1955
My father had his accident which was very traumatic. I was called to the phone in the personnel department and it was my brother. He said “there has been an accident, can you come home?” The department arranged a car which I took all the way home.
When I arrived, mum was in the living room with my brother Alfred. Aunty Em was at the bottom of the garden with the twins - they were only 13. Mum was crying. It was such a shock. I don’t remember much else.
I remember going to the factory with Alfred to make arrangements for the funeral. Some of his work mates wanted to come up and express their condolences to us and all I could remember was how badly they spoke. Now that I look back, I am so ashamed.
I have been to many funerals but I don’t remember much about what happened.
I decided I would not go back to work, not even to finish the day’s work. I am amazed they even gave me a reference for my next job. I managed to keep in touch with Gay and Gladys. I still call Gladys to this day.
I received unemployment benefits and my mother had her pension so we did okay for a while. Then I got a job at C&A (coats and ‘ats as we call it), I was the assistant to the chief accountant. It was right up the end of Oxford Street. The vibe was very different from John Lewis. Everyone worked hard and had no fun.
This is what made me decide, I did not like capitalism. I no longer wanted to work for profit-making firms. I had already joined the Labour Party by this point.
I gave in my notice and got a job as a secretary at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Cavendish Square. There were very important people there (which I did not realize at the time) such as John Bowlby and the Freuds. They were all half mad! They lived on another plane!
I became friends with Penny Shephard. She was the one who collected the fees. One day someone came down and demanded a receipt for the fees despite never having paid.