Fabulous

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FABULOUS - adj. 1 incredible, marvellous. 2 legendary, mythical. 3 celebrated in fable.

CELEBRATING THE WOMEN OF SOUTH DERBYSHIRE COMPILED BY KEVIN FEGAN PUBLISHED BY PEOPLE EXPRESS 3

FABULOUS Celebrating the Women of South Derbyshire Compiled by Kevin Fegan First published in 2008 by People Express ISBN 978-0-9524691-5-5

People Express Sharpe’s Pottery Heritage & Arts Centre West Street, Swadlincote, South Derbyshire DE11 9DG Tel: 01283 552962 Fax: 01283 217037 Email: enquiries@people-express.org.uk Website: www.people-express.org.uk

Registered Charity No 1005753 The Celebrating Women project was financially supported by: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission in writing from the publisher. © Kevin Fegan (with the exception of “Flight” by Jacqui Hollings © and “The Crushing” by Sheila Cato ©) The authors have asserted their moral rights.

Book Designed by Rare Company www.rarecompany.co.uk Printed by Reynolds Press Photographs/Images: Page 14 Page 44 Page 58, 62, 96, 108 Page 72 Page 82 Page 100 Page 116

Derby Evening Telegraph Image created by Techno Tyros Rare Company Original painting by Rosalind Spalton Hubert King / W.W. Winter Ltd Image created by Helen Summerfield Graham Stubbs

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CONTENTS

HAVE FUN, FEEL FIT, BE FABULOUS - Michele Elizabeth

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QUEEN OF THE ROAD - Paddy Laban

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LIBBY THROUGH THE WARDROBE - Elizabeth Nahimana

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THE DINNER-PARTY - Louise Cronjé

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THE FOREST - Gaynor

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SLUDGEBUMPER - Elsie Steele

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NEVER STOP DREAMING - Heather Jarvis

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TECHNO TYROS - Connie Rawson, Min Larbey & Betty Gardner

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CHICKEN AND EGG - Beryl Hosking

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BATTLEFIELDS AND BEDROOMS - Anna Aston

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SHOPS IN THE BLOOD - Shanti Odedra

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LUMBERJILLS - Bettina Astle

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COUNTING TINS - Sandra Wyatt

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TWO TREES - Rosalind Spalton

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A POT FOR EVERYTHING - Betty Mapley, Pauline Ward, Jean Mason & Olive Wilson

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A SLOW REVEAL - Betty Rice

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SPIDERS AND SNAKES - Kerry Hibbert, Karen Preston & Katie Farmer

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THE CRUSHING - Sheila Cato

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LAND OF THE DODO - Liz Li

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THE WHEELS ON THE BUS - Janet & Helen Summerfield

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A PORTRAIT IN MINIATURE - Liza Goodson

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IN FLIGHT - Jacqui Hollings

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With special thanks to Project Co-ordinator Jane Wood and the Steering Group volunteers: Shelia Cato, Zoe Dent, Gaynor, Jacqui Hollings, Claire Scothern and Gillian Swindell.

Thanks also to everyone who contributed to the development of the project, helped to research stories and supported the events and readings, including; Louise Angell, Marian Adams, Alison Betteridge, Cllr Michelle Booth, Heather Bull, Doreen Butlin, Glenda Brewin, Burton Chinese Community Association, Sybil Carter, Julie Goodwin, Lynn Gray, Philip Heath (Heritage Officer), Cllr Ann Hood, Polly Jemison, Janet Kelly, Magic Attic Archives, Tana McMeechan, Cllr Jean Mead, Cathy Miles, Anne O’Brien, People Express Management Committee, Tamsyn Port (Designer), Tracy Reed, Sharpe’s Pottery Museum, Swadlincote Library, Rosalind Spalton and Michelle Warren.

This book is dedicated to Shelia Cato who sadly died before publication.

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FABULOUS INTRODUCTION The compilation of this book has been an enlightening and emotional journey for me, both as a writer and as a man. The book was commissioned by People Express as the culmination of their “Celebrating Women” project and my thanks go to all those who contributed to the project in its earlier stages.

Over the last year I have had the privilege of interviewing women, of all ages and from different backgrounds, who live, work or were born in South Derbyshire. With Project Co-ordinator, Jane Wood, and the support of the volunteer members of the Steering Group, we have been helping women to find ways to tell their stories. Following the initial interviews, the women have all worked with me to put their stories down on paper, sometimes individually and other times in small groups. I see each chapter as like a window into the lives of these women.

It has not been possible to include all the women who were interviewed. We have selected a range of women: not just women who have done extraordinary things, but also ordinary women who are often the unsung heroines of the region. Everyone has stories to tell and the extraordinary is often hidden in the ordinariness of people’s lives.

KEVIN FEGAN

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MICHELE ELIZABETH

HAVE FUN, FEEL FIT, BE FABULOUS

The pole-dancing workshops are always over-subscribed. We emphasise it’s an opportunity to let your hair down, it’s an all female non-judgemental environment and no men are allowed to watch.

Sometimes we have men who poke their head ‘round the door and think they can wander in and I have to tell them they’re barred. They don’t like it, but all the women love it. At the start we tell the girls that, as a company, we don’t take our clothes off and we don’t perform to men for money. This is all about raising their self-esteem and having a real giggle, nothing too rude or naughty.

All sorts of people come along. At the weekend, in Southport, there was a dance event organised by a company called Jive Addiction. They normally take over a Pontins or a Butlins. They had 1600 people there.

They do all kinds of dancing and dance workshops: there’ll be a salsa class, a lambada class, cha cha cha.

We did pole-dancing, a “Bollywood Babes” routine (which is Bhangra dancing) and a show-girls routine with hats and canes. In the evening they’ll have four dance floors playing different sorts of music. We’ve just got onto that dance circuit. We also present on the fitness arena. We go down to Pontins with a company called Fitness Fiesta. When we first started going with them they just booked us for pole-dancing and we did six workshops in two days as it was completely over-subscribed. In the evening we did a “pole-dance Generation Game” on the stage. Viv and I go on and do a quick demo and then we get three girls and three guys from the audience, we wouldn’t just have girls because

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that wouldn’t be right. It’s always the guys that win, they’re such extroverts.

It makes it a long day teaching from nine in the morning and going on stage at eleven at night. They wait till the bar’s full of people who’ve had a bit to drink. There’s potential to take it abroad.

I’m still doing the accredited training We have our own club, called courses that I wrote. I wanted to “Felines”, in Burton. It’s a ladies-only take pole-dancing out of the gutter, club. My business partner, Viv, and so to speak, and demonstrate that I have a gym, a small pole dance it could have a use in women’s lives studio and a dance studio where as a tool for raising self confidence, we put on a wide variety of dance empowering women and liberating classes for ladies only. We do all them; not only that but allowing them kinds of things: street-dancing, to celebrate their femininity and their cheer-leading, fit-ball, skipping, tap, sensuality and their sexuality. It’s salsa, Bollywood Babe, hip hop, okay to be a woman and behave in as well as “Bums and Tums” and this fashion. In fact, it’s a natural part aerobics. We also do classes for of existence. At the time I wrote the children because we’re trying to course, there were lots of people encourage girls to be more active – trying to teach pole-dancing who girls, especially, lose interest in P.E. were basically ex-pole dancers, but at school. We’re just starting to go they didn’t have any teaching skills or into schools now and deliver cheerthe experience that I’ve got - twenty leading workshops. We could get a years experience in teaching fitness. contract to roll out in sixty schools, So I thought the thing to do would which would be fantastic. We also be to write a training qualification for do thirty minute classes because fitness and dance professionals and women are quite time pressured. If get accredited with a national body. you tell women you’ve got to spend That would give it some credibility an hour in the gym, they say I haven’t and kudos and then we could get got time; but half an hour, they can onto the fitness arena and not be do that. So we do a lot of classes seen as sleazy, which we’re not. I that are really intense - you can be called it “Wiggle and Giggle” and in and out in forty five minutes. We that’s going really well. have a beauty spa as well and we do personal training and “Felines Slim” which is a diet club. It focuses on the psychology of why people eat too much. People normally comfort eat so we might encourage women to paint their nails instead or have a nice bath. Some of the large women come along and they’re in tears, because they’re not happy with who they are. It can be very rewarding work.

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We do personalised eating plans and we do weigh and measure.

It’s good that people set targets and goals and they can hit them; it’s motivational. At the end of the day, it’s how people feel about themselves, the number of pounds lost is just a measurement. It’s important in terms of health, so we try to promote that. We always say, “Come and have a go.” It’s very social, we’re quite a small club. We try to know everyone on first name terms and find out about them, they have such interesting things to say. One lady comes into the club with such problems and it’s a great stress relief for her. It’s a bit of “me time” and she can recharge her batteries and go out and face the world again. For me there’s also a social element, I think that’s really important. We have lots of fun and have girlie nights out. A lot of women don’t have social lives, they’re stuck at home with children or they’ve got a bloke who won’t let them go out or no friends to go out with. So far we’ve done a “low-fat dessert tasting evening”, we’ve done a “what not to wear night” with an image consultant and a bra specialist and the next thing is a “glitz and glamour night”, where we treat them to champagne and canapes on arrival.

Women love all that stuff, they love getting dressed up; so part of it is providing an opportunity for women to be feminine and womanly. It’s a business as well so we’ve got to get the membership up, which takes up quite a lot of my time.

I WANTED TO TAKE POLE-DANCING OUT OF THE GUTTER, SO TO SPEAK, AND DEMONSTRATE THAT IT COULD HAVE A USE IN WOMEN’S LIVES AS A TOOL FOR RAISING SELF CONFIDENCE, EMPOWERING WOMEN AND LIBERATING THEM; NOT ONLY THAT BUT ALLOWING THEM TO CELEBRATE THEIR FEMININITY AND THEIR SENSUALITY AND THEIR SEXUALITY. We still do parties every weekend.

We’ve got lots of new party formats.

We do pole-dancing and “showgirls”, which is all about strutting your stuff with feather boas and long gloves, learning how to tease, but all very tongue-in-cheek. We do cheer-leading, street-dance and chair-dancing. We get booked to go all over the place: Bournemouth, Brighton, Cardiff, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh.

I work seven days a week at the moment. This weekend I drove to Southport, which is about ninety miles away and dropped the poles and the gear off. Viv came up separately and did “Bollywood Babes” Saturday lunchtime at that gig. I dropped off the poles, drove to Leeds and did a two hour showgirls party, then drove back and presented the pole-dancing with Viv, then loaded up the van. We stayed 10

and had a bit of a dance ourselves, then I drove back; so I did three hundred miles on the Saturday. When we’re at these things, we’re having a good time, but we’re also networking like mad: talking to the organisers, talking to the DJs (in a nice way); that’s how you get business. I keep going because there’s an inner core inside me that says what I’m doing is really of value and it makes a difference, especially when we do the pole-dancing workshops. We were at Great Yarmouth where we did six workshops. We’d taken six podiums: we say we’ll only have six women per podium otherwise they don’t have a proper go on the pole. It’s really formatted even down to the jokes to break the ice. We normally have ten to fifteen women watching us, because we’re really over-subscribed, so that’s about fifty women at each session. Altogether

that’s three hundred women and at that gig we only had one woman leave, which was a shame. She left the workshop half way through, almost in tears, because she couldn’t handle it, she couldn’t get up and wiggle. We do a warm-up, which is all about touching yourself and loving yourself in a fun way. It is knackering, but apart from that one woman everyone else came up and said, “Thank you so much, I feel great, I’ve had a good time, you’ve got a good approach to life, so sexy.” Even if they never get on a pole again, hopefully they’ve gone away and thought, “Yes, I’m worth something.” That’s what keeps me going. And the thought of selling the business for millions in two years time! The plan is to create this amazing brand, “Felines: have fun, feel fit, be fabulous”. It’s a celebration of womanhood really. I’m also doing something that I love.

When I started I had been an aerobic instructor for years, but as well as teaching aerobics I had an Arts degree so I enjoyed designing products. I had a little cottage industry making velvet and fleecy hats. There are two sides to me: there’s “the creative, hands-on, making things side” and then there’s “the fitness and exercise, healthy living side”. I’ve always been fairly confident about my sensuality, that’s my perception of myself. I love men, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be a bloke. Although it’s difficult at times, I like being a woman and I like the special relationship that men and women have. I also enjoy the special relationship between women. The contrast between those two relationships is great. I want to understand the differences

I suppose. For whatever reason I’ve always felt that women have to try harder to get on. Perhaps if we box-clever, women won’t have to try so hard but women always seem to put themselves down. The essence of being a woman seems to be to nurture, put yourself second, put your husband and your children and work first. We don’t seem to be very good at “me” time on a regular basis. We might say, “I’ll have the afternoon off on my birthday.” Men seem to do that more easily, perhaps more selfishly; they think nothing of going out with the lads three nights a week and playing golf at the weekend; whereas if a woman did that she would be classed as an awful mother or a bad partner. I want to raise female confidence, to try to address that balance, to give women the feeling of self-worth.

It’s okay to go out and have a good time with your girl friend or your bloke. My experience of having taught 6000 women since I started Wiggle and Giggle is that a lot of women come along because they’re on the back end of a relationship or there’s been some tragedy in their life and they see it as a way of making themselves feel better. There can be a lot of community work with the pole-dancing and aerobics classes in areas of social deprivation because there’s a real ‘wow’ to the workshops.

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The real start of my business, in a mad moment, was my design of rude cocktail glasses called “Tease”. They were basically dick-shaped glasses and I did a little one, a medium size and a big one. They weren’t too graphic, you might have thought it was a rocket. I designed them and I sourced a manufacturer in China and I imported them into the UK and sold them as bar-trading giftware. Because they were a little bit naughty I used to get this adult trade paper, just to be aware of what was going on in the industry; not that I ever wanted to go hard-core (although there’s a lot of money to be made if you’ve got the right mentality for it). There just happened to be an article in one of the papers about pole-dancing and how it was a good way to keep fit.

Having danced at college and feeling in tune with my sexuality, I thought I’ll have a go at that. My bloke at the time was away so I thought I’ll go and learn and when he comes back I’ll give him a surprise: there’ll be a pole in the lounge and he’ll either be delighted or think what the hell has she been up to?

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN FAIRLY CONFIDENT ABOUT MY SENSUALITY, THAT’S MY PERCEPTION OF MYSELF. I LOVE MEN, BUT I CERTAINLY WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A BLOKE. So I went and did some training in Birmingham and, to my mind, it wasn’t very good. I did some more training in London and again was disappointed. Given that I’d got a teaching background and I’d written courses, I thought, right, this has really touched something in me and I’m going to do it better than anybody else. Mine was the first course to be accredited and that’s how it all started. I left my husband in 2000 and I started pole-dancing around 2003 - 2004. I don’t feel I did the pole dancing as a result of what had happened to me, I think it was a progression of where I was. A lot of women come to classes because they’re not in a good relationship. The thing that really bothers me, like the lady who walked out, is that she was really upset and I wanted to know why. I couldn’t leave the session and say, “Let’s have a cup of coffee and tell me why you’re feeling so badly about it?” When I teach privately, one-to-one, I encourage women to look at themselves in the mirror and embrace what they see. Stop seeing that your bum’s too big or you’ve got cellulite, stop looking at the faults and look into your eyes and see what’s really inside you. A lot of women can’t do that. I don’t know whether it goes back to the fact that I had incredibly supportive parents (they still are).

They let me make my own decisions,

but I was a good girl at school, I don’t think I ever gave them reason not to have trust and faith in my ability to make decisions. At 18 I went off and did a bit of au pair work in France and at 19 I went to America on my own.

They gave me that independence, the self-belief that I could do anything I wanted to do with my life. That doesn’t mean to say I haven’t made mistakes, I make mistakes every day.

I wonder if women who don’t have the confidence to go and live the life that they want, whether it’s due to their upbringing?

When I was about eight or nine, I was sexually molested by an older guy who lived next door to one of my best friends. It wasn’t horrendous: he pushed me against a wall and stuck his tongue down my throat and felt me and said you mustn’t tell anyone. So me being a good little girl didn’t tell my parents, but I did tell my friend because I knew it wasn’t right. It only happened a couple of times. Then my friend told her mum and her mum told my mum and he got sorted out. He was not harmless, but he was quite old and had lost the plot. I don’t know whether that made me challenge men, but it gave me a different view of the world.

In a sad way we’re all on our own, perhaps that’s why I’m still single. I truly believe you’re on your own and

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you have one life and maybe that’s why I want the best life for me. When I wake up every morning I want to achieve something, I want to look back and say I was the first one to do that, it’s a milestone in my life. I wonder if I have a jaundiced view of men? Bad things happen in people’s lives, but my parents gave me a great foundation and I’ve felt able to deal with everything.

Right from an early age, I’ve always been fairly independent. I was good at school and got my colours for sport and did reasonably well in my ‘O’ levels. I had a boyfriend from when I was fifteen and a half until I was twenty two so I was stable.

He was a bit older than me and my parents let me go to the south of France with him when I was sixteen. I saved up £100 from my Saturday job.

They trusted me and had faith in me and I think this has given me huge confidence. Even if things go wrong, just to try is important. If things go wrong, you’ve only got yourself to blame. I try to be the same as my parents with my own children. I try to teach them to behave in a responsible way

In the one-to-one pole-dancing There’s this battle going on inside tuition, the women are sometimes me, one half of me is pulled as a young and they perceive it as a mother who should be at home with glamorous profession. I say, it my children. When they were little I isn’t glamorous because you are did that. I never bought jars of baby effectively selling your body or selling food, I cooked everything until they your ability to switch-on and be sexy. were at secondary school. When When you work in the clubs you don’t I split up from my husband, that get paid for dancing on the pole; the supporting wage sharing the bills was gone. I became a single parent time you’re on the pole is your time to family so I had to work hard to pay generate some interest in you; when you’ve done your three minutes on the bills. Women are still way behind in pay. I was away earning a lot of the the pole you go and work the room.

You have to go up to all the blokes time because we needed the money and say, “Hi, how are you?” Try to get to pay the mortgage so I didn’t really them to buy you a drink and ask them feel guilty. I think it’s all right, up to a if they want you to dance for them? point, that the children had to spend Then you go off to a little booth, take the night with their father or go to the all your clothes off and the club takes child-minder. I was working seven a percentage normally.

That’s not days, but I made sure that I watched glamorous, that’s hard and if you can my son, Harry, play football and my deal with it, that’s fine.

The young daughter Jessica and I always used girls are shy about that, whereas the to go out jiving. We all had dinner forty something women, once they’ve together, it wasn’t as if I’d left home got over that lack of confidence, for weeks on end. Harry does his own it’s like a re-awakening. They really washing and ironing. Sometimes he benefit, they walk out the door feeling has a go at me and says, “You’re the good.

I prefer teaching older women mum, you’re supposed to do that.” probably because I’m older. Most But I say, “Yes, I’m a mother and I’m women come for their personal out working seven days a week, so development rather than wanting please help me by doing that.” With to work in the industry.

They’ve hindsight, I’d like to have had a nineheard it’s a great way of keeping to-five job that brought me pot-loads fit.

Every woman wants to have the of money and no stress. confidence to behave like a whore: it’s primeval, it’s instinctive, it’s part of the male/female, attracting-a-mate relationships. Sometimes they come because they want to learn how to release some inhibitions, but they don’t say it like that, not straight away. They come because it’s a little bit naughty. Even if they never dance with their bloke or ever do it again, they’ve experienced being confident in that particular area. I think that kind of confidence spills over into the rest of their lives. You’re less likely to stay in a relationship where there’s domestic violence; you’re less 13

likely to stand there and take verbal abuse; at work you’re less likely to get walked on, you’re more likely to say, “I’m doing the same job as him and I want equal pay;” you’re more likely to make time for yourself and value yourself and that makes you a happier and more rounded person.

Everyone around you benefits from that because you radiate positivity. I think people are attracted to positive, confident people; they like you and your world gets bigger because now you get to meet a lot more people.

At the moment it’s a slog. We’ve only been open at Felines since December and I’m working seven days a week, I probably get one day off a month and then when I do get a day off, I just want to sleep. Yesterday I worked thirteen hours, which is fine, but I think what is my end game because I can’t do this forever?

I’M SURE I’M THE OLDEST LADY TRUCKER DRIVING THESE 44 TON LORRIES. I’LL BE 72 IN SEPTEMBER, BUT THEY’VE NOT GOT ME IN THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS YET.

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PADDY LABAN

QUEEN OF THE ROAD

We’re a small haulage company, but it will be a miracle if we go on for much longer because of our age (although we are both fit) and the price of fuel. We’ve got three trucks that my husband, my son and I drive. When I take a load to a new customer, they’ve usually been told “Paddy’s bringing the load”, so when I get there people are expecting an Irishman. Everyone knows me as “Paddy”, but my real name is Jillian.

My parents had seven daughters and no sons so I was nicknamed Paddy.

My surname, “Laban”, isn’t Irish, it’s English . I’m sure I’m the oldest lady trucker driving these 44 ton lorries.

I’ll be 72 in September, but they’ve not got me in the Guinness Book of

Records yet. There are some fantastic wagons on the road. I’ve got my own number plate, my boys bought it for me for Christmas a few years ago.

I’ve kept fit and I’ve got my health.

The young lads don’t like it when I overtake them, but you just have to be broad-shouldered and I keep saying it’s not a job for the faint-hearted. If you haven’t got the stamina, don’t do it because it’s long hours.

I was born in 1936 at Hilltop Farm, Aston-on Trent, on my parents’ farm. After the war we moved to Melbourne to farm there for forty years. It was a fantastic life with seven girls in the house, we were all so close and got on well. I had the happiest childhood, we must have driven my parents mad. Imagine my father being in a house with eight

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women trying to keep us all under control. I was the third child, then there was a gap of two or three years, then the other four. We all helped on the farm and in the house.

Mum brought us up to cook and Dad used to say, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” It toughened us up, we were brought up a bit like boys. We joined the Young Farmers Club and I probably thought I would be a farmer’s wife. Most of them did marry farmers, but I didn’t. It depends who you meet. I met Joe at a dance. We had quite a good relationship really; bit on and off at one time, but then it all fell together and we got married in 1958.

IT HAD ALWAYS BEEN MY AMBITION TO DRIVE A BIG ARTICULATED TRUCK ON THE M1. I THOUGHT, AT 52, NOT MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING FOR THEIR CLASS 1 HGV LICENCE. My parents had a milk-round. It was when the German prisoners of war were living in a camp at Donington Park. I remember delivering the milk to them up there for a few years.

Then I helped look after the pigs on the farm which was also interesting and then I got married . My husband was living down at Tonge and he said I could help him do the market.

He went back to help his father in business so I finished up running the market stall on my own. I ran that for thirty years or more. Joe was in haulage and, though it wasn’t a job to do when you had young children, it had always been my ambition to drive a big articulated truck on the M1. I thought, at 52, not many people are going for their Class 1 HGV Licence. I still had the market stall and I was getting a bit fed up because the job was quite hard. We were in the dairy side of things and

Edwina Curry put a salmonella ban on eggs. Joe and I were having lunch one day and I told him I’m going for my Class 1. My sons immediately said “Mum, you’re too old, you’ll never do it.” And I said, “Rubbish, you can do anything you put your mind to.” So I said to Joe, “You can take me out and teach me.” He said “I can teach you the basics but I can’t get you through the test.” We used to go out on Sundays and practise in one of the oldest trucks. It had an old crash-bang gearbox, sixteen gears; you had to “double de-clutch”, it wasn’t synchronised. It was heavy going, but I was determined to get it. I think my love of trucks came from being in haulage, I used to love seeing them coming up and down the road and I thought I’d love to get behind the wheel of one. I’d driven my van, which was quite big, to and from market. Joe said I should go for the smaller licence first, but I wanted the big one or nothing. I think he thought being 52 would be too hard for me, but if you do everything right on the day you can get through.

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I used to go to my brother-in law, Bob’s farm and practise reversing with his tractor and trailer because it is harder to get that spot on. Bob had cancer. Doctor Freeman, the local doctor, was very good to Bob and I said I’m going to try and raise some charity money while I’m learning. Bob was delighted with the idea, so I achieved that for them and the licence for myself. They were really pleased because £600 in the 80’s was quite a lot of money. It was 1988 when I finally passed. I had to go for four tests, but I said I was going to get that licence if it killed me. A friend bought me some lucky knickers. I put them on, but I didn’t tell the examiner. You need a bit of inspiration when you do these things, I put it down to the lucky knickers.

I had a big celebration when I got through. My nephew, age 21, passed the same day.

I’d still got my market stall at Long Eaton. We mostly transported cattle food to depots and farms up and down the country. Over the years, it’s changed considerably because of the foot-and-mouth and a lot of places have closed down. My husband and Andrew were both on a tipping lorry and they suggested I had two weeks on Andrew’s lorry to start with. They were building the M42 at the time and when you’re on a tipping lorry you have to go pretty fast with it to keep up with the chaps because they all fly about. The tipping lorries do all the roadworks, there were twelve wheels on my lorry. So I had two weeks on that while Andrew was on holiday and I was getting quite good. In the mean time, Joe had bought this lefthand drive vehicle and he suggested we went out in it one Saturday just to have a bit of a practice. He kept telling me I was driving too near the middle of the road and that I’d get the mirror knocked off. So he said, “Let me show you how to do it.” We’d gone two miles down the road when he knocked the mirror off.

There was a load to go to Consett in County Durham. He suggested I take it. I’d had no long-distance experience but I set out and drove to County Durham in this left-hand drive lorry. The lorry doesn’t come straight round like normal, you’ve got to watch that nearside all the time when you’re reversing because you can’t see down there and sometimes you have to reverse into some really tight spots. I never like reversing on my blind side, only if I’m desperate.

Once I took this left-hand drive lorry to Kent and got stuck in the snow for three days. Over the years, I’ve had to deliver to some difficult places, like the “little house on the prairie,” as it’s called - it’s a farm stranded between the two carriageways of the M62 near Saddleworth. I had to drive a hired lorry to a farm near Carsington

Reservoir. It was very frosty and I was determined not to scratch the vehicle because we’d have to pay for it. They were surprised to see a female driver. I asked this friend of the farmer to watch me out, it was so tight.

Afterwards, he said, “I lost my wife a few years ago and I’m looking for a good wife, how’s about it?” I phoned my husband to tell him I was in lust at Carsington Reservoir! There used to be a lot of handball stuff, lifting the load on and off by hand. I wouldn’t do it now, but it was part of the job then and it kept me fit, I didn’t worry about it. One of my worst jobs I ever did by hand was 24 tons of pebble-dash from Warrington to a building site in Leicester. I remember the chap saying to me, “You realise when you get to this site there’s no fork-lift truck.” I ignored it because I thought they were winding me up. There were 24 tons of wet sticky bags and I was handing them down. Five chaps started, but two got fed up. I was off work for a week afterwards with a bad back. You wouldn’t do that nowadays, you’d say no. I should have brought the load back, but devotion to duty, the idea is to look after the customers.

showed me all round, it was fantastic.

I collect flags to decorate my truck and I asked if they had a tiny flag I could have and they radioed up to the top and said, “Take the ensign down, the lady would like a flag.” They gave me this HMS Torbay ensign. To go round a submarine and to come back with a flag was fantastic.

Some drops are so pleased to see me, they always say “It’s lovely to have you here” and they give me a bottle of whisky and a tin of biscuits at Christmas. It makes you feel the job is so much more worthwhile. I’ve always got on well with the men. When I first started I used to go down to Devon a lot with cattle food. It was right out in the sticks, and I used to meet a lot of tanker drivers and when they first saw me come in, they used to sometimes shake their fist at me. Over a period of time it got better and they used to wave to me, I think it was just a new thing, a lady driver. In the last ten years a lot of young girls are driving, certainly a lot of lady bus drivers. But you still don’t see many truck drivers with handbags! When I first started I often had a night away from home because I had two or three drops and sometimes I was away for three or four Nowadays, I drive mostly for Marshalls, nights.

I slept in the lorry but I always carting concrete blocks and kerbs made sure I parked somewhere to builders’ merchants. It’s heavy safe.

I parked in the services even if work, but it’s all power steering. With it did cost quite a bit.

