Edie’s Diary

So this is the end of my actual memoirs. What I have remembered up to September 1993 were either my own strong past memories or those much prompted by old photos and Doug’s diaries, which perhaps explains why those years in the past with my strongest memories, together with only the most recent years, have the most material. However Chris (who has acted as typist, editor and compiler of this journal) has asked me to continue writing. So what follows is more in the form of a diary and are of some of my thoughts and the small events in my life written as and when they occur.

At this point I felt that Chris who, as I said above, has acted as typist, editor and compiler of my story deserved his own particular pictorial memory, so Photo 287 is it.

Chris and Shirley are away in the Algarve for a week (12th – 20th Sept), I hope it is better weather there. It is pretty awful here with a cold north wind, it seems that winter has come early after a mouldy summer.

Hurrah! Grantham has mended the bell and am beginning to get the hang of the programmer and have had it on all day, still not too warm but better, apparently the pump had jammed.

David brought a tape of the Vicar’s sermon for me to listen to, his last one at All Saints. I wonder who we shall get now, but at least we have a priest, the Rev. McNicol and he is very nice

I do hope that when I have finished with steroids I will be able to get to church. Sally came in with Jan on Friday, she is a sweet girl but has her disabled mother to look after and gets no help, which is awful. Graham tidied the garden up beautifully and we have had three lovely days, quite hot, wish it would go on a bit longer, it has not been a very nice summer on the whole, but the south east is the driest place and usually the warmer.

18th and 19th Sept – Sally and Clive came in on Saturday and Sunday, it does cheer me up to see them, we both enjoyed the Leeds International Piano Competition and admired the young players skill. On the Sunday Christopher Lewis was installed as residentiary Canon of Bradford Cathedral, the family will be living in the precincts which will be nice, but Bradford will be a great change to Whitstable I’m sure.

Had three lovely hot days, so did quite a lot of washing for a change, always dread hanging out in case I crash onto the rockery. I don’t want any more falls.

Jane is in a terrible state as she has had a row with Richard, the chap she is living with. I think it was about his son Adam who is aged 11 and she hates him, so I guess he has been spoilt or badly brought up having no mother.

Jackie and Alan called in on Wednesday for three hours, having been to the Water Aid headquarters in Orpington. Alan is a water engineer responsible for Water Aid in Sierra Leone and will be going out there in a week or two with Jackie, a very good charity.

Mrs Northover senior called on Thursday for me to witness her signature on a power of attorney and wants me and Sally to witness her will, she’s a nice woman.

24th Sept – Grantham called in to put in a new bell, thank goodness, I can’t hear knocks always

25th Sept – Supposed to be going to Liz’s today but can’t go because of a tummy upset, her stairs make it difficult. Miserable weather, disappointing.

26th Sept – Awful day again but I am going to tea with Sally and Clive, so it does not matter.

27th Sept – Janet is 36 today, still raining.

28th Sept – Even worse day, so no Graham unfortunately.

29th Sept – Much better day, wish Graham would come to clear up before the fence is renovated. Sally brought her lunch to have with me and David came in the afternoon.

1st Oct – Sally did loads of shopping for me and then she and Clive went to Chris and Shirley’s for the weekend, Liz is joining them on Saturday so they should have fun. Terrible stormy day, I think the whole world is upset somehow. Awful earthquake in India, devastating.

2nd Oct – It’s a bit calmer today but my inside is not and I don’t know what I should eat.

3rd Oct (Sun) – They all enjoyed their weekend, saw the inside of Paul’s new house and had a picture taken in his back garden – see Photo 288. Shirley made wonderful meals, good for her.

4th/6th Oct – Now the men have arrived to do the fence, soon had the posts in and the next day all the gravel boards. Jane has left the man she was living with and gone home with Jamie, after all the fuss of moving into a new house and having three holidays with him, what a mistake. Now she has no home and no money, having given up most of her cleaning jobs, hope she comes back eventually and recovers.

Saw Dr MacMillan for the first time after his illness, he looks very thin but very nice.

9th Oct – The fence is finished and looks good and strong and I can’t see the dogs, except from the window but they still bark at every sound, too much.

