Hello everybody!
Once again, I am getting together with a lovely group of women from around the world for the writing challenge, Tell Us About… This month the theme is Home towns.
Now I wonder if my fellow collaborators will write about one town as being their home town? And, moreover, write with nostalgia and some love for their home town. Well, I won’t be doing that because, as a child, I lived in three towns and none of them really stick in my mind as places that I particularly loved. I’m wondering as I write this, why I feel this way? Of course, as you know I’ve moved several times since I began this blog over 10 years ago, something that most of my friends cannot understand (although I do have a couple of friends who have moved as many times, if not more than me). But, on reflection, my parents moved me at crucial times in my life, maybe this kind of stuck?
Btw, as you can see, I’ve taken the meaning of home towns as a town in your childhood, and just maybe I could have interpreted this as a town I love now. In that case, this is Part 1 and there needs to be a Part 2! Also, as my childhood was so very long ago (!) I’ve written more about my life than the actual towns, which I hardly recall.
I’ve told you before that I was born in India in June 1946 in Naini Tal, a small town at the base of the Himalayas where the memsahibs were sent to escape the heat of Delhi.
This is the nursing home, Manor House, where I was born.
Later that year in September I moved with my parents and my ayah, down from the hills back to Delhi travelling by dandy, lorry, metre gauge railway, a broad gauge railway and then taxi where we lived in officers’ barracks until, a couple of months before Partition in August 1947, we all left for England (my father leaving the army and his beloved India for ever). We travelled by train to a transit camp to Deolali, near Bombay (now Mumbai) which had a transit camp for British officers, and then on the 1st June 1947 we embarked from Bombay on the (very basic) Cunard SS Scythia arriving in Liverpool on the 20th June 1947.
And I have my immigration papers to prove this! So, first and first foremost, I am an immigrant, and second, that was quite a lot of moving around for a 1-yr-old.
By the way, I’m mindful that the latter part of the sentence could be taken as being unaware of the disaster that was about to unfold only two months later in August 1947 and the consequent massive movements of people including, of course, many children. Partition was a ghastly time for India and the new country, Pakistan. The responsibility for the huge number of deaths lies in the divide and rule mentality of Empire and there is much to acknowledge about the role of the British in India. What I do know is that my father thought that the way Partition was handled was a disgrace, but he had to leave India and all that it meant to him and that is what he did.
On landing in England, my parents took us to their home town, which was Bedford in Bedfordshire, and we lived in my paternal grandparents’ house, until they bought a semi-detached house in Edgware, Middlesex. Here I am at the front door of that house.
I remember very little of Edgware, but I know from photographs that we lived in suburbia. Edgware at that time consisted of streets and streets of semi-detached houses with mock-Tudor facings, a small front garden and larger back garden where my mother tended her roses, and don’t forget the military precision of her red, white, and blue annuals that bordered the edge of the flower bed, there were also some lupins.
Down the side of each semi-detached house, there was space for a garage, but no cars were owned by anyone. Readers, people did not have cars in those days, can you imagine? Perhaps the doctor would have one (The doctor needed it for his visits. I mean, a visit, can you imagine?) so there were no garages in our road. And even today if a Brit has a garage, it is more than likely that it will be filled with junk rather than cars – these stay parked outside!
So, the streets were wide and empty of cars and traffic, and they were our playground as we were out in these streets all day long. And we would walk everywhere: my father commuted to London on the tube (he had retrained as a chartered accountant) and worked in a shipping firm in London. He walked for over half an hour to the tube station. I do remember the very long walks of nearly an hour to the shops and my school, which was the norm for everyone. Mind you, we Brits, we like walking to places, and may that practice of everyone using public transport, or shanks pony, return one day as the planet gets hotter and we move away from fossil fuels.