You could still Marshalls, there’s no offloading by get your curtains cut even when you hand, it’s all forklift truck, on and off. parked there. I had them cut many times. They come with a Stanley knife I think the best job I’ve done was in to see what you’ve got on board. I’d Seaforth Dock in Liverpool. I used to never do it now but once I carried a bring return loads back from many of the docks and I got to know my load of whisky from Scotland down customers. This was a load of timber. to Leicester. I managed to back up While I was in there loading up I saw to a fence so that nobody could get this submarine, HMS Torbay. I’d never through the back doors at a time when been on a submarine. I saw the mayor people didn’t cut the curtains like they and his wife going on it and I thought do now. That’s why you see so many they might let me have a look round lorries on the lay-bys with their back it. They said, “When you’ve finished doors undone so people can see what loading just come across” and they they’re carrying.

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Truckers sleep in their cabs because it’s expensive to stay in digs. A lot of the big firms now they’re paying them night money and possibly food money as well which goes in their pocket, it’s all extra wages.

Sometimes I have to stop and use my bucket because even now the toilet facilities aren’t very good. But I’m fortunate I can undo my curtains and my bucket is in the back. You have to be more brazen now. It’s a bit different when you’re an owner-driver.

When you’re a small firm like ours, you do it for the love of it. If I didn’t enjoy it I wouldn’t still be doing it. I’d always go on a Sunday night when I was going to Scotland and one night I stopped off at one of the services and a car pulled up alongside me.

It was a lady stripped to the waist.

She was on the game with the male truckers there. I said “You’ve got the wrong sex here.” She was just doing the rounds. Another time, Joe and I met at the Doncaster lorry park one night, I was going North and he was going South. I’d never been to this park before. We parked on the perimeter and I didn’t like the feel of the place so Joe brought his sleeping bag into my lorry because I have two bunks in my cab. We’d been in bed only half an hour when there was a knock on the door and there was a lady of the night looking for business.

We didn’t answer the door and half an hour later there was another knock. I replied in no uncertain terms not to come back again. Joe said the next morning, “Do you think she thought someone else was on her patch?”

was the only way to the farmer’s and there was no weight limit on it, the bridge was the problem. I started to back up, my heart was in my boots, and the police and farmer watched me and they took me seven miles round and I tipped in a cornfield.

One of the farms I went to was out Nowadays you have the Ministry, the Nuneaton way. There are a lot of police and cameras watching you, low bridges out this way and I’d you have to be so careful. It’s not been told the way to go. I’d nearly an easy job now. With the Ministry got to the farm when I saw a terrific checks, if you haven’t loaded right it humpback bridge, where it said will cost you an arm and a leg if you “beware of grounding”. I’m going get pulled in. over it when it grounded me and I’d never been grounded before. It This emission zone in London has was frightening because there are affected my work. 95% of my work traffic lights either side and I’m over is inside the M25 and my lorry isn’t the waterways and the boats are all fitted with the new exhaust system. going underneath and stopping and To have it done is going to cost watching me. The only thing I can between three and five thousand think to do is lift the axle in the cab pounds. If I don’t have it done, I and wind the trailer legs as high as have to pay £200 every time I go in possible and hope I might get over or and I can’t afford to pay that. I was back. I didn’t really want to get over frightened of London at one time because I would have to get back but I got used to it. I don’t know if again. I rang the farmer and told him we can survive it because we can’t I was stuck with 44 ton bags (which make any money at it. When you was legal). Some chap came and work from four o’clock in the morning helped me wind the trailer legs up and get home at seven at night, you because it’s difficult when the lorry is want something at the end of it, don’t fully loaded. Eventually the axle went you? Otherwise, what are we doing up and someone told me the police it for? But diesel’s in my blood, I find were on their way because I was on a it hard to pack up. I love the driving, weight limited bridge. But the bridge but I’m not getting the buzz that I did 18

PEOPLE SAY YOU MUST BE VERY BRAVE TO BE DOING A JOB LIKE THIS, BUT IT’S JUST HAVING CONFIDENCE. because of the manners on the road.

I’m ever so courteous. Every week I notice how things have changed on the road and I don’t enjoy it as much as I did. You can’t guarantee getting anywhere on time. I’m not getting many nights out now. On Marshalls jobs I probably do two or three loads a day and can usually guarantee getting back. There are so many accidents now. People are in such a hurry all the time.

We’ve done carnivals with the trucks at Melbourne every year for eight or nine years, with the help of my sister Wendy. We put a float in and make fools of ourselves.

There’s no carnival this year and we had decided anyway that we’re getting too old to do it. It’s a big job decorating a 44 foot float when you don’t get much assistance. When I look back and think what we’ve done over the years, we’ve given a lot of pleasure and raised money for chairty. I won a Road Haulage Association “Women in Transport

Award” in 2003. I was presented with various prizes at a dinner at The Savoy Hotel in London. There was quite a lot of press coverage afterwards. I was in The Derby Evening Telegraph under “Grannies in Unusual Jobs” and The Daily Mirror called me “Queen of the Road” and I was a guest on John Peel’s “Home Truths”. I suppose I have attracted some attention over the years. I know my family are proud of me. I give talks these days, but I’m more confident driving than talking about it. People say you must be very brave to be doing a job like this, but it’s just having confidence.

I’m more confident now, I handle a vehicle better. It’s not very nice when you have a tyre go, especially when you’re loaded. I had one go recently and the police came. First the Highways people came, it was early in the morning and very foggy and the man said, “You can’t park here.”

I said, “I can’t park anywhere else when I have a tyre gone.” When the police arrived they said there was a 19

lay-by just off the slip road. The tyre wasn’t shredded, but I couldn’t move the lorry. You can’t always tell when a tyre goes, you sometimes feel a bumping sound or you see smoke or sometimes another motorist will toot and point. If the front goes, you really know about it and it can be dangerous, especially if you’re fully loaded; but I’ve never had a lorry jack-knife on me. The wind can be a bit frightening, you’re all right loaded, but empty is difficult. Tying back the curtains on my own isn’t easy. I travel with them fastened.

I keep saying when I retire I’ll write a book. I keep a diary of all the different things. I don’t know what’s ahead. I’d like a three-day week now because if I don’t stop soon we’re not going to have much retirement.

My husband’s 75. He’s driving a smaller lorry, but I’m still driving the bigger ones. We’d like to get a motor home and go to some of the lovely places I’ve seen over the years.

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ELIZABETH NAHIMANA

LIBBY THROUGH THE WARDROBE I became Nahimana when I married my husband who I met out in Burundi.

I was born and brought up in Newhall.

I’m 31. I came to the Old Vicarage when I was 10 months old so our parents have lived in this house for 30 years. My parents always supported missionaries overseas and brought us up to see the world as a bigger place than what you see outside your doorstep. We were brought up with the knowledge that we were fortunate to have been born and brought up here. Right from when I was four or five I thought about going to work in Africa and look after orphans, but I thought it would happen when I was a qualified doctor or when I was married to someone who could catch the snakes and spiders. Then during my second year at bible college, I

felt God talking to me. When God said ‘Burundi’, it was like ‘How about Brunei or even Burton; anywhere but Burundi?’ All I knew of Burundi was the genocide, seeing headless corpses floating down rivers. I thought, at the age of 20, “I would actually like to live a bit before I die.”

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At the time I wasn’t qualified to do anything that was useful, I wasn’t a qualified medic or teacher or anything like that. The College Principal had a friend working out in Burundi as a midwife who had set up a maternity clinic and when the genocide happened, had started to take in orphan children. He wrote to this lady, Chrissie, who said, “You need to know that Burundi is not the sort of place you go to for a nice little holiday, it’s a country that’s in civil war; there is danger. You also need to be supported by your home church.” So then I thought, well, that’s my final out: perhaps my home church will say “No, we don’t want to support you” and then I won’t have to go, but then I spoke to my home church and they all said “Yeh, that’s great” and it’s like, oh man I can’t escape at all.

ALL MY LIFE I’D THOUGHT I’D GO TO AFRICA AND WORK WITH ORPHANS. I THOUGHT THAT ONCE I’D ARRIVED I’D FEEL LIKE I HAD COME HOME AND IT WOULD ALL BE WONDERFUL, BUT IT WASN’T AT ALL, IT WAS REALLY HARD. In ‘97, I went out to Burundi, initially for a year. The first night I arrived, I was put in a house with 9 kids who hardly spoke any English. I felt like I’d fallen off the edge of the world. I’d brought a radio so that I could get the World Service, but it was only an FM one which didn’t work. I didn’t have a phone in my house, there was no post going in or out of the country and I thought, I’m here for a year and I’m cut off from everybody. I was in a completely alien culture. I’d been out to Africa as a 14 year old, I’d been to Ethiopia for 10 days just to look at a project out there. I didn’t enjoy Ethiopia, but I liked Africa. This time I had to face situations that I’d never faced before, like I can remember walking down the road one night and hearing a massive explosion, a grenade that had been thrown a couple of streets away. There were rumours all the time about the rebels going to attack the city. They’d send out flyers to basically cause fear in

the area. I was dealing with a whole lot of stuff that, as a 20 year old in Newhall, you’re just not used to. To think people have said in the past that Newhall’s rough.

You just did whatever your hand found to do, so I’d be plumbing in washing machines, looking after sick kids, teaching kids in the school for a while, doing all sorts of stuff. All my life I’d thought I’d go to Africa and work with orphans. I thought that once I’d arrived I’d feel like I had come home and it would all be wonderful, but it wasn’t at all, it was really hard. Taking kids to hospital and seeing them die because there weren’t the drugs available that you know here, in England, you could get in five minutes. Situations like that were very hard to deal with. I decided I’d do my year and then that would be it, I’d nip off to Canada, find a lumberjack who could look after me and train as a nurse or a 22

doctor. But God had other plans and here I am, ten years later, still out there, married to a Burundian, my husband Honda. We’ve been married for 7 and a half years. His name’s actually Donatien, but everyone calls him Honda. Honda and I have set up an organisation called Restoration of Hope, caring for street kids. If your grandparents have been poor, and your parents have been poor, and all you’ve ever seen in your life is poverty, then what hope do you have? Schooling isn’t a possibility for the majority of kids in Burundi because, although they’ve now made tuition free, to buy your uniforms, your flip-flops and your books can be £30. So the fact that you get £5 free tuition doesn’t actually enable kids to go to school. But we felt that God had a plan for the kids on the street, that they’re not just the lowest of the low, people who have no future. We believe that everybody has a future, that nobody is an accident, no matter

how you’re born, or how you come into the world - God has a plan and a purpose for everyone’s life. But how on earth do you start working with street kids, because there’s thousands of them. If you decide to do a feeding programme you’ll get inundated with thousands and it’s just feeding kids once a day or once a week. Yes it’s a bonus today, but in terms of changing their lives, it’s a drop in a bucket.

I was walking with Bethany, my daughter, to be with the other children I care for and I was followed by three little street boys. By this time, I could speak some Kirundi and they were saying, “Do you have any money?” “Well, I don’t have any money, sorry.” “Do you have any food?” “Well, I don’t have any food, sorry.” “Do you have any clothes?”

“It’s like, well guys, I really don’t have anything, but if you come back tomorrow, this is my house, you can speak to my husband, he speaks Kirundi far better than I do and we’ll see what we can do.” And so that night I told Honda about the boys and he said, maybe this is where we should start. So the next day five boys came and what we said to them is “We don’t have an awful lot but we will try to help you.” They had the clothes they wore and we gave them an extra set, so they had a wash and a wear. They’d come every day and wash their clothes, dry them and change them. They’d have lunch and

then play around in the garden for the afternoon. The deal was, they’d come about eleven o’clock and leave about two, but soon then they started coming earlier and earlier, ‘til in the end they were coming about half six in the morning - for lunch?

We had a garden full of street kids, what were we to do with them?

Honda said, “Would you like to go to school?” These kids were desperate to go because they didn’t have anything to do with their lives and education is a way out of poverty.

The only school we could get to take them was a church school right over the other side of the city. The boys would come off the streets first thing in the morning about 6 o clock, Honda would get up and make them breakfast, drive them over to the school, pick them up at lunch time, bring them back to our house and then they’d do their homework. We have a three bedroomed house, it’s not huge; in the evening we couldn’t think where we could put the boys to sleep so we had to send them back out on the streets. That’s fine in the dry season, but in the rainy season it was very hard for us to send five little boys back on to the streets, in the middle of a thunderstorm; but what else could we do?

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In the garden of the house that we rent, there’s a shipping container, which belongs to the owner of the house and it’s got old furniture in; so I said to Honda, “What about if we cleared that out, could they live in the container?” He didn’t feel right about us living in a house, and the boys living in a container, but one day it was chucking it down with rain and they said, “Can we live in your container?” If it’s come from them, then we can hardly say no. So we said, “Come back tomorrow, you can take everything out of the container, repack it and whatever space there is, you can have.” They said, “Can we do it now?” So, in the middle of a thunder storm, they took everything out of the container, repacked it and they probably had about ten foot by five foot, something like that, not an enormous space. We found some old cardboard boxes, which we flattened out to put on the floor, found an old rug and some blankets. The thought of even putting people to sleep on cardboard with a bit of blanket is just embarrassing, but these boys that night, when they went to bed, could be heard saying, “We’re going to sleep better tonight than we’ve ever slept in our lives.” For them, that was luxury, they hadn’t had a roof over their heads for years. So that was how we started Restoration of Hope. We started with five boys in our container.

After some months, Honda felt it was right that we should rent a house for the boys to live in. I’m very practical: I guess in the West you’re brought up budgeting and you don’t agree to do things until you’ve got the finance to do it, which to me is being a good steward of money. Honda, however, said, “I believe it’s right that we go and look for a house now.” I said, “Well, you go and look and if you find one come back and tell me about it and we’ll pray about it and if we think it’s right we’ll contact people in England, see if they think it’s right and then we’ll wait for the money to come in.” He’d go off looking every day. I think about ten days later he found a house and I said, “Great, bring me to see it, we’ll take photos, we can write our plan about what we’re going to do.” I guess for me I was scared about taking a big step like that because it’s a big thing to take on the running of a house when we had no money. I wasn’t wanting to commit to anything until I knew everything was financially sorted, but he said, “I’ve told the person that we’ll take it.” I said, “What on earth are you like? We don’t have any money. I’m the one who does the finances.” So then he took us to see the house. It was the pits, it was awful. There was a roof but no ceilings, broken windows, no mosquito nets; it just needed so much work doing. I said, “You’ve landed us with this bomb site, there’s so much work needs doing, it’s going to take lots of money to put right and the kids aren’t going to be able to move in for at least a couple

of months.” And he said, “No, I’ve told the person we’ll take it.” I think we had about a week to pay three months rent up front and he’d told the boys we’ll be moving in about ten days. And I said, “You don’t know how things work in the real world.” But yes, he knew. God had spoken to him and when you’re obedient to God, God will supply all you need. I thought it wasn’t going to work, but in that ten days we got the money to cover the rent, money to completely gut the house and set it up properly, money for beds, money for everything we needed.

The money came from all over the world, from people who heard about what we were doing, from America, Canada and England. For me it was a real wake-up call: you can’t always sit around and wait for everything to fall into place before you step out; sometimes you have to get out of the boat and trust that if you’re actually doing what God said, then God will help you walk on water.

So that’s was how we started our first house. Altogether we now have 51 boys that we care for, of which 25 are in the two Hope Houses that we run and we have another 21 who have somewhere to sleep, yet no one to care for them, feed them or provide for them. We’ve also built five family homes, which cost about £2,500 each; in terms of house prices over here, it’s not a lot.

That means they have somewhere safe and secure to sleep in and, included in the £2,500, we can set the family up in a small business, 24

like a micro-business, whether that’s rearing goats, selling charcoal etc - something to keep the family self sufficient. Most of the families are headed up by a widow who has children, so it’s setting her up with work, so she can supply her family with food and clothes etc.

The aim is always to put the family back together. It can be giving them maybe three or four goats so they can breed the goats, or providing three sacks of dried food, so they’ll eat some of it and sell some of it on the market and be able to buy more, things like that.

My first pregnancy with Bethany was horrific and so my idea of wanting to have ten kids disappeared out of the window. However, when Bethany was two, there was an attack on a refugee camp about five miles away from where we live. When the attack happened, the refugee camp had about two thousand people in it. Three rebel groups attacked the camp because the UN said they were going to put the refugees back into Congo and the rebel groups said, “If you try, we’ll kill them.” One night in August, the three rebel groups came: one group torched the tents, pouring petrol on them and setting fire to them; another group machetted the people as they tried to flee and another group shot people. Over 200 people were killed, mainly women and children.

There was a baby who was 13 days old when the massacre happened: her parents were both killed and

IT’S LIKE WALKING THROUGH THE WARDROBE, AS THOUGH I HAVE TWO VERY DIFFERENT WORLDS THAT I LIVE IN. WHEN I’M IN BURUNDI, THAT’S WHERE I AM, THAT’S WHERE I LIVE; BUT WHEN I’M HERE, IN NEWHALL, I LIVE HERE AND DON’T FEEL TREMENDOUSLY GUILTY ABOUT BEING ABLE TO EAT NICE FOOD AND DO NORMAL THINGS. her older sister who was two was also killed. This baby had been shot in the elbow and to save her life surgeons had amputated her arm above the elbow. I was asked to take her in. I met her when she was 15 days old. We took her home to stay with us, initially for a couple of weeks while we took her to hospital every day to have her dressing changed. She is now our second daughter, Abigail, and she’s great.

She’s doing amazingly well, having one arm doesn’t hold her back in the slightest; she’s convinced she rules the world. And now we’re going to have son number one, in about three weeks. That’s our family. I guess I used to have a Western mentality about family; but now I realise that family is not about who you give birth to, family is about who God puts

you with and asks you to love. Our family is multinational: I’m English and have Burundian nationality, Honda is Burundian, Bethany has dual nationality, Abigail was originally Congolese but she now has Burundian nationality.

The organisation I work with set up a school out in Burundi: it’s the first English speaking school in the country. We started off 9 years ago with 9 kids in someone’s front room and we now educate kids from 26 different nations. We have a primary school and a secondary school and we did the first lot of international GCSE’s 2 years ago, We have teachers who come from all over the world: Canada, Kenya, America, England, South Africa. Teachers generally commit for one to three 25

years, but there are certain people out there, like me, for whom Burundi has become home. We are like one big extended family really. The school is a Christian school so the parents are told their children will be taught from a Christian perspective; but its amazing the number of Muslim kids, Sikh kids and Hindu kids we have. The biggest pull is the fact that we’re an English speaking school and the kids get a quality education so the Muslim parents overlook the fact that we teach that there is only one God and his name is Jesus, not Allah.

Although I’m now based in Burundi, it’s like I have two homes really.

People say, how do you cope with travel in between the two? I did find it very hard the first few years, but now it’s great. You know the story, ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’?

It’s like walking through the wardrobe, as though I have two very different worlds that I live in. When I’m in Burundi, that’s where I am, that’s where I live; but when I’m here, in Newhall, I live here and don’t feel tremendously guilty about being able to eat nice food and do normal things.

In theory, the war is over in terms of rebel attacks, that kind of thing; but I find life in Burundi actually scarier now. There are so many people who, during the war, picked up Kalashnikovs for £50, soldiers who have been demobilised who have no way of earning any money, so violent crime is sky-rocketing. People are killed for no apparent reason. My husband’s best friend was recently killed, before we came back. He was driving his daughter to school and he was killed because people thought he’d have lots of money in his car – he didn’t have any money on him. One of our boys was killed for no apparent reason. It’s mindless, which I guess is more scary because people are getting killed for nothing. I’m doing what makes me feel alive, but it’s not easy. Some days it’s great, I love it to bits, other days I’d happily jack it in, run away and do something where I could earn lots of money and look after myself and my own family.

In the West, people tend to think, “My home is my castle, I’m living to improve my own life and make the life of my kids good.” I’m not knocking that, but we can live such enclosed lives. In African society, and I can only talk about that because that’s what I know, everybody shares everything. If there’s somebody in need, people will share and you see the joy that brings.

The world is bigger than any individual and I think we miss out on so much thinking only of ourselves.

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In the African culture, in Burundi, it’s women who hold the family together, in the villages and the mountains.

The men will go and work in the city, they will get some sort of basic job and earn money to put the kids into school and pay medical fees. Yet it’s the women who are holding the family together, teaching the kids, working in the fields, everything. When a Burundian man marries a Burundian woman, he pays a dowry for her and basically that’s buying her back. He buys her to work in his fields and to bear his children. I have always appreciated women. I think there’s very much a resilience in women that you see over there, like women whose husbands were killed in the genocide, they just had to get on with it. One of our boys, for example, his parents were married for quite a few years, they had a business and were doing pretty well. During the genocide, his dad was stabbed a ridiculous number of times so his mum took him to the hospital. At the hospital there were no doctors because of the fighting. They waited two weeks in the hospital until they were seen by a doctor, and the boy’s mum said to Honda, “I didn’t know people could live once they had worms going through their body.” His wounds had got badly infected and he was in hospital nearly two years. His wife was there every day looking after him. Eventually he got out of hospital, set up his business again and, less than a year later, was involved in a car crash and sadly was killed. His

WE EXPECT LIFE TO BE NICE, WE EXPECT EVERYTHING TO GO RIGHT FOR US, WHEREAS IN THE MAJORITY OF THE WORLD PEOPLE HAVE TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES AND MAKE THE MOST OF IT. THE STRENGTH OF CHARACTER THAT YOU SEE IN SOME PEOPLE IS AMAZING. wife didn’t hear about it until he’d already been buried. She was left with three small kids to bring up, no income, nothing. For 8 years she did that, surviving on what she could.

And she’s just one out of thousands.

You see so many women who are holding families together, raising kids, no support, no child welfare, no nothing. There’s just a resilience you see in women. Women are definitely second-class citizens. There is wife beating that goes on, there is abuse, yet the strength you see in women: like young girls I’ve met who are 14 or 15 and have been raped and are raising their children single-handedly.

Over here, people look for somebody to blame for everything. Everything that happens is always somebody’s fault. We expect life to be nice, we

expect everything to go right for us, whereas in the majority of the world people have to take life as it comes and make the most of it. The strength of character that you see in some people is amazing.

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LOUISE CRONJ

THE DINNER-PARTY I’m throwing one of my dinnerCome into my kitchen. I’m making parties; but this one’s a bit special. my famous peri-peri chicken. It’s a I have a huge dining-room, off the special dish of mine. Let me show you. kitchen, with an 8 foot banqueting Wherever possible, buy an organic table so a lot of people can chicken from the butcher. Factory sit around. I love a table full of chickens can be reared from an egg interesting people, good food and to a fully-grown chicken in 16 days, wine and great conversation. but their bones are brittle because I’m waiting for my guests to arrive. they’re force-fed to grow quickly.

Number one on my list is Anthony Hopkins. He is a fantastic man and Take a very sharp meat cleaver and, does a lot for charities like cancer where the breast-bone is, cut a thin research and leukaemia. Other line, then chop the chicken vertically guests include, without a doubt, in half. Fasten it and turn it over and William Shakespeare; Kurt Cobain place it in a roasting pan. from Nirvana; The Eagles (all of them); Freddie Mercury (there are so many questions I want to ask him); Angelina Jolie (I fancy her, she could come), but not Brad Pitt (he’s a pretty boy, I don’t like him much); and Kiera Knightley - that’s it for now.

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Take some birds-eye and k&n chillies and some tahini peppers (mailorder directly from South Africa, they’re very hot and sweet and perfect for peri-peri). Take some red peppers and green peppers and some chopped onions; finely chop the chillies with the onions and the peppers and sprinkle over the top.

Then you need to prepare your marinade: a cup of tomato sauce, half a tube of tomato puree, 100ml of olive oil, a hint of sugar and some salt and pepper – proper cracked pepper. Blend it and massage it into the chicken. Get your hands dirty, massage it into every area of the meat. Wrap it in cling-film and bung it into the fridge for 24 hours so the chicken is allowed to soak in the marinade.

It’s the marinade that makes the peri-peri special. The marinade is my recipe. I’ve been using it since I was 14 years old. That’s what makes this peri-peri mine.

In actual fact, I have cooked for some very famous people. I’ve done a barbeque for Perce Montgomery, the South African Springbok captain.

I don’t see them as famous people, I see them as friends of the family.

And I’ve cooked for Nelson Mandela.

I cooked for him when I was 17 years old. I helped cook for him, should I say. My father (step-dad) was Head Chef at The Palace Hotel in Sun City, in South Africa. All the black staff were on strike for 6 weeks, that’s like 6,000 people, leaving 150 whites to run casinos, hotels, security, restaurants, bars etc. So the parents roped in all their teenagers to help because it was the Summer holidays.

You name it, we did it. Nelson Mandela stayed at The Palace. He was opening a new game reserve for lions and their cubs.

I always wanted to be a chef. When I was a child I’d pretend I was a celebrity chef on the telly, showing people how to make shortbread biscuits.

My father wanted me to become an architect. My mother married my step-father when I was two and he’s always worked as a Head Chef. I used to help him in the kitchen from a very young age. I really enjoyed it. I’d quite happily help out with the cooking before going out to play with my friends. It was a “big person” thing, so it made me feel good. I became a chef when I was 15, a Head Chef by the time I was 17 and a Master Chef at 18. I specialise in international gourmet. I have a degree to teach catering. If I had no children I’d still be doing it.

I’M THROWING ONE OF MY DINNERPARTIES; BUT THIS ONE’S A BIT SPECIAL. I HAVE A HUGE DINING-ROOM, OFF THE KITCHEN, WITH AN 8 FOOT BANQUETING TABLE SO A LOT OF PEOPLE CAN SIT AROUND. I LOVE A TABLE FULL OF INTERESTING PEOPLE, GOOD FOOD AND WINE AND GREAT CONVERSATION. 29

I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A CHEF. WHEN I WAS A CHILD I’D PRETEND I WAS A CELEBRITY CHEF ON THE TELLY, SHOWING PEOPLE HOW TO MAKE SHORTBREAD BISCUITS. A lot of women of my generation don’t know how to cook because their parents have done everything for them. All my family are in South Africa, I’m the only one left in the UK. I was born in Durban. I came to the UK at 17 to live with my father in Manchester. He was very wealthy: he owned a string of hotels and estate agents. I didn’t have to work, I wanted to. My parents taught me to work hard for my money. I’ve always been a very strong person. I have strong family values. I have a different mother to my older brothers.

My mum is British, my father is Afrikaans. I was always a daddy’s girl.

Mum lives in Thailand now and owns hotels and guest houses out there.

I suppose I was bubble-wrapped as a child. I grew up in the best schools.

I had the best sports coaches, everything I could possibly want as a child. We had a maid, a gardener, a cook, a nanny. I always liked to help them with their work, it’s just the way I am. I respect people older than me – in South Africa we refer to them as aunty or uncle. It’s sad that some children here don’t respect their elders. I sound far too old-fashioned for my age. Nanny was from Cape Provinces. In the holidays, I’d spend time in my nanny’s village. I’d see how hard they worked. I was the only white girl in the village, running around in my pants, splashing in the water. Our maid was from Soweto, our gardener was Zulu. I speak seven languages fluently, including Afrikaans, Dutch and Zulu. English was the last language I learned properly. People know my family are very well-off, but I don’t like to say.

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I went to an all-girls boarding school.

My first love was a girl, called Eve. It’s very common. She was lovely. I went from an all-girls school to a school with 1500 boys and only 12 girls. It was good. I did technical drawing, woodwork, brickwork, car mechanics, welding – I’m a fantastic welder. I beat all the boys in class.

I’m good with my hands; it comes out in the way I work with food. I get on better with men and I can down a pint faster than any man. I love sport.

I was a long-jump and a triple-jump champion. I was selected to jump for my country at the Commonwealth Games, but I tore a cartilage a week before I was due to go. I was conscripted at 16 into the Air Force.

I hated it, I don’t like taking orders.

I got kicked out after 11 months. I learned I have a knack for navigation.

I see everything with a birds-eye view from above, which is apparently quite rare. It comes naturally to me for some reason.

I have three wonderful kids: my eldest was born in South Africa. They made us marry. We were both from Catholic families. It didn’t work out. I became a shadow of my former self.