10th/16th Oct – Saw Sally and Clive on Sunday. Monday was a better day which encouraged me to do some washing. Unfortunately Tuesday was wet so no Graham to clear up the garden, but he promised to come on saturday if fine and luckily it was, so the garden is back to normal with even the grass cut. Now I have got to be patient and wait for fine weather so he can prune the roses, cut the shrubs down and hopefully put in two fence panels at the back of the garden. Then it will all be tidy for the winter, which I dread.

17th Oct – Chris and Shirley came over on my 86th birthday and we had a nice day with more cards than usual, people are kind and write to me now because they realise I like answering letters for something to do. Photo 289 and Photo 290 were taken on the day

19th Oct – Unfortunately I felt so awful that Sally called a doctor, who came nice and early and gave me some pills to stop my tummy behaving like a sieve, but they put me to sleep and made me feel even more dizzy than ever and I have not got over it yet.

23rd/24th Oct – Liz and family came over for the weekend, even Peter this time, I was honoured and he is getting quite useful and solved my programmer problem. We all went to Sally and Clive’s for dinner on Sunday, but Clive was ill in bed with a rotten cold, got up in the evening and went to work the next day.

26th Oct – Liz and Anne went home in the afternoon, so now I am recovering from this awful tiredness, but managed to wash all the towels somehow, gradually recovered and carried on as usual.

1st Nov – Saw no one at the weekend because Sally was at a meeting, but went to tea with them the following Sunday – 7th Nov.

9th Nov – Graham came to put two fence panels up at the bottom of the garden and pruned the shrubs, a marvellous job, he’s a good worker. Unfortunately I can’t even walk down there to look at it.

14th Nov – It was Remembrance Sunday so I had plenty to look at for two days, but not very cheerful.

16th Nov – I complained to the Gas Company about my difficult programmer, so they came at last to change it to one like Sally and Chris’s, so simple. I can’t think why they didn’t put it in at the beginning, I can understand this one and can see it.

17th Nov – Two days of a freezing frost, looked lovely but was so cold that now I have my heat on from 5.00 a.m in the morning until 11.00 p.m at night and then have a hot water bottle in bed, although I usually wake up sweating. I is lovely when I sleep all night, but occasionally I don’t, which is grim and I have to read with the light on of course and sometimes don’t sleep at all until after 4.00 a.m so I am tired all day.

26th Nov – Graham came and pruned my roses in the front garden very neatly but it was a mistake because it encouraged the schoolboys to push my wall over, most of it gone, great heavy lumps of it.

28th Nov – I went to dinner with S and C and discovered she had asked four young Jehovah’s Witness friends as well, but they were very jolly and did me good I expect.

29th Nov – Audrey and Margaret brought their sandwiches and came to lunch with me, so kind of them. I can’t entertain these days not being able to shop.

1st Dec – Sally was going to take me to Tankerton to buy Christmas cards, but couldn’t start the car so we went by taxi and bought a box of 50 cards plus 3 pounds for the taxi. Anyhow I have sent them all with notes in and have had lots of lovely replies, including phone calls from Winnie Crook and Aubrey Pearce. John Crook is ill and never goes to church and now Aubrey has something wrong with him so we are all in the same boat. Writing the cards and letters has kept me amused for days, but now that is over must find something else to do or my brain will just fizz out, hence this.

Had some awful windy weather but nothing like other parts of the country, where there has been damage, but it is a cold north west wind but dry and sunny at times so I sit near the fire, it is the only way to keep warm.

14th Dec – Mrs Rake took me to see Mrs Waton in Bradley House care home one afternoon, she is wonderful and quite happy there, loving the food, but it would not do for me, too many old ladies and men as well, some senile of course, but very nicely appointed.

15th Dec – Sally came and changed my bed and cleaned the room, awful effort as the bed is so heavy. Began to have lots more nice cards, some with letters, which I have replied to.

21st Dec – Gary came to rebuild the front garden wall, he worked very hard and finished it in two days.

24th/25th Dec – Liz and family arrived early on Christmas Eve and we had a lovely Christmas dinner with Sally and Clive and the boys.

