they were very intellectual and always used proper English. Gertrude was teased all the time. Her mother had Alzheimer’s disease and sadly didn’t even know Gertrude was her daughter. Her four older sisters became like mother figures to Gertrude, keeping her out of her mother’s way to spare her any unnecessary upset.
I am sure I was Gertrude’s only friend and I enjoyed our conversations. Where my other friends talked incessantly about boys and all the usual mushy girl talk, Gertrude and I enjoyed talking about politics and other issues that were happening in the world. Her choice of music broadened my musical taste. While I was mad about Johnny Ray and Frankie Lane whose records I never stopped playing, Gertrude often played opera and classical music on her gramophone. This was a welcome change for me as I had never heard classical and opera music before. Thanks to Gertrude, I find the classics very relaxing to the mind and enjoyable.
Gertrude and I sometimes met up with a bunch of teenagers at the park about two blocks away. We would play cricket or just kick a ball around. Gertrude was a very tall and athletic girl. The others were all very sporty too, unlike me. My passions were dancing and singing but I never seemed to find anyone who liked them as much as I did.
I was thirteen when my sister Barbara and I were offered a holiday through an underprivileged children’s holiday scheme. We headed off on our own by train from Leicester to a beautiful place called Malvern Hills. We were so excited. On our arrival, we were greeted by two elderly women, dressed all in black. After a short car journey we arrived at an old dark house. We entered through a big black front door into a dark and creepy hall. The floorboards were worn and squeaked as we walked on them. In the corner of the sitting room, I noticed an old gramophone, the only luxury the house seemed to have. By the morbid look of the two elderly women, the rest of our holiday seemed very predictable. Barbara and I just looked at each other. We had no idea what to expect from these people. Would they be nice and kind, or as mean as they looked? I was immediately despondent. I simply did not like the eerie atmosphere. I felt that we would not have a good holiday at all. The trouble was that we had to stay for the whole school holiday period from the start of July till the first week in September. To us it seemed endless.
Our holiday meals were hardly substantial even for me—and I had always been a very small eater. My sister loved her food and normally ate man-sized meals, so she was absolutely starving. Barbara started crying all the time and wanted to go home.
I can’t remember how but we arranged for Hazel to come and stay with us and keep us both company. Hazel brought her two top-ten records with her (Jezebel by Frankie Lane and Cry by Johnny Ray). We sneakily used the gramophone that I had seen in the corner of the sitting room. It had a large horn shape on it similar to the logo for HMV records. We had been told not to touch the gramophone, but now that we had Hazel’s records, the temptation was just too much to resist. But we had to be very careful. I could only imagine the trouble we’d have been in if we were caught. While the two elderly women were out shopping, we would play it full blast. Hazel and I coaxed Barbara into watching the back door for when the women would return. When she saw the women approaching, she started to loudly sing Frankie Vaughn’s latest record, Behind the Green Door, to alert us. Hazel and I would be singing and dancing away to our favourite artist, swooning over the good-looking singer. Then when we heard Barbara start singing, we knew the women were coming down the street. We would come back to reality, turn the gramophone off, put everything back in its place and sit in our room like little angels. Later we would go for a walk and giggle our heads off, greatly relieved that we had not been caught.
Finally, our holiday ended. Despite the circumstances, it turned out to be a happy time. Our naughty gramophone adventures were simply harmless kid stuff that most generations of children do at some time or another. Taking risks and learning responsibility is a part of growing up healthily. Having Hazel there taught me that with a little thought you can make a bad situation better.
After our getaway, we were home again and back to boring school. This new term the teachers prepared us for our working lives. School ended for everyone at the age of fifteen unless they went on to sit for the final exam which took them on to further education. I did not have the top marks required to take that exam. The teachers took all the girls who were leaving school around to different work places in groups. We mostly went around factories observing different production jobs.
Hazel wanted to go into a hosiery factory. After visiting one she had decided to become an overlocker—the money was good. I wanted to work in an office like my mum. The trouble was that I was a bit shy and lacked confidence. I was also not quick at adding up, although I was good at English. But maths was the main requirement for any office job, unless you were trained at shorthand and typing with the ability to type a minimum of eighty words per minute. To be really honest, all I desperately wanted to do was sing, dance and entertain people. Unfortunately, there were no opportunities for this where I lived. London had the academies and stage schools, and I knew no one here who could help me or advise me.
Chapter 6
Hazel and I both left school at fifteen and started work at Corah’s Hosiery Factory. I really only took the job because I wanted to work with Hazel. For some reason she gave me confidence. But I did not really like the job. I hated the look of endless rows of different types of machines, fluff everywhere getting up my nose and making me constantly sneeze, and bundles of machined up garments in corners, ready for the next operation. But what I hated most of all was being on piecework. The other girls’ eyes were on me, making sure the good work was left for them. This was frightening and made me nervous as the bundles of work all looked the same to me. Which was the good work? I left to look for an office job.
I did end up in an office. I liked the job but I was sacked after a while because I froze when answering the phone. I started to suspect I was hard of hearing because I couldn’t hear the voices on the phone distinctly enough and kept having to ask the person on the other end to repeat what they said. This was very embarrassing and made me nervous to the point where I didn’t like answering the phone.
My second office job involved dealing with the phones again but this time the switchboard was in a small room. The other part of the job was doing the accounts. Jeff, who I was taking over from, was good at his job despite his blindness. He was leaving to further his career as a musician and played the piano very well. The young man in accounts was a drummer, and the wages clerk played the clarinet. At tea break, the three of them would come down to the tiny switchboard room and pretend to play music, tapping out the beat and singing. It was bedlam, and I had to answer the phone and connect people. But if I got into a panic Jeff was there to help me. This went on for a while until one day we overstepped the mark and all got the sack. At least I learned the switchboard operating, so it was not a waste of time. And I had enjoyed it.
For my next job, I knew my hearing was not up to speed so answering phones was out. Hearing problems weren’t known about in those days. No one was tested and people who were deaf from birth never had a talking voice, so they were classed as dumb. Most had no schooling. I decided to give factory work another go. I applied for a job at a medium-sized electrical engineering factory near home. I got the job doing coil winding. It paid well and I liked it. I finally felt relaxed for the first time in a job. The women and men I worked with were very friendly and easy to talk with. I was still living at home with my mum and family. I didn’t have much of a social life and stayed home in the evenings listening to the radio shows. I remember one in particular, The Goon Show. My mother used to laugh along with it, but I didn’t think it was very funny. I never understood it. I liked the Saturday night thriller, The Man in Black series, and In Town Tonight and any of the big bands musical shows. But as I got to know more people I worked with, my staying in with the radio soon diminished and I found better things to do with my time.
I started going out socially with my new work colleagues, to dances and work outings.