All I wanted from the relationship are my lovely children. I’m as atheist as they come these days. I’m getting married again so I’m happy.

just had a heart-attack and died. I After 24 hours, when the marinade went to fetch my kids and headed has soaked into the chicken and it’s off to Manchester. Apparently, he’d ready, take the chicken out of the finished a ham sandwich and told fridge. Crush two cloves of garlic my gran he was going to lie down and rub it into the top of the chicken. because he wasn’t feeling well. He Wrap it in foil and bung it into the asked her for paracetamol. By the oven on low heat, about 120 degrees, time she returned with a glass of for about three hours so the chicken is fully cooked all the way through. water and the tablets, he’d died. He Prepare a bowl of long-grain rice was 64. I was back at work the next with salted peppers, mixed peppers, Life’s been very good to me, it’s day. I’ve had little chats with him onion and a bit of chilli powder. about time I gave something back. since. I was angry with him because Prepare a simple rocket and feta I’m hosting a speed-dating evening he didn’t give me a chance to say I salad with dressing. Take the chicken because I know lots of women was sorry for shouting at him or a out onto a pre-heated griddle pan, who are looking for love and I’m chance to say goodbye. My children the cast iron pan on the hob, so it’s determined to help them find it. call him, “Abu”. We sometimes look really hot.

Transfer the chicken onto at the stars and imagine Abu as the pan to char the outside, to give it My father died recently. I don’t think the brightest star in the sky. One that barbeque effect.

Now it’s ready I’m dealing with it very well. People night, my eldest, Gerard, said: “Abu to serve with the bowls of rice and think I’ve not mourned properly winked at me tonight.” He was my salad and fine South African wine. because I threw myself back into rock, nobody understands me like my work. It was at the time of the my daddy did. He was always the opening of the Paramount bar in first and last person I spoke to about My guests are arriving, excuse me, I’ll have to go.

Swadlincote. I’d been training the my problems: when I was trying staff and managing their catering to get out of the Air Force or when “Anthony! How lovely to see you…” arrangements. The wine hadn’t my heart had been broken by a arrived, I was very busy and stressed. boy. I remember when I first had my It was also my daughter, Courtney’s monthly girl problems, he bought me birthday. My father rang me to ask a book and sat down and read to what Courtney would like for her me: “What to do when your teenage birthday. He usually ordered her daughter starts menstruating”. I’m present and had it sent via courier. sorry, I don’t normally cry in front of I yelled at him, “I haven’t got time people. now, I’ll speak to you later,” and I put the phone down. Half an hour later and still no wine delivery, when the phone rang again. “What?” I yelled. It was my gran. She said that dad had 31

SOMETIMES YOU CAN SAY A WORD AND IT FEELS LIKE VELVET IN YOUR HANDS, IT FEELS SWEET ON YOUR TONGUE, SWEET ENOUGH TO EAT.

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GAYNOR

THE FOREST

I am walking through a forest, touching the leaves on the trees. It feels like a kiss. Everything in the forest is connected.

I sit by a stream and dream of a woman lying in ethereal silky soft water, underneath a scatter of leaves. She lies face-up, her eyes closed, and perfectly still, like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. I used to have this dream when I was in the refuge with my children. In my dream, I have to cross the stream to get away, but I am terrified of the water. As a child, my dad used to hold my head under the water.

A group of frogs cross my path like a party of schoolchildren on a day trip.

Nature always comes to say ‘hello’. I carefully wet my hands in the stream so that I can touch the frogs.

It’s twilight and the sky is a pinky-blue. I see a cottage up ahead. I don’t go in.

I feel more at home in the forest with the trees. When I was a child, I used to look through people’s windows at their happy homes and plan my escape.

As a woman, I spent my time looking out of windows, turning my bruised face away from him. I have practised astral projection all my life. If I close my eyes tight, I can rise up and fly away from men to my forest. My dad used to hate me doing that while he was hurting me.

I love stories. My favourite is “The Little Mermaid”. I like that word, “mermaid”.

Sometimes you can say a word and it feels like velvet in your hands, it feels sweet on your tongue, sweet enough to eat.

I like to draw my forest. One day I will illustrate my own story.

Walking through the forest, I feel my soul returning.

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ELSIE STEELE

SLUDGE BUMPER

Terry was a nice little boy and I did One night there were bombs miss him when they fetched him dropping in Swadlincote and I back. When I had him, he was about thought, how funny, them bringing 6 weeks old. He was soaking wet this baby here to be safe. We’d got a through. When I undressed him, cellar and a gas thing for a bit of heat, his body was covered in sores. I when the bombs were dropping. I couldn’t nurse him. I had to carry remember going out once and seeing him about on a cushion. They were a bomb falling, it had a big “R” on bringing children from Birmingham, it. I could see it as plain as I can see where the bombs were dropping, you. I thought this’ll be the end of me. to the Methodist Chapel at Church Then I thought to myself, I’m only one Gresley. I was nosey and wondered person, they’re not going to waste a what all the fuss was about. I got bomb on me. caught, served me right. I said to my husband, “I’ve brought you another I had Terry ‘til he was five. I was child.” We’d got two of our own. He getting him ready for Belmont Street looked at me as if to say, “What have School. He was going on the Monday; you done now?” But he said it was all but, on the Friday before, a couple right, the baby could stay. He knew came from Birmingham and said there was no option, what I said was they’d come for the boy. I said, “Oh Law. no, you’re not; who are you?” He said, “I’m the father.” I looked at him and his new wife and said, “You’ve never bothered about Terry all these years, why are you bothering now?

You can’t have him, he belongs to me.” Of course, he’d brought the Birth Certificate and papers. His new wife said they had a boy of their own and she thought the brothers should live together. I agreed; she was a nice person. She said, “We’re not going to take him straight away, we’ll let you think about it.” They came back the following week and that was that.

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I’ve had three children of my own. I lost my daughter when she was nine years old, throat trouble; and my son, Trevor, when he was twentytwo. I have another daughter, she’s seventy-five. She has a son, a very good grandson to me. He takes me out in his car. Trevor was in the army.

He was conscripted. He joined the R.A.F. because he said he couldn’t kill anybody. He didn’t want to join the army. There was a nasty bug going about and his platoon were all ill with it. Trevor was sent home and he passed away while he was at home. Oh, it was wicked. It was terrible, that was. Still, that’s what we had to bear in those days.

MY NAME’S ELSIE STEELE, LIKE THE METAL. I’M 109 SO I CAN’T GRUMBLE, CAN I? My name’s Elsie Steele, like the metal. I’m 109 so I can’t grumble, can I? I say I’m “21-and-a-bit”. I’ve been married twice. And I should do it all over again, if I had the chance. In those days, you had to help one another. Today, nobody seems to care. It seems as if caring has gone. In my young days, if there was anybody ill, we should go to the house and get their meals, do their washing, see them safe. You never hear of that now; funny, isn’t it? I like children to be looked after properly. I like to see them grow up in a proper manner.My dad was a coal miner. He used to walk three miles to his pit every morning and three miles back.

We lived at Midway and the pit was at Moira. There was no other work, only pit work at that time. There were nine of us so I thought the best thing I could do was get away, make it one less for them. I’d be better leading my own life. I went to live at Melbourne, with some people named Smith, as a servant doing housework.

They were market gardeners, very

good people, just busy. I used to do housework in the morning and get the dinner. They’d come home for their dinner. Then I’d go working in the fields. I thought it was lovely. I got three shillings a week. I can’t work in a confined space, I like the open air treatment.

I went out in service to Leicester, at De Montfort Square, and I lived with some Scottish people who were very nice. They had two sons: Kennedy and Robin. Robin was always poorly.

His father took him on a cruise to see if it would do him any good. They thought he was consumptive and he passed away. He was buried at sea.

And, do you know, that troubled me because he wasn’t buried properly.

Poor Robin. Kennedy came back, of course, and went to live in Scotland. I never saw him again.

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My school was at Belmont Street.

Sometimes, my mother made me do so much housework before school that, very often, I had to run all the way if I should be late. I hate being late. I had to go home at dinnertime.

You were lucky if you got some bread and cheese or bread and dripping. I used to love bread and dripping for my lunch.

We had dinner at night in those days because my dad worked at the pit. My mother used to say, “Go to the butcher’s and see if there’s any bones.” We used to have a big saucepan full of soup, with all sorts of vegetables, more or less every day.

I WAS THE ELDEST GIRL. I WAS THE ‘SLUDGEBUMPER’: ANYTHING WANTED DOING, IT WAS ME TO DO IT. I used to run back to school in the afternoon. I wasn’t any cleverer than anyone else. I always tried. I was never any good at algebra; it didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I liked the rest of school. I used to love the singing. The singing teacher was named Miss Walton. She lived at Church Gresley. We used to have some lovely times. As I got a bit older, I got a little choir together of about 20 singers. We used to go to chapels and churches and to old people’s places and give them a song. This farmer asked us to go to his place at Christmas to sing at his party.

He wanted to pay us, but we did everything voluntary. He said, “Well, if you can’t take money, I’m going to pay for a meal for all of you.” He sent us to a restaurant where we had the most beautiful meal. That was nice of him. We did some rum things. I carried on with that ‘til I was 93.

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When I came out of school, I used to fetch four dozen mails and take them round to customers every night.

My mother’s hand used to be out, waiting for the 8d I’d earned. I wasn’t allowed to keep any of it. That kept us going during the week. Money was very scarce in those days.

I was like everyone else as a child, I was good and bad. My mother always said I was good at cleaning floors. I used to have to clean those red bricks every dinnertime. I was the eldest girl.

I was the “sludgebumper”: anything wanted doing, it was me to do it.

Getting among a lot of people was how I met my first husband, Reg. It was a funny thing. I lived at Midway and he lived at Swad. He started coming up to Midway, you see, and I was getting to know him better. He’d got one leg shorter than the other, he was a bit of a cripple, and I thought he wants looking after. Well, that’s me.

We married when I was twenty-one.

The War came along and my husband couldn’t go because he was a cripple; but he used to do a lot of work helping others. He was very good. Over forty years married. No honeymoon, not in those days. You just got married and started getting a home together, bit by bit; both of you working.

I was a baker. Baked everything you could think of. I still do it now. A bag of flour and a pound of lard and I’m happy. I can make such a lot of stuff out of it. I love baking for other people as well. I used to cater for parties. I don’t buy anything. I used to make wedding cakes: horseshoe wedding cakes, all sorts of things. I make mince pies for people – better than giving them a Christmas card.

I make Eccles cakes: they call me “Mrs Eccles cake”. A person came to me and asked me to make Eccles cakes for her every week. I said, “I don’t do what people want me to do, I do what I want.” I won’t be made to do anything I don’t want. I tell people what I think. If anybody don’t like it, they have to lump it. I’ve never had a lesson. One day I surprised my mother and made a big apple tart on a dinner plate. Somebody had brought some apples so I said, could I have some of those? She asked what I wanted them for? I said, “I’ll tell you when I’ve done it.” I didn’t know if I could do it, but I did. My mother said, “Oh, that looks good; I’ll let you do another.”I was making new jobs for myself all the time.

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I can still recite bits of poetry. Two boys from Repton School asked if I’d come and recite a poem at their school. I said, “I’m careful where I work and what I do; I’m not going to do it for nothing.” They offered to pay.

I said, “I’ll have a few flowers. And get the flowers first, I’ve been had before; I’m not going to be caught again.”

I like to talk to people. I like to be sociable. I like people to do for me as I try to do for them. I know it sometimes doesn’t work.

I often wonder how that little boy during the War has grown up and what sort of life he’s living? He was a lovely kid, Terry, I did miss him. Still, that was life in those days.

HEATHER JARVIS

NEVER STOP DREAMING

I was born in Burton Hospital and I grew up in Woodville: Heather Louise McKay Jarvis. McKay is my maiden name; I didn’t want to lose it or be double-barrelled. It’s more a question of what it means to me rather than being independent from my husband. My grandfather cared for my grandmother for a long time before she died and after she died he started travelling the world researching our family tree.

He went to Australia and Scotland and he found out a lot about the family who came from Ireland. He got as far back as an orphanage in Liverpool, which had a lot of Irish kids in it; so we assume they came from Ireland. He was such a great person and I think a lot of him. So I kept the name for his sake rather than anyone else’s. I wasn’t

particularly close to that granddad; but my grandparents did stick close to me when other members of my family didn’t, especially when I was at loggerheads with them. I was close to my maternal grandparents.

My maternal grandma is still alive, but the others have died. She has Alzheimer’s now and is in a home; but not at the time I was living with her. I was fifteen and I started seeing a bloke who was fifteen years my senior, which caused a lot of problems; my mother wasn’t happy about it. When my grandma was young she met a man at work and fell deeply in love and married him and stayed with him for forty years. My grandfather was divorced, which was unusual, and he had children from his previous marriage and he was twelve years my

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grandma’s senior. So my grandma saw another side to this boyfriend argument we were having. That was why I ended up living with my grandma instead of my parents. She was less judgemental, she wasn’t going to write it off completely on the grounds of age difference. Her relationship had an age difference and in a time which was much harder.

She’s now blind and is unsteady on her feet, so she’s not the same grandma; but I still love her to bits.

I take her out in a wheelchair and show her flowers. She can still see colours vaguely and I get her to listen to the birds. I try to keep her aware of what’s going on around her.

was a place to get you onto your feet Around that time, I stayed at my and encourage you to make budget grandma’s, at friends’ houses, my plans, stuff like that, but it didn’t boyfriend’s and his family’s, lots of work like that in practice. I was there places. It was quite a hectic time for three years and then I went to and I was doing my GCSE’s as well. live in an attic in Ilkeston, which was I managed to pass them all, so I felt horrible.

I moved because I’d had very proud of myself. Eventually I got enough of the housing project and I a flat, when I was sixteen, through had a new relationship. I ended up a young person’s housing project. re-assessing everything about myself It was a great idea, in theory, to and I needed to cut all of my ties, so have a group of young people living I broke off all of my friendships and together; but in practice it’s hell and didn’t speak to anyone for weeks on everyone brings everyone else down. end.

I just needed time out. It was Life was never boring living in a place lonely and strange, in a new place like that. A lot of people had come and the neighbours were from hell. from care and foster families and we They stole my bike.

It was locked up all had our own problems. Many of in the corridor of this house and the us weren’t working and had a lot of house was divided up into flats and time on our hands. We had plenty of they got a hacksaw on the chain and time to get into trouble. It wasn’t a rode it around.

I knew it had been scary time, quite honestly I never felt taken from inside the house. I did safer. Looking back, I should have lots of shouting and stamping my been scared. I’d go to the laundry at three o’clock in the morning (because feet and they brought it back and I was awake and had washing to do), apologised. I have strong friendships with a few people rather than and the smackheads you bumped into (and who were likely to mug you) troublesome, turbulent friendships with lots of people. You can fill your would say “Are you alright, Heather? life with idiots sometimes and not I’ll walk you down.” It was surreal even realise. at the time: even though everyone hated each other on a temporary basis, everyone was very close. It 39

I tried to do my ‘A’ levels straight after school and that didn’t work because I wasn’t in any state of mind to do ‘A’ levels. I did a lot of volunteering with the Prince’s Trust programme, which I recommend to any young person who is having problems finding their feet or working out what they want to do. You need to be unemployed for several weeks or either looking for a job or sick and young. They get you all together about twenty of you and you have to go every day for twelve weeks and make a personal development programme and you have to work together with these people who you’ve never met. It’s excellent, you come out with several certificates: first aid, food hygiene and stuff and you have to do projects, like do people’s gardens. You have no money so you have to do fundraising in order to do it. It builds your confidence and your strength and you feel, actually, I’m not that bad after all. You come out of it a different person.

YOU ROLL THE DICE AND SEE WHAT THEY LAND ON. IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN. IF YOU DON’T REALLY VALUE YOURSELF, YOU TAKE LESS CARE OF YOURSELF. After that, I went back to college for the second time and passed my ‘A/S’ levels, which is like the first year of ‘A’ levels. Then I went on to do Open University because I was old enough, which meant I could study at home.

I’ve got letters after my name, which is amazing. But I was in the first relationship with the first boyfriend, which was very rocky: lots of fights and arguments, lots of smashing of things, neighbours calling the police etc. It was complicated and horrible.

One day, I’d had enough and, while he was outside smashing up his guitar, I phoned the police and had the locks changed and didn’t let him back in again. Best thing I’ve ever done. I don’t regret any of it, I learnt a lot about myself: how you should expect other people to treat you and how badly you can get away with treating people who you claim to love.

You get stronger when you come out of something like that.

The Millenium Volunteer Award I got while I was working at People Express, running an arts group. It was a project where we applied for funding and we hired artists to do all sorts of projects: drama lessons and dance lessons, pottery, mosaics. I was also involved with a charity in Nottingham that was giving support to people who self-harmed and their families. That very quickly took more and more of my time and I ended up becoming Chair of that as well. I did a lot of work with them. I learnt that counselling other people when your head’s not in the right place is not a good thing to do for either party so I got out of it. I became interested in helping this charity because I had self-harmed at one time, so I understood why people did it. If I had dedicated just a couple of hours a week it might have been more productive but it quickly came to three twelve hour days a week because there is so much work to do and with so many people. It was a strange “them and us” sort of place, you could easily get sucked into this strange little world. I could see it was not where I wanted to go. People selfharm to make themselves feel better.

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Scientists say it’s an endorphin release to counteract pain, which can make you feel euphoric. Although sometimes, if you’ve got a lot going on in your head, it can be a physical manifestation, like if you have a cast on your leg, everyone can see you have a broken leg. I think it’s a way of being able to look at something tangible, saying yes that’s what hurts.

But then it sounds as if you’re doing it for the sake of other people but you’re definitely not doing that. I think part of people’s motivation would be to alert other people and let them know you need help; although that wasn’t why I did it. Sometimes it’s a cry for help, but other times it’s the opposite absolutely refusing to seek help: “I can cope with this myself.” It links to self-esteem: if people feel very bad about themselves, you can destroy things. If you’re feeling really bad, to know that if you wanted to commit suicide you could (and that you’re keeping your options open), not really caring if you live or die. You roll the dice and see what they land on. It’s hard to explain. If you don’t really value yourself, you take less care of yourself. Self-harm,

taking drugs and alcohol are similar ways of undervaluing yourself; even though they don’t appear to be on the surface, if you look deeper, they are similar. It’s not luck that I didn’t end up on drugs, it could have easily have happened, there was a lot of heroin about. I lived with some nice people who also were smackheads who I got on with; they were non-judgemental and didn’t care about how I was feeling, which was perfect. You’d want company, but you wouldn’t want anyone asking you questions or prying, but just to know there was someone else about. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. I’m amazed at how I stayed off heroin, there was so much about. I realise that where I could have been and where I am now are very different places.

I don’t think the desire to selfdestruct is in everyone. My parents would never harm themselves, they go on holidays and eat wholesome food and enjoy good health. I would say I had a good upbringing. I did go off the rails, but I don’t know why.

I’ve tried to work it out for a very long time but I‘ve given up.

I think men who haven’t self harmed or been on drugs, that sort of thing is alien to them. If they haven’t had any close friends involved in those things, they can see people as being very weak or failing, whereas women will see it differently: they’re not as harsh in be-littling someone in that situation. There seem to be more women than men who selfharm and more men than women on heroin. Anorexia and bulimia seem to be more common in women than men. It’s more talked about now and magazines go on about women and eating disorders. There was a boy at my school who was anorexic.

Are men at the root of women’s problems? I think that women can let them be. You can let your partner treat you worse than you’d let your worst enemy treat you. In my experience, there’s no gender difference in that. I think women can be more vicious and poisonous: “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

I think men can be more blundering and mistreat people and shout a lot, whereas women are more calculating.

Eighty per cent of the time I meet decent people. Even the time I was at Newhall with all those reprobates 41

the sort of people who others might vote for political parties to eradicate.

Other than the person I was in a relationship with, I’ve never had any real disagreement or felt threatened in any way. Everyone would chip in together if someone was struggling for money; you’d put electric in someone’s meter and they’d do the same for you when you needed it. On the whole people are nice.

On the other hand, people can be very short-sighted. I prefer my own company. There are too many people in the world and in the future there are going to be more and more. We are bringing the capacity closer by just existing. People are selfish, even

me. If the government said I could only have one child, I would fight to the bitter end to have more. Until a couple of years ago, I hated the idea of having kids; now I’d love a football squad. When you meet the right person, it turns on its head.

The idea is to have little people that are a mixture of you both and take them places and teach them things and make them happy. They’d always have company and have back-up when they have problems.

Two years ago I didn’t ever want children. You wonder why would you want to devote so much time and effort, energy and money on another person, other than your partner?

When you work all day, why would you want to continue cooking and washing for children when you come home? It’s a life-style choice for me.

A lot of women find themselves with children and never made a decision either way. I’m twenty-two now and by the time I’m fifty-two I’d like to live in a big house with a big garden with some grown-up kids and some not so grown-up, still happily married. I’d like to be a vet, it would never seem like work to me. I like animals more than people. I also like science, I find it rewarding; medicine and anatomy I really enjoy. It’s a possibility that I could study, but money is the problem. Being perpetually pregnant could also be a problem! Although, in places like Africa, you see women heavily pregnant doing manual work and they have new-borns strapped to their backs and they just carry on. I do admire those women.

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I went to Africa because I was desperate to go travelling, I didn’t care where. I worked and saved the money. By that time, I’d met my fiancé who said he’d love to go with me. We went through Tanzania to Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda and saw the gorillas. We decided to get married while we were there. We did some voluntary work as well with the wild life and we ended up spending three months there, two of them in Uganda. It was an amazing experience. We worked with a zoo that only takes in Ugandan wild life. Some of the animals are injured so it was also a sanctuary. We worked in the veterinary unit there. There were a lot of animals in quarantine and animals that had been seized at the airport, lots of parrots. We’d do routine examinations on the chimpanzees.

While we were there, they rescued some chimpanzees from a witch doctor. It’s generally very frowned upon, but in Uganda , in more rural areas when people find themselves without anywhere to turn, if they try medicine for their ailments, they try all sorts of ways and the place to go would be to a witch doctor. One of the things these doctors would do is use a baby chimpanzee: use its hair in their spells and when they’d taken all of its hair they’d take its fingers and toes and ears. Eventually they would kill it. What people don’t realise when they go on holiday and have a photo taken with these chimps is that the mother and baby won’t let go of each other - you

ARE MEN AT THE ROOT OF WOMEN’S PROBLEMS? I THINK THAT WOMEN CAN LET THEM BE. YOU CAN LET YOUR PARTNER TREAT YOU WORSE THAN YOU’D LET YOUR WORST ENEMY TREAT YOU. have to break their arms or kill the mother just to get the baby. Also the whole troupe will defend the baby, so several adult chimps will have to be killed to get one baby, which is a terrible tragedy. So it’s more than the one chimp that you see has had to suffer. My husband spent a month and a half living with this baby chimp teaching it to relax and eat and to sleep without waking. The chimp was so young it was a bit like a parentchild relationship and everywhere he went the chimp went too. She’d have massive tantrums like a child.

He’d put her to bed in a box with a I have a tattoo on my arm that says blanket in her enclosure and she’d “never stop dreaming”. I got it when start screaming and lie on her back I was seventeen. It reminds me to and thump her arms and legs on stay positive and optimistic. It was the floor. After a couple of minutes taken from a song. The song goes she’d tire herself out and fall asleep. on to say you should bide your time You’d have to be harsh on yourself and that, if you look at life as if it is and not run back in. He’s been back a game of blackjack, just because to see her since and she ran past a your opponent has a couple of group of people straight to him, so aces, doesn’t mean that, with your she remembered him. I’d like to go twos and threes, you can’t win back there to live. We’re trying to sell spectacularly. So whatever you’ve the house and buy a plot of land in got, you should make the best of it.

Uganda and build a house.

You shouldn’t be deterred by other people. I don’t regret my tattoo, as do a lot of people. It reminds me not to forget the difficult times I’ve been through. Now I have a great job and a lovely husband. You have to be thankful for what you’ve got.

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A “TYRO” IS A NOVICE, A BEGINNER, FROM THE LATIN WORD FOR A “RECRUIT”.

WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY WHEN WE STARTED, WE WERE “TECHNO TYROS”.

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BETTY GARDNER, CONNIE RAWSON & MIN LARBEY

THE TECHNO TYROS TECHNOLOGY

CONNIE A “tyro” is a novice, a beginner, from the Latin word for a “recruit”. We knew nothing about technology when we started, we were “techno tyros”. Now look at us, with our digital artwork.

MIN I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into whatever century we’re living in now, I can assure you.

MIN Life’s so fast now, it goes by so quickly.

BETTY Technology changes so quickly, it’s like another language. I mean, what is an i-Pod? CONNIE It’s a daft name, isn’t it? The way things are named is strange.

BETTY Young people want to do everything now online. And they have to have all the latest gadgets.

MIN If we couldn’t afford it, we didn’t have it. It’s a different world today, it’s the other way ‘round.

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CONNIE They’ll have it, then think how can I pay for it?

BETTY They can’t wait. It’s because the pace of the world is faster, the younger generation are going with it.

MIN We had to walk everywhere.

BETTY Everything was slower and we took more time to do it.

MIN They’re on their mobile phones while paying the bus driver.

BETTY I love to listen to scraps of phone conversations, wondering what was all that about? My son in Canada has this thing called a ‘Blackberry.’ As he’s walking along, he can pick up his emails, it’s like a mini-computer.

CONNIE How do the emails get there?

MIN Where I lived was like a time warp. We had to carry the accumulator home to connect to the wireless. It was full of acid, if you’d spilt it on your clothes, you’d be in big trouble.

BETTY I remember all the talk about television at the time and thinking, well, how does the picture get there?

CONNIE Later I worked in the Occupational Therapy department at the hospital. It does you good to work with people who are so ill. I was working in the pottery department. Then my husband and I decided we’d go into business together, that’s how we ended up at Findern.

BETTY I worked from home doing sewing. Then BETTY My mother taught me to read. I was off school a Social Services advertised for a craft assistant, lot as a child. working with the physically handicapped. I had MIN We had evacuees at our school. We were no qualifications. I ran a dress-making class for athletic, we could run ‘cause we lived 3 miles the blind! For 13 years. from the school.

MIN My kids had to do jobs around the house in BETTY I was making clothes at 14. I loved it. 14s/week. exchange for riding lessons so I could work.

My first job was picking pins up off the shop BETTY They’re under more pressure nowadays, floor with a magnet, the owner was so mean. frightened for their jobs; we were secure. My MIN I left school on the Friday and started work on husband worked on the railways, job for life. the Monday. In the morning I was a cleaner, in MIN It was different in farming: there was always the afternoon I worked on the farm. someone waiting for your job and your cottage.

CONNIE 7s 6d/week for me. I got a scholarship to the BETTY I’ll be honest, I got away with murder at work.

School of Art in Derby. I used to walk 2 miles to They’re more accountable now. Going to work get there, and came home for my lunch; that’s 2 gave me a confidence I hadn’t had. I was very miles 4 times a day. After Art School I became a timid. cashier for about 10 years. I hated every minute MIN Our grandchildren found us a house up here in of it. The School of Art recommended me to Willington. We were on the council housing list one of the big fashion houses in London as an down south for 48 years and accumulated 20 apprentice, but my mum wouldn’t let me go. I points. was very disappointed.

CONNIE We kept a village shop in Findern. When we MIN When my kids started school, I worked as a retired, we moved to Willington. I used to do kitchen assistant at their school, then became meals-on-wheels to the bungalow where I live a cook, a grade 10 caterer. My husband, Len, now. A friend of mine’s aunty used to own it. I worked on the farm. There was no sanitation in thought at the time, I could be happy in a house the farm cottage. like this, never imagining I would end up in it!

WORK

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HUSBANDS BETTY 50 years I was married.

CONNIE 49 years for me.

MIN I met Len when I was 14. I’ve been married 54 years and counting and 7 years apprenticeship before that.

BETTY That’s 153 years between us.

MIN We’d cycle miles to the local dance. There might be 30 or 40 of us on bikes, we used to shout and holler all the way to the dance and back again.

BETTY My husband didn’t like me going out to work. It was a shock to his system when I wasn’t there when he came home from work. He couldn’t understand I didn’t have a 9-5 job. The rows we had – “Why aren’t you here?!”

WHEN WE RETIRED, I REALISED I DIDN’T KNOW MY HUSBAND. I HAD TO LEARN TO LIVE WITH HIM. WE’D WORKED ALL THE TIME, WE HADN’T HAD A LIFE TOGETHER, OTHER THAN THE KIDS.

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When we retired, I realised I didn’t know my husband. I had to learn to live with him.

We’d worked all the time, we hadn’t had a life together, other than the kids.

BETTY I miss that goodnight kiss since I lost my husband.

