so kind in those days.”
“I had a good friend to work with, Hilda Chapman, and we had great fun. There was a carpet-planner and four carpet-layers. I got on with them all and there were no strikes or nothing like that. If you didn’t work or were not fast enough you were out. Of course most of the people we worked for were gentry. We also did a lot of work for actors and actresses. We did carpets for the homes of rich people. Among them were John Mills, Max Bygraves and Richard Dimbleby. When I see David Dimbleby or Jonathan Dimbleby on television now I am reminded of their father and the carpet we did for him. Wouldn’t he be proud of his sons now?”
“We had to do a green chenille for one lovely house. The men had to carry it in and because it was so heavy, they had to get extra outside help. It took 12 men in all to carry it in. Me and another girl had to go with them to tie up the ends all the way round because there was no glue used in those days. As the men carried the carpet in they hit one of the chandeliers and it crashed from the ceiling to the floor. I could not stop laughing. I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help it. Most people can’t help laughing in those situations. The men were cursing amongst themselves and tried to pinpoint a culprit for the disaster. I don’t know whether the boss was insured for that kind of accident or not but the fitters couldn’t hide what they had done.”
“We lived at Middle Hill, near Brighton. That was Uckfield way. After a while we moved yet again. My husband went to work for a Ford man at East Grinstead. The kids were grown up then. They stopped at East Grinstead when my husband and I moved to Swindon. My husband was still working with horses there and I was working in a house. I went back to carpets after that, with Mills & Merricks, at Bridge Street, in Swindon. There was plenty of carpet work at Swindon. A lot of it was in homes outside Swindon. One of the carpet fitters took me in one of the vans to where we had to go. There were four vans altogether and a bigger van for furniture carrying. Two brothers and their wives owned the business. They had a very large shop with new furniture, carpets and curtains to sell, and a great workshop a few yards behind the shop. I worked on carpets upstairs in my own workshop. There was a polisher and an upholsterer in other buildings. No-one ever told us how to do our jobs. They just told us what jobs had to be done. We all knew our trade and we never went home worrying about our work. We were always paid promptly on Fridays. The office-man always came round with our wages. That way you never lost any time getting up to collect it. Work started at 9.00 a.m. but if you were late you were never told off. You just had the sense to work a bit of your dinner hour or stay on a bit longer at night. The bosses were fair to us and we were, of course, fair to them. All of us had our own keys to get in to our own workshops. The last one out of the yard locked up the big outside gates (chain and lock) and dropped the key to them into the shop letterbox, ready for whoever was first to arrive in the morning.”
“I had a seven mile bus ride home to Watchfield, five days a week. I also went by bus to work. If extra work needed to be done I went in on a Saturday. The extra work was mostly for churches or when a boiler had burst in someone’s home. The carpet fitters and me made sure that was put right. I was always available. I was really married to it. One very hurried job we did was for Princess Margaret. A red carpet was needed for her to walk from a helicopter, when she came to Wiltshire to open the Princess Margaret Hospital. I was given the job during a dinner hour and I had to bind the two ends very quickly while the men stood around me waiting for it to be finished. That annoyed me. Well, I did it and it was rushed off to the field the Princess’s helicopter was going to land in. It was very exciting. The carpets for the hospital took weeks and weeks of machining. The lengths were so long that I did one half and then the other separate. The carpets were thrown out of the workshop window. They were too wide to get out of the door. The separate halves wouldn’t go out of the workshop door. Nine men had that job. I had to go to the hospital with the fitters and sew the last seam by hand.”
“If carpet work was scarce I did curtains. That meant going over to the curtains’ shop, up three flights of stairs. I worked with the curtain girls when I was needed. I liked it because I had done that before at other places. I found that every place of work did the corners of the hems differently. I myself liked to do them mitred. It looks a better job like that. Of course I am talking about when curtains were curtains. They were lined and sometimes filled to give them extra warmth. Most of the linings were hand-sewn with a slip stitch. We did a lot of velvet and pelmets and the fringe embroidery had to be put on by hand. I found that curtain work took longer than carpet work. I know carpet was heavier but there are easy ways of handling it to make it easier to sew. I had a large winch to put each carpet up. That was easy for me. People used to think your hands got rough doing the work but mine never did.”
“Another time, when I worked at Bournemouth, I found the girl I was put with didn’t know much about the carpet trade. She brought her baby to work with her. Anyway, we coped in the small workshop we had and there was plenty of work. We went from one fitter to four. We did all the carpets for Pontins’ chalets in England. That was a lot of travelling. We also did a lot of carpets for the hotels in Bournemouth, and the Forte restaurants and shops which we did at night.”