Actually, if I do feel any nostalgia, it is for that time when gangs of children played outside in the streets in total safety, with parents neither worrying about traffic or, I have to say, predators. Of course, these predators must have been around, but we and my parents never thought about this as we could just go out and play in the street whenever we wanted. We also ran into each others’ houses and back gardens, and we were proper unruly street urchins only called in to our homes by our mothers for our meals and for bedtime.
This of course, was before the days of television or playgroups or nurseries and nor do I remember a playground near us, instead the streets were our playground, and our source of entertainment, as the radio was listened to by the grownups, apart that is, maybe on a rainy day, we’d listen to Listen with Mother. Click here for the theme tune
And what did we play at? We played It a lot, chasing each other around, also skipping games, and ‘Cowboys and Indians as American films and television was just beginning to filter into our cultural life, or just baddies and goodies that shot at each other! Sounds violent and sometimes it was.
I remember I had three great friends in Edgware: Mary Banham, Patricia Clancy, Patricia Mullaly, who I lost contact with when my parents moved the family consisting of me and my sister, Elizabeth (born in 1949) to a village just outside Woking called Horsell. Again, I can remember little about Horsell, apart from there is the famous Horsell Common where the aliens landed in the novel War of the Worlds (no it wasn’t like the Tom Cruise film with it all set in the States. I liked the film, but it was a big departure from the actual book.)
My other half, Mr F, has done a lot of family history and kept so much ephemera that he can point to every significant date in his life including his childhood. In contrast I will have to really scratch around with not much evidence to be able to tell when that move to Horsell was. But there was time enough to rock up to a new school and have sufficient years to study for my O-levels. This was Tormead, a private school where much later Sandi Toksvig became a boarder, as I did.
School meals, midnight feasts, and with no boys around, intense friendships – what a weird life is a girls’ boarding school. Moreover, I haven’t forgotten the weekly bath and fortnightly hair washes – yikes I think people smelt more in those days! Then after a year I became a day girl. The journey to school was incredibly long, which was one reason my parents started us off as boarders, and in contrast to these days, we did it by ourselves on foot and by public transport. No one was driven to school, even the kids whose parents had a car did not drive them there. Would I have allowed my children to go on a journey like I did, every day, for years, I’m not sure? But we weren’t alone, as there was a whole crowd of around 10-15 of us who did the same long journey to school.
My mother made us a cooked breakfast every day and what sticks in my mind is the smell of burnt toast, which happened without fail every single day as my mother didn’t have a toaster, but put the bread under the gas grill. This we ate at 7.0am and I was out of the door by 7.30 to walk to a bus, which took us to Woking and the main railway station. There we caught a train at around 8.0am, which took us to Guildford, where we crossed the platform and caught another train that got us to Guildford, London Road, and then we walked over a mile to our school arriving at around 8.45 in time for assembly at 9.0am.
In this town there was no playing outside in the street. I made some good friends at my new school, there was Sue and Jan and Anne and Janice, but they were scattered around the outskirts of Woking, and anyway there were more cars on the streets. But us friends, we went everywhere together meeting up at weekends and in the school holidays. I especially remember the way we spent a Saturday. (This would be in the late 50s and very early 60s.) I would take the bus to the centre of Woking and we would meet at a coffee bar, which was, wow, just the most amazingly modern thing to do, as it had Formica topped tables, spindly plastic chairs and see-through plastic cups and saucers, and coffee that was made with this big machine that hissed and steamed producing a frothy topped coffee that tasted of nothing much tbh!
I wouldn’t recognise Woking now as I believe it has many high-rise buildings, and what’s more, I understand that recently the council has declared that it is bankrupt with a £1.2 billion deficit, and that’s another story of over-ambitious speculation and bad investment) but in those days from the coffee shop we walked sometimes arm-in-arm to the local shops in the High Street, especially the drapers where we looked at those huge books of dress patterns and fingered the bolts of material there, as we often made our own clothes. Then we’d look longingly in the windows of the shoe shops for the kitten heeled shoes that we could barely afford at 16/9d, that’s under a £1!