CONNIE Whatever arguments have gone on during the day, make sure you don’t take them to bed.

MIN You don’t go to bed without smoothing things over. And always support each other in front of the children.

BETTY I was determined he wasn’t going to beat me down. They talked about womens’ rights at work.

CONNIE As a member of the Womens’ Institute, I’ve had to speak in front of large groups of women.

BETTY When you’re on your own you worry that other people might find you too demanding.

MIN I’m lucky, I still get to share my time with my husband.

CONNIE I’m a member of two art groups and I go out all the time. I think I’m lucky.

MIN

I’m 75 and it’s the first time I’ve ever lived on my own. I’ve had to learn to do things around the house. I had to start again when my husband died. I wasn’t needed any more as a wife or a mother. I had to think, “Who am I?” I’m thankful I learned how to drive, even though my husband had to push me into doing it.

CONNIE Learning to drive was the best thing I ever did. I had to go out in all kinds of weather with deliveries from the shop.

BETTY The number of people our age who say I wish I could drive.

MIN My husband is on a bit of elastic, he goes so far and that’s it.

BETTY I’ve got a life now. The first time I went to someone’s house for a coffee on my own and they asked me if I’d like to stop for lunch, I thought, “I can’t.” Then I thought, “Well, there’s no one stopping me.” I’ve just been to Canada on my own. If someone had said to me 10 years ago I could have done that, I’d have said, no.

BETTY

I’M 75 AND IT’S THE FIRST TIME I’VE EVER LIVED ON MY OWN. I’VE HAD TO LEARN TO DO THINGS AROUND THE HOUSE. I HAD TO START AGAIN WHEN MY HUSBAND DIED. I WASN’T NEEDED ANY MORE AS A WIFE OR A MOTHER. I HAD TO THINK, “WHO AM I?”

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AMBITIONS We didn’t have any outside of marriage.

You had a good time, then you met a boy and that was it.

CONNIE Girls in our day were just as clever as they are today.

BETTY Girls grow up much quicker these days. My 13 year old grand-daughter looks 15.

CONNIE You respected your mum & dad and if your mother said she rather you didn’t, you didn’t.

Life was more harmonious.

BETTY There’s more to life than being married. They’re not tied down these days.

MIN If you had a baby at 16, you had to go to the bad girls’ home.

MIN BETTY

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CONNIE Now they don’t even bother getting married. I think it’s worse for a girl finding a decent place to live. It used to be all kept within the family.

BETTY Our generation were pushed into marrying.

MIN Live and let live.

CONNIE As long as children are well looked after.

Although when I’m asked to look after them, I feel like saying, they’re my grandchildren not my children.

MIN What annoys me with young people today, especially the girls, is that nobody votes. The suffragettes suffered for women.

BETTY A woman can do anything she sets her mind to. The jobs women do now, you wouldn’t have dreamed of a woman builder.

MIN It’s no harder than farm work.

BETTY If I could have chosen, I’d have had an outside job with trees.

MIN I would have worked on a farm, like I did.

CONNIE I would have taught art. Or dress-making. On both sides of the family there were artists. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t sewing or drawing. As long as I had a piece of paper and a pencil, I was happy. I drew for my children.

When the children had gone, I started painting again. I went back to the School of Art one day a week. Now I paint three or four times a week.

BETTY We can do as we want now we’re older.

MIN I want to catch up.

BETTY There are lots of places I’d like to visit, but it’s not easy to go on your own. I’d like to live ‘til I’m 90 or so, as long as my mind’s alive. I’m enjoying my own space these days. It’s all new to me. I’ve learned from the “seniors”, as they call them in Canada, and the facilities they have.

CONNIE I’d like to live a bit longer. I have motivation, I just want to be mobile.

BETTY I’d like to go into business with these handbags I’ve made.

CONNIE I want to be famous, to paint that picture that people will talk about.

MIN I want to learn to paint.

CONNIE I want to be a person people want to see.

BERYL HOSKING

CHICKEN AND EGG

“Happy Hens” is a 100 acre farm with people who have been ‘naughty’, in 25,000 free-range hens, but that the school holidays. Most of those is not the most important bit. The young people though are actually most important bit is that we look at school, and they do go to school. after young people who have been They need to do this ‘reparation’, as excluded from school. We used to they call it, and come to us in the have over-16’s living with us. We holidays. The young people who are started with the hens because we excluded are naughtier than them. needed something repetitive that But they’re all lovely most of the time. they could do without causing injury Happy Hens is also an open farm to animals. It doesn’t matter if they now as well. Anybody can just come break an egg, it’s only a few pence, and pay a couple of pounds, walk isn’t it? But if they kill an animal by round and feed the animals. mixing the milk wrong, that can be hundreds of pounds. It took us a The hens were for the young people, long while to learn that chickens that’s how it happened. We get paid were the best thing. We stopped for the young people, so much an having people living with us because hour; but it doesn’t really cover the our own girls became teenagers cost of looking after them, all the and we felt that they needed to have staff we have. So the hens actually a more normal life. So we handed subsidise looking after them. A lot of the accommodation side over to them have sat exams at the end of somebody else. Now we work with the school year, not major exams, but young people, mostly 14-16, who are basic English and Maths. And some excluded from school, both male and of them have gone on to college as female; well, more male than female well. Some of them have got jobs. this year. Last year there were a lot of It’s what happens when you take females. We also work with the youth them out of their environment. It’s offending service, so we get young not that they don’t want to learn as 50

much as they can’t cope with the school situation. We give them a bit of responsibility on the farm, that’s what they really need. Because they’ve been naughty, its all ‘Oh, no, you can’t do that, I don’t trust you to do that’. We have to trust them and they usually respond. We had two young people who were going to get into serious trouble if they weren’t put somewhere for a few days a week in the school holidays. I think they were about thirteen, They never actually came on the same day but they both did two days a week, and they’ve both got back to school. One of the rewards of them going back to school is that they come to the farm one day a week, as part of their school. It works, you know? If they hadn’t have come in the summer, they might have got into trouble and they wouldn’t have got back into school.

WE STARTED WITH THE HENS BECAUSE WE NEEDED SOMETHING REPETITIVE THAT THEY COULD DO WITHOUT CAUSING INJURY TO ANIMALS. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF THEY BREAK AN EGG, IT’S ONLY A FEW PENCE, ISN’T IT? Another example, one of the girls, she was the sweetest girl you could ever have met. She was still attending school, but kept getting in trouble. So two days a week she was sent to us, with the hope it would calm her down a bit. While she was with us, she was perfectly fine, never had any trouble at all. We’d say to her, “How’ve you got on at school, then?”

She’d say, “Oh, they got the police out to me.”

“Why? What have you done?”

“Threw a chair at the teacher.”

We couldn’t imagine it! She was really petite and sweet as anything.

She just hated the school. She was with us for two years. The girls spend a lot of time in the egg-shed with us, cleaning eggs and packing eggs. She also did her Maths and English an hour a week. She was the only person who would lay all the boxes out meticulously. You’ve got to put all the eggs in them and

a label on the top. Every box was in line – absolutely perfect. A lot tidier than I could do it. I was so impressed that I told the teachers so it went down in her report. When it came for her to leave, she sat her GCSE’s and I think she got Maths and English. I asked her what she was going to do next year, and she said, “I’m going to Broomfield College.” She’s still there.

So that was a success. No more throwing chairs at teachers, she’s perfectly fine.

Of course, it goes wrong sometimes.

One lad, from Burton, he had got into trouble, serious trouble. He’d got ASBO’s, he’d committed about 52 offences. When he came to us, he was fine for the first few months, absolutely fine. But his problem was that his mum had boyfriend after boyfriend after boyfriend. Some he got on with, some he didn’t. The ones he got on with, he was heart broken when they left. The ones he didn’t get on with, of course, didn’t like him and he just kept getting into trouble. He was out 51

on the streets, running away from home, driving motorbikes without a licence, stealing cars, all that sort of thing. When he first came to us, he transformed, he was absolutely amazing. But there was a problem also with his dad – his real dad kept threatening to kill his mum. His mum was with this new bloke and they decided to move into a new house.

Just after they moved into a new house, he decided that it wasn’t for him and he was going. That seems to be what triggered this lad off.

He was hard work, he just wasn’t interested any more. It wasn’t really his fault, but because he didn’t want to work, he’d wind everybody else up. In the end, he stopped coming. If they’re not there when the taxi goes to pick them up in the morning, the taxi leaves. The next thing we heard, he was in prison. The saddest part is that it wasn’t his fault, it was his home life. They’re with us from nine o’clock till three, which is only a third of a day, isn’t it? To be honest, we don’t get that many failures. Not bragging, but we don’t.

When I was little, all I wanted, my sole ambition, was to be married and have a family. As I got older, I was into creating music, and I was very good at needlework and anything to do with art. I still didn’t really have any ambitions apart from wanting to play in a big orchestra. But that wasn’t going to happen.

at church, but I’m a much better I hate chickens, I do. I really hate leader. I can’t lead from the drum kit things that flap. I can’t stand so I’ve now got a drummer. Kelly, my anything that flies. I have a phobia. daughter, plays the flute. Nicky, my My mum has it as well. Even flies. other daughter passed her Grade 1 Flies en masse, I just can’t stand. clarinet after having had a clarinet for And we’ve had a fly problem this about 6 weeks. I won’t play at home year in one of the sheds, one of the when I’ve got friends round, not the new automatic ones. You’d go in and piano. The piano scares me to death the floor would be black, and you’d to be honest, I don’t know why. I think they’re all dead, but as you put I started with the recorder, every kid really like it if I’m on my own, but if your foot down the floor would just starts with the recorder, don’t they?

I’m comfortable with people I’ll play. take off. They’re horrible. When the I really wanted to learn the piano We’ve got a lot of new people who hens start laying, they don’t know and we were given a piano. My mum work for us at the moment, if one of where the nest boxes are, so you had played when she was little. She them came in, there’s no way I’d dare have to move the eggs off the floor; showed me where middle C was and play. I’d just go to pieces. I’d probably otherwise they’ll lay more eggs near I was off. I taught myself. I started be all right if the kids asked me, but the ones that are already on the having lessons when I was about I’d keep it a secret. floor. They’ll get a taste for eating 30-ish. I took all the exams and got them so you have to go in regularly letters after my name. I started at I met Roger at church and that’s to collect these eggs. New birds Grade 6. There was one more exam when I got into farming. I have got tend to be flighty and, if you make a I could have taken, but once I’d got farming in my blood, my great uncles sudden movement, they’re off. When my letters, I couldn’t do it. It was were farmers, but I’d never been to I used to go in, I’d put a jumper over giving me heart-failure, I’m terrible! their farms or anything when I was a my head. I kept telling Roger if he So nervous. The last one, I had to kid. When I started helping Rog on ever built another chicken shed, I’d sit it twice because of my nerves. I the farm, it was just a natural thing, leave him! Now we’ve got twentydon’t teach, I play for pleasure when really. He lived in this big house all five thousand chickens. The biggest I get the time. I’ve got this gorgeous on his own and he started taking in shed’s got nine thousand chickens baby grand piano sitting in the corner battered wives, through the church. in it; it’s quite a noise. There’s a of the room. I have it tuned twice a The first battered wives’ home started shed full of turkeys, they make a year but I hardly play it. I do play a at the farm just before we were totally different noise. And a shed guitar, all the time. I taught myself. married. I was helping him with that. full of chicks, which is really quite I’m the worship leader in church. I We had mums with kids and then we sweet: little ‘cheep’ sounds. We also can stand and sing in front of a worked with the probation service have cows, sheep, goats, pigs and crowded room, but you ask me to say and had a lot of teenagers. Once we children. Today, it’s half term. We’re something and I can’t speak. I used were married, we started taking in an open farm, so there’s loads of to play the oboe at school. It was teenagers. There was one time when kids on the farm with their mums and hired from the school and I always Rog was public speaking and he said, dads. wanted one of my own, but they’re “Today is the anniversary of the day really expensive. Last year I had to I proposed to Beryl and I wonder, if I hate baking, but I’m good at it. I have a hysterectomy, and Roger was she had known then what we were absolutely hate decorating cakes, but trying to take my mind off it, so he going to do, if she’d have still said I still do it. We do birthday parties on bought me an oboe. I’ve also got a ‘yes’?’’ I don’t know whether I would the farm as well. My daughter was flute and a drum kit. I don’t play them have done or not! It’s just progressed, a nursery nurse, and she suggested all at once! I used to play the drums we didn’t plan it. it. I said we’d give her a job. One of 52

I HATE CHICKENS, I DO. I REALLY HATE THINGS THAT FLAP. I CAN’T STAND ANYTHING THAT FLIES. I HAVE A PHOBIA. the options for the birthday parties is that you can have a cake with a farm theme. It all started when we had kids living with us; when it was their birthday we’d make a big thing of it. A lot of them had never had that before. I’d pick on something that was particularly ‘them’. There was one lad who was always going out on the buses, and I made him a cake shaped like a bus ticket, with all the information on it. Another lad liked McDonalds, so I made him a burger, it had lettuce hanging out of it – it was all icing! I’ve done a builder’s hat, blocks of cheese, I’ve done tons of them. But they’re time consuming, and I don’t really enjoy it, to be fair.

If we have a birthday in the family, I go and buy one from Tesco’s. We do buffets as well for groups. I make all the puddings, we don’t buy anything – trifles and gateaux.

If I hadn’t ended up on the farm, I’d have probably done needlework. I went to college to do fashion design.

You wouldn’t know it now, look at me! Jeans and a sweatshirt and wellies! I went to art college in Derby, it’s now the university. Most of my college life I spent staring out of the window, watching a tractor go up and down the field. I didn’t finish the course, it was too much drawing

and not enough sewing as far as I was concerned. We only got to make one thing a year, and design about twenty, and I liked to make things. So I left and got a job in a factory making motorbike jackets, waterproof jackets and all-in-ones: Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki. Prince Charles was paying a visit to the local JCB factory and we made a jacket for him. Within six months, I was their sample machinist. I miss sewing, I miss all the arty things. I know I could be doing other things apart from standing in an egg-shed cleaning eggs. Every year for the last I-don’t-know-how-many years, I’ve made a wedding dress and bridesmaids’ dresses for somebody.

I used to make all my own clothes, all the kids clothes, but I haven’t made myself anything for years. I make curtains and stuff for the house. The open bit of the farm lets me be a bit artistic. I paint pictures here, there and everywhere. I’m in the middle of painting a bus. Roger decided to buy a bus so I’m painting an entire bus, by hand with a half-inch brush!

We used to buy old portacabins and use them. Roger decided to write to Arriva in Nottingham because, if it’s got wheels on it, you can park it on the farm and use it as a building.

You don’t need planning permission 53

because it’s a vehicle. We’ve taken some of the seats out and turned some round, so it’s like a train – the seats facing each other with a table in the middle. We’ve put in puzzles and etch-a-sketches, and it’s going to be called the “Big Brain Bus”. I’ve painted a farm scene all the way down the side. It’s a fence, and on the fence it says “The Big Brain Bus” with animals pictured underneath it – rabbits, cows, sheep, mice and chickens.

Roger’s older than me and he’s talked about retiring. My children both have kids. I’m not ready to retire yet; I do too many things that I enjoy. If he retired, he’d be bored out of his tree, he’d go mad. His body’s beginning to let him down a bit, he can’t do as much as he once could. Having said that, we’ve just had a load of staff leave one after the other, so he’s working as hard as ever. There’s times I wish I wasn’t so busy, but I’m one of those people that I think will always be busy. We’re on the telly tomorrow: the BBC are featuring the project. I appear for a few seconds, I’m dead camera shy. They made me eat an egg on camera, and I don’t like eggs, either.

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ANNA ASTON

BATTLEFIELDS AND BEDROOMS I had a happy childhood, growing up in Newhall. I was a bit of a tom-boy.

I’m the youngest of five kids and there were always lots of animals at our house. I used to think we were like “The Waltons”. Until mum died from lung-cancer, when I was about 14. I was 12 when dad said she had a tumour. I thought, “What’s that?”

But I daren’t ask. They never told me anything until one day I came in making a lot of noise and dad shouted,

“Don’t you know your mum’s dying upstairs!”

Well, I didn’t know really. Or was I in denial? Mum was a Derbyshire lass, dad came from Czechoslovakia. He fought with the partisans during the war, he’d seen a lot of death. There was only me and dad at home, all my brothers and sisters are older, so we were very close. He never talked much to me afterwards about mum, I suppose it was his way of dealing with it.

When I left home, I lived with my boyfriend. But we outgrew each other. He tried to kill himself. I moved to Gresley and lived on my own for the first time with my dogs. After a couple of years or so, I met up with him and we tried living together again. When I realised he was seeing someone else at the same time, I went round to see her. We shared a bottle of wine. I went home and threw his things out. She became my friend after that. She said I’d get on really well with her brother, Russ. At school, all the girls fancied him; but not me. She introduced us and we went on a sort of blind date, which went really well. Some time later, my old boyfriend drove to the middle of nowhere and killed himself.

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Russ was in the Grenadier Guards and when we married, we moved to Surrey. I liked it there, a strong community and lovely woods nearby. Russ transferred to the Military Police and we were moved to Colchester. We had a little girl, Paygan, in 2002. I’d always loved that name. Russ had done his para training and got his wings. He was sent on a tour of Macedonia. We bought a house in Newhall so I had family and friends close by while he was away. It was good to be back.

Russ was posted to Iraq. February 14th he flew out, Valentine’s Day.

ACCEPTANCE IS WHAT HEALS. Paygan was 17 months old when I He repeated exactly what he’d said got the knock on the door. Russ had before. I invited him in. My vision was said before he left he had a feeling going in and out of focus. I offered he might not be back for next Xmas. to make us a nice cup of tea, just like He’d made sure all the paperwork they do on the telly. He said it wasn’t was done. It was three weeks before his job to do this, but there was no he was due to return. About 6pm, I one else available. He warned me, was feeding Paygan. I’d recently put up a sign, “No Hawkers etc” because “It will be on tv.” of the numbers of unwanted callers.

Behind the frosted glass in the door He asked me who I was going to I could see this man in a suit. I was phone? I rang my dad to come and thinking, “Can’t he read the sign?” I collect Paygan. I tried to ring Russ’ opened the door. parents. I had to tell everyone.

“Are you Mrs. Aston?”

I thought, ”How does he know my name?”

Russ was one of six military police killed in one go. There had been an incident with the paras elsewhere and they’d gone to a police station nearby, not realising what had happened. An angry mob attacked them in the station. They had no ammunition and no satellite phone.

So no chance.

The press arrived all together. Some of them wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to chase one female journalist away. The media doesn’t bother me now. I had to give a speech the following November for Poppy Day. It was the first time I’d spoken in public.

I remembered how confused and ignored I’d felt about my mum so I was totally honest with Paygan. She misunderstood what I’d said and for a while was convinced her dad had died in a “wall”. She was only a toddler. A couple of years later our dog of 17 years, “Nanny Whiff”, died.

I think it helped Paygan understand more about her dad.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you that your husband has been killed in action.”

I said, “You what?”

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Russ left me a letter. He said he wanted to be remembered, but he also wanted me to get on with my life.

We used to joke about how, when I’d gone into hospital for a gall bladder operation, I’d left Russ instructions what to do if I didn’t make it. I think my dad made me strong. I wasn’t going to be bitter or introvert.

Acceptance is what heals.

A couple of years ago, one of my sisters died a day before Paygan’s birthday. My sister had Downs’ and wasn’t expected to live a long life.

She was a lovely person.

My dad died recently. Me and Paygan stayed with him in the hospital. I’ve become so practical around death, I was able to deal with it. But Paygan screamed, “I haven’t got a daddy and now I haven’t got a grandaddy.”

I remember once going to a fancydress office party with Russ, where I used to work. I went as him and he went as me, in a little black dress.

He won a prize: tickets to London Zoo. Back on camp, about three in the morning, we had a play-fight in the front garden. I was charging up and down with a mock machine-gun.

In the morning there were bits of clothes all over the garden. It looked like a cross between a battlefield and a bedroom.

I do voluntary work now for a befriending scheme. And I’m doing a counselling course. People seem able to confide in me.

IN THE MORNING THERE WERE BITS OF CLOTHES ALL OVER THE GARDEN. IT LOOKED LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN A BATTLEFIELD AND A BEDROOM.

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HE DID EVERYTHING IN THE SHOP AND I DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING; SO WHEN HE WAS IN HOSPITAL, I WAS CRYING BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

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SHANTI ODEDRA

SHOPS IN THE BLOOD

Get up at 5am, I start work at 5.30am. police many, many times. I was Seven days a week, shop is open all crying every day, day and night. the time till 8pm. We sell everything.

Wake up in the morning go to the shop, same problem. When we A long time ago, I was living in come back, same problem, day and Uganda, under Idi Amin. My father night. Mr. Frank McCardle, he’s really, and my brother were living in Colne really good person; he’s employed so we settled down there, in 1976.

by South Derbyshire District Council.

Brother was working in shoes factory Two or three times, 11 o’clock at so he found me job. Lancashire night he came here. He’s that sort people are nice there, really good of person and that gave us the people, really friendly. Factory was confidence; very rare people like that. closed down so then we move to But now it’s alright, people used to Leicester, three years we stay. I like us now. The man next door is very Leicester, busy, good mix of people. good man; but what can you do? You can’t afford to close the shop. One People racist when first came to boy picked racial problem at school, Newhall. Very difficult three or four but my husband went to see the years with two particular families. headteacher. He told him, he said Call us Paki & so on, hard for little he’s not tolerating racial things to kids; upset them. When we were my kids. It’s a good school and they crossing the road, they throw stones, stopped it, it never happened again. police not bother. That time was Luckily our children all had good very bad really. Looking through friends, they picked a really good our window, standing and staring, bunch of friends. So never a problem. throwing stones. We were ringing They like it here now in Newhall.

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I have some very nice friends, really good friends. When my husband was poorly, everyone tell me, do you want help? People were helping me when he was very ill. Three months in hospital, bypass the heart. He did everything in the shop and I didn’t know anything; so when he was in hospital, I was crying because I don’t know what to do. I was standing outside every day, every night, I don’t know how to close, how to do anything. When he was in the hospital, everything come to me, everything I’m doing now myself.

Magazines, everything. But for a few days I was crying when he was poorly. My girls were very good, all my girls supported me.

DIVALI IS FAMILY TIME, BUT MY KIDS THEY LIKE CHRISTMAS MORE THAN DIVALI BECAUSE THEY WERE BORN HERE. WE CELEBRATE DIVALI AND CHRISTMAS BOTH. All girls, very proud, four of them.

One went to Nottingham University, study Economics, Politics; she went one year to Japan, last two years she has been working in London.

Second oldest she graduated from Loughborough University, English Language; then she went three months South America; then ten months in Australia. I worry because they’re girls, but husband said, “Don’t worry, let them go.” Third one graduated this year, Liverpool, she did TV and Media; she six months in India, then going to Thailand.

Christmas they booked in Goa, coming back after six months. The youngest she’s doing sixth form this year. Children have all got education, we don’t mind what they do. We let them go ‘round the world, all of them.

Anywhere they want to go, we won’t say, “No, you can’t go”. Yesterday was my birthday, they send me flowers.

Divali is family time, but my kids they like Christmas more than Divali because they were born here. We celebrate Divali and Christmas both. We have Christmas cards and Divali cards. My husband can go to Leicester for Divali because he’s not helping me in shop; he can have a holiday, but not me.

My husband was born in India, I was born in Uganda. In Uganda I went to school. After Idi Amin happened, we went to India. In Uganda, my father had three shops (shops are in the blood); he had to leave everything.

We left for India first, my father came after. Then he came here. I was 14 or 15 when I left Uganda. I miss education. I miss Africa. In Uganda, it was fine before. We lived near the school, everything is good; the people are very good, friendly. Hills, palms, small town, very green. I got two brothers, no sisters, just me. I was crying, we left everything. My father he can’t write, he can’t read, but he is a very clever man. My father is not anymore, he’s passed away.

My mother is in Leicester.

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I can’t say if my children will settle in England once they are married.

They have more choice compared to Indian families, as long as you’re not crossing your boundaries. Luckily, they’re all very good, they know they have all the liberty. None of them smoke, none of them has a child, drugs; they drink occasionally, but that’s fine. We don’t force marriage. They can choose the boy, they will get their choice, to choose somebody they can live a happy life. When my daughters marry, that will make me very happy. Our marriage was arranged, but we’re happy. We knew each other, but it was our parents’ suggestion. I couldn’t say no. It was thirty years ago; everything’s changed, people, education.

I go back to India sometimes, but my husband has been ill and I haven’t been for three years. I can’t go because I have to close the shop. I like India. My family are from Gujarat, a special part of India, right next to the India Ocean. Not too warm, not too cold. If I take a holiday, I will go to India. But I don’t think holiday now. Work, work, work. Days go really quickly. I cook twice a day, no choice for me. Who cook for me? My husband can’t cook, he can’t wash, he can’t hoover, I do everything. He knows one thing, he makes tea now!

At 7 o’clock he makes tea. He comes across the road to the shop, so I come home for cup of tea. Life is very hard, innit?

My husband is a graduate, BSc in Agriculture. His family background is farming in India. He has own farm there. In India it is hereditary. His father passed away. His brother looks after the farm. We got a house down there. We don’t have to buy anything when we go there, because his brother got flour, cows for milk, don’t need to buy anything. I have been there once, only five minutes

from the airport, only one plane a day. We go to Bombay then another flight. When the house was finished, I gave a party; I make a party for 100 kids. They were really happy.

Long time ago,1994. Daughters say we should retire; but not yet. We work hard, don’t want to retire now, need to do something. Maybe in wintertime we should go to India, summertime stay here.

WORK, WORK, WORK. DAYS GO REALLY QUICKLY. I COOK TWICE A DAY, NO CHOICE FOR ME. WHO COOK FOR ME? MY HUSBAND CAN’T COOK, HE CAN’T WASH, HE CAN’T HOOVER, I DO EVERYTHING.

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BETTINA ASTLE

LUMBERJILLS

Nobody had ever heard of us. It’s because we’re having badges this year, aren’t we?

There were 6,000 “lumberjills” serving in the Timber Corps. 4,000 in Scotland and 2000 here. It was formed in 1942. We wore distinct green berets and were employed by the Ministry of Supply. Most of them worked with men, including woodcutters from Ireland and Canada. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any men! We had bad luck all the way. There was a tradition of it in the First World War: The Women’s Forestry Service, it was called.

There’s not all that many of us left.

I’m 86, you see. My real name is Bettina Rose Astle. I am not from ‘round here, as you’ll guess. I’m a Lancashire lass, from Bolton. I’ve lived here for 50, no, 60 years. I’ve only just lost my husband twelve months ago.. He’d got senile dementia. I’m just getting over it really. I nursed him for three years.

He had a massive stroke as well and that was it.

I’m in the Bolton museum. I think they must have contacted Professor Liddell who did the Second World War Museum in Horsforth. He covers all the things in the War that nobody’s ever heard of. He sent word for me to go down. I did a recording and he frightened me to death, actually.

When we’d done it, he said, “Here you are then, Bettina, this is going in this drawer, and when we’re dead...” I said, “Don’t tell me. I know. We shall still be talking!” I said, “You can do what you want. It won’t bother me, will it, when I’m dead?” He kept saying, “Aren’t you going to say anything good?” I said, “No. The most of it is bad. The only good thing we had, we had marvellous digs.” He said, “What about the companionship?” I said, “Yes, that was it.”

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There were always two on the saw.

The saws were 4 foot 6. Sometimes there’d be about 16 in a team, but you’d never see one another. You’d set off in the morning, you’d get your job and you wouldn’t see one another until you came back. It was heavy work. I met my friend, Joan and we stayed friends for years after.

She wasn’t a bit like me though. I don’t know how we got on really.

She worked in a corset factory in Manchester. She had to go back as her mother was on her own and her brother was killed in the War. I did it for four years. I went in on Boxing Day in 1942, and I came out in 1946.

I just can’t remember when it was.

We had to give all this information to get the badge. The Women’s Timber Corps book, that was all we got.

All the London girls went back because they couldn’t stand it because they were from shops and offices. I’d had a rough life. I’d had to work in the house at home and no mother, and Joan had had a hard life so I think you look at life a bit different, don’t you? My mother was only 41 when she died of a stone in the kidney. I was only 14. My dad liked big old houses. It had 15 rooms this house, and he was in it till the day he died. It was a marvellous house. It had belonged to a mill owner. It had a greenhouse, a library, and everything. You never got time to go in the library. I hate housework to this day. There were 7 of us, a little girl, Judith, died, aged two.

