1931
I was born on 8th January 1931 in Brockley, “the better part of Deptford” my Mother said. My Mother lived on Douglas Street, off Deptford High Street. It's not there now – the war demolished Douglas street. My Mother always held that she was one of eleven children – Mother, Annie and Father, Joseph Barker. I could only trace nine children: Annie, Albert (who survived WW1 only to succumb to the 1918 influenza pandemic (they called it the Spanish flu – (will they call this one the Chinese flu!!??) Edward, Arthur, George,(who also survived WW1 but George was left with a bullet in his thigh which for some reason couldn't be removed and which left him disabled for the rest of his life), Lillian, Emily, Constance (my Mother known as Maud because she didn't like “Constance”!!) and the youngest, Rosina.
Childhood was idyllic. I had an adored brother, born on 8th August, 1924. I didn't realise for a long time that my Mother and Father had married in April 1924... It didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now. He was kind and gentle to his little sister, except for the occasion when he ran up the garden with me on his shoulders and my laughing, gaping mouth caught in a string attached to the washing line and away went my front teeth!!. It didn't matter – they were my baby teeth. We lost my brother at the age of 89 a few years ago, and I still miss him.
I used to visit my sister-in-law for a chat quite frequently until she also left us last year and the grand old age of 90. I remember we used to go to a farm in Devon - Holsworthy, to be exact, for our holidays and we would go to the beach at Bude. Before the war, our holiday was a week in Ramsgate with Auntie Em and Uncle Charlie and their son, my cousin, Bob.
Those were the days when parents like mine without a lot of money, used to knit their children's swimsuits. They were fine until you went into the sea!!! My father had to be provided with a new pair of trousers and, for the amount of expenditure was vast, my mother paid a weekly sum in advance at Pecries a wonderful huge shop (to me) where all the clothes were laid out on trestle tables open to the pavement. It was really like a stall in a market. I used to wander around the stall and hide right at the back of the shop where it was dark and eerie. Another year (we must have been becoming well off!!) we went to Littlehampton.
Always our holidays were with family, some years with my cousins Irene and Amy, some years with my grandparents, Dad's Mum and Dad and nearly always with Aunt Em! Later still, we went to the farm at Holsworthy in Devon, but that was after we had lost our Dad.
1933
We moved to the family home in which I am living now in 1933. I went to the local primary school, Hook Lane Infants. I don't think I was a good girl (I don't think I've ever been a “good girl”!). I remember getting under the desk that I shared with my great lifelong mate, Joyce, and tying the laces of her plimsolls together. I don't think she came to any harm – I hope not!! and now she has left me as well. We used to have a sherry and fish and chips together. I miss that.
My childhood was mostly full of fun. My father had a good friend with whom he worked and since his friend lived nearby, they travelled to work across the river together. In due cause, they became very good friends and the friendship extended to the families.
Uncle Albert and Auntie Lil (it was the custom in those days for children to call their parents' very good friends “uncle” and “auntie” even if there was no relationship; other known grown-ups, like our neighbours were Mrs. and Mr. Brown and were always Mrs and Mr.). Uncle Albert and Auntie Lil had five children, four girls and a boy and since the two mums and us children got on well with each other, we spent a lot of time together.
After one outing we were on our way to 63 for tea. I, as usual, was acting up, and my mother got so exasperated that the shouted “You'll go home when you get to bed!!” - everyone, grown-ups included, fell about laughing and the phrase became a family saying.
They often spent their Christmas with us, and a wonderful time was had!! I simply adored being with them, since my brother was too grown up to play with his little sister and they were all about my age, and we got on so well. This particular Christmas, we had been allowed to play in my parents' bedroom. We were five girls and one boy, and he was the youngest. We decided it would be good fun to tie Charlie to the bedpost which wasn't difficult. Then came to call from downstairs to come to dinner. We left Charlie tied to the bedpost!! His frantic cries eventually alerted the grown-ups, and us girls got a good telling off, but since the grown-ups had been on the sherry, Charlie was rescued by his father and the incident was soon forgotten!!
I don't think I progressed to Junior School which was on the same site. The war came, and we moved from pillar to post to outdo Hitler. We were quite successful, but it did interfere somewhat with my education – not that I cared very much then. I remember the day war broke out – we were hop-picking in Bickley near Northiam, staying with a mad lady called Mrs. Smith. My Mother and Auntie Rose came out of the shop crying.
Now it is always mystifying to children to see grown-ups crying, and it stopped our playing and rolling around on the ground. I don't remember the grown-ups telling us the cause of their distress – it was only much later that we children understood that for my Mother and Aunt, having gone through the First World War, the prospect of going through another war was unimaginably painful to them.
On our return to Welling from our hop-picking holiday, I was amazed to see a strange contraption at the bottom of our garden. I rushed down the garden to find we had an Anderson air raid shelter!! Inside it had a bench on each side and about of inch of water. It was possible for me to sit on the bench comfortably, but grown-ups, including my fifteen-year-old, rapidly growing brother, had to sit with legs stretched along the bench or wear wellies! My dad eventually improvised and put a plank on a couple of bricks down the centre of the shelter. Our first air raid was memorable. We, my dad and brother and I had headed for the shelter as soon as the air raid siren had sounded.
My mother was delayed for some vital cause. Then the ack-ack guns in the park nearby sounded their defiance to the bombers going for London and that made by Mother shift !!– she came flying down the garden and launched herself into the shelter, only avoiding severe injury by my father and brother breaking her fall in their attempt to catch her. We all thought it tremendously funny. I don't think my Mother did!! But the incident brought home to my parents that being on the flight path of those bombers on their way to their merciless task of bombing London and Londoners should be avoided if possible and for us, it was possible.
We went first to my Aunt Em's big house in Blackheath. Aunt Em had married Charles Trusler. She had worked as a barmaid where she had met Charles (better known as Charley or Char of course) – there were no flies on Aunt Em!!! No 4 Humber Road with its big cellar was supposed to be our shelter from anything Mr. Hitler could throw at us. Mr. Hitler did his best - a great big landmine made a big hole in the road a little way from number 4, but it didn't go off. It was carefully protected from the public by those yellow strips that police use to cordon off an area - it didn't stop us kids and other members of the public standing outside the yellow strips like good law-abiding citizens, apparently totally unaware that if the thing did explode, we would all be blown to kingdom come!!!
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