When we were over 17, we sometimes went on to a pub for a mid-morning drink. One of my friends was very pretty and tiny with blond hair and a face very like Bridget Bardot. She was popular and had boyfriends! I tagged along sometimes, but readers, I was tall, slightly plump and very spotty so boys were totally not interested. They came along later and that really is another story! Anyway, in the afternoon, it was time for the weekly foray to the cinema, which always had two films, a cartoon and the news. We went every week.
Again, in those latter teen years there were parties on a Saturday, but always in other people’s houses, as clubs and other types of night-life that we now take for granted were unheard of. These parties were an anxious experience as there was dancing (mostly jiving) but the idea of dancing with other women hadn’t come in, so would I be a wall-flower and never be asked to dance? Reader, I was often a wall-flower!
And here’s the reason why, I was spotty and shy and awkward and stiff and I think my hair reflects the latter two very well!
That’s a Helen Shapiro look, and who remembers and actually did the back-combing!
The anxiety would continue through the evening as with my parents not having a car, how was I to get home??? I inevitably played patsy to a friend who had a boy-friend and I’d get that lift home, but I was never sure. Yikes, how I longed for my life to change.
Yes, I remember that I had this great yearning for London, for a different life, to get out and away from my parents and school and start living! I knew that my school results would get me away from my home town, so I worked hard and got the requisite O-levels, studied for my A-levels, but, oh calamity, I failed them, (it took me years to learn how to pass exams eventually getting a Masters in Social Policy) so university at that point was out. Actually, in those days there was very little opportunity for women to do anything after leaving school except marry, but the clever ones with A-levels went to the few universities that existed then, the middling clever ones might become nurses, and the bright but unacademic girls became secretaries and goodness me, one girl in our sixth form went to work in a shop. How we all looked down our noses at her.
Honestly my schooling! It took me years to get over the narrow class bias of my private education. Because people there was no need for me to travel that far, there were plenty of State schools nearer home, but my parents would never have sent me to one of those schools. At this point Mr F likes to remind me that he went to a State school and has done very well, but we are a class based society and for my parents it was incredibly important to send their two daughters to private schools.
Anyway, it was nursing for me, and at 18 off I went to London, and the bright lights, and what I saw as the beginning of my life – it was like being shot out of a cannon! This was it, I thought, this was how to live. In actuality, the reality of leaving home was slightly more challenging than I thought it would be and there was many a false start and stop, but I never came back to my home town apart from fleeting visits to my parents. It wasn’t that I actively disliked Woking but suburbia and that type of town is not for me. Even if growing up was painful (and it was) I loved London, every minute of it. More about that in Part 2 where I will tell you about the many places I’ve lived in since I was 18.
And now it’s time to introduce you to the lovely women who also participate in this writing challenge.
First of all, there is Marsha who blogs at Marsha in the Middle. She says that even though this month’s prompt was her idea, she wasn’t quite sure what road to follow. She decided to just meander her way through memories and places from her hometown. Click here to read this.
Then we have Gail, who started the challenge. Gail writes Is This Mutton, and she explains why she’s a Janner as she takes us on a tour of Plymouth in the south west of England. The city is famous for the Pilgrim Fathers and felled trees. Click here for a link to her blog.
Mary Katherine who blogs at MK’s Adventures in Style says she loves her hometown, which is quite different from its famous namesake and pronounced differently too. Click here to read about her hometown.
Suzy at The Grey Brunette says that her journey from Rotherham to Portimao, her cozy Portugese hometown, unfolds a tale of seafront serenity and the vibrant life of Praia da Rocha, offering a slice of Algarve charm. See her post here.
Then Debbie of Deb’s World tells us she lives in a very small rural town in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of NSW Australia, with the captivating name of Tumbarumba. She’s made her home with husband and three daughters (now grown up and flown the nest) for over 30 years and is almost considered a ‘local’. It has a poem all about Tumba-bloody-Rumba. Read more at Debbie’s blog here.