I was 20, living in Bolton. I worked for my dad. I was actually born at Bushey in Watford. And I worked in that shop till I got called up. My friend was in the Land Army and that’s what I was going in. Then they sent me a letter saying, there’s only dairy farming. I couldn’t stand milking cows. So it was the forestry for me. The thing was, you had your month’s training at Bury St. Edmunds. Everything was frozen up at the camp. When you’d come from a fairly decent home it was a bit of a We went to Fridaythorpe, in the shock; but I was used to roughing it Yorkshire Dales, to our first job and really. We used to go in a field with that was a private firm. We were a 4 pound axe (I’d never used an in plantations. The timber was axe before). They’d put you 14 yards marvellous. There was only a bus apart because you’d let the axe go once a week, so that was a bit hard, and it was flying all over the field. The but you just put up with it. We’d saw other job was the saw mills. I couldn’t the logs in half, load them on lorries have done that. A lot of the girls and they went to Driffield to the saw stayed in it after the War. Some loved mill. You really felt then as though it, but it frightened me to death. I you were doing something. After remember the first time we met a real that was when the trouble started. lumberjack. He came in the wood.

We went to work for the Ministry of He had a flat cap on, knee pads, Supply and, I have got to say, they corduroy trousers, a big knotted were the biggest set of rogues that scarf and he frightened us to death. ever walked the face of the Earth. It’s He had a 7 pound axe – well, they’re the way we were treated. But we’d big! Do you know, he was the kindest volunteered for it and we just got man that you’d ever wish to meet! on with it and did the best we could.

He used to tell us some tales. He It was hard work, it was. We never used to say, “You’re not to go there, went out at Fridaythorpe. If you had girls, because there’s snakes.” That to go anywhere you walked 12 miles was it. There was snakes at Grange any which way. Our driver said, “I’m Wood. When we moved these 6 foot ever so sorry for you girls. I’m going lengths that were piled up, they were to take you out one Sunday. Now get all underneath. We put elastic bands dressed up and put your lipstick on on our legs so they wouldn’t get and I’ll take you in this van.” So we up! If they got up your leg you can’t went and we got to this house and it do anything, can you, when you’re was a Bible reading! I didn’t bother sawing a tree? It had its funny side. because I’ve always gone to church, 64

THERE WERE ALWAYS TWO ON THE SAW. THE SAWS WERE 4 FOOT 6. SOMETIMES THERE’D BE ABOUT 16 IN A TEAM, BUT YOU’D NEVER SEE ONE ANOTHER. YOU’D SET OFF IN THE MORNING, YOU’D GET YOUR JOB AND YOU WOULDN’T SEE ONE ANOTHER UNTIL YOU CAME BACK. IT WAS HEAVY WORK. but a lot were from Liverpool. I said, “Look, sit down and read your Bible and be thankful you’ve got a night out – you’re always complaining.”

There was always the funny side of everything. There was a racing stables up near Fridaythorpe. We were 16 miles from York and 12 miles from Driffield. We walked to these stables one Sunday, 12 miles was nothing to us, you see. We walked 4 miles to work, I couldn’t do it now, mind you. You just had to make your own pleasure. You had to be careful not to get very friendly with the young lads, otherwise you were “engaged”. Because they lived in a village and that was it. We were in this house that was spotlessly clean in Fridaythorpe. But at certain times in the year, with the hay, there were earwigs that used to come through the bedroom windows into the bed!

We were very near to aerodromes, all ‘round. We were sat there one day and there was such a terrific bang. When we looked, there was all smoke some fields away. Being girls, we were nosey. We set off and we walked to it. We shouldn’t have gone because this plane was in flames. It upset us that. That was when we realised we weren’t doing the fighting.

When I was billeted in Stanley Road, there were about 14 of us in Overseal.

That’s where I met my husband, Gordon. I was staying in digs with his auntie. But we didn’t go serious for a long while because he went to Iceland and Singapore and that.

His auntie waited on us hand and foot so we had to stop that. We used to tie her to the chair because she used to clean our shoes. She was marvellous really. At Grange Wood we used to fetch trees out in the middle and that’s a bit tricky. Very often, if you were unlucky, you got one land on your foot as it slipped off. The wood that we were chopping down and sawing mostly went to the

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pits. I’m tall and the branches used to be up to my nose. We had to get all the branches off with double-side billhooks. That was dangerous that was. Once it slipped and my friend hit her leg and we had to take her to get stitches. We used to take the pit props to Swad station and I’m afraid to say we knocked a lamppost down. We didn’t report it either. We only took certain sections of Grange Wood because that was good timber.

THERE WAS SNAKES AT GRANGE WOOD. WHEN WE MOVED THESE 6 FOOT LENGTHS THAT WERE PILED UP, THEY WERE ALL UNDERNEATH. WE PUT ELASTIC BANDS ON OUR LEGS SO THEY WOULDN’T GET UP! IF THEY GOT UP YOUR LEG YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING, CAN YOU, WHEN YOU’RE SAWING A TREE? I didn’t want to go as a “ganger”. I said “I want to stop with my friend”.

That was one thing. They never split pairs up because if you saw for 4 years, you kept a straight saw. They said, “If you don’t go we shall split you up.” It meant I had to do a lot of measuring which I hated and climbing over trees. I never was any good at figures and I was responsible for anything that happened. She came to me one day at Grange Wood and she said, “You’d better come because the wood’s on fire!” All we had were brushes but luckily we’d got a gamekeeper in the wood and he came and helped us. The laugh of it was, we burnt the trees that we hadn’t bought! We had Italian

prisoners, who wouldn’t do any work, and I was in charge of them. They wouldn’t take notice of a girl. I would only be 21 then. They had transport to and from where they worked, and we used to have to pack up and walk to where we lived. That’s what used to upset us about the Italian prisoners. They used to just sit there.

It didn’t go down well with the girls. I rung the man up. I said, “It’s not on”.

He said, “I can’t do anything, Bet. I have to get them out of the camp.” I said, “Well I’m afraid you haven’t done a wise thing.” They came at 10 o’clock and went back at 3 o’clock in a lorry. We had to tramp a mile from the aerodrome to the main road and then we had to walk to Doveridge.

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That was night and morning. I didn’t enjoy being a ganger. I didn’t mind sawing. When we were at Church Broughton one day, I was sawing with Joan and all of a sudden the saw went up. I wasn’t in a very good mood. I said, “Oh Joan.” She said, “I never did it, I never touched it.” So I took no notice, got on sawing. When we got back to Doveridge, they said the Dump had gone up at Fauld. We were a mile and a half from it we were. The blast went to Uttoxeter and blew all the windows out. All we got was like an earthquake, and it brought the saw out. We didn’t even know. I suppose we’d have felt more if we’d have been in the line of it, wouldn’t we?

When we were at Doveridge, the landlady was marvellous. She had an orchard and she used to make us apple pies. We really got marvellous food. So that makes up for it, doesn’t it? We used to visit what is the prison now, at Sudbury. It was an American Hospital and we used to go and visit the soldiers. They were blind, some of them, some of them had lost arms.

I know they had a bad name, the Yanks, but they weren’t at home and that was it. You had to watch them of course! I remember we met a Canadian squadron who suggested to go to the Boar’s Head at Sudbury. We used to go there and have one drink (we couldn’t afford anything else).

They always wanted to take you home.

Best thing is to say, “There’s no use you taking us, because you won’t get THAT!” And you can puzzle “that” out for yourself! They always were getting me to do something. I think there were no end of girls at Marchington all had babies and that. You couldn’t blame the men. Next thing they’d be off fighting, you see. I know they didn’t like us being in uniforms. I used to say, “Well, you’ve got a fighting chance, haven’t you, in a uniform!”

We always went in gangs. I did meet a soldier. He was a dentist at the prison and I was quite fond of him. We used to go out and have a drink, but I think he’d got a girl at home and it was never serious. But he was a nice chap.

Then I met Gordon after. He wrote me when he went to France, but it was nothing serious.

I can remember when we were at Foston, there was a lot of mud and they’d only got their boots on and we had to pull them out many a time. I rung up and said we wanted wellingtons. They said, “No you can’t have them” So I went to Nottingham and told them, “If you don’t get wellingtons, there won’t be any work done”. That’s how you had to be, and it shouldn’t be like that, should it? I think I made them pay for my fare as well!

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The last posting was at Buxton. He was a great man this one in charge.

All the trees were going one way, which was easy to get down, and he said, “I want them the other way!” We could have killed him! You had to get them on the slope and you had to have a girl each side to hold them with their boots, so they wouldn’t slip down while they were sawing. When they came down all the trees knocked the walls down.

So we had to build a wall! Have you ever built a stone wall? Well you can do it. That was right next to a lead quarry at Buxton. We couldn’t have a fire because they kept all the TNT in the wood. You’d be sawing and all of a sudden rocks would be coming over your head from them blowing up the quarry we were next to. Buxton was the best place we were ever at because we were right next to the big spa and we were allowed to go in at half price. It was 1942 when I went in to the Timber Corps and we didn’t get toilets until 1946. All we used to do for pleasure we went to the pictures if we were near a place we could go. We went to the pictures once a week and that was it. We used to sit round it twice! One of the best ones we saw, “Casablanca”!

After the War, I went back to the shop I belong to the Darby and Joan but it really taught me to stand up for across here and I’m in the Mothers’ myself. I said to my dad, “If I come Union. I think I’m going to join the back, I’m having a proper wage.”

Conservative Club at Swad when I The trouble was, the War nearly get back on my feet again. I like to closed him, because it was a sports have a lot of interests. I don’t like shop. I think he sold second-hand. just to have what’s round Overseal. I I don’t know how he managed. It’s have farther interests than that. I’m still under my dad’s name, so that’s interested in anything. When I was something. He didn’t want me to get having my eyes done there was this married. I was 26 and Gordon had article in the paper: it was a dinosaur got a house. He said, “Oh, you’ve fish and it could swallow a Great got plenty of time!” I said, “I haven’t, White Shark whole. I cut it out and Dad” Of course I’d got my granny I said, “Can I take it?” Anything like there. Canon Groves lived next door that. They are awful really, sharks, to us and he knew what we’d gone you know. But you’ve got to look through. He said, “Mr. Tobutt, you’ve at it from the other side, we’re on really got to let your mother go in a their territory. You go in the water at home. These girls have done all they your own risk. I like all the old films. can.” She went. She didn’t know us, My favourite is “Jaws”, “Lost World” you see, because she was 95 when and “Jurassic Park”. I love those. I she went in hospital. Then I came think they were true. I love reading. here, I got married and we lived in I belong to the mobile (library) and Stanley Road and then we bought I have 6 books. Murders I like; I’m this house because it was next to not very romantic! And you’ll never the garage. Gordon and his brother see me without a hat. I don’t go worked in the garage. I worked at EIC out without a hat. 72 hats, I have. at Lount and they made solenoids for Trouble is, people started giving submarines and lifts. So when I get me them. I have cut them down a in a lift I always think, “I hope it’s not bit. I’ve chucked a lot away. I’ll knit one of my solenoids, if I get stuck!” I scarves as well. I love scarves. I do just had Roger. I got back trouble. I coathangers and I do blankets and went to this osteopath and he said it all that. I’ve got to do something. I could have happened in the Timber can’t sit not doing anything. I’ve Corps, I don’t know. I was in plaster done all the garden. Quite proud and she said, “I wouldn’t advise you of myself! Got a crocodile in it! My to have any more, Mrs Astle.” I had hairdresser said, “We’re moving to have Roger on reins, because I Bet and he can’t take that crocodile couldn’t walk properly. I suppose I’m with him”. So she brought it ‘round. lucky really that I’m as well as I am. I Then she said he’d got a fairy! Well have got arthritis.

I didn’t know where I was going to put a fairy. I paid somebody to get all those conifers out and then fill it full of rubbish. Look at me, still fetching trees out.

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I started a talk at Swad Library. I People couldn’t believe that I’d finished it when Gordon started gone to Australia on my own. I said, being ill. I did it for 5 years. Well I “What’s the matter with that?” When have never been so frightened: it was we were in the Timber Corps and full of men! And they had to pay to we came through Glossop, there come in. I got used to it. They quite was a landslide and we had to sleep enjoyed it. It was something they’d in the waiting room, we couldn’t never heard of, you see. You’ll find get through. You see, you have to that I do like men! They used to laugh stand on your own feet, which lots of at me in the choir because I always people don’t. They don’t know what used to kiss all the men! There was it is to go on a bus, do they? That’s no harm in it. My husband, he knew. wrong, that.

The Leaside Singers, have you heard of those? I had to come out when my I think you’ve found out that I can husband was ... because I couldn’t talk, have you? You have to shut me keep it up. Now I’m a patron. I miss it up. Me dad used to say, “Shut up because I always love singing. I think Overseal! Let somebody else have a you do in Lancashire. In fact, I’ve got go?” He opened the shop right till he a pin-up as well! Tony Bishop, he’s was 80. He wouldn’t pack it in. He a singer. I talk awful to him, but he did work long hours and that big old doesn’t mind it. He used to call and house killed him. He was a character. see Gordon and when he died he Everybody knew him. came to the funeral and I’ve never forgotten that. You wouldn’t think that because he’s a lady’s man but I remember things like that and I was quite touched. All the ladies run after him. He’s a great sort and he’s a marvellous singer. He does all the old musical comedies. My husband didn’t like musicals, then he didn’t like plays then he didn’t like reading.

He was a very quiet man, he was a painter, that was his hobby. At the funeral, my son, Roger, he said, “You know my dad’s favourite, we’re going to have it.” That was Spike Milligan’s “Ying Tong Song”. They all started laughing.

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I can write a letter about nothing.

That’s the art of letter writing! On the train I used to write pages and pages.

Of course, I don’t do it now because I’m on the phone all the while – my bill is terrible. Once when I came back from Bolton, some schoolgirls got in and they started fighting! This one girl punched this other one and all the blood was coming out of her nose, so I said, “Come here, I think I’ve got some handkerchiefs.” I patched her up and when we got off, she said, “Thanks ever so much for looking after us.” I said, “Well I don’t know why you wanted to fight”, but you see I wrote about that. On a train journey I will write about all I’ve met.

Is that how you should do it? I always wanted to write a book.

SANDRA WYATT

COUNTING TINS

When I was a small child my punishment for anything was to be locked in the cupboard. It was, in fact, a pantry under the stairs where there were lots of tins. I’d count the tins to try and make the time go quicker. When I got to 100 I would start again. I’d see how many I could reach before I was released. My mother used to lock me in the pantry for hours at a time. As well as all the tins, there were cheeses and butter, biscuits and cakes; but I daren’t touch any of them. She would hit me hard if I touched anything. My mum didn’t like me, it’s as simple as that.

My dad never took my side against mum’s; I think he was afraid of her.

When I started work at fifteen at The Standard Soap Factory in Ashby de la Zouch, my pay was £5.2s.6d. Mum had the £5, I had the 2s.6d. This had to get me to work each day and feed me. She wouldn’t put dinner out for me because I wasn’t there to sit down with her and my dad and she wouldn’t allow me to eat later. I had to walk to work and back every day, which I did for about six months. A friend’s mother took pity on me and got me an old bike, which was bliss; but it still didn’t help the situation at home. I always wondered just what I had done to make her feel this way about me. To this day, I still don’t know.

Dad was a miner and they were reasonably well off. Don’t get me wrong, dad would buy me anything I wanted: shoes, clothes etc. But there was never any love. I realise now that perhaps they gave me material things because they couldn’t show me love.

Mum and dad were forty-three years old when they adopted me. I often wonder why they bothered. Even when they died, they left their money to a cousin: mum always said this cousin was a blood relation and I wasn’t. I don’t suppose there are many people who were not wanted by their adopted parents as well as their biological ones. My biological mum was Dutch and dad was German.

They were married and had a son When I was about eight or nine, I who was eleven months old at the was at York Road School. A girl I time I was born. I used to imagine had fallen out with was sitting on they were poor (this being just after one of the old tin dustbins, when the war), with another hungry mouth she turned to me and said, “Well, at to feed; but many years later, I traced least my mum is my real mum, yours the house where I was born. It was isn’t!” I was astounded and didn’t huge and very beautiful so I knew they understand what she meant. I walked couldn’t have been poor. I have looked out of school and went home to ask into finding them and my brother, but mum. It turned out I was adopted.

I gave up years ago. I did find out that Mum said, “We had you because money changed hands over my birth. no one else wanted you.” That has There was a French woman involved, I stayed with me to this day. I can still don’t know much more than that; but remember what mum was wearing I do think somewhere along the line, it when she said those words. wasn’t all legal.

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I DON’T SUPPOSE THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO WERE NOT WANTED BY THEIR ADOPTED PARENTS AS WELL AS THEIR BIOLOGICAL ONES. I have lived in South Derbyshire all my life; I never wanted to move away.

My daughter, Lorraine, hates going to Swadlincote with me, she says I stop every two minutes to talk to people. I suppose I do know a lot of people, especially now with the job I do. I work at Ward & Brewin Funeral Services and have done for the past eight years. I really enjoy it, it is very rewarding helping people when they are at their lowest. I get many testimonials from satisfied clients, which in itself is very satisfying.

You have to be so exact in this job, there’s no room for mistakes. It is not like a wedding or a christening where a rehearsal is held; funerals have to be right first time, there is no second chance. We are, of course, all human and mistakes do happen. Fortunately, we are professional people and a good team and, if a mistake is made, it is picked up before the day of the funeral. Sometimes it can be funny and we have a laugh with people.

We are not morbid or miserable just normal people in a caring profession.

I once ran over my foot wheeling a coffin into the chapel of rest. This came up in conversation with the family and they laughed and said the deceased would have found this incident very funny. You gain

experience from so many funerals and can tell at a glance what sort of family you are dealing with. Some you can have a laugh with, others you want to cry with; they are all so different.

Four years ago I had cancer. It comes as a terrible shock because everyone thinks it happens to other people. Most people think, why me?

What have I done to deserve this? I think, why not me? I am no different to anyone else. I came out of the consulting rooms very positive. I knew I had to deal with it. Three days later, I flew to New York and had a fantastic time. I came home, was operated on and one week later was back at work. Other people found my attitude to the cancer wrong and they couldn’t deal with it the same way.

My marriage of forty years broke up because of this; although, to be honest, I think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Thankfully, we are still good friends and I am now well and happy. The cancer made me a stronger person.

I have two very special and dear children. Lorraine works with me and she has two boys. My son, Robert, has one daughter. He emigrated to 71

the U.S.A. many years ago. I still miss him terribly, but I do visit him and his family every year; twice a year sometimes. He writes computer games for Playstation 3. He has a Pilot’s Licence and his own twoseater Cessna aeroplane. He took me in his plane and we were blown all over the sky. I was terrified; but I did manage to open the window and video the landscape. It was an amazing experience. My biggest disappointment was when Robert decided to give up his British Citizenship, in favour of American.

His wife is American, his daughter was dual nationality; but now they are all Americans.

I have had a good life. I have had to be independent to survive, but survive I did.

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ROSALIND SPALTON

TWO TREES

I would have liked to have gone to art college. I love painting. Painting time for me was always after supper, when all the chores were done.

Landscapes mostly, I copy from pictures, things like calendars or photographs. I’ve painted some portraits. And cattle, I specialised in painting cattle. Not just any old cattle.

We have a beautiful pedigree herd of Dairy Shorthorns. My husband used to judge them in shows around the world: Australia, South Africa.

Breeders used to come from all over the world to see our herd. We met lots of friends, there’s a sort of “herding community”. They’re up for sale soon, although who knows what’ll happen with this new outbreak of Foot and Mouth.

I’ve lived on the land all my life. I suppose I’m the matriarch. When my husband David died we planted a wood in his honour. 130–140 trees – oak, ash, rowan, all sorts. We call it “David’s Wood”.

I’ve had breast cancer and I’ve had M.S. for over 28 years, but I count myself blessed. I suppose I’m a born optimist, I had a happy childhood.

My father was in both World Wars. I because none of my children live was 7 at the time he was called up for further than about 20 miles away. the Second. We were on holiday in Skegness, we had to come back early. In many ways you could argue the work’s got harder. We built up the I had 6 children of my own. They farm from 30 acres to 500 acres; were at home a lot, no immediate but, in many ways, my daughter neighbours, you see, so they had to works harder than I did. Although get along with each other. I could my mother had to look after her own keep them safe and sheltered here, mother as well, which must have it’s easier on a farm. I had a wooden been difficult. Family, partner, friends, spoon, but I never had to use it. We relationships, that’s what really had mealtimes together as a family. matters. I count myself privileged At Sunday breakfast we’d play a to have 16 grand-children and one game of puns around the table. We’d more on the way. My grandchildren play tennis and croquet on the lawn, aren’t my expense, they’re my wealth. although that used to bring out the There’s a camellia stands in a pot worst in everyone. Once I’d learned outside the door of my daughter’s to drive, I’d take all the kids on a house, in memory of young Daniel, bucket and spade holiday. David my grandson. He had a brain tumour, had to stay behind to keep the farm he was only 7. I was with him when working. We had to work long days he died. and I couldn’t give all the kids the same. Life’s not fair. I used to tell My son, Roger, planted two trees for them my job was not to spend, that’s us. That’s me, the horse chestnut, how I contributed to the family. I’d and that’s David, the oak. The oak is do all my own decorating, making tall, dark, its leaves brushed upwards, clothes, curtains, baking, growing straight as a soldier standing to my own vegetables and, of course, attention. The horse chestnut is pale, creating artwork for the walls. with wide leaves like a painter’s hands.

Farming people meet their partners at the Young Farmers’ Club. I’m lucky 73

BETTY MAPLEY, JEAN MASON, PAULINE WARD AND OLIVE WILSON

A POT FOR EVERYTHING BETTY I’m not a miner’s wife, I worked at the Cadley Hill Mine.

My husband was a policeman and we migrated to South Derbyshire with his job. I started in Cadley Hill canteen in 1975. We’d just bought a new house and money was a bit tight on a policeman’s wages, so Les asked me if I wouldn’t mind going out to work for a while to help with the mortgage. He got me the job: he was talking to somebody in the weighbridge at Cadley Hill and they said, “Oh, they want somebody up in the canteen.” So I came down and got the job. I stayed there for 12 years until the year before the pit closed.

It was all women at the cooking and serving side in the canteen. We sometimes had men who had come out of the pit to a job on the surface; they used to clear the tables and clean the canteen. It was the best 12 years of my life. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. The men were such a laugh. Sometimes they’d come in miserable, but by the time they went to work, they were laughing their heads off. I can hear them now trying to knock the door down at 5 o’clock in the morning: “It’s time you were open.” These were men starting the shift. Later we’d got the men coming up from the night shift, then we’d get the afternoon men, then the night men coming in. I didn’t work all day, but we had to cover for holidays.

I didn’t like nights when you were on your own. It was a bit eerie between men coming in and men going home, although there was always a man within shouting distance. It wouldn’t be allowed these days, a lady working on her own on those time shifts.

We won Canteen of the Year! It was super. That was in the days when the Coal Board had all different things happening in Blackpool. They had a “Coal Queen” and a “Canteen of the Year” competition. We went two years on the run because we won the first year we were there and we went the next year as the previous year’s winners. We joined in with them and came second! I don’t think they’d have let us win again. They had a mock-up kitchen on the stage and we had to go around finding mistakes. We were pointed on things found in the kitchen that shouldn’t be there, Health and Safety. I got a Kenwood Chef mixer as my prize when we won.

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SOMETIMES THEY’D COME IN MISERABLE, BUT BY THE TIME THEY WENT TO WORK, THEY WERE LAUGHING THEIR HEADS OFF. I CAN HEAR THEM NOW TRYING TO KNOCK THE DOOR DOWN AT 5 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING: “IT’S TIME YOU WERE OPEN.” BETTY

We can’t talk, same as the men, about mining, can we?

PAULINE I always remember my mother saying, “Look, he’s your husband. You make sure his dinner’s on that table when he comes home from work.

And you do everything.” And I always have.

Today, the girls don’t, they share the work.

BETTY Women didn’t work when we were children.

JEAN I used to make his snap tin up at night. I’d empty it from the day before: “And whose are these knickers then?” He says, “They’ve had them out the rag-bag” and I believed him! The men did that for a bit of fun.

PAULINE I did all the knitting. Now I’m doing cake decorations. That’s something I’ve picked up these last two years.

BETTY We were learnt to cook at school; I don’t think children are these days, are they? We learnt to cook, we learnt to sew, embroider.

PAULINE I had to do the cooking from before I was 11.

JEAN I was the eldest of three. So on a Sunday, I was upstairs changing all the three beds ready for the Monday’s wash. We always seemed to wash on a Monday. My sister was downstairs, she used to help my mum with the meals. When I come to get married, my brother said, “Why is Jean getting married? She doesn’t do cooking”.

Which was true, I didn’t know a lot.

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BETTY

It was having babies I didn’t know anything about. There’d been no babies within our families, either of them. I’d never held a baby until I had mine. You were just lost. You just learnt as you’d go along. You went to clinics.

You used to have them weighed every week and they’d say, “Are you doing this?” and “Are you doing that?” It was a culture shock when I had a baby, very much a culture shock.

PAULINE When I was 16 my mum sent me round to me brother’s house to show his wife how to cook.

She couldn’t do it and I had to show her how to cook a dinner. These are the things you had to do.

OLIVE My mother wasn’t a cook!

JEAN We had strict parents. When we were courting and we used to go out, they’d say, “I want you in by ten o’clock.”

BETTY We stood on the back door step, saying goodnight. The landing window would open and my mother would say, “Betty, in’t it time you were in bed?”

said, “There will never be any more children, this is the only one.” So they kept it; but she’s had four more since!

JEAN I had an aunt down Coronation Street and she had a baby every 11 months. She loved children: “I’m going to have as many as my JEAN One day we’d had a ride over to Chester on grandma.” She had 14. So she had as many as his motorbike - he had an aunt in Chester. On her grandma. She’s got 10 living now. the way back, the other side of Burton, we BETTY I was 21 when I got married. ran out of petrol. So we pushed it so far and JEAN I was 21. there were some cottages with some petrol BETTY But we had long courtships, long engagements. pumps outside. It was all in darkness. So Ivan I was engaged 2 years before I got married. I knocked on the door. “What do you want at was going out with him for 5 years. this time of night?” I said, “We’ve run out of JEAN Ivan had to ask my dad if we could get petrol.” Anyway he came down and knocked a engaged. few doors away and this chap let us have some PAULINE I was with Roger for three and a half years. petrol to get us home. My dad was standing in OLIVE I give mine an ultimatum. I started courting him the middle of the road, because it was 5 to 12. at 18 and my dad said, “Don’t you ask me to “Where the ****!.have you been?” Ivan said, “We get married till you’re turned 21. I was 23 when ran out of petrol, I’m ever so sorry!” “Well, as I got married. I was sick to death of meeting long as you’re all right”. I went straight back in at Swadlincote and walking ‘round the roads. and went to bed.

I said, “We either get married or I’m finishing”.

PAULINE I was grounded for being late.

There wasn’t many houses for sale when we BETTY They kept a strict eye on you. Not so much me got married. We did manage to get this one Dad, but me mother did. down Sandcliffe Road. We’ve been there ever PAULINE Me mam did: “You’re not going out tomorrow since, 54 years this October.

JEAN I met my husband, at someone else’s house. night.”

We was watching pictures one night. We never BETTY Me mother were the boss in our house. went anywhere without Ivan’s friend. Joe says, JEAN They never learnt you much about boys and “Well who are you going out with then?” So I girls at school, not like they do nowadays. I got took Ivan by the hand and says, “I think I’ll try a job at the local school and I was the dinner him”. Do you know, we’ve been together 51 lady for twenty-five years. I was watching the years. children in the playground one day and I said, BETTY

I didn’t used to see a lot of mine because, with “Kelly, what are you doing down there?” She him being a policeman, he was away. He lived said, “Mrs Mason, it’s quite all right. She’s in Ilkeston when I was still at home, so I only having a baby in a minute and it won’t be long.” saw him when his shifts allowed it. Absence She was doing all the breathing, you know, makes the heart grow fonder. There’s only ever seen it on the telly. They were just playing. been him.