“Oh yes, the job I liked most in my life was carpet sewing and carpet machining. I never wanted to pack up work at the end of the day because it was so interesting and you made many a home happier. I always carried my little stool that a carpenter friend had made for me. I would sit on that and sew up seam after seam. Sometimes we did hair cord carpet which used to be named Brussels carpet. It was very hardwearing and suitable for halls, kitchens and playrooms. At other times we did Wilton and Axminster. I’ve also sewn chenille but that is drastic to do. You have to tie all the loose cottons on it as soon as it is cut for the room or it will run like a ladder in a nylon stocking. It is very heavy to handle too. Recently they have been using Jiffytex or Copyclix to seal most carpets and they even put binding on it. I used to sew it on and it looked neat and lasted longer, especially the small pieces of carpets which were cut for the hearth or as slip mats as we called them. I had good carpet thread and needles for those jobs and I was very lucky in having bundles of offcuts given me by the bosses wherever I was employed in the carpet trade. I would give them to friends and relatives as Christmas presents after binding them and fringing them (all by hand). I was never out of work in the carpet trade but of course things have changed. I don’t agree with the way carpet is dealt with now.”
“Looking back, the richest county I ever worked in was Sussex. I wish I had never left that lovely county. There were plenty of hotels, pubs, banks and churches there. Clubs, shops and private homes provided plenty of carpet work. I had another woman carpet-sewer and machinist with me and we worked well together. Often we went out to a place and did the work in harmony together. Our sewing pace was exactly the same. She was a lovely pleasant person to work with. She was six years younger than me. We became such good friends we visited each other’s homes for dinner and tea at weekends. My husband got on well with her husband. I still see them once a year as they come to Salisbury for a short holiday and we exchange letters. We talk a lot about carpets when we get together.”
“I was very upset when I heard one of my old workmates from Wilton Carpet Factory was dead. Her nickname was Midge and she was my best friend. We always went out together. She got married the same time as me at Blue Boar Row in Salisbury. Our families were always meeting up together for meals and holidays. Midge was six years younger than me and she was so full of fun and vitality.”
“A few years ago the famous Wilton Carpet Factory was sold off. Nobody could believe it when they started talking about closing it. It was quite a shock and the workers feared the worse when it came to redundancies. I was devastated when I heard about the factory closing, even though I had long since left there. I learnt all my knowledge about carpets there. Without it I would not have been able to make a living. It enabled me to live and enjoy a happy life with such fun and laughter. Then we heard that the factory was to open again. It was announced that some of the workers had bought it and were likely to employ a small staff. The Earl of Pembroke ordered a carpet to kickstart things and I was very pleased to hear about it. The skill in that factory must never be allowed to die.”
“After all my moving here and there we landed back in Salisbury. Harold Macmillan, the former Prime Minister [in office 1957-1963] wanted somebody to look after his wife and the horses. My husband put our names forward. We got the job and he gave in his notice. So we had to go but we had a letter come on the Sunday morning [in 1966] to say the wife had died. It was the Prime Minister with the funny eye. His wife was Lady Dorothy [formerly Lady Dorothy Evelyn Cavendish, the daughter of the 9th Duke of Devonshire]. So we never had the job. It didn’t happen. So we came back to Wylye. We lodged in the village and then we lodged in Salisbury until we got a little house in St Paul’s Road. Then we got a flat. I went back into domestic work for a while. I had several jobs after that. I worked in Woolworths but that was too much standing all day. I left. I then did only three days at a firework factory before walking out of that too.”
“My husband started messing about with other women. Did that hurt me? Well, I just thought all men were like that. I thought all men were the same and couldn’t be trusted. I never had a husband really. I had two children with him but it wasn’t really a marriage. In those days the woman was a mother figure and not a wife figure. A man had a stomach to be fed and you were expected to do that. That’s what it was like. Eventually he went his way and I went mine. He’s dead now. He’s been dead a few years now. Marriage can be good but it can be rocky. I wasn’t very lucky in that respect and I never got married again. I’ve got a friend who comes to see me. He lives in Birmingham. I met him on holiday. He’s 86 and he’s good to me. I had a letter from him this morning. He sends me money and he gives me things without my having to ask.”
