my brother Georgie was born. There were now two babies instead of one. For some reason, my older brother and sister were always scrapping with each other, and, besides, Jim was a boy, so that I had most of the responsibility for looking after my young sister, Rosie, and Georgie, the baby. Oh Lord, what a burden it was! What I remember now of the war years is not the excitement, and not even standing in the food queues, but always being saddled with these two unfortunate kids wherever I went. Soon after Georgie was born, I began missing days at school. I now slept with two others in one small bed and got so little sleep that I often dropped off during class. In this way I was soon the dunce at school and, because I lost my temper when the teachers spoke sharply to me, I became sullen and obstinate—even though I didn’t want to be.
On 14 July 1919 an election was held in our district, and voting cars with huge posters were touring the streets, telling people like my parents—who knew nothing of politics or social conditions—who they were to vote for. We children were playing out in the streets and somebody dared me to jump on the back of one of the voting cars, which was moving pretty fast. Because I was always game for a dare, I did, and hung on and turned my head back triumphantly. But, just as I did so, I looked straight at an enormous policeman standing on the kerb not six feet away, who gave me such a glare that in my terror I let go, falling flat on the paving stones and grazing my arms and knees so badly that once again I was taken off to hospital to have my cuts and grazes dressed. This took time, and when I came home late, creeping quietly through the door for fear of the hiding I thought was in store for me, I had a new surprise. My mother’s room was locked again, the house was full of neighbours and I was told I had just been presented with twin brothers! My mother had been told I’d been run over, and the shock had precipitated the birth. I don’t know why I hadn’t realised she was pregnant—somehow lots of children never did. But when I heard the news—not only one new baby but two—everything seemed to go black before my eyes, and in my mind, too. Now I would never be free. It would always be like this. I just went out and sat on the doorstep, though my cuts and bruises were still sore, and I wept and wept. Now, instead of having two youngsters to look after, I had four.
Nearly all my memories are connected with the pram my mother bought on the never-never [a system of hire purchase], pushing the old thing up and down the street with two kids inside and a third one hanging onto the crossbar below, and a fourth one perhaps hanging onto my frock; if ever I tried to park them and sneak off on my own, there would be loud yells and I would have to dash back to them.
I had got interested in my schoolwork, but now it was goodbye to any hopes I had of catching up with my lessons so that school hours shouldn’t be such a misery to me. With so many kids at home, I felt I hadn’t a chance, and the least thing made me feel bitter and resentful. Everything was against me.
At school I could never make up for the days I had missed. When figures were on the blackboard I didn’t know whether to go upwards or downwards, or start at the pounds end or the farthings. I was usually tired and my mind used to go quite blank, as though I wasn’t seeing anything on the blackboard, and when asked a question I just became sullen. Certain teachers disliked me because I seemed dull and backward.
One teacher was always making me a laughing stock. She used to stand me up before all the class and ask me questions I couldn’t answer, so I just remained dumb, or said I had forgotten—which angered her so that she often caned me. One day, when I didn’t answer she said, ‘Come up here, Phelps,’ as she advanced towards me with her cane.
At that, rage seized me, and I picked up an inkpot. The whole room gasped, including the teacher.
Then she said, ‘How dare you, Phelps? Put that down.’
I said, ‘I’ll dare anything if you touch me with that stick again.’
She still advanced towards me with the cane, so I shied the ink bottle straight at her. The bottle didn’t hit her, but all the ink did. My goodness: what a mess, all over her dress and the room. I got caned for this—but by the headmistress herself—and I was given a letter to take home to my father.
When the twins were born I was much older; we were a large family, always quarrelling—but we always made up afterwards. We used to play rounders, skipping, and the boys used to join in the skipping. And we played hide-and-seek and touch. I was always a daredevil—with all my brothers I was up to scratch with them. All the same, I used to be scared stiff of my own shadow. In those days they used to keep the dead at home in their coffin and put them on the table in the parlour—and shut the door. My brothers knew I was scared of shadows and the dark, and I would never go into the parlour on my own. I had a feeling that there was something in that end room and that I mustn’t go in. I think it was a thing between me and my sister, little Emily, who died. I knew there was something in that room that I didn’t understand—and I used to toddle to the door and get just up to the handle, then I’d be pulled away sharply. That was a shock to me. I didn’t know what I was doing—just turning the handle—but as I opened the door it was very dark, then someone pulled me aside. From that time on I was afraid of the dark, until I was quite old—even until going up to nursing. It was only night nursing that cured me.
I left school at thirteen. When you left school you were supposed to produce your birth certificate, and the teacher said to me, ‘I haven’t got your birth certificate—I must have it.’
So I said to my mother, ‘I want my birth certificate.’
She said, ‘I’ll have to go and get it.’ Everything was always, ‘I’ll get it.’
Days and weeks went by and still she was ‘going to get it’. She never got it—so at the end of term I just left and never went back.
When I was a kid of just thirteen, my mother made me put my hair up and sent me into service. It was in Orpington, and to me it was like being on the other side of the world. I was scared of my own shadow even then. I used to write to her, ‘Please take me out of here.’ I would get up in the early hours of the morning to whitewash the steps and blacklead the kitchen ovens. It was cheap slave labour. But eventually my mother did come and bring me home—and then I started going into factories.
The Eagle Pencil factory was one of the first ones, but my mother took me away from there. Getting work for children was easy—it was the grown-ups who found it difficult. So I would join another factory making pencils or furniture. I went on to Leavis’s furniture, where I used to push heavy furniture—plane it—then go over it, fill up the cracks, and then push it on further, through all the stages of polishing. It was very hard work but I quite enjoyed it because I was making contact with other girls. Always being new at a job was hateful. I couldn’t settle down, and in between there was so much housework and looking after the children that I was glad to be off again. But all the jobs were blind alleys leading me nowhere, and when I discovered I had left school a year too soon I felt really bitter towards my parents.
I loved crochet and needlework. I used to make loads of lace and tray cloths for neighbours—they’d buy the cotton and I’d make it for a few pence. Even up until recently I was still doing cloths for people. I’ve still got some of the little bits of lace and tray cloths. I did wide lace for the church, too. I used to go to the park opposite the Prince of Wales Hospital, Tottenham, and I’d sit there with the twins and crochet, while my mother was doing her washing. I used to see the nurses come out and walk round to their home.
There was a lady in the road who used to do dressmaking, and take her stuff to the West End in London. She would employ a few girls like me and my neighbour to sew at her house. It was slave labour, really—a sweatshop. She was a very good dressmaker and she did all the D’Oyly Carte Company’s dresses—beautiful costumes—and she taught me how to do fly-running stitch. After I went into the hospital at Charing Cross as a student, I used to get theatre tickets from Theatreland, and I’d see the D’Oyly Carte and wonder