I never had anyone else, never. I met OLIVE We were all innocent at school really. We didn’t him at 15, we were still at school. We were really know a lot at all. married at 21. I wouldn’t say it was love at first BETTY One of my friends had a baby when she was 14. sight, but it was attraction at first sight.

We thought it were strange, you know: “How OLIVE I had a boyfriend at school, right until the time can she be having a baby at 14?” We didn’t we left school and then we sort of went our know where babies come from. Her mother different ways. But we’ve remained friends. He must have kept it, because I still know the girl used to come round to the pits with washing up now. Her mum was a lovely woman. Whereas liquid and bleach. in later years a relative had a baby and she was BETTY I remember that! He’d sell it in the foyer. The only 14. She went away to a mother and baby home so none of the neighbours knew she was men would come in for their wages on a Friday pregnant. It was going to be adopted. But when and pick up the bottles of washing up liquid her parents went one day to see her, the doctor and bleach to take home.

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I think they go out too much today. We never went out so there wasn’t the same temptation.

BETTY We used to go to the pictures on a Saturday night and that was it. We never ever went to pubs.

PAULINE Too much freedom nowadays, I think that’s the reason a lot of marriages split up.

I used to go out once a week to the Bingo and it was just up the road from me, a couple of minutes walk. I was there for two hours. When I used to go out the house our Ian used to play up. They used to say, “Forget him and go”. He used to scream every time I went out at night. It was because I never left him, you see.

BETTY It’s good that women have more freedom now.

My man didn’t rule me, but a lot of women were ruled by their husbands years ago. Being a policeman’s wife, I saw a lot and heard a lot. Les was on nights and somebody came knocking at my back door. I came downstairs in my nightie, opened the back door and there was a man in just a pair of trousers. His wife had locked him out of the house. It was teeming with rain, so I invited him in. I got in trouble later. I went round to the Police station and they contacted Les. He took him back home and got it sorted out. He was ruled by his wife; whereas normally it was the other way ‘round. You did see a lot of men who used to beat their wives.

OLIVE A lot used to spend all their money on drink before they got home.

PAULINE I think there’s less of that now.

JEAN

BETTY

It was well hidden. It was kept behind closed doors, but people knew about it. When I lived at Netherseal, there was a couple next door and you used to dread him coming home, because you knew what was going to happen. And with Les being a copper, he used to have to go ‘round and tell him. But he still beat his wife up; it was booze.

PAULINE We knew the ones that were beating their wives. It was hard for a woman to leave; they’d nowhere to go, had they?

BETTY If you’d got children. You couldn’t go back to your mum and dad, because they wouldn’t want you.

OLIVE “You made your bed, you lie on it!”

PAULINE That’s what I was told.

I LOVED WORKING WITH THE WOMEN AND HAVING A LAUGH; BUT WHEN THEY PUT ME THERE, IT DID ME, BEING ON MY OWN. 77

PAULINE Years later, I went to the Biscuit Factory to get my money for the washing machine. I had to go down my mother’s every week and wash until I could afford it. I had a “Rolls”, a “Rolls” washer: PAULINE a twin-tub.

I would have loved to have been a hairdresser. All my BETTY I went there to get a fridge. When I’d paid for it, friends, I used to set their hair with sugar and water. I that was it, I packed it in. used to make waves in their hair, it used to look lovely.

JEAN We never had anything and I worked. When I says to me mum, “I want to be a hairdresser.” “You’re I got married I went part time and then at going in a factory, you’re doing no hairdressing; I want odd times he’d ask, “Could you make a bit of some money off you.” She said it wouldn’t make anything overtime?” So I’d do a bit of overtime and we so I had to go to the factory and that was it. It was awful saved for a fridge. Before that, I used to put really. my milk in a bucket of cold water. I got my first fridge from the overtime money.

When I worked at the Biscuit Factory, I was on this one OLIVE You never had anything that you couldn’t pay job and I hated it. I was standing on my own all day. You for, did you? I can remember when we went can imagine: from 8 in the morning till 5 at night; it was into our first home, we’d got nothing by the driving me mental. I was having nightmares. I got up on time we’d put the deposit on a house. We this Friday morning and I said, “I might be home today, just had bare furniture from Salts (we saved Mam.” “You’d better not be!” I said, “If I’m on that job on our Salts’ card). But you didn’t mind, you again, I’m not stopping.” “You’d better not come home” didn’t bother about your house not being Anyway I went in and said, “Where am I today, Doreen?” carpeted from room to room. You did it and you “Down the corner room where you was.” I says, “I’m going appreciated it. I don’t think they appreciate it home.” So I put my coat on and I went straight home. I now like we did, because they’ve got to have walked in and my mum says, “What you doing here?” I everything all at once. said, “I’m not having that job!” She said, “Come on, get JEAN I’d got a little cleaning job when my son was your coat on, we’re going down to Bonas’s.” It was a tape about 11. One of my neighbours wanted help factory at Castle Gresley. So I went straight down Bonas’s for a few hours a week. So I went two mornings and got a job there. You’d got the choice of two or three and I got £2 for 6 hours work in one week. To jobs in them days; but it was still quite fiery of me. I loved me, that seemed a lot. I used to put that on one working with the women and having a laugh; but when side. I thought, that will buy my son something they put me there, it did me, being on my own. when he needs it.

YOUR RENT MONEY WAS ON ONE SIDE, YOU MADE SURE YOU’D GOT YOUR RENT, THEN YOUR INSURANCE WOULD GO IN ANOTHER POT....

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PAULINE When we had our first house, we put a deposit down and we’d got no furniture. Oh, I’m telling a lie. We bought a new bedroom suite and a second-hand bed. We bought a 3 piece suite, £2 10 shillings, that’s the old money. We bought an old table that had got nails sticking up in it and Roger had to fetch ‘em all out. I think the chairs were half a crown each and the table was fifty old pence. That’s what we started off with. We were in a house at Newhall. It was our own, but I hadn’t even got anything on the floor so my mother-in-law bought me some lino. We were ever so poor really.

OLIVE Every week I had housekeeping. I still have it even now.

BETTY My husband paid all the bills, then I had money for food. He was paid into the bank, being a policeman, so it was always there every month.

PAULINE I think I had £3 a week. I paid the food out of it and all the household things and Roger paid the bills.

JEAN My husband pays the bills now, but I’ve always been a very good housekeeper.

BETTY You had to be, didn’t you?

JEAN I remember my dad used to come up and sweep our chimney. I used to get him a bag of sugar and a quarter of tea, that was his payment. Your rent money was on one side, you made sure you’d got your rent, then your insurance would go in another pot....

PAULINE I used to have pots and I still do now.

JEAN We had a television, you know, when the Queen got married, the Coronation. It was the first television at home. When my dad got the holiday money, he said, well we couldn’t have a holiday, your treat was a day out with the Sunday school.

OLIVE Women had their own bill to pay when the Poll Tax came in. They used to come into the office in tears. I said, “The problem is, you put all your money in your purse. Get little tins or something and put it out and what you’ve got left is yours.”

I used to feel sorry because it was the worst thing that ever came in, the Poll tax, it was awful. I wouldn’t like to go through that again. I didn’t like to see people in tears.

PAULINE Roger used to say, “How are you going to pay yours?” because I wasn’t working.

JEAN We go out now though, don’t we? We go on holiday. We’ve just come back off holiday.

PAULINE We’re enjoying life.

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JEAN I was about 15 when I got my first job. I worked for United Biscuits, but it was the crisp factory. They made the crisps in coppers. We used to do the potatoes ready for the crisps and you put them in a copper and you had a big wooden spoon, stirring them all up. When they were cooked, you got them out and put them in like a spin drier, spin all the fat off, then put them on the belt. They’d go up on the belt and then come down into bags. There was four machines and as the crisps came down, they’d go on a little conveyor belt. You’d just pop it on like that, and there were people dropping the salt in, a blue bag of salt. Then people were packing them. In the September we went down on another floor to pack biscuits that are in the shops at Christmas. When you’d done your quota (120 double layers or if you did single layers, 200), you could go home. Well, we started at 7.15am and we finished at 4.45pm. We’d got nine varieties of biscuits in front of us. We didn’t finish our quota every day. By the time we’d finished, you’d got to fetch your biscuits from ‘round the corner and stock up for the next day. All the money I got was about £2 and 7shillings a week. I gave my mum £2, I had the 7 shillings. Out of that, I had to walk a mile for the bus, There were no lights whatsoever up the lane. So my dad said, “You give me a half a crown a week and I’ll put half a crown to it,” and we went to Curry’s at Swad and we put money down on a bike and paid weekly.

MY CAREER WAS SORTED OUT FOR ME: “YOU’RE GOING INTO SERVICE”.

AND THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED. I DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE. THAT WAS THE DONE THING. YOU’D GO INTO SERVICE BECAUSE THAT PUT YOU ON THE RIGHT TRACK. When the miners were on strike, the electric went off at eight at night. With having a coal fire, you’d have your kettle ready and you could do some toast on the fire. We had candles, but I’d rigged me a light up with old batteries. We had a good light.

BETTY At Cadley, we worked during the last strike.

PAULINE All the striking miners came down, didn’t they?

BETTY I was going to work the one morning - I was picked up at 4am by a Coal Board van. I got in the van and he says, “Bit of trouble down at Cadley this morning, Betty, just be careful.” We got down to Cadley Hill crossroads and turned the corner and I have never seen so many men in my life! They’d got a small opening for us to go down, they couldn’t go through the pit gates because they were stopping them. I had to get out of the van, go through the men and up a little path to the back door of the canteen. I got a bit of language but nobody stopped me or touched me. They followed us, but as soon as we got in through the back door, we locked the door. It was very, very scary.

JEAN

PAULINE I’d got Roger at Cadley and my son was at Donisthorpe, so it was double worry. When Roger used to go, I used to stand on my doorstep - I was at Linton and this was at Cadley and I could hear the men from that distance. It really used to frighten me. But they went to work every day.

BETTY They had a lot of police presence.

PAULINE Oh, they did, yes. And it’s a good job they did, really.

BETTY I was in 2 camps. I was working and my husband was in the Police. He was coming home with some stories. We still enjoyed it, going to work during the strike. The men wanted to work and we fed them. You’d got to.

PAULINE Roger had got it bad because he was on the staff. When they’re on the staff they have to go in, because it’s safety in the mines. He said, one day there were all these men behind him and he said, “Come on chaps, if you want to go in, come with me.” He was going forward with his head down and he said, “ I looked back and they’d all gone back. I was on my own. Nobody had come through with me.” They were too frightened.The abuse was terrible.

BETTY But that was all they got, abuse, wasn’t it? I don’t think many people were attacked.

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PAULINE No, not ‘round here.

JEAN They didn’t get a lot of money did they, when they were on strike? We had to cut down on the food. Where you’d probably have a piece of beef before, we’d have a piece of belly pork. It was surprising how belly pork was very cheap then and you could make a good meal. We never went into debt.

PAULINE Our daughter lived near the mine at Cadley, so we daren’t go to the house. If they’d have seen Roger, what would have happened to her home? Terrible really, when you can’t go near your own daughter. That’s the way it was.

BETTY We used to feed the police at Cadley. Imagine what it was like when they saw coaches full of policemen coming in through the gate?

PAULINE I know Roger said one day he went in through the gates in his car and they were trying to stop him. He said he nearly knocked a policeman down, trying to get through. He said, “I felt awful, but I’d just got to keep going.” And there were different men who were taking these miners through the back way and they ostracised them when they got back to work.

BETTY There were some men that didn’t work, weren’t there?

PAULINE There wasn’t many.

BETTY And then they shut us down. Sad, but not surprising; they knew it was coming.

PAULINE They intended it happening, didn’t they?

BETTY For a while, they were spending thousands on the pit - a new bike shed and a new car park.

And then it went.

PAULINE I know Roger said they did a record turnover of coal and they still closed it. So they were intending doing it.

BETTY There’s still millions of tons down there.

PAULINE There’s a great big tunnelling machine. They’ve had to leave it underground, they couldn’t get that out.

BETTY Swadlincote went downhill for a while. There just wasn’t the money around. Shopkeepers felt it because the miners were well paid in those days. It’s back on its feet again now, well, fairly.

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OLIVE My career was sorted out for me: “You’re going into service”. And that’s what happened. I didn’t have a choice. That was the done thing. You’d go into service because that put you on the right track. I did have a good place with Mr and Mrs Paget. They’d got two little girls and they hadn’t got a nanny. I loved it. But I was only there six months. I’d got an uncle on a farm and he’d lost his wife. There was him and his son. My dad said, “You can go housekeep for your uncle at the farm.” Age fourteen and a half, this was. I’d got no choice because he took my dad and his young brother in, when they were left orphans. So I’d got to go and look after him. He was a butcher and I used to have to do the dairy out, scrub his butcher’s baskets and all that sort of thing. It was hard work and I was there till I was 21. My mother had to pay a full stamp for me. I had 5 shillings a week pocket money, which my dad used to contribute to, because my uncle, well, it was peanuts what he was paying me.

After I’d had my children, I got a job as a rent collector at South Derbyshire District Council. I did 25 years for them altogether. I was taken off the road after 13 years because they said we weren’t safe carrying the money.

It was an eye-opener and I loved it. I did market rents as well. Going ‘round, there were some lovely people. They were still friendly with me, although I was collecting the rent. They still are when I see them in the street now. It was lovely. Oh, you got odd ones, yes, who wouldn’t pay.

You’d have to go back because the Treasurer said, “You must go back and see if you can get something from them.” You knew you weren’t going to get anything, but they were nice. If you couldn’t collect the rent, they used to send the bailiffs ‘round in the end. I enjoyed it because of the people that I met. A lot of them, their husbands were miners. I did all ‘round this district and knew a lot of them. I did Castle Gresley. I only did Hatton and Hilton twice, but everybody was nice. South Derbyshire people are the salt of the earth, they really are. A spade’s a spade. But I wouldn’t like to do it now, mind. That’s how times have changed.

I REMEMBER ONE LOCAL FAMILY, AFTER THEY HAD THEIR PORTRAIT DONE AND THEY HAD THE PICTURE, THEY SAID, “YOU TAKE ORDINARY PEOPLE AND YOU MAKE THEM LOOK SPECIAL.”

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BETTY RICE

A SLOW REVEAL

Come into my garden. Look how the water’s gone down in the pond with the hot weather. I planned it all out.

I knew what I wanted in my garden and I got it. It takes a long time to get what you have in your mind to come out. This is the entrance to my secret garden. I like it when you come across things unexpectedly. I like to keep it private. I don’t like people to know what sort of a house it is. It doesn’t look anything special from the front, that’s how I like to keep it. I suppose I’m a private person really.

My name is Betty Rice. I’m always known as Betty, but my real name is Beatrice.

I’ve lived here 60 years. I was born in feeling I have. I can really tell when Swadlincote. I’ve never moved out of the time is right to take the picture. the area, but I’ve certainly not stayed There’s a special moment – that’s in the area either. I’ve been all over the portrait. I loved photographing the country with my work; although children; they were such a challenge. people usually came to me. From People would come to me for years Scotland, Ireland, I had some people and years. I was one of the earliest who used to come every other year photographers to do family portraits. from New York to have their portraits I remember one local family, after taken. I don’t think I chose portrait they had their portrait done and photography, I think it chose me. they had the picture, they said, Some photographers go for industry “You take ordinary people and you or whatever, but I love people. I make them look special.” I’ve never always found them so interesting and forgotten that, I was so touched by I seem to have a knack of getting on it. I think it’s more of a challenge to well with people. It’s getting people photograph ordinary people than to relax, be themselves. I spend celebrities. I don’t think you can do it time with people and encourage unless you’re genuinely interested in them to talk. There’s a special people. If that’s not there, it’s false.

Sometimes people would come to me and say, “Can I just talk to you?”

I knew so many people and I never repeated anything. It’s amazing the people who came. I listened and I felt it was helping them. I took my time but that was immaterial. I liked that feeling.

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When I took my first photograph to enter a Burton Art Club competition, I did a 10 x 8 inches, which was the first bigger picture I’d done. It was a close-up of the big handle on one of the doors at Lichfield Cathedral. I got the first prize for beginners. I was quite overwhelmed by that. I’d never done a 10 x 8, developed and printed it before. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

It all started because a couple of Things progressed from there. Sadly friends of ours were getting married my husband died when he was 55, and they asked me if I’d take the so I had to totally be on my own and wedding photographs. One thing work. Eventually I went to London led to another, as it does. When my to a photographic seminar, where I youngest was 5 and going to school, was invited to be part of the London I went to Derby College of Art for one Portrait Group. That was quite day a week and it became more and prestigious and led to lots of other more enthralling really. I felt it was a exciting things. I was fortunate and wonderful thing. You see, I’m talking met so many interesting people. I about quite a long time ago, 55 years. met people from the States, which So often a woman was left with the was exciting because they had a children and you weren’t your own different idea of photography to we person. There was only one other Brits and, again, I learned a great woman there at the time. I was told deal. I became fairly well-known by the men, “You’d better go home really. I was very grateful for how and get on with your knitting.” Well it all happened. There are far more that didn’t go down very well with women photographers now than me. I persevered and I learnt an when I started. I was a very unusual awful lot. I was there for five years. female, because it was all men. In My husband, Geoffrey, taught at fact, when I was in the London Derby Art School. That’s not where Portrait Group there was only one we met, it was a long time before other woman who ran her own studio. then. He was a research chemist, but I had my studio here at home. I was he was interested in photography a Soroptimist at the time so I used and went to the College of Art in the to stay at their club in the West evening. They asked him to teach End. Soroptimists are like female photography, to run the chemical side Rotarians - they were women only and existed before Rotarians. You of things. He was terribly interested in microscopes. He was very popular had to be a woman, who, in whatever she did, she had to be the best in but he liked his darkroom. He was her field. So again it was quite a a very good photographer, but a good thing to happen to you. Burton different style to me.

Soroptimists raised money for charity.

For example, we raised money for a well somewhere in India, where they had no water. The women had to walk miles to get any water and carry it on their shoulders.

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One day I remember a lady came into my studio and said, “I want you to photograph my twins”. I think they were eight months old at the time and were the same age as her first born I’d photographed some years before. I thought, “She seems different, but I don’t know what’s the matter or why she’s so different to when she first came”. Eventually, when the photographs were ready, she came to collect them. She didn’t say a word, just picked them up, paid and went away. About three months later she came in again and said, “Mrs. Rice, I had to come and see you. You’ve changed my life.” I thought, “What have I done?” She said, “I brought them because you photographed my firstborn at the same age. My husband said he wanted you to do the same for the twins. I hated those children. I really hated them. I couldn’t see anything nice about them. I couldn’t bear the sight of them. I felt dreadful, but that was how I was. When I saw your portrait of my twins, I thought, they’re lovely! And from then on I’ve loved them. You really have made such a difference in my life”. You see, you don’t know what happens behind the scenes, do you? Those things you do remember, you really do.

I WAS TOLD BY THE MEN, “YOU’D BETTER GO HOME AND GET ON WITH YOUR KNITTING.” When I retired people would still phone me. I had to retire because somebody ran into the back of my car and damaged my spine.

I was told if I didn’t stop doing photography (because you have a studio stand and you are leaning over all the time), if I didn’t give it up, I wouldn’t be walking within two years. I carried on for another six months, but soon realised this was not very sensible. Mind you, I often did things that weren’t very sensible.

When someone said, “You can’t do it,” I immediately did it. Nothing like having a challenge, is there?

It broke my heart, and that sounds exaggerated, but I didn’t want to give it up. I really didn’t. I felt like half my life was taken away. It was so special to me and I love people. The phone kept ringing and I kept saying, “I’m sorry, but I’ve retired.” They kept saying, “Ah, but we always come to you!” Often I’d photograph whole generations of families. People would come along when they were children with their parents and I’d see them again and again over the years until they would bring their own children.

It was lovely getting to know families.

I built up a special rapport with them.

I used to have my photographs all around the house. But when I had to stop, the photographs were all taken out of their frames. I had a cleaner at the time and I asked her to tear them up. I couldn’t do it myself. I had every single one destroyed. I couldn’t bear the sight of them, it hurt too much.

I was always interested in anything to do with gardens. Come into my summerhouse. It used to be my retreat from work. For my own pleasure, I used to take landscape photographs. And I used to paint. I never thought I had any talent, but my husband always believed in me.

I promised Geoffrey, just before he died, that I would carry on painting.

It was a real lifeline when I had to stop the photography. I like painting landscapes on site; although I did get viral pneumonia once, painting a landscape in Wales. I remember when I first started photography, in their studios most photographers would use Old Masters as backgrounds. I always preferred to paint my own because I wanted my backgrounds to be special to me.

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Photography is so easy today.

Everything has been simplified. You don’t have to learn as much as we did. So many now have digital cameras and get splendid results; I think I got more out of photography.

It was more of a challenge in many ways. You felt you’d achieved something. There’s the excitement of exposure that you don’t get with digital photography. It’s a different feeling for the photographer, more of a slow reveal. There’s a lot of skill involved in the way you reveal images.

I only have one photograph on display, of Geoffrey. It was taken in Derbyshire when we’d gone for a weekend with friends, three weeks before he died. We have two sons and a daughter. I never re-married; I had no inclination whatsoever.

I suppose there are lots of my photographs out there in the world, in people’s lives. Lots of people still stop me in the street and say, “You took my photograph or you took my daughter’s photograph.” I still have cameras and enjoy taking pictures on holiday and of my own family.

KERRY HIBBERT, KAREN PRESTON AND KATIE FARMER

KERRY

KATIE KERRY

KATIE KERRY

SPIDERS AND SNAKES When I went to register my son’s birth, we didn’t want his father on the Birth Certificate.

They said “`If they were going to put him on both parents had to be present.” But I didn’t want him on there. I do know the father, but I don’t want anything to do with him. My son’s father was really violent in the relationship and obviously we didn’t want him to have anything to do with us. I was advised that he shouldn’t be put on it. If I claimed maintenance through the Child Support Agency, he has got rights; but I don’t. Still today, now, he uses my son against me. I‘ve given him so many chances to see his little boy and he’s overridden it every time. It comes to a point where that’s got to stop.

Boys are immature, mine’s really immature. I think as soon as you hit your teenage, that’s it, girls grow up quicker than boys.

I look at my sister now at fourteen, I was nothing like her. I mean I never wore make-up or took an interest in boys. I mean, they hang out with all the boys and that. We did, but they’re getting boyfriends. She’s always doing her hair and make-up. I was nothing like that.

I never wore makeup till I was about 15.

I was 16 when I started wearing make-up and doing my hair. When I was at school I didn’t think about it. I didn’t have a boyfriend till I was about 16.

KATIE

KAREN KATIE KAREN KATIE

KAREN

86

Sometimes girls say, “I’ve got a boyfriend”, but they haven’t really got a boyfriend, it’s just to fit in. It’s like people doing drugs as well. At the end of the day, they only do it to fit in.

I’ve been on and off with my little girl’s father since about the age of 10.

I’m about to have a little girl.

I’ve known him since I was 4. We went out together and it was, like, stupid going out, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got a boyfriend, look at me!”

I’ve known the father of my baby since I was 16. I went out with him when I was 16, then we finished with each other and then we had no contact with each other for nearly 2 years.

When it was my 18th birthday we met up and we just went from there. Four - six months down the line, I was pregnant. It was the worst time of my life. He said he’d never ever leave me, now I’m panicking because I’m on my own.

I know I’ve got family and everything to support me, but it’s not the same as having a father figure for the baby, because every baby needs a father figure.

I think it puts you off having another relationship. Where I am right now, I don’t want one, because I don’t see the point because all it does is cause hassle.

At least, where I’m at now, all I have to think about is me and my daughter Hallie and that’s it. I haven’t got to worry about anybody else.

SOMETIMES GIRLS SAY, “I’VE GOT A BOYFRIEND,” BUT THEY HAVEN’T REALLY GOT A BOYFRIEND, IT’S JUST TO FIT IN. KATIE KAREN KATIE

KAREN

KERRY KATIE KERRY KATIE KERRY KATIE KAREN

That is the good thing, isn’t it?

We never argue over it. I never stop him from seeing her. It’s not an issue.

I know mine won’t see her. He’s not interested.

If he turns up when she’s born, he wouldn’t even be standing! My mum would get in there first. I wouldn’t even have to throw a punch, she’d throw one for me! First thing he’s got to do is get through all my family.

My ex did that though, didn’t he? He backed out when he found out I was pregnant, then he started talking to me when I was about 6 months. Then when she was born, he was completely different.

It scares them.

He was with me the first four - five months of being pregnant.

How old is he?

Eighteen.

So he’s still young.

He’s younger than me by 12 months.

I’m nearly a whole year older than my ex. He’s 19 this month and I’m 20 in September.

KERRY KAREN KERRY KAREN KATIE

KAREN

KERRY KAREN

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I’m 20. Was he in the year below you at school then?

No. Was he in the same year?

Yes. I don’t know why, I prefer younger boys. I’d prefer a toy boy than an older man. Older men are more mature but…I don’t go out on the town any more anyway.

I tried to go out quite a few times, but I can’t relax any more. I just can’t chill out and enjoy myself because I’m constantly paranoid about getting a phone call to say there’s something wrong with Hallie. So I just end up looking like a nervous wreck and having one drink, just one bottle all night. The last couple of times I’ve been out I’ve been back home at 12 o’clock.

I used to be, but not now. It’s a break, it’s an escape. It’s nice to get away and just go out and have a laugh. My son Jacob is 16 months.

Hallie’s only 6 months.

WHEN I WAS AT HOME, FOR THE FIRST FEW MONTHS, I FELT THAT MY MUM WAS BEING A MUM TO ME AND MY SON, AND SHOWING ME THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. WELL I WANTED TO BRING MY SON UP A DIFFERENT WAY TO HOW I WAS BROUGHT UP. KERRY

KATIE KERRY KATIE KERRY

KATIE

I didn’t go out when I first had him, up until he was about 6 or 7 months old. Every now and then I’d go out, but as he’s got older, I go out more now.

I think I’ll cry if I don’t get out. I’ll sit there dragging my hair out. I’ll say, if I’m coming out I want to take the baby with me.

I still have a good time. It’s just knowing that you’re coming back to your little boy at the end of the night. I live on my own.

I live with my parents.

It’s ok to have my own independence. When I was at home, for the first few months, I felt that my mum was being a mum to me and my son, and showing me the way it should be. Well I wanted to bring my son up a different way to how I was brought up.

My mum will probably drive me up the wall; she drives me up the wall as it is. She’ll be doing this and that and I’ll have to say, ”It’s my child, I’ll do what I want with him.” My dad’s the same: “You’re 18, you do as I say.” I say, “I don’t think so. If I’m 18, I’m an adult. I do as I please, when I please.” I sit there really bored because I’ve got nothing to do. The house is silent.

KAREN

KERRY KAREN KERRY

88

I’d like a few minutes silence where I could just be quiet, where I could just sit down. It’s difficult when you have a baby; you think you can be quiet, but you can’t. And I live on my own. My partner’s only just moved out, he’s been moved out about two weeks. I’ve enjoyed being on my own being able to do stuff on my own, in my own time, and my sister’s been up loads.

My sister’s been up loads and loads of times.

She’s coming tonight.

Mine came up yesterday. She’s like, “Oh, I’ll come up again in a week”. She’s texted me today, “Are you coming down?”

When I was at home, I’d argue all the time with my family. I was really immature. We’d love to get the reactions from them and wind them up. A lot has happened obviously in my family and it’s made us all grow up. I think my brother and sister are really good like that. The change I saw in my brother when I had my little boy was amazing. He’s always helpful and looks out for him, with him being younger. He’s 18.

My sister’s always asking to baby-sit and never leaves us alone. I thought she’d moved in the other week. It was like, “Are you going home tonight?” “No”.

KAREN

KATIE

KAREN KATIE KAREN

I’ve got a twin sister, Karla. Everyone says we are identical, but I don’t think we are. Karla knew I was pregnant. She came up to me and said, “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” I hadn’t said a word. She already had the feeling that I was pregnant. The day my waters broke she stood in my kitchen and said she had stomach ache. She said, “You’re going to go into labour tonight” and I did. So it was kind of freaky. Then we realised when she came up yesterday, we’d both been having the same dream on the same night, where something happens to Hallie and both of us turn up, but we don’t know what happens after that, it goes completely blank.

That’s well freaky! We just looked at each other.