“I’ve had a good life despite the heartbreaks and the tragedies. You can’t change what’s happened. I think I would have gone to America with a soldier if I could have had my way. That would have been a better life. Yes, if I had my time again I would definitely go to America. I would just go off. That would be a big change. I would find someone I like and I would go to America with them. I wish that had happened to me. I would have like to have buggered off with someone.”
“I’m not bothered about England now. It’s gone all to pot. There’s nothing you can be sure about now. Politicians have ruined it. These M.P.s get a lot of money but they don’t care about us. They’re having a good time. It’s all wrong and there’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t like the Tory government. I’ve never voted Tory. I like the Labour party but I think Tony Blair, if he becomes Prime Minister, will have a mess to sort out. That’s thanks to Margaret Thatcher. She’s got a lot to answer for. I didn’t like her. She got us in a mess with the poll tax and valued added tax. The Tories, if they have their way, would keep the yacht Britannia but it’s a waste of money. They say they’ll build another one but it will be paid out of people’s taxes. So we’ll end up paying for it. We don’t want another Britannia. I like royalty but what a drain they are on our money. The Duchess of York gets a rough deal in the papers but she’s very down to earth. She owes money but she’ll pay it back. I don’t like Princess Diana. She’s into clothes and things like that. She should never have married Prince Charles. Never, but there you are.”
“I can’t walk now. I had an operation in 1979 to save my leg but it didn’t work. I was home for a few days to heal my wounds. They had placed a plastic vein inside my leg up to my hip but it all went wrong. On the following Sunday I was back in hospital for amputation. The trouble was there was no bed and no room so I had to sit in a chair until one was available. I was then prepared for the op’. The first doctor I saw said it would be a toe off. Then he said next that it would be my foot. Then he decided it would be under my knee. When I woke up I found the amputation had been through my knee. I did not find the operation as bad as I thought it would be. I was in hospital for two and a half weeks and came home just in time for Christmas. My cousin helped me and I had a wheelchair, a push one, and a few more aids. A nurse came daily to dress my leg and I soon learned to walk, if you could call it that, in a pylon and I preferred that to using an artificial limb. After six months I had to go to the artificial limb centre and I had 23 artificial limbs in nine and a half years. Not one of them fitted comfortable. The one and only suction limb I tried was not a success for me. I went back to using a belt and shoulder strap. That was easier.”
“I fell over numerous times and, of course, you hurt yourself a lot. I must be stronger than most people because no bones were broken. People used to think or would accuse me of being drunk but I wasn’t. Mind you, the despair of it all did nearly turn me into an alcoholic. I drank brandy and Babycham to try and forget my awful limb. Anyone would do the same.”
“During the time I was trying out different limbs I fell heavily and fractured the stump. That meant further surgery. They took another four inches off at Roehampton in 1987. The doctor said ‘We’ll take another four inches off.’ I said ‘Does it want that?’ He said ‘Yes.’ I really suffered great pain after they did that. They took the four inches off and I’ve never walked since. I walked well before they did that. Since they took that other part off I’m messed up. I changed doctors because of that. And I moved back to Salisbury to be nearer my daughter who could give me a hand. By then my cousin, who had been living with me, had left. Of course, to understand all this you have to be an amputee yourself. I had nearly twenty years walking with one leg but now I can’t walk at all. The council made some ramps at my bungalow, where I lived before, and I was able to get an electric scooter.”
“I saw people who were worse off than myself in hospital. There were several with both legs off and some were older than me. Some coped and some didn’t. I tried to cheer them up as I went round in my wheelchair. I used to get the menus for them each day. Some had no will to go on. Their attitude was quite different to mine. Most of them were men. There’s a lot of talk at the moment about euthanasia, where they stick a needle in you and put you out of your misery when you’ve had enough. I don’t suppose that will be available in my time but I think it’s a good thing. I think in time they will allow it. Why can’t we make up our own minds and choose to cease living if we want to? If you’re in pain or a burden on others, why not? If you’re in pain you’ve got to take tablets all the time. Every so often you want more but you get immune to them after a while. I know if I was in constant pain I would choose to die.”
“I’ve had at least three strokes. I was struck down on 5th August 1993. My right hand was dead and then it gradually creeped up to the right side of my neck, face and head. It happened in the morning. My grandson’s wife called in at 9.50 a.m. and found me in my bedroom. She said, straight away, ‘You’ve had a stroke, Gran.’ I couldn’t speak but pointed to the phone book. She rang Odstock Hospital and then she phoned my daughter Hazel. By the time the ambulance arrived I was helpless. They lifted me from my wheelchair on to a stretcher. I will always remember the journey to the hospital. It was very upsetting. I cried and laughed all the way. At one point I let myself go. I more or less gave up. I felt like I was on my way to Heaven. There was a split isolated moment. Then I started to struggle with my spirit to survive.”