And finally, Leslie of Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After tell us from the moment she drove into El Paso, Texas on Thanksgiving weekend 1988, she felt like she was home. The Franklin Mountains tower over this big little city and divide the town into two. The people are humble, hardworking and friendly; accepting of cultures and ethnicities. But this jewel in the desert southwest is being crippled by the incredible number of people crossing into this border town and impacting an already financially strained and impoverished community. Her heart is breaking for her hometown. Click here for this fascinating take on Leslie’s hometown.
That really is all for now, and if you have read to the end, wow! Thank you for reading my memories of the past, this is almost a substitute for writing a memoir!
With love, Penny, the Frugalfashionshopper.
Fabulous really enjoyed reading your life history, keep em coming 😉😉
Thank you Jean, I will keep this going. Am thinking of combining the Travel Part 2 with the Home Towns Part 2 as I lived abroad for 2 years. So yes, this will continue. Thanks again 🙂
I thoroughly enjoyed your part one. Fascinating and so beautifully written. Eagerly looking forward to part 2
Thank you Diane, I will write Part 2 and combine it with Travel Part 2 as I think they go together especially as I lived in Switzerland for 2 years.
My parents didn’t have a car either and as I lived in Clydebank going to dances or concerts etc in Glasgow meant leaving early to make sure of not missing the last bus. I still dislike suburbia. The only school friend I keep in touch with I met when I was 6 we still exchange cards, 70 years. I’ve moved a lot and I consider Dublin more of a home town although I didn’t move there until my ‘30’s. Helen Shapiro I’d forgotten about her. Joan Baez’s hair was what I aspired to. You look lovely with your back comb.
Can’t wait to read part 2! What a lovely story and photos!
Oh yes, Joan Baez, I went for that hairstyle, with the parting in the middle, later on. Helen Shapiro was a very late 50s, early 60s look.
I have one school friend who now lives in the States, who I communicate with mainly on Facebook, where we reconnected as we’d lost touch. Otherwise I have quite a few nursing friends from the 60s and very early 70s who I am still in contact with.
My parents eventually got a car when I left home! Oh the anxiety of getting that ‘lift’!
Thanks Flora 🙂
Really enjoyed Part one. Brought back so many happy memories of my childhood too. They were some of the best days. Looking forward to reading Part two.
Thank you Gill, I will write Part 2 and combine it with Travel Part 2 as I think they go together as I lived in Switzerland for two years.
What a fascinating life, Penny and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the old photos and reading your story. Looking forward to Part 2. x
Penny, I always love reading what you write. I feel as if we’re having a cuppa and a gossip. You have certainly led a storied life. It’s funny how these prompts bring up such memories, isn’t it? There was only one boy in my school who went on to a private (I think you call them public) school for high school (grades 9-12). His family never sent any of the boys to public school for high school. As far as I know he did OK in life, but then so did almost everyone else in our class. My best friend sent one of her sons to a tohttps://marshainthemiddle.com/ageless-style-birthday-dresses/ny school where he stood out quite a bit as he didn’t have the money the others did and couldn’t do or wear what they did. If someone wants to claim we don’t have a class society in the US, they are woefully wrong!
I cannot wait to read Part 2. Living in London as a young woman must have been so eye opening, exciting, and all the adjectives!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
Yes, I always think that there are variations on class, and while ours is still very overt, nevertheless yours is there too. It is better here, but to this day the way the upper classes in the UK educate their children is hugely important as it produces cohorts of people who believe in living a certain way and above all think of themselves as the ‘ruling class’. Not all products of a private education are boorish oafs, like a recent Prime Minister, indeed our most senior cleric is a product of Eton, but still there is something about their confidence that gets them to the top. This type of education and our class system really has been the downfall and ruination of our country, in my view, anyway. End of rant of the day, Marsha!!
