My Grandma's Childhood

When my grandma was young, World War 2 had just ended. My grandma's dad came home because he was in the British Army. Food was rationed during and after the war and ration books were given to families which they took to the shop when they wanted to buy food. Some families decided to have hens in the back garden or an allotment. My grandma's dad had an allotment. His dad did as well - he had a greenhouse and grew tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and flowers. Any extra eggs he used to sell.

My great-grandma lived on a farm. She used to jump on haystacks in the fields, help milk the cows and watch her mother make soda bread and homemade butter. To get water you had to go to a well and get it because there was no water plumbed into the farmhouse. She walked to school across the fields with her brothers and sisters. My grandma used to walk to school with her brothers and his friends. She was the youngest and they looked after her.

When she was 11 she sat an 11+ exam and passed to go to a different school. At school, she had sewing lessons, P.E., and rounders, and she learned Pitman shorthand and French. When she finished school she went to work in a bank. She still goes for a meal now and again with the girls she worked with at the bank.

My grandma met her husband when they were both 18 and got married when they were 24. She had six children, one of whom was my mum (Louise), and she has 10 grandchildren! My brother Stanley and I are two of them!