Monday 14th August 2017

MONO MONDAY: DISTANT....

....TIMES

This is the only photo Mum has of herself as a child in the 1930's. Although she loved the doll she is holding, she was made to give it away to a little girl down the street. She even had to take it there and hand it over herself. Mum was still a child of only 12 when World War II broke out, and can remember sleeping in an air-raid shelter and hearing the terrifying sound of "Doodlebug" V-1 flying bombs droning overhead. The engine would cut out, then you would hear the whistle as the bomb fell and pray that it didn't have your number on it. Mum's family lived in the East End of London at the start of the war, but Grandad soon moved them to Devon and then Blackpool to get away from the bombing. So poor Mum didn't have much of a childhood, really. By the time the war ended, she was eighteen and worked as a telephone operator for the GPO. She had wanted to be a fashion designer, but Grandad forbade her to travel up to London to study at college there during the war, and so she never achieved her ambition. However, she still has a keen sense of style and always looks elegant and co-ordinated to this day even at the age of 90 and not being in great shape health-wise.