Thanks so much and I will write Part 2 combining it with Part 2 of Travel 🙂
What a great post Penny. Really valuable social history. I remember going out to play. We’d stay out all day, building dens, picking blackberries and so on. Children nowadays certainly miss out. It’s interesting that although we have a car (electric) I rarely use it these days. I walk whenever I can, or take public transport. It’s free for over 60s in London. If only public transport was as good everywhere else as it is in the capital!
Thank you for sharing. Such an interesting read.
Looking forward to part 2!
Life has a way of shaping us all and the places we live in play a huge part.
I was born & brought up in back street Birmingham but Dad moved with work and we came to rural Herefordshire and I have never wanted to move away.
Thank you again.
Thanks you so much Sandra 🙂
It is the staying out all day that now seems so remarkable. For instance, I was sent to my aunt’s over several summers (until sadly she died) to what was then a very rural part of Cheshire, and I was given my packed lunch and out we went play across a field and down to a stream, where we dammed the stream and watched it overflow. With no supervision whatsoever! I did this with another boy my age and my word, it was a wonderful time. I don’t think this could ever be done now! And my age would have been 7, I think, to the age of 11. I mean 7! But I didn’t think it unusual nor did my aunt.
The Brighton area and some of the surrounding area has amazing public transport. I am a beneficiary as Lewes has buses into the centre and beyond to Uckfield, Eastbourne and Tunbridge Wells every 10 minutes!!!! Likewise Lewes to Brighton. The buses are amazing and better than the trains!
And a huge thank you for creating this blog collaboration. It really is good to hunker down and think through what one is going to write – it’s really enjoyable and challenging 🙂
Really enjoyed this, Penny. I remember Helen Shapiro! I was born and bred in London but consider Bedford my home town now as I have lived here for 42 years. Looking forward to Part 2.
I remember going to Bedford where both my grandparents lived. One lived in St Augustines Road, and the other in Park Avenue. I also remember the river and the park opposite Park Avenue. I expect it’s changed a lot since then as I would have been visiting Bedford in the late 40s and through the 50s. Which is years and years ago!
Thanks Veronica 🙂
So interesting and it brought up so many of my own memories. We moved around a lot during my early years too until my parents bought a house in 1946 in the town of Harrison New York. I grew up there and left when I got married at age 22 in 1963. I was married for about 11 years, had my two kids and divorced and moved back home as it was a two family house. I was able to purchase my own home not far from them in this same town a few years later. I raised the children there , and we lived there for 20 years until both my son and daughter moved out on their own. I decided to downsize and moved to my present home in the nearby town of Port Chester NY. Now I have lived here 25 years, the longest of any place I have lived continuously but I still consider Harrison to be my home town. I have several friends who live there and I participate in events at the library and local theater group, where I will go tonight. My brother and I inherited the family home when my parents passed away and were able to sell to to my son and his family, so it has been in the family all those years. So of course I visit them frequently. I just got a haircut in that same old neighborhood.
Of course there have been tremendous changes. In the last few years a massive apartment and parking complex has been built, which really changes the character of much of the downtown. Some of it still has the small town vibe but it is moving toward an urban sensibility. I guess this is inevitable. And I remember the times when we could be outside all day, just hanging out with our friends from the neighborhood. There was so much open space, so much nature to explore and let our imaginations as well as our bodies roam. So different from how my grandchildren grew up. And I know that feeling of being a wallflower, But that’s enough for now. Love from New York,
Darby
Wow that house has been in your family for a very long time, I bet it looks rather beautiful.
And of course in both our lifetimes, everywhere and everything has changed. I mean amazingly I can remember bomb-sites in London from the Second World War, which were still around in the very early 50s. London itself was literally a darker and very smoky place as heating was from coal fires and all the buildings were stained with soot. In fact London’s nickname used to be called The Old Smoke. Fortunately the older buildings are much cleaner now and of course there is a preponderance of glass windowed skyscrapers – it would be unrecognisable to my parents.