“Yeah, let’s not talk about that.” She’s changed loads, Karla has, towards me. We used to fall out all the time, obviously. She has changed really dramatically. She comes up quite a lot and helps me out. She didn’t used to come up a lot when I was with my ex because she doesn’t like him. They used to fall out. I’ve changed towards her as well. She’ll go out every weekend if she gets the chance. I don’t, but she can’t accept that I’ve changed that way.

Whereas before, I used to go out with her, now she asks me to go out and I say, “I don’t want to, I don’t feel like it.” She’s like, “Yeah, but you need to.” But I don’t want to, so I’ve changed towards her in that way. Other than that, the change has been for the good.

All my brothers and sisters are younger, apart from my step-sister. Mum had a still-born boy as well, it’s his birthday today, he would have been16. Everyone knows. It’s hard for my mum though.

I’m hoping that I will be a midwife one day, because I’m going to college in September.

I might see you in about six years time, me lying on the bed in front of you!

I was thinking about it at school, but I left school early so I never got GCSE’s or anything.

They told me that there was no chance that I could go to any college or anything like that to do midwifery. They’ve told me now that I can do “Access to Higher Education” to get a grade in what I need to be a midwife and then do the second year with Burton College at Burton Hospital, but I don’t know if I’m planning on doing that straight away. Probably wait till Hallie’s gone to school.

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KERRY

KATIE KERRY

I’d like to run a care home. I’ve always done care work. I looked after my dad’s nan when I was 16. At 17, I worked in care homes, before I was pregnant. At first I just did, like, cooking for them and cleaning. I was working in a mental health home. I did go back to work, but my mum was having to have Jacob all the time and I felt bad because she’s had her children.

It worked out I was working for £1/hour. I got discriminated against for not working and when I worked I got discriminated again.

When I’m older, I’ll have a car. Probably be with a new partner. Have more children, if I want any more.

My dad’s nan was 95 when she died. She was my great grandmother and Jacob’s great great grandmother. I had two weeks to go with Jacob and she kept saying to me, “When are you going to have him?” I said, “I’m not due yet.”

She hung on just until I’d had him and then three or four days later, she died. Every time I went round she was saying, “When are you having him? When are you having him? Come on, get him out, I need to see him!”

KATIE

KERRY KATIE KAREN KATIE KATIE

KERRY

KAREN

I looked after my grandmas (my great grandma and my grandma) from the age of 8. I was injecting insulin at the age of 8, syringing it up every morning for my grandmas, who were both diabetic, and taking their blood sugar levels. My mum lived in Newhall and we lived in Gresley. As soon as my grandma died she moved up here near to us, like six houses away. My great grandma died of something she inhaled in the War - her feet were purple. She used to talk about the War all the time, it used to drive me up the wall! 1913 she was born. I’m not sure what she was actually doing. I know her husband was fighting as well. I think she was actually a nurse. She was a model as well in the War, I’ve got photos of her as a model.

I want to work as an elderly care person. The only thing I can’t do is lay them out because my great grandma, I watched her die in my arms.

Obviously in elderly care, you have to lay them out; but if it ever happened to me, I’d sit there crying, because I did when my grandma died. It was in the hospital. We were allowed to visit till 8pm and she died at about 7.55pm. I was lying next to her and I said, “I love you grandma, now go.”

It’s like when my nan died, she knew she was going and just held my grandma’s and her other daughters’ hands and said, “Right girls, this is it now. I’m going.” And just dropped dead.

My grandad died before I was born - my dad’s dad. I’ve still got my mum’s mum.

KAREN KERRY

KAREN KERRY KATIE KAREN

KERRY

KAREN

90

When my grandma was 24, they thought she was dead and put her in the hospital morgue.

They put in there and she was alive. She sat up in the coffin and this bloke went down and screamed. She sat there moaning to herself for ages. She was just sitting there in this coffin moaning. So when she died in my arms, I didn’t know what to think. I was shaking her, saying “Grandma, don’t piss me about,” even though I’d told her to go.

That’s scary.

It is really heartbreaking though thinking about it. She always said she wanted to see my 18th birthday, but she never got to see my 17th.

My worst fear is finding a spider in the bath!

I can’t stand anything creepy-crawly, not even an ant. I scream at ants. The only thing I’m not scared of is a wasp. But I love snakes. I’ve had one four foot, and really heavy, around my back and down to the floor.

I’m petrified of spiders. If there’s one in the house I won’t go in that room.

My friend’s got a tarantula and I’ve made her move it, because I said that every time I come in you can see it. She’s got snakes and two massive iguanas. I’m like this, sitting there, shaking all the time.

I can’t even go in the same room if I know there’s tarantulas in there. No way!

She says, “It’s locked up, but every time it moves, you flinch.” I say, “I know, but the thought of it...”

I think my biggest fear is becoming a parent.

Sometimes I sit there and I want to give up, because I don’t know if I really want the baby.

I think everybody thinks that when they first have a baby. You don’t know if you’re going to be a good mum or if you’re going to be able to be there all the time when they need you. At first I was petrified, thinking, “Oh great, how am I going to do this?” But you get yourself into a routine every day, so you get yourself used to it.

Then all those fears just kind of go.

To be honest, I still get scared now with Jacob.

I don’t know what he’s going to do next. He’s changing every day, always learning something new. I’m worried if I am bringing him up right.

I do. Every day I always sit there and I think, “Am I doing it right?”

I THINK EVERYBODY THINKS THAT WHEN THEY FIRST HAVE A BABY. YOU DON’T KNOW IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE A GOOD MUM OR IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO BE THERE ALL THE TIME WHEN THEY NEED YOU. KERRY

KATIE KERRY KATIE

I don’t think I do right at times, because I suppose, well, he is quite naughty - he’s not naughty, he just wants a lot of attention. When you snap at him, you sit there and think, “I shouldn’t have done that”.

I’d feel guilty for shouting at them.

If I’m going through a bad time, I think I show it to him.

Soon as I get stressed, I can’t cope with anything.

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KAREN KERRY

KAREN KATIE

You don’t have time to be selfish.

Having Jacob, though, I suppose he was the best thing I ever did. I was three months pregnant before I even knew, and I’ve done a lot with having him.

I think my best thing, it’s got to be holding Hallie for the first time.

I don’t know, I’ve not had one yet.

SHEILA CATO

THE CRUSHING

The puddle on the hall floor was larger than usual and the stench was nauseating. It was the second time that week and Ellen was becoming concerned. Poor old Jess, she can’t help it, Jack must have forgotten to let her out before he came to bed.

It had been another late night for him, being with new clients was taking up a lot of his time and energy. It was a blessing the tiny flat had a second bedroom so that he could come home without disturbing her.

She’d left all the moving arrangements to him, the letting of their house, the name change for the service bills, the forwarding address at the Post Office. He was so much better at all these things which he often pointed out to her and their friends. Ellen was happy to go along with his ideas since it was he who provided the money for their comfortable lifestyle.

Since their move from Edinburgh a couple of months earlier, Ellen spent hours shopping in Derby trying to fill a void. She missed her friends, the long lunches, the squash club, the social activities of the golf club that Jack belonged to but it wasn’t for ever. He had assured her, at most, it would be a year while one of the firm’s managers took a well earned sabbatical and it was a promotion for Jack, if only temporary.

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Ellen spent the morning tidying the flat and as she made Jack’s bed from the previous night, a folder slipped from under the cover, it wasn’t like Jack to leave work documents about.

He never talked about his job and Ellen sometimes wondered how he treated his clients. On an impulse, she opened the folder and flicked through a few pages. She knew nothing about corporate finance and wasn’t really interested. At the bottom of one page she noticed a telephone number scrawled across one corner and the name Rosie underneath it. She stiffened briefly, she assumed all Jack’s clients were men. Feeling slightly guilty, she mused she had no reason to doubt him. During the six years they had been married, he had always been generous although his attitude towards her where sex was concerned had changed over the past few months. His romantic approaches had become selfish demands and if she meekly made excuses, he persisted until she found it easier to submit and get it over with. It meant she was seldom satisfied and there had been times when he was so rough she had

AT THE BOTTOM OF ONE PAGE SHE NOTICED A TELEPHONE NUMBER SCRAWLED ACROSS ONE CORNER AND THE NAME ROSIE UNDERNEATH IT. been sore for days. His behaviour puzzled Ellen but reluctantly she forgave him every time as on each occasion he was the worse for drink and denied his brutal behaviour the following day.

Throughout the day the thought of Rosie nagged at her until she finally succumbed to curiosity. She dialled the first seven digits of the phone number and stopped, this was madness, it was better not to know the truth. Later that day she tried again.

A steamy voice answered, “Lola’s Massage Parlour. Which service did you want?”

Caught off guard, Ellen replied, “I’m not sure.”

“Well, dear, who’s it for?”

“Jack …. Jack Carter,” Ellen blurted out in a blind panic.

“Yes, dear, one of our regulars …. usual girl? Let’s see …. Rosie’s free tomorrow evening.”

Ellen hastily murmured, “I’ll tell him”, and still clutching the phone staggered to the nearest chair, her mind in a whirl. She felt nauseous and frightened. How could a decent man like Jack resort to using a massage parlour?

A few days later, she was lazing over breakfast when the phone rang.

A cheery voice said, “Just rang to say sorry to hear the news, I’ll miss you.”

“Louise, how are you? What are you talking about?”

A slight pause followed. “Your house, of course …I saw it in the local paper…. it’s been sold …. you won’t be coming back.”

She took Jess for a long walk around Darley Park after dinner, thoughts of the ‘usual girl’ uppermost in her “No, no,” Ellen managed to stammer. mind. The Spring air acted like a “Look, Louise, can I ring you later? purifier and channelled the chaos of Can’t talk … someone’s here.” her thoughts into a rational scenario.

Jack was obviously stressed and a massage would help him to unwind which in turn would enable him to concentrate. Yes, that was it. He hadn’t mentioned it because it wasn’t important. Ellen determined to put the incident out of her mind and make a greater effort to be a loving and supportive wife.

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Ellen felt panic rising as she tried to control her fears. Their lovely home in Edinburgh …. how could it have been sold? They hadn’t even considered selling it, the move was temporary. Why had Jack done this without so much as a discussion?

Her first thought was to ring him although she knew he would be irritated at the intrusion and would doubtless be abrupt. He was already displeased that she had mislaid her valuable engagement ring, he reminded her often how much it had cost him.

She trembled as she dialled his mobile number, the phone was switched off. With a start she realised he had never given her his new office number but undeterred she rang the office in Edinburgh.

The receptionist informed her, “We don’t have a branch in Birmingham …. we have one in London. Who did you wish to speak to?”

Ellen hesitated, she hoped the receptionist wouldn’t recognise her voice. “The senior accountant, Jack Carter.”

The reply was curt. “Mr. Carter left the firm several months ago.”

Shock waves gripped Ellen’s body and her chest felt tight with fear.

She tried to consider the possible explanations for Jack’s behaviour, there was obviously something very wrong. Perhaps he was having an affair or worse still, he may have been dismissed for embezzling the firm’s money and could be heading for a prison sentence.

She looked back over the past couple of years and recalled his actions had progressively taken control of her life. If she didn’t respond to his every whim he became abusive and had struck her on several occasions. Since they had moved to Derby he came home most nights the worse for drink despite the fact that he was driving some distance from Birmingham.. Ellen had made excuses for him time and again, he was dealing with a new job and was under a lot of stress, he was working long hours and missed their social life as she did, he needed a holiday, the excuses were endless. Now it seemed he wasn’t working at all.

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The rest of the day passed in a blur, she raged and sobbed alternately.

She couldn’t confide her fears in Louise, it wasn’t fair to involve her with her problems. When Jack rang to say he would be home late, Ellen couldn’t speak more than a couple of words. The questions would have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime she ransacked his room looking for answers to his behaviour.

At the back of the cupboard she found a bag containing several empty whisky bottles and there were two more bottles under the bed. In one of the drawers she discovered a pile of final demands from credit card companies, she had no idea he was in so much debt. Under some clothes lay a crumpled invoice from a pawn shop in Birmingham for a diamond engagement ring and a gold pocket watch, a treasured heirloom that had belonged to her grandfather; she wasn’t aware it was missing.

ELLEN HAD MADE EXCUSES FOR HIM TIME AND AGAIN, HE WAS DEALING WITH A NEW JOB AND WAS UNDER A LOT OF STRESS, HE WAS WORKING LONG HOURS AND MISSED THEIR SOCIAL LIFE AS SHE DID, HE NEEDED A HOLIDAY, THE EXCUSES WERE ENDLESS. was Jess responsible for urinating She packed a couple of suitcases on the floor in the hall. There was and taking Jess with her she drove no longer a choice, if she continued out to Rutland Water. She stood by to deceive herself she would be no the water’s edge frozen rigid with better than Jack. Starting again on grief, her mind raging with questions. her own wouldn’t be easy but she How could he do this to me when he had a group of loyal friends who said he would love me forever? Why would help. didn’t I see what was happening to our marriage, perhaps it’s my fault?

The first thing to do was find Some time passed until the gentle lapping of the water partially soothed somewhere to live. She switched on the ignition, it was a long drive home her shattered thoughts. Her anger turned to resolve, it was time to make to Scotland. a decision and acknowledge the string of lies, the deceit, the physical and sexual abuse and regular acts of being unfaithful, the heavy drinking, all barely disguised the fact that Jack was an alcoholic. She hadn’t been careless and lost her ring nor

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IT'S ONLY THIS YEAR I'VE BEEN MORE INVOLVED. I SPEAK SOME CHINESE NOW. I DIDN'T SPEAK CHINESE AS A CHILD.

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LIZ LI

LAND OF THE DODO On my passport it doesn’t say Elizabeth, it’s got my Chinese name, but my Chinese name is so long, people just get them mixed up. My Chinese name is Li Niouk Kiow. My dad was a Li and the name carries on. My maiden name is Li Ah Kim. When you say “Niouk” (it’s a Chinese word, when you say it rightly), it means “meat”. “I want some Niouk” means “I want some meat”. I’m not mainland Chinese, I’m from Mauritius.

I came here when I was 10, after I got burnt. My eldest sister was living in London (she’s now 70); she said, “I’m sending for her, and I’ll take care of her.” So I came here as a visitor and then I got myself in to Great Ormond Street Hospital for about 8 years. I had to go in for a skin graft, that’s all they could do; then I was transferred to Billericay. I had another graft there, a big graft on my shoulder. I was about 20 when I left London and came to Leicester. I was there for 13

years and I met my husband. Our two children were born in Leicester.

Then I kind of fell out with my boss who owned a Chinese restaurant. He brought us here to Swadlincote and showed us a shop and we set up the takeaway.

We came here in 1988. The pits were still going but coming to the end, it wasn’t quite finished. When I looked out of the window here, I used to get a vision, everything was just black. I used to travel to Leicester about five times a week because I was missing it. My daughter was only 3 when we came here, my son was 6; he started at St. Edwards. It took a long time for the shop to take off, I’d say two years; the progress of the business was very slow. At the time, people wouldn’t try anything different. I suppose I’m the longest here now, as a Chinese takeaway: 19 years. In the last 10 years there’s been a few new 97

ones, but I suppose, running a place here, I’m the longest one. I know a couple of the Chinese community but I don’t know all of them. When the children were younger, we used to shut annually; but we can’t now.

Chinese people sometimes go to the casino after work. We have a meal, not necessarily gambling; but I mean the majority do. We used to go years ago in Birmingham. I think it’s just socialising, have a pint of beer, have a chat with groups of friends. I’m involved with the Chinese Association in Burton. I go to the meetings every month, I’m the chair.

It’s only this year I’ve been more involved. I speak some Chinese now.

I didn’t speak Chinese as a child. I’m trying to learn Mandarin. As a child, in Mauritius, we spoke French Creole.

The island’s so small, it’s half an hour to get to the beach. I’m not a strong swimmer though, that’s the only thing. Out there, they can swim like a fish. The scenery’s nice, it’s very green. The Dodo was from the island of Mauritius and we’ve got sugar cane and tea. I was Daddy’s girl in Mauritius. I used to go with him at 5 o’clock in the morning to the market.

I used to go for walks with my friends to the racecourse, where they have sort of a sitting area. I loved school.

You’re full of beans when you’re little, you go to bed and then you just wake up early. Sometimes I’d have extra lessons, like at 6 o’clock in the morning for an hour, then come back home and have breakfast and then off to school. After school, I’d come home, sit down at the table and get on with my homework.

When I got burnt, it all changed. Dad had a shop. One day, my brother was heating up some curry. No Health and Safety then. He was putting methylated spirits into the burner.

He got it to light, but there wasn’t enough, so it went out. It was dusk and in certain lights you can’t see the flames from methylated spirits.

I was just watching, I wasn’t doing anything. I was only 9 years old. He added some more meths and as he put some more in, he didn’t see the flames there. It drew in the bottle like a magnet; it just went “schummm”.

It was that fast. I had a tank top on and it hit my neck and some got my eyebrows and my arm, but it was mainly my neck. My brother didn’t get burnt. He was always being told off about being left-handed at home.

The Chinese didn’t like you to be left-handed, but if he didn’t use his left hand, if he’d used his right hand, it would have been worse. Possibly I wouldn’t be here; but you don’t know, do you?

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That’s the reason why I came to England. I grew up in London, went to a school in Fulham. At the age of 10 I didn’t know much English. Every year I had to go for surgery in the summer, so I was away from school for about 3 weeks. They sent me to a disabled school, because they thought it was going to make the other children feel uncomfortable in a normal school. So I stayed there and then I got transferred to Franklyn Delano Roosevelt School, it was at Swiss Cottage. I missed my family, especially my dad. After 5 years, when I was 15, I went back home and, for some reason, my passport wasn’t up to date so they wouldn’t let me come back here. They wanted to know what I was doing here. They had to have a letter from the school I was attending, and the hospital, and from whoever was taking care of me here. My brother-in-law had to adopt me, that’s what I was told, to let me back into the country.

We were all born in Mauritius, mum and dad were from China. I’m the baby of a family of eight. I’ve got a sister in Leicester, a brother in London, a brother in France; the rest are all in Mauritius. I went back in March last year. I like to be with the family. I don’t know if I missed out when I was young, but I like to see them. Not everybody thinks like me.

My sister in Leicester, she doesn’t think like me, she just likes to work.

I’m quite close when I get to know people and keep in contact with my family and friends. My children, they’ve both been to university. Simon is 25 and has been out in Japan for a year and a half, teaching English. My daughter, Celine, is 22; she’s working in a Ramada Jarvis hotel doing supervising and waitressing.

I have been to China, but I haven’t been to Beijing or Shanghai; hopefully one day.

My mum has a brother who lives in Hong Kong and I’m married to a man from Hong Kong so we go to see them. Dad died when I was 15. I had three months at home in Mauritius when I went back at 15. Mum passed away suddenly: she was on a visit here. It was a week before she was due to go back to Mauritius. She’d just had a cancer operation in the Middlesex Hospital. I had to go and see her about 1 o’clock in the morning after work; oh it was horrible.

Mum had a bit of a soft spot for me, obviously because I got burnt and whatever. She left us some money and I still haven’t used it.

There might be another trip back to Hong Kong because in September, they pray for the dead. My husband’s parents are both dead. After 10 years, you’re supposed to take the bones out of the ground. If you don’t do it, then obviously someone else does it. We have to take the bones out and put them in a cask and put it in a proper stone, because at the moment they’re just buried.

Every year we keep saying we must do it, we just haven’t got round to going. You have to do it at a certain time of year, but only If there are no weddings at that time; you mustn’t have a wedding at the same time as taking the bones out of the ground.

I WAS DADDY’S GIRL IN MAURITIUS. I USED TO GO WITH HIM AT 5 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING TO THE MARKET.

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100

JANET & HELEN SUMMERFIELD

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS

When I was seven, we moved to I left at the age of fifteen and went North Wales in a little green van with to Birmingham, which was probably no windows in the back of it. There a big mistake. I went to Sutton were four of us children. We moved Coldfield, living in as a mother’s to a wonderful farmhouse, which help with a family. I went from this needed lots of repairs. It was a tiny village on the Lleyn Peninsula marvellous life really, being brought to a big city. It was a bit daunting. I up on a farm. I can recommend it to was probably about nineteen when I joined the National Children’s Home any child. But my brother and I had and went to college at Highbury. started school in England so it was That was another big step, going quite traumatic going to a very Welsh to London.

From college I didn’t school. We had to pick up Welsh very want to go back to where I’d come quickly. My brother managed to fit in from.

I went into a Family Unit: a a lot quicker than I did. I just did not day unit, like a nursery, where we appreciate Wales and couldn’t wait also accepted parents for the day, to leave. The family farm is still there. for a meal or to give them parenting I’ve never gone back to live in Wales, advice. They could have their hair but we do go back for holidays. It’s right by the sea, I think it’s absolutely done, all sorts of things like that.

That place was in Ladywood, close beautiful. to the prison, so we did get quite a few prison families. When I met my husband I was working for the NCH. Two weeks after we were married my husband was promoted to Salisbury.

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It was absolutely beautiful. We had a tiny little flat, which was superb. My husband was in retail and working for Oswald Bailey when he was in Salisbury. I got a job in a Council home, which was an Assessment Unit. The kids were great and so were the majority of the cooks, cleaners etc., but the people running it weren’t so great. An Oswald Bailey opened in Coventry and we moved for him to be manager there.

I was pregnant by this time with the first one. By the time we had three children we moved to Measham. We wanted our own house and we ended up in Overseal for twenty-three years.

It’s the longest we’ve ever stayed anywhere because we were on the move every four or five years.

My husband was getting really fed up with retail and getting more and more down. I said, “Go and be a bus driver”. So he did and was a bus driver for quite a few years. They put him in charge of running the Swadlincote Garage. This was office work, making sure the drivers had got buses and the buses had got drivers. I could see he was getting really down again, so I said, “For goodness sake, go back driving!” It was all to do with Helen passing away and various other things, but he really wasn’t coping. He took my advice and he’s back driving and he’s never been happier.

“On the 17th January I got up, had breakfast and then I went out to the bus stop to catch the Number 8 bus at 12 minutes past 9. My dad was driving the bus so I was all right. When the bus got to where my friend was supposed to get on, she wasn’t there, so my dad had to sound his horn. It was a really good shopping trip for me because I would choose what I wanted and get my money out and my friend would pay for me. Also I found I could walk at the same pace as my friend when normally people walk too quick or too slow for me. I’m not very good at trying on clothes, on my own, because I panic and I get too hot. This shopping trip was more of a challenge to me than I planned, but it all went very well.”

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I had four children. I was a full-time mum until the youngest went to school. I did the twilight shift at the “Biscuit Factory”, which meant one of us was always there for the children.

My husband managed to get home about five-ish and I used to go about quarter past, we were like “ships passing in the night”. After a while I decided I’d do the night shift. Lots of women did the night shift. It was always women who were standing waiting with their headscarves on for the “Biscuit Bus”. I worked there for about four years. It was a good laugh.

Lots of people said, “You won’t survive there. You won’t stand the swearing.” They said, “The women are worse than the men.” I got in with a group. There was swearing, but it went over my head and I did make some lovely friends. I survived it. I quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t any good on the line, but I was a very good timekeeper and I never had time off sick. They obviously must have seen that so they took me off the line and said, “Would you go on the cleaning?”

I jumped at that. I was too slow at the biscuits, but the cleaning gang were brilliant. We had great fun. I was cleaning lots of steps and corridors.

We also used to clean the lines. That was fun. We had to wear goggles and we used this high-powered blower thing, I can’t remember what they called it. I thought I’d never be able

to do that. Anyway they taught me how to do it. You blew all the crumbs out and then you swept up after you, making it all nice and clean. I thought I’d never enjoy that, but I did. I must have done a good job because I never got any complaints. You could always smell the biscuit factory from outside, but when you were inside, you didn’t seem to smell it so much.

I can remember the worst smell was the custard creams and to this day, I don’t like custard creams.

Then an old folks’ home opened nearby, which was another mistake really. I thought, “Well it’s on my doorstep and it’ll be something worthwhile.” But the person running it was, well, I don’t think there’s a word to describe her, so I won’t. For some reason or other she just didn’t like me. I couldn’t do anything right for her. She quite often said to me, “If I’d have interviewed you, I wouldn’t have taken you on.” I said, “Thanks very much!” But there was a lot of jealousy there. There’s not many people I take a dislike to. I don’t really dislike her. She just wasn’t the right person to run the home. She was really cruel to some of them.

The residents were great. I enjoyed the company of the residents.

MY DAD WAS DRIVING THE BUS SO I WAS ALL RIGHT.

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LOTS OF WOMEN DID THE NIGHT SHIFT. IT WAS ALWAYS WOMEN WHO WERE STANDING WAITING WITH THEIR HEADSCARVES ON FOR THE “BISCUIT BUS”.

I’m at Newlands House in Netherseal now, which is a Leonard Cheshire Home for the disabled. I’m a casual carer. They can ring me up when they want me. I can say yes or no.

And I’m a “litter-picker”. The Council pay me to do it, but it’s always been one of my bugbears to see litter everywhere. I’ve got a yellow coat but I never wear it. I wear an old coat and gloves and I’ve got a picker-up.

I’ve got a trolley thing now but that was given to me. It looks a lot better for it being done. But I can go out, go up the road and when I come back down the road, more litter! Some of the kids who see me do it, come up behind me and say, “Can I put this in your bin?” Others, I know full well, as soon as my back’s turned they’ll chuck something down. It’s not just kids. I’ve seen the adults as well.

If I could have my time over again I would have become a nurse and probably a children’s nurse. I had the opportunity in my first job as the mother’s help, with the college right next door. She said, “Would you like to go to college?” I’d had enough of school and that was it. I could have done anything and I probably would have taken to it more than I did school. I’ve actually cared for all age groups.

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“My name is Helen Jane Summerfield, I am 15 years old. I was born on November 8th 1980 and I have a lot of disabilities. I am a small girl because I stopped growing properly when I was about 2. When I was about 9 I was found to be partially deaf and I have to wear two personal hearing aids. My other disabilities are: I am short-sighted, I am unsteady sometimes, I cannot write very quickly, I have to take tablets, I shake, I get hayfever, I get chilblains on my toes, I am left-handed and I now have diabetes. This is all to do with Leigh’s Disease. Sometimes I get angry and upset myself when I think about my problems, but sometimes I’m glad I was born this way because some people say I am special. I like reading, writing and doing puzzles. My favourite animals are hedgehogs, my favourite t.v. programme is Coronation Street and my favourite subject at school is English. I like writing letters because I have 4 penpals and I like reading old classical books and animal stories.”

Caring for Helen was twenty-four hours a day. In a way I did become a nurse - to my child. I’ve got a lot more time to myself now, although I still haven’t done anything with it. It’s nearly eighteen months since Helen passed away. I meant to use the time to do loads, but I just haven’t used it because I’m still grieving. You don’t ever expect them to go before you.

Although she’d been on death’s door, we still thought at least another tentwenty years. She was so well when she went. This morning I had a card from the optician’s. They must have been looking through their records. I had to ring up and say, “Unfortunately, sadly…” It’s things like that, we still get a little bit of post with Helen’s name on. When we got one from the Wheelchair Services it was hard.

It’s really, really hard writing cards and leaving her name off. The first Christmas, which was only a few weeks after she passed away, it was just awful and we had to tell some people that didn’t know. This year we only got about half the cards we used to do, because so many people used to send them to Helen.

The first big step was selling the hedgehogs. But I knew I had to do something – she’d got over three hundred! I’ve kept one or two. We sent the money to CLIMB. It’s a charity that find doctors who want to find out about rare diseases and also there are befrienders and self-help groups. It has helped us. We had two cats and if there was anything left on their dishes at night we’d Helen probably had the disease from put them outside. This one night birth but it didn’t show up. She was the children were getting ready for a bonny baby. She had chickenpox bed and we could hear this rattling when she was twenty months old. which got louder and louder. There She never seemed to recover from it. was a hedgehog at the dishes. They She lost loads of weight and for three used to come right up to the house. months afterwards she couldn’t keep They make quite a noise and if you anything down. She ended up at age frighten them they really run, they’re two being referred to paediatrics to fast! Helen could actually see them find out what was going on. We were at that time and from that day on she backwards and forwards for a whole thought the world of hedgehogs. She year. We plumped for Birmingham did projects at school on hedgehogs. Children’s Hospital, because Barry’s She wrote poems on hedgehogs. parents lived in Birmingham quite She just loved hedgehogs. I think close to the hospital. All the tests she must have told lots of people came back negative. She was ok and every time they went away, or by this time. She was herself, but Christmas or birthdays, you could she was really small, not putting on guarantee she got something to do weight. She wasn’t growing. We said, with hedgehogs.

