I started ballet lessons at a very young age – probably about 4 or 5. We gave a performance and I forgot what I was supposed to do so insisted that I never went again. In the meantime, my aunt lost her first husband through Infective Colitis (something that wouldn’t happen now because there are now drugs to combat this disease). The following year she returned home to find her house had been blown up. My aunt then had a nervous break-down which was not surprising really and she went to live in Bramhall village. When I was five years old, I went to Woodford Primary school where there were two classrooms, one by Miss Wilson – the infants, and the second was Mrs Crowder (the Headmistress). I remember that there was an alsatian dog lived on the corner and his master built a ramp so that he could look over the fence and we all stopped to pet him when coming home from school. I remember one year trying to roll a snowball home from school but I only got a few yards when it became too heavy to move. At the end of the war with Japan we were in Dunoon in Scotland with my mother and my aunt and I clearly remember the festivities because the war had ended. A very nice lady made me a ballet dress from paper handkerchiefs for my birthday (I was 8). I used to play with the son of the owners of the hotel and we used to try to get away and hide from a very fat girl who always wanted to be with us. There was a bus that used to go to Manchester and it came up and turned round at the top of Jenny Lane, very close to us. My Dad was walking past one day when he discovered his old tank driver was driving it. The driver said “Bloody Hell, I thought you had had your head blown off” and they stopped for a long chat before the bus had to go back to Manchester. When I was 8, my parents took me away from Woodford and sent me to Bramhall Primary school. The headmaster was a Mr. Fox who lived in Moor Lane also. I was told by one of the children that I would be smacked if I didn’t use my right hand (I was left handed at the time)(Audrey Wood) which wasn’t true of course, but I forced myself to use my right hand for writing. (as my Dad had done many year’s previously). I sat the exam for Manchester High School but didn’t like the school and decided against going there. I was very fortunate that I passed the exam for Moseley Hall school. In my final year at Bramhall, the school put on an operetta (Robin Hood) and I was very fortunate to get the part of Maid Marion in this venture. I couldn’t quite believe this as there were much more pretty girls than me in the class but I think it was because I had a good voice and could sing really well. June, my friend, went to Cheadle Hulme school (we used to call it CHINTS – Cheadle Hulme Institute for Naughty Toddlers!!) We had snow every year and used to go sledging on a field near to Bramhall station. We also had a lot of fogs and the centre of Manchester became almost a no-go area. This was due to the fact that there wasn’t a smokeless zone in that area. I remember my Dad when he got his car, driving into Manchester and everyone else fell in behind him as he always seemed to know where he was going. We had 8 chickens and two apple trees in the garden and I was always up the tree (not very ladylike!!). It was a Bramley apple tree and the other one was an eating apple tree. We also had white rabbits that my grandfather used to look after for me. We had a greenhouse where my Dad used to grow tomatoes and Chrsyanthamums. Dad also had a frame in the garden and grew cucumbers and radish there. My friend Helen Garner had a farm and we used to get a knock at the door and her horse would poke it’s nose into the kitchen. I was also very friendly with June Meggitt. The local farmer (Mr. Gibson) used to deliver milk to the door dishing it out into jugs that we took out for him. If we ran out of milk, I would cycle up to the farm and wait for the cows to be milked and would then bring some home in a jug trying to be careful not to spill any. In the summer my Grandmother would boil the milk so that it didn’t go off (no fridges in those days!). There was a lady who lived a few doors down in a big house called Mrs Johnson and she organised concerts that were always known as Mrs Johnson’s concerts. I often used to get the junior lead in these performances. We also used to have social events at the old village hall and one of the games I remember was splitting up into four corners and trying to remember Nursery Rhymes but not doing one someone else had already done. . We usually ended up with Miss Rosie Artinstall singing: ‘There’ll always be an England, and England shall be free, does England mean as much to you as England does to me. Red White & Blue, what does it mean to you’– I can’t remember the rest of it. I suppose, following the war, this was a good song to sing. My aunt used to teach me to play the piano but I hated her lessons as she was a very hard task-master. I also started elocution lessons – I can’t remember exactly when, but I do remember going on my bike to see Miss Hesling who lived almost on the border of Woodford and Bramhall and trying to learn my poems as I was riding my bike if I hadn’t got round to learning it. I actually got as far as Grade 6 which was the last one you could take and we also used to take part in competitions. I then went to piano lessons – I can’t remember the name of my teacher – but I got as far as Grade 5. I used to play with Dorothy Irlam and Audrey Wood. Dorothy had a habit of going to the loo in her knickers which was somewhat disconcerting! We used to play Hopscotch and Dressing Up and various other things. Dorothy went on to become a Headmistress and never married. My grandmother died when I was 11. She was a difficult lady (rather like my aunt) and I found myself at times flouncing out but not having anywhere to go, I always came home. She spent a lot of time in the bedroom watching the locals go by. We used to go to see Eileen & Stanley (Eileen had been Mum’s best friend -Stanley was a butcher) and I used to play with Rodney her son (much better playing with trains than dolls!!). We used to go to Eileen’s on a trolley bus from the centre of Manchester. We used to travel home and I was always feeling sick and Mum used to wait until I couldn’t get any further and then we would get off the bus. In fact we met Rodney and his wife Winifred in Jersey and they came to my aunt’s house. Rodney had just phoned me because of the letter I wrote telling him I had Motor Neurone. We then got a cat called Sandy (because he was ginger) from Helen Garner’s. Sandy was a bit of a fighter but my Grandfather used to sit in front of the fire with the cat on his legs. My grandfather who was a lovely man fell in the bathroom and broke his hip and in those days they weren’t allowed up and he then got pneumonia and subsequently died when I was 15. Sandy found a nest of rats under next door’s shed and killed the lot of them although the Mother Rat bit him in the throat. Mum used to try to give him tablets but he obviously didn’t swallow them and then when she thought it was safe, would let him go and Sandy would he spit the tablet out. Eventually though we managed to cure him.