Thanks so much, Darby, and I’m glad you liked this week’s blog 🙂
A former back comber, here. I just loved Helen Shapiro, and The British Invasion of music that followed. And what an absolutely fascinating life you have led. Very interesting read.
Thanks so much, and I’m glad you liked this week’s post as I had wondered if it was boring! And all the best to a fellow back-comber!
Gosh, it was like another world, wasn’t it?! I remember playing in the streets and walking into town just with my best friend when we were around 9 years old (before I left England for Portugal). It just seemed so safe back then. That was the early 80s and I guess that was when things were already really starting to change.
I loved reading your post (part 1), Penny, and I shall look forward to reading all about your experiences as a young women in London!
Hugs
Suzy xx
Thank you Suzy, and I will write Part 2, I promise!
A very interesting post again Penny – thanks. I’m a bit younger than you but I do remember the wonderful voice of 15 year old Helen Shapiro! Yes, there was a lot of freedom for me too. We were brought up in a seaside town and you could just go down to the front in the holidays without a care in the world. I went to a girls grammar school and did the half-hour walk 4 times a day as a matter of course. Sometimes I read as I walked and even knitted with the wool in my pocket! Unfortunately I passed a sweet shop so ruined my teeth on pear drops and sherbet lemons. My paternal grandmother lived on the route so I often called in on my way home, especially on baking day. If she was listening to Mrs Dale’s Diary on the radio I couldn’t speak to her until it finished – no catch up in those days!
Helen Shapiro had an amazingly mature voice for her age. And how the lives of children have changed over the years! It is sad that children today just have the freedom we had to roam around without any thoughts of traffic or predators. But I do remember the traffic building up as I got into my teens.
And Mrs Dale’s Diary – yes, I remember that one too!
Thanks Lynda 🙂
Wow that was quite a part 1. I am looking forward to part 2. The last thing I expected to read about today was the 1947 partition.
Hi Hena
I don’t think about Partition every day, but I’m very aware of it. My dad was an officer in the Indian Army in a regiment which consisted of mixed religions, and was posted to amongst other places, Shagai Fort and Landi Kotal, Chaman, Baluchistan, and all of this before the Second World War, so he experienced the Raj in its last days. Then during the war, before he was posted to Burma he was an officer in Jullundur and Waziristan where he was in charge of Road Open Days, and I use capitals deliberately as that’s how they named the days when supplies were carried to the manned forts by lorries down dangerous roads, dangerous not for the state of them but because they were often fired upon by the tribes. I mean different days and all that, but all part of his life. And I know this because he wrote a memoir about this life which I only read after his death. That definitely gave me an insight into his life after the war. I’ll stop now as apologies (!) I could go on and on!
I really enjoyed your stories Penny and look forward to the sequel. Love the Helen Shapiro look and your reminiscences of life as a teenager. Life certainly was very different back then as you point out and the travel to school each day alone, would be unheard of these days. These prompts make for interesting reading and I love learning about everyone’s lives and the sharing of wisdom.
I too love reading everyone’s blog – it is so good to hear how others live and hear what they have to say.
And the freedom we had as kids was amazing.
Thanks Debbie 🙂
What a faboulous piece Penny. Thanks for letting us into your life. Brought up so many memories especially listen with mother. For some reason I called it ‘Binky Bonk’ ( probably aged 2!) and recall running around shouting this, getting my mother ready for precious time with her in her lap.The picture of you in the doorway of your house too reminded me of the little coat with the Peter Pan collar I had- clearly every child had one!
I watched Harry Potter recently and felt that real ache for my imaginary time at boarding school. I always wanted to go but sadly it was not to be.
Will re read your piece and follow the links. Love the trips down memory lane.
Oh, yes, Listen With Mother and don’t forget Andy Pandy on BBC television, the only channel that was available for some years!
Thanks so much Stephanie 🙂
I am loving these home town posts….. heading off to look for part 2 now.