“I had to wait a good few hours for a bed after a doctor had inserted tubes in a vein in the back of my right hand. My grandson’s wife Donna and my daughter were with me. When a bed was eventually found for me in Chilmark Ward I felt very ill. All my strength was gone and I couldn’t even turn in the bed. I was sweating buckets and I couldn’t swallow. The nurses were wonderful. Lifting me out of bed was quite a feat, especially as I only had one leg. I had a lot of visitors. Too many, in fact, because I could not speak and one of my eyes swelled up much larger than the other one. I must have looked an awful sight. I didn’t eat for days and then I nearly choked on the soup and the drinks of water or lemonade. I was given a lot of goodies but I wasn’t well enough to express my thanks or seem interested. People must have thought how horrible I was but I didn’t mean to be like that. I eventually recovered.”
“Most people hate me talking about my leg amputeeism but when you haven’t a leg your life is hit in half. You really need to have someone living with you to give you the constant help you need day in and day out. My daughter is my home help. She does my housework and my shopping. Hazel got my shopping yesterday. She bathes me on Sundays. I pay her. I fill in the form from the Council. I tell the truth. The welfare state that we have today is good for me, now I’m sat in a chair all the time, disabled, but you wonder about all the rest that are claiming benefit. Like people who say they’ve got bad backs and don’t go to work. And why don’t they do something about these people that are always hanging about in the streets doing nothing?”
“I want to be independent as long as I can and I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, but if you can’t get in and out of your own home you might as well shoot yourself. I accept my leg has gone but I want to be able to live a normal life. People are definitely not contented today. I am because I’m on my own and I accept my situation. People are not satisfied with what they have got. They’re greedy. They want more. They’ve let go of what matters and want silly things. They don’t give a damn how they get what they want. Some people don’t think twice about stealing anything. They’re not even bothered if they go to prison now. In any case, you can have a good time in prison. Same as they talk about letting Myra Hindley out. Whatever next?”
“Recently there has been trouble at Stonehenge with hippies and police fighting. Drugs seem to be the cause of it. Years ago, when I was 14 years old, I used to cycle from Wylye to Stonehenge on Midsummer Day to see the sun come up through the stones. I used to look at the sun through a blank negative or a piece of smoked glass. There wasn’t any violence and no trouble at all but of course there wasn’t so many people about at Stonehenge then. A farmer has decided, I’ve heard, to buy some land for the hippies to use in the future but I wonder? The trouble about policing Stonehenge is the big bill at the end of it. I suppose our rates and rent will have to go up each time to pay the police. If it was up to me I would let the hippies get on with it and tell the police to stay away from the stones. It seems odd to me that people want to worship stones instead of the Lord.”
“No, I don’t think much of the world today. I like Salisbury but it’s changed. Mind, no-one appreciates Salisbury until they have left it for at least a year. It has a lot of history attached to it and I have made many a carpet for several of the city’s historic houses. A lot of the old places are haunted. I had a friend who lived next to where three musketeers used to hide. Some nights, at certain times, they reckon you could see the ghosts of these musketeers with a lantern moving through the house. I’m told the Close in Salisbury is the most haunted part of the city and they say all the cellars lead into the cathedral. They must be very smelly and musty. Of course the Close attracts thousands of tourists each year.”
“Warminster is clearer because you’ve only got just the one street of shops there, as opposed to Salisbury where the shops are all over the place. I think the supermarkets are good because they can offer things cheaper than the little shops. The supermarkets can buy in bulk but I suppose that has put the little shops out of business. You can’t change that. If you haven’t got much money you have to buy the cheapest things. You’ve got to do shopping. You have to pay for the food you need and that’s it. Everything goes up in price all the time but we’re supposed to be better off. My income doesn’t go up, so I’m not better off. I’m worse off. I don’t think old age pensioners get a fair deal. They haven’t raised the Christmas money for years. How far does £10 go? Not far. We’re the worst off. Even Germany are better off than us. You’d think they won the War. It’s like they did.”
“I don’t like wars. I was born during the First World War and I remember the Second World War. My daughter was born in 1941 when the war was still raging. You live half a life until your man returns and when they do come home they have altered so much that you never know them any more. I suppose it’s what they go through in war time. The Vietnam War was bad enough, although the English were not involved. The Americans were but they didn’t win. It was hopeless. Then we had the Falklands War. It seems history is always repeating itself. Well, the Bible talks about war and rumours of war.”
