Wife and Mother

Gran's Story - Wife and Mother

At Ramsey Cottage on October 26 1935 their first child was born and they named me - Helen. There was concern that the damp cottage was not a suitable place for a baby to grow up in and it was a great worry to my Mother. However, soon they were thrilled to be allocated a brand new council house in the village - 6, Rookery Road - and so my Mother moved into the house where she would live for the next 60 years. There was no electricity or water (other than a pump over the draining board for washing and another pump on the road for drinking) but the house was modern and dry and it seemed to Esther like a ‘palace’. My Mother used to walk to the Red House with me in a pram to continue working as ‘part-time’ cook.

On September 3rd, 1939 the Second World War began and Mum told us she remembered sitting in her kitchen on this Sunday morning and hearing Neville Chamberlain’s announcement to the nation over the wireless.

On November 7th, 1939 my brother was born - his first name was James but he was always known at Peter. Mum now had to run her home and bring up two children in war-time conditions which was not easy but my memories of our childhood years are ones of happiness and fun.

Every evening during the winter months I remember Mum would light the paraffin lamp and all four of us would sit round the table in the kitchen and play all sorts of games. Mum taught me to knit and sew and Dad would play the old harmonium and we would sing hymns. Of course, there was no TV but we did sometimes listen to the wireless.

Mum tried to instill in me her love of cooking and some of her recipes I am still using today. Cooking during the war it was difficult as all food was rationed and we often had to adapt our recipes. Some neighbours never baked cakes and I remember Mum used to swap packets of tea for margarine. We used liquid paraffin in some cakes and for gingerbread Mum used black molasses which she got from a farmer (he had this to make silage on the farm). Mum used chopped up prunes in her fruit cakes and at Christmas time she made marzipan with semolina and almond essence.

Mum was famous for making Christmas cakes and each year she would be asked by several neighbours to make their cakes. Of course, they provided the ingredients and gave Mum some fuel for the range in which she baked the cakes. The range had to be watched very closely to keep the fire just right to maintain the temperature in the oven. It always amazed me that Mum would open the oven door and put her hand in to judge the heat and immediately she would know if the fire needed refuelling or not.

Our birthday parties were great occasions - Mum was known by our friends for the butterfly buns and other cakes she made. She always provided a wonderful tea and this was followed by games organised by her and Dad. I am sure Mum saved some of their food rations for these parties - no doubt her and Dad made many sacrifices. Every Easter Sunday morning for breakfast Mum would boil eggs in cochineal having first marked our initials on them with a wax crayon - this was always looked forward to.

Mum made most of our clothes when she could obtain material - often old garments were unpicked and remade for us.

There were very few toys in the shops due to the war but each Christmas somehow Mum and Dad would manage to give us at least one big present as well as many small things. One year Mum heard that Footmans in Ipswich had some dolls and she told me she queued for 3 hours to get one for me. This was then lovingly dressed in clothes which she knitted and put in a dolls pram which my Dad had made. Mum followed a Scottish tradition and, as her Mother had always done, she covered two hoops in brightly coloured paper and tinsel, fixed them together to make a ball shape, and then tied on small decorations and presents.

Dad made us sledges and during the winter we would all have great fun in the snow. When the ice was thick enough many people from the village would gather at Cooper’s pond. They would make a slide across the pond and Mum and Dad would go with us so we could all enjoy this together. On one occasion Mum had a nasty accident when she fell backwards and hit her head on the ice - she was briefly knocked unconscious.

Dad also made us kites and one day I remembered a kite tail caught Peter’s glasses and took them up into a tree. It took Mum and I many hours to find them and we had to take them home, very bent, for Dad to straighten them out.

Mum and Dad never had a car so wherever we wanted to go we had to cycle, apart from twice a week, when Soames ran a bus to Ipswich. Sometimes Mum would be running late when wanting to catch the bus and she would ask Peter and I to stand in the road, stop the bus and ask Mr. Soames to wait for her. Mr. Soames never seemed to mind but Peter and I found it most embarrassing as everyone on the bus would be looking at our front door waiting for Mum to appear!

When he was a child, Peter had several stays in Ipswich Hospital and many times Mum would cycle 11 miles each way to visit him for just the one hour which was allowed twice a week. Later when Peter was in The Bartlet at Felixstowe for three months, Mum would cycle to Westerfield and catch a train to visit him.

Sometimes Mum would cycle with us to take Dad his tea in the harvest field - we loved this. Also every Christmas Eve we would cycle to Woodbridge to do our Christmas shopping.

On one occasion we had been out cycling and Peter had obtained a jar of tadpoles from a pond. Mum was carrying the jar when she fell off her cycle into a ditch - somehow she managed to save most of the contents but we had to remove some tadpoles from her hair.

Mum was very athletic and would entertain us and our friends by doing handstands etc. on the front lawn. She loved to show us how she could kick her height - something she was still doing many years later to amuse her Grand-daughters.

Dad was now working for the War Agricultural Committee and so was in a reserved occupation and did not have to join the Services. He did once receive his ‘call-up’ papers but Mum told me they fell down the back of the mantelpiece and were never retrieved (maybe someone will find them one day when the house is demolished).

Monewden had several air-raids during the war, I can vividly remember being taken from my bed and sitting under the kitchen table with Mum, Dad and Peter. On one occasion a bomb fell very close and our back door was blown open and I recall Mum getting us all to sing - no doubt to distract us children. In May 1943, 14 high explosives and 3 landmines fell in one night, and another time a plane took off from nearby Debach aerodrome - it was full of bombs, hit a tree and exploded. I was lying in bed and heard the loud bang. An airman once had to eject from his plane and I saw him walking up our back path with a parachute under his arm. He was a Canadian and many years later he returned to see where this had happened.

Finally, the war ended in 1945 but wartime conditions remained for several years as far as rationing etc. was concerned.

Dad worked with several German prisoners of war on the farms and sometimes they would visit our home. For years afterwards they would write and refer to the wonderful cakes etc. that my Mother shared with them on their visits. Meat was still rationed but they loved the egg and chips which Mum was able to cook for them. One, Georg, we kept in touch with until his death - over the years he came with his wife to visit us and we visited him in the Black Forest. The years passed and in 1955 I married Don and in 1963 Peter married Janet and we both left home. Mum and Dad were now on their own but only for a very short time.

Dad became ill just about the time Don and I married and after investigations Mum was told he had Multiple Sclerosis, and in 1963, shortly after Peter had left home and married Janet, Isabella died and Mum’s father Harry came to live with Esther, his daughter. Over the following years Mum had to care for a sick husband and an elderly Father. This was not easy and I know that at times Mum must have found it very stressful but I can honestly say I never heard her grumble or complain. Soon a new joy was to come into her life - the birth of her four Grand-daughters.

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