“Is it to do with the chickenpox?”

They couldn’t tell us. So we stopped going. It was the school nurses who realised there was something going on in her ears. She was referred to a GP and he referred her to an audiologist at Derby Royal. He wasn’t very communicative but he must have been really brilliant because it was he who decided it wasn’t just her hearing. He got her referred to Child Development in Derby. That’s when we got the diagnosis.

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IT’S REALLY, REALLY HARD WRITING CARDS AND LEAVING HER NAME OFF. They said they’d found out that she’d got “Leigh’s Disease”, which we’d never heard of. They said it was very rare. The professor said he’d seen about one or two cases and they hadn’t lived beyond the age of six.

Helen was about senior school age, eleven or twelve.

Her handwriting had deteriorated and she’d got this shake. She carried on writing for ages until she realised she couldn’t, so everything was done on a computer. Her eyesight started to deteriorate when she was at senior school, and her mobility. She carried on walking around. We were trying to think the other day when it was that she decided enough was enough and she’d have to have a wheelchair.

She walked about in the house. It was only when she was outside she was in a wheelchair. She was bridesmaid for one of her tutors from Wilmorton College. The tutor asked three of them to be bridesmaids. We took her wheelchair but no, she said, “You don’t need to take it, I’ll walk down the aisle.” It was a very hot day but she never went in that wheelchair.

She was going to be bridesmaid for her sister last year. That never happened. I’ve still got the dress.

She liked her earrings and bracelets and painted fingernails. I’ve still got all her nail varnishes. I’ll have to sort them out.

I think she was nearly in her twenties when they did some more tests and said, “It’s not Leigh’s, it’s KearnsSayer”. So we had to go over it all again. It seems like Leigh’s is the child’s form because they are very, very similar. It’s all to do with the make-up of the cells, they call them metabolic diseases. Hers was degenerative, you could see it was.

Three weeks off her birthday. She’d got loads of stuff to make Christmas cards. I used to help but she used to do some on the computer. We’d been out to buy some bits to make cards, which of course, never did get made. She was friends with this consultant. They never used to talk about medical stuff. “Where did you go on holiday?” “How many valentines cards did you get?” In It was very sudden. Sunday was a 2006, she sent him a card and was lovely day. She loved to walk along really looking forward to going to see the canal. I said that afternoon, “Do him to see what he would say about you want to go for a walk or do you this card. She’d made it at one of the want me to paint your nails?” Halfway Art Classes and he sent a Christmas ‘round, she turned to her dad and said, card and said he missed her as well.

“I thought we were only going for a short walk?” He said, “Well, you know your mum’s short walks!” By the time we got back she wanted her tea. She loved Coronation Street – it was one of the programmes she didn’t like to miss. It was one of my regrets that her nails never did get painted. She went to bed at the usual time and did everything that she could herself.

There was no indication whatsoever that there was anything wrong. About 3am Monday morning we realised there was something wrong. We tried everything you know, life-saving, but to no avail. The paramedics were brilliant. I think they were there within ten minutes. If I’d thought there was anything wrong, I’d have called the doctor.

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“I am back in the school playground

Since she’s gone I’ve wasted loads of time. I love gardening. I could be out there every day doing it. I’ve got loads of time now to clear up the house. The house should be pristine, but it’s not. I have started on a Tuesday afternoon to go to “Creative Textiles” at the Learning Centre for two hours. I enjoy that. I suppose really I ought to do a computer course. I’m absolutely hopeless.

Helen used to tell me exactly what she wanted me to do and I used to do it. I’ve lost contact with some of Helen’s friends because I can’t email them. I write letters, but I don’t get any answers.

It was a time when I could walk and run I was small and thin A long wide playground A long wide field A horrible thorn hedge all around Big tall trees And the old bike shed Girls and boys of all shapes and sizes Bringing out their surprises

We’ve just bought ourselves a trailer tent. We always used to have good fun on our camping holidays with the kids. We’ve also booked to go to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival as we’re into folk music in a big way. Helen used to come along with us every now and again, under sufferance, because it wasn’t her type of music.

I remember the games we used to play We had skipping ropes, marbles balls and elastic We played netball on the playground And football on the field This area is very old but it is still used

We’re expecting our first grandchild.

I’ve always liked children, the younger the better, from quite a young age. I always knew I wanted to do something with children, and I did when I joined the children’s home.

The people in charge were called Methodist Sisters, although they weren’t nuns. The care was second to none. The person in charge was quite elderly but she absolutely adored those kids. The kids adored her. That was my favourite sort of job, in the children’s home.

I go back sometimes but it has changed a lot The school is over 100 years old But it is still standing and still used every day.”

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108

LIZA GOODSON

A PORTRAIT IN MINIATURE

People keep saying, doesn’t it bother you everyone looking down at you, all those portraits of your ancestors?

But I don’t think about them. Apart from, perhaps, Henry Wise. He was a gardener: Superintendent of the Royal Gardens. There was a book written about him called ‘Gardener to Queen Anne’. I suppose he was like Capability Brown. Wise and London, they were partners; they laid out no end of gardens actually: at Hampton Court, at Blenheim, all over the place.

We say Capability Brown came along and ruined most of them. The only one that’s got anything left of his original gardens is at Melbourne House. They restored the Knot Garden at Hampton Court, which was his. I was abroad at the time and they kept writing to me. I could have been involved in the re-creation of a knot garden, I regret that.

We seem to be very proud of Oliver Walton Hall was built in 1723 by the Cromwell, we’ve got lots of pictures Taylor family who lived down the hill of him. Some of our ancestors from here. William Taylor became came from East Anglia, same as High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1726.

Cromwell. One of them, MajorHe was one of the few people who General John Disbrowe (sometimes made money in the South Sea spelt Desborough in the history Bubble. Everyone lost money in books) married Oliver Cromwell’s the South Sea Bubble; I don’t know sister so they were probably mates, how they made money. They built well they must have been. He was a themselves this house, which was leading figure in the Parliamentary known as a small country house, in army during the Civil War. He those days. The whole family was was imprisoned in the Tower of based in London and this was where London a couple of times during you had your babies and left them, the Restoration, but he seemed to and came back on visits. The Taylors survive it. I suppose one should bought it from Lord Ferrers who be proud that Parliament is based owned a lot of the land here. We’ve on what they did. I can do the got an original plan of the house.

Bloomsbury set on the other side. My After four generations of Taylors, the mother’s maiden name was Garnett. house passed through marriage to the Disbrowe family who ponced around at court doing things for George III and Queen Charlotte. The house actually hasn’t ever been sold and has remained in our family for nearly 300 years.

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WE SEEM TO BE VERY PROUD OF OLIVER CROMWELL, WE’VE GOT LOTS OF PICTURES OF HIM. SOME OF OUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM EAST ANGLIA, SAME AS CROMWELL. ONE OF THEM, MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN DISBROWE (SOMETIMES SPELT DESBOROUGH IN THE HISTORY BOOKS) MARRIED OLIVER CROMWELL’S SISTER I wasn’t born here, I grew up in Warwickshire. My great uncle and my great aunt who lived here had no children. My great uncle managed to squander a huge fortune: vast amounts of land and property. By the time he died in 1948, he left two mortgages on the place. His widow, who was actually no blood relation to me, could either pay off the mortgages by selling it or she could leave it to her side of the family. The next male heir was my father. He never knew whether he was going to get it or not until shortly before she died, when she was in her nineties. He was about 66. He had a lovely time but he only lived for about 11 years after he moved here.

So then my mother was on her own here. She was quite a sociable old bird really, she also liked the bottle quite a lot. Anyway she landed up in a home because she just couldn’t cope, understandably. I spent half of my time abroad, so we would

have whizzing trips here. The place was left empty for a good 25 years, mouldering quietly, until my husband was made redundant about 3 or 4 years ago. The house didn’t have a mortgage on it and technically belonged to me. I have no brothers and sisters, I’m an only child. I didn’t know it would come to me, I actually put it out of my mind. I hadn’t thought of it really, not being rude to Derbyshire.

I’ve been so spoilt really, I’ve been everywhere; not everywhere, but a lot of places. I no longer know where my favourite place in the world is.

My husband’s South African, you see; we met there. The reason behind the travels was my husband’s job. Basically he was a G.P. who joined the dreaded pharmaceutical industry, which happens around the world. It’s fantastic, you meet such interesting people and you go to such interesting places. It broadens your mind.

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My work’s been camp-follower really. It’s a pathetic thing, but if you came from my sort of background, you were not expected to - I don’t think my parents knew what an ‘A’ level was, I don’t think they had the first idea. I was sent to boarding school, aged 6, and that’s what you did. It was grim I have to tell you, seriously grim. I would have loved university, but it never even crossed anybody’s mind. I did my ‘O’ levels and all I could think of was getting out of this penitential system. It was terribly innocent, we used to write to various boys we knew and all our letters were vetted at school. When we finally got to the top form we were allowed to go to the Wellington College dance. We were allowed to wear make-up and taken off in a bus in our long dresses, with our Headmistress, to this school. We were plonked in this hall and the Headmistress of our school and the Headmaster of Wellington would sit on a sort of dais, a platform. Down

one line of the hall would be a whole lot of spotty boys and down the other side would be a whole lot of spotty girls, and we sat there and the music would play, and suddenly they would all get up. And you were inspected, overlooked by these teachers all of the time.

Then I went to Finishing School at Queensgate in London, at just 17. It was quite interesting if I had been interested. I mean we went to art galleries, we did French literature. We were waited-on by a butler. We were only allowed to go out with people who were approved by our parents: there was a list, we were allowed to go out twice a week with someone on the list. On Sundays you had to go to church. And then I was brought home and told, “You have to earn a living, so, therefore, you must go and learn to type and go into commerce.”

So I lived at home and went to Birmingham every day to learn to be a good secretary. It’s the most dreary job I’ve ever done.

Nothing more was expected of us in my circle. I did think I would like to write: I always wanted to be a journalist or a theatre critic or something. But I wouldn’t have a clue how on earth you would go about this. The great thing was to find the man that was going to be so rich that he was going to keep you in the manner that you would like to become accustomed and that was it. It was ridiculous because we lived in a rented house, we had no money; we had airs and pretensions but that was about it. So I learned to type. Then I thought, well okay I’ll do this dreary business in London because it’s got to be more exciting than here. So I went to London and shared a flat. We had huge fun actually. I worked for the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators in Park Lane. London was such a safe place then. I had the boyfriend of my life so we had huge fun. He was at Cirencester Agricultural College and used to come up to London. I had a circle of friends and it was all innocent but riotous. We used to go to nightclubs around London. Then I worked in the perfume trade. Do you remember Tweed perfume? It was fun: I worked in Bond Street and, in the lunch-hour, I used to work in the Salon. But I did get into trouble: I used to get into work late because I was having a good time at night. I’ve lived all over the place with all sorts of odd-bods; but not in the way that you live together now.

I do remember having a frightfully grand friend who I shared a flat with, and her standard of living was quite high, so I spent far too much money.

My mother phoned me up one day, because in those days you knew your local bank manager, he lived in the village, and until you were 21, your parents were responsible for your 111

overdraft. So I got this telephone call: “I have just been in the bank, and the bank manager told me you are £40 overdrawn; you will come home instantly, and you will work it off. I have never heard anything like this.” I had to go home, I had to work it off. I got bored and I said to my dad, “What I’d really like to be is a barmaid.” He said, “Whatever you do, don’t do it near me.” So I became a barmaid in Devon. I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I worked in a tiny hotel in a little village, it was really, really good fun. I did that for about three years.

I had a friend who was working as a chauffeuse for this funny old Count in Haute Savoire in France and she asked if I wanted her job? That was an experience and a half. I lived in the same house as him: the bed had fleas and I was only allowed a shower twice a week. I learnt the word for fleas very quickly. I used to drive this old guy about and the minute I went over 25mph, he’d say, “Oh, mon coeur, mon coeur.” Still, it was good fun. It was just on the Swiss border so I used to bicycle to Geneva. Another friend of mine said her husband was marrying a merchant navy guy and they were going out to South Africa and why didn’t she and I go to South Africa just for a change. I thought, why not? In those days you could go to South Africa with a British passport and you could get a job; you didn’t need a work permit or anything. I did temping jobs to make money.

Although it was the bad old days of apartheid, it was safe, you could go everywhere, which you can’t do now. I went to Cape Town, but I got so fed up working in an office that I thought I’d do something else. I looked after children, sort of like an

au pair, but of course in South Africa I met Peter, my husband, because everyone had maids, so it was quite he doctored one of the families I a grand au pair. I had this boyfriend, worked for. I was quite old then, a farmer from an ancestral farm out about 29. When we came back here, in the Cape countryside. It was a fruit my dad was determined we were farm and a racehorse stud-farm run going to have a church wedding, but by the two brothers. The one who the church was determined I wasn’t ran the stud-farm was coming to - in those days they wouldn’t marry England for six weeks and needed divorcees and Peter was divorced. someone to run his farm and asked if So down the road at Catton, a rather I knew about horses? I said, “A little bigger grander version of us, they’ve bit, not much.” “Oh,” he said, “come got their own chapel and my dad was and run my stud-farm.” I went out friends with them. They chatted up there in the heart of Afrikaanerdom a vicar that they knew and we had - they don’t even speak English; but the whole wedding service there, it was amazing. I used to have to which was quite nice. Then we went get up at five and find these mares back to live in South Africa, where and take them to the stallion. It was I had my babies. We moved into a good fun I must say; that’s where I smallholding, literally in the middle met these wonderful Afrikaaners. It of nowhere. Peter was working for was an eyeopener. Cape-coloureds, a Swiss company so he used to go who are the descendents of mixed off, and I used to sleep with a gun races, were workers at this farm. by my bed, because it was quite Come Friday night, they would be dangerous. No neighbours, in the paid so much in cash and so much middle of nowhere, a lone woman in wine - it was a wine farm as well. in the house with two babies. I was Every Friday night they would land left with a load of mangy sheep themselves up in hospital, they’d and chickens and things to look stab each other, they’d fight each after, and these babies. It was on a other, they’d half kill each other. You terrorist route so you really needed were running round the hospitals to be able to defend yourself if you collecting them, sorting them out, could. So Peter said, “You need a saving them from the police putting gun.” We always seemed to travel them in prison. The white people with guns, it was quite dangerous got such a bad press but you had to at times. I’m hopeless with guns, so really look after them. I suppose they he said, “If you’re going to have a hadn’t had a chance to be properly gun, you’ve got to be prepared to fire educated. By Monday morning they it. You must go down to the local were all sober. Wild-West living really. police station and have lessons.” The local police station cost a guinea a minute and no-one could speak English. They placed these targets and there’s me with this gun - I could never hit a thing. Anyway, I used to lie with this gun, I was obsessed with having this gun by my bed. I woke up one morning and there was such a commotion in the garden, there was a huge great high hedge and there were a whole lot of Africans out there and there was this noise 112

THE HOUSE ACTUALLY HASN’T EVER BEEN SOLD AND HAS REMAINED IN OUR FAMILY FOR NEARLY 300 YEARS. apartheid. Things were obviously moving: people didn’t know about it but the leaders in Soweto asked to speak to the Government about running their own affairs. The stupid Government just said no, we don’t want to talk to you. We had a black guy working for us, whose son also lived with us, and he used to play with my children and I took them into the local town. We went into a café, and obviously the young black guy came with us, and they said, “You can’t come in here with him.” I said, Amazing people the old Afrikaaners.

“Okay I won’t come in here at all.”

They were still fighting the Boer War in Things like that were still happening.

South Africa, but they were amazing.

We went to church and we took They’ve had such a bad press, but I another little boy who used to play have never met such charming, such with my children and the mutterings courteous people in my life; as a because we’d taken this black child woman they make you feel fantastic. to white church.

There were different You know, nothing’s too much trouble entrances if you wanted to go to the and they treat you like a queen, I’ve butchers, or post office, or anything: never met such people in my life. I whites went that way and blacks was quite a radical, I worked for the went that way, whites got served Progressive Party, which in those and the blacks queued. But for my days they thought were Communist kids it was very good because right because they were so right wing. I out in the country you can’t practice quite enjoyed that because we used apartheid, you just can’t do it. We to go ‘round putting up posters lived on this farm and the workers and Peter’s family, his uncle was a lived at the bottom of the field in their Nationalist MP and his cousin was houses: my kids used to toddle off a Minister of Justice and they were going on. So I took a look and there was this huge great cobra in the hedge. “Don’t worry,” says I, “Keep calm, I have a gun.” I try to shoot this thing and I can’t hit it - and this is supposed to repel any boarders that might come and want to get me, they could see I couldn’t shoot a thing. In the end I had to phone the guy who lived sort of next door to us and he came ‘round with his shot-gun. The thing was, I was scared of snakes.

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down there and they always used to eat out of a communal pot. I’m not sure my kids didn’t smoke marijuana with them too, in fact they probably did. The ones who were working for us used to grow marijuana like this and we had to keep them away from the police. We used to have to rescue this chap, he used to get high on marijuana and beat up his children and wife, it was just dreadful.

The police came, but the trouble is the police would take them off and put them in prison and then there was nobody to look after the wife and children, I mean they would just be without anything and so we would try and keep them out of prison. When they did go into prison you used to have to look after their families. There were a lot of things that people over here in the UK never had a clue about: over here the whites were bad and the blacks were good.

IT’S NOT RIGHT THAT MY HORIZONS WERE SO LIMITED AS A GIRL, I THINK THAT’S WRONG; BUT ON THE OTHER HAND IT WAS ONLY WHEN I WENT TO SOUTH AFRICA THAT I FELT THAT WOMEN WEREN’T CONSIDERED EQUAL. WHEN I WAS GROWING UP I NEVER FELT THAT I DIDN’T HAVE AN EQUAL SAY IN THINGS. Then Peter got a job in Belgium, so Then we moved to America. I we got thoroughly civilised. Very remember sitting in Brussels airport boring. We had a good time in howling my eyes out, because I Belgium, the children went to a didn’t want to leave Belgium and nice school. We had nice friends I had such a prejudice against and learnt a lot about being in a America that I decided I was not European country. Peter was married going to like it before I even left, so before so he’s got three children, I didn’t like it. We did make some and then we’ve got two together. So good friends, but we lived in picket it did keep me busy, five children. fence country, Connecticut; it’s all We were there about eight years. very pretty and nice. I mean it’s the sort of place that looks very nice with seething undercurrents. I used to take myself and my children to New York and in the subway which you’re not supposed to. We had to leave because the children were 12 and 13 and they were going to have to go into high school and they would marry and live their whole live there. So we came back to London.

We had a very active life in London, I can’t think of one sensible thing I did in London, but I’m sure I did. We 114

did start running youth groups here in Walton Hall at weekends, with our church, and university groups, they used to come at weekends. We’d fill this place up with kids, sleeping bags all over the place, forty of them.

But since we’ve lived here we’ve gone off the idea of forty children!

Then out of the blue Peter got offered a job in Switzerland. So we thought, “Tally ho, let’s go.” We had three very pleasant years in Switzerland. Most children leave their parents; we left our children, but it wasn’t far away.

For the first time, we had time to do things together. We lived in a very nice flat, which was wonderful. Then we came back to madness - from Switzerland to here. Yes, life is ridiculous.

I WAS ALWAYS LISTENED TO AND ALWAYS TREATED AS IF I HAD AN OPINION. I did think the other day I don’t want to go on running the old house, it’s mad at our age. It’s frustrating because you need so much money to do it properly. To begin with, I thought it was fantastic, it was a challenge, but it does wear you down.

My eldest says, “It’s time you had some comfort.” He doesn’t want to sell it, but he doesn’t want to live here. The youngest says, “Get rid of the lot and have a life.” I do all the estate and office. There are only two farms and a couple of cottages, but there is work involved. I am learning: I can tell you all about the Common Market Agricultural Policy and I can tell you about what happens when a tenant farmer dies and I can tell you about leases and I can tell - there’s quite a lot you have to go into. I do run a bible study here, which I find takes a lot of time too. In an ideal world I’d like it to be buzzing, I’m not

sure my husband would though. I’d like to see the whole place restored and being used usefully. I don’t know whether I’d like to end my days here, but then on the other hand starting anew when we’ve moved so many times won’t be easy. I wouldn’t like to think that we’d totally failed here, if you know what I mean? I’d like to think that we’d changed some things.

It’s not right that my horizons were so limited as a girl, I think that’s wrong; but on the other hand it was only when I went to South Africa that I felt that women weren’t considered equal. When I was growing up I never felt that I didn’t have an equal say in things. I was always listened to and always treated as if I had an opinion.

Only when I went to South Africa, this is amongst the white people, did I notice this segregation, where men would go off. When I was first 115

married we used to visit farmers and people and the men would say, “Right, we’re going for a walk now” and the women would be left.

I was newly married and you know you had to talk washing powder and babies, and I felt that’s not me. So Peter used to say, “Liza would like to come for a walk too,” but it was totally not done. I’ve always had plenty to say, so when it comes to the feminist movement I think it was a good thing in a way. I think women were always able to be educated if they fought for it. I think they should have as much input as a man. I don’t personally think women should fight on the front line of a war. I think there are specific roles like that, that are male and are female. Some women are more ambitious now, but probably quite rightly. I have a school reunion and we all say the same thing: “Why didn’t we?” I think the professions, things like medicine and lawyers, have benefited enormously from having women. I am dealing with a couple of women solicitors and they are superb. I think they’re equally intelligent, equally capable of doing things, but I don’t think they are equally roled, if you know what I mean? Some African women become “sangomas”, female witchdoctors, who wield great power and authority. In old age, African women can become chiefs and are greatly respected. They are more in touch with their ancestors. I recently got a grandson - we only seem to do boys in this family. I wonder what it will be like for him? General or gardener?

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JACQUI HOLLINGS

FLIGHT

THOUGHTS AS MY DAUGHTER JO LEAVES TO JOIN HER PARTNER IN NEW ZEALAND.

On a warm summer’s day, on a hill, overlooking Zennor, We stop to watch a pair of buzzards in flight.

We stand - in communion - at peace with each other - easy in our surroundings.

The buzzards drift lazily, riding the warm air.

A rabbit, wild and free, stills as it senses our presence.

Sunlight glints, highlighting the strength of ancient granite.

Bees, oblivious, busy at work, search the sweetness of a foxglove.

Dried seed-heads endure, preparing for winter - full of new life.

We stand in silence at the wonder of this shiny blue Cornish day, The beauty, the symmetry, the buzzards’ flight, And I think of Jo. A wet September day, Jo and I prepare her house for sale.

Stowing away precious possessions, full of shared memories.

We lock the door and leave, Our last drive from her home to mine.

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On the edge of the suburbs, In a country lane, Surprisingly a lone buzzard flies, searching the evening twilight for his last meal.

We stop and share the beauty of his flight. a shared memory, shared joy in his strength and beauty.

October - a glorious autumn day I clear the fallen leaves in her garden; enjoying the crisp air, the blue day, the bright colours, wishing, longing for her company to share this day with me, to honour the beauty of it.

I leave, locking the door, grieving her absence.

Driving again down the country lane, I search for sight of the buzzard To recreate the past? bring her close again?

Nothing, only sad empty trees.

A mile or so down the road I slow down, as a pair of buzzards dance and glide before me, full of joyous life.

For a few brief moments they engage me And then With a tip of their wings A fare thee well They glide out of sight, through the trees into their unseen future.

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FOR A FEW BRIEF MOMENTS THEY ENGAGE ME AND THEN WITH A TIP OF THEIR WINGS A FARE THEE WELL THEY GLIDE OUT OF SIGHT, THROUGH THE TREES INTO THEIR UNSEEN FUTURE.

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KEVIN FEGAN Over the last twenty years, Kevin has written to commission over 40 stage plays for a wide variety of theatre, including “McAlpine’s Fusilier”, “Excess XS”, “Game Challenge Level 7”, “Strange Attractors” and “Totally Wired” (Contact Theatre Manchester), adaptations of “Love on the Dole” and “Oh WOT A Lovely War” (The Lowry), “White Trash” and EatEat” (devised with Quarantine), “White Van Man” (Ashton Group), “Rule43” (prisons tour), “Lord Dynamite” and “Matey Boy” (Welfare State International), “Captured Live” (Leicester Haymarket), “Seven-Tenths” (Walk the Plank Theatre Ship), “The Forest” and “When Frankenstein Came To Matlock” (Mansfield Palace Theatre), “The Ghosts of Crime Lake” (Oldham Coliseum) “Private Times” (The Library Theatre Manchester), “Clay Man” (Manchester City of Drama & NewArtsWork Notts) and “52 Degrees South” (Manchester Commonwealth Games Cultureshock at The Imperial War Museum North). Kevin’s plays for BBC Radio 4 include “In Denial: the story of Paul Blackburn”, “Blast”, “Racer”, “The Tuner”, “Upon St George’s Hill” and adaptations of “In A Grove” (a Classic Drama Serial) and “The Furys” (a Woman’s Hour Drama Serial). He has also worked as a storyline writer for Granada TV’s “Coronation St.” Kevin has also written 8 books of poetry and edited 7 anthologies of poetry and prose. He is a regular performer of his own poetry on the live literature circuit.

He has performed on BBC 3’s “Whine Gums”, ITV’s “Word of Mouth” and Granada TV’s “Celebration” and has appeared in print in “The New Statesman” and “Index on Censorship”. A stage version of his epic poem “Blast” was the Manchester Airport Commission for Manchester Poetry Festival. Kevin has been Poet-inResidence for Cheshire’s Year of Culture, Arts Council of Great Britain Resident Dramatist for Welfare State International and Arts Council Playwright in Residence at Mansfield Palace Theatre and has worked extensively as a writer-in-residence in a wide variety of community settings, including several prisons. Recent poetry books include “Let Your Left Hand Sing” which has just been reprinted by Five Leaves. Forthcoming plays include “Fireflies (A Love Story Waiting to Happen)” for The Lowry in Salford Quays. www.kevinfegan.co.uk

PEOPLE EXPRESS People Express was established in 1990 and is one of a number of professional Community Arts organisations in the East Midlands. Community Arts (now 40 years on) was a pioneering arts movement that challenged the traditional and exclusive view that you had to be an ‘artist’ to create ‘art’. Instead it believed that we all have creative abilities, that there should be opportunities for everyone to take part in the arts. If we work collectively, encourage people who feel less valued by our society to take part and we share the artistic process, then it can lead to powerful, positive, life-changing experiences. And great ART! People Express works, primarily in South Derbyshire, in two ways: we aim to develop and lead ‘pioneering’ arts projects that address a particular community need or gap in provision, and we respond to requests from local groups and organisations and help them to develop their own projects. People Express also plays a role in developing the practice, understanding and recognition of ‘community and participatory arts’ regionally and nationally through EMPAF (East Midlands Participatory Arts Forum).

We decided not to go down the route of reminiscence or strictly ‘historical fact’, but to try to create ‘living history’; to create a book that, although only containing 30 or so stories, would have something in it that women of all ages and backgrounds could relate to or be inspired by.

The stories were found by asking over 100 women to complete initial questionnaires, through a series of promotional events for the project that attracted in total nearly 500 people and through recommendations from the Steering Group members and local community groups.

Although we can not include all the women we have spoken to in the book the material we have gathered will not be lost, it will archived or published online.

Originally the title for the book was ‘Make Do and Mend’- a well-known adage among the older generation in this district. But as the stories started coming and the women of today in South Derbyshire started to emerge, we realised that we needed a title that was more contemporary, and to be honest, a little more ‘sexy’. We hope you enjoy reading ‘Fabulous’ as much as we have enjoyed working with the women who helped to make it.

Celebrating Women has been a two-year project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. It grew from a previous project in 2004 called ‘Fields and Tunnels’ that involved interviewing the wives of miners and farmers.

Some of the women commented that they had never been asked about their stories before and we could see they wanted to tell them. When we looked at what had been written about the history and heritage of the district we realised that it was mostly told through the working experiences of the men.

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JULIE BATTEN ROBIN GRAY DIRECTOR CHAIR PEOPLE EXPRESS PEOPLE EXPRESS

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