“The Iraqi war was very destructive. It seems Saddam Hussein doesn’t want peace. He doesn’t listen to the proposals put to him but what does he gain by war? He set 500 oil wells on fire during the Gulf War and it took ages for us to put them out. It caused a terrible punishment to the birds and creatures over there. I think that was a dirty trick. And he took Kuwait and he used hostages as human shields. There were several hostages in the Middle East. I used to pray for Terry Waite and the other hostages. Kuwait was freed but the Kurds have paid a price. Thousands were killed and the ones who were left had to go into the mountains. They showed on television how babies and old folk were dying. I cried when I saw that. I felt hopeless and angry about it. Britain and America flew in supplies for them and dropped them with parachutes. I think we should have gone right into Iraq and killed Saddam Hussein when we had the chance. He is the ringleader. I believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That is one of my strong views. I think Storming Norman [Schwartzkopf] wanted to do it. They keep saying Saddam’s own people will get him but Saddam has such a strong following around him he appears to be safe.”
“My brother Jim died on 22nd October 1992. He had a massive heart attack. He had been to see me the day before. He always came to see me on Wednesdays and he used to help me with the jobs I couldn’t do. We always had a snack at 11.30 a.m. and our dinner at about six, which he helped me to cook. We would play dominoes and draughts all the afternoon and we had a lovely time. He was the best brother I ever could have had. I could not go to his funeral because I was too upset. I am sure he would have understood. I wrote on the card with the flowers from me and my daughter and my son: ‘Safe and happy in the arms of Jesus now Jim, R.I.P.’ Most of the flowers at his funeral were bronze and there were some pink carnations. He loved flowers and did a lot of gardening for the people around Shaftesbury where he lived. He planted daffodils in my front garden, before he died, so I had the pleasure of seeing them when they came up. I miss Jim dreadfully because we had such happy times together.”
“My sister Monica calls to see me nearly every Saturday and she brings me heaps of goodies which I like. I often think she does too much for me but she won’t listen to me when I tell her not to. Her birthday is on the 15th November. She is a scorpio, like me, so, of course, we are on the same wavelength. She is the best loving sister anyone could have. I hope she lives for a long time yet.”
“I don’t see much of my neighbours. One comes to see me. I know the others but they go out to work. I’ve no idea of what goes on round here. I keep myself to myself. I don’t take no notice of anyone. I don’t go nowhere now, only to town when it’s fine. And I don’t go on holiday any more. I used to. In June 1988 I went on holiday to Pontin’s at Brean with my daughter and her work friend Teresa. I recognised the carpets there. They were the same as I had made for the holiday chalets at Bournemouth some twelve or so years previously. I remembered the design of each one and also the plain pattern. They were wearing out at the seams and I would have loved to have repaired them but of course it was out of the question. I did repair the bedspread though. That was on the double bed settee I slept in. It was dark chocolate brown and it had a nasty three corner tear in it. I thought the least I could do was mend it. I could do that because I carried my small sewing case with me. It fitted in my handbag and having assorted colour cottons helped a lot. I also repaired a few things for other people while I was there.”
“I stay in and watch the telly and I listen to Wiltshire Sound on the radio. They put on a good show. Since the clocks went back the evenings draw in quickly but I’ve got BSB tv, as well as the radio, so I am happy. I love the television. I’ve got cable tv now, so I can watch more programmes. I’m not frightened about the violence on tv. I don’t watch those sort of things. I cry sometimes when I see sad things on the telly. I cry if someone dies. Isn’t that silly? Mind, I don’t want Mary Whitehouse telling me what I should watch. As long as we know, as long as we are alerted what the programmes are about, then it should be our own personal choice whether we watch it or not. I stay up until three in the morning watching telly. I love it. I get up at six o’clock in the evening. I’m a night owl. I do get up in the day for my food though. I don’t smoke. I cannot stick cigarettes but I like the smell of a cigar or a good pipe tobacco if someone else is smoking it. I drink Guinness and lemonade.”
“It’s been lovely talking to you. You must have a drink with me before you go back to Warminster. Would you like a Guinness or would you like a cup of tea? It’s good of you to come and see me. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I like your books. They’re very good. I’ve got quite a few of them. I remember the places mentioned and I knew a lot of the people you have written about. It brings the memories flooding back. I hope you will use my story in one of your books one day.”