26th Dec – On Sunday we stayed at home and we looked at the morning service on television from Bradford Cathedral and saw our former vicar, the Rev. Christopher Lewis, reading the prayers. Janet and her new fiance Michael visited us, he was very sociable and we all liked him.

27th Dec – On Boxing Day we went over to Sally and Clive’s again with all the family including Chris, Shirley and Paul, Nick and Miranda and younger Chris’s friend Nicola and Anthony’s friend Penny.

28th Dec – Clive kindly took Liz and Co home so now we are back to normal and quiet.

31st Dec – Sally and Clive came in on New Year’s Eve but we didn’t see it in, how kind of them to come though.

1994

1st Jan – It is New Years Day and a lovely sunny day too. I hope it will be a better year for me as regard health, so hurry on Spring. I am having dinner with Sally and Clive so that is a good start to the year.

It is at this point that I have decided not to continue with my personal diary as the little that happens in my life now seems, to me, to be exceedingly boring and of little interest both for me to write about and for anyone to read. I have not written of many of the events that have occurred in this country, or the rest of the world, because it has been my life that I have been recalling, and have only mentioned matters outside my own small world when it affected me or my family personally, such as the war. But before drawing my memoirs to a close I thought I would record just a little of what I have observed has been happening in the world at large in the past year.

England seemed to have suffered so many bombings from the I.R.A., the worst being the two bombs in the City of London which damaged huge business blocks, but thankfully did not kill many people. There were also the sad bombings in the shopping centre of Warrington where two young boys were killed.

All over the country young lads seemed to be stealing cars by driving fast through town centres and killed so many people and caused so much damage.

Then there was the terrible murder of a two year old child by two boys aged only 10 and 12, which revolted the whole country.

Yugoslavia is a forgotten country now, there is fighting between the three different factions and the country is devastated. The U.N. try to bring aid to the starving communities and resolve the conflict, but so many lives have been lost and people wounded.

Even the weather was in revolt, there were two terrible earthquakes, one in Los Angeles and the other in India, where there were so many casualties. In Australia there was a terrific fire so near to Sydney, with a temperature of 100c, yet in New York the temperature fell to minus 40c, so 1993 was another strange year.

Still that is enough gloom and doom, so I will try to finish on a happier note. I read an amusing letter in a magazine recently which I felt applied to me quite well, it went as follows:-

“I am now a Senior Citizen who is a person born before the Pill, television, frozen foods, credit cards and ballpoint pens. For us, time sharing meant togetherness and a chip meant a piece of wood. Hardware meant hard ware and software wasn’t even a word. We were before pantyhose, drip-dry clothes, dishwashers, tumble dryers and electric blankets. We got married first and then lived together (how quaint can one be?). Girls wore Peter Pan collars and thought that cleavage was something butchers did. We were before Batman, vitamin pills, disposable nappies, jeeps and pizzas. Instant coffee and Kentucky Fried Chicken weren’t even thought of. In our day cigarette smoking was fashionable, grass was for mowing, pot was something you cooked in. A gay person was the life of the party and nothing more, while Aids meant beauty lotions or help for someone in trouble. When you think of how the world has changed and of the adjustments we have had to make, I think we are a hardy bunch.”

To add to the above anecdote, here are some of my own random memories of those days long gone.

School was a place where you did what you were told and worked hard and were polite to the teachers. When at home you helped with the housework and washing up, made your own beds and tidied your bedrooms.

On Sundays you went to church with your parents and spent the rest of the day reading or gardening and behaving yourself and Christmas and Easter were religious festivals. Sometimes there were visitors but no trips to the country or seaside on a Sunday. We had grace before meals and morning prayers when certain visitors stayed, and not just on a Sunday either!!

There weren’t many private cars then, just a few bicycles and the milkman went round in a horse and cart and served the milk out of huge cans. Other tradesmen called once or twice a week for orders and then delivered them, butcher, baker, greengrocer, grocer, laundry and fishmongers. There were lamplighters and men who called to sharpen your knives or mend your chairs. There were horse buses with open tops and horse driven funeral cars, decorated with large black feathers.

We had picnics in the garden, there seemed to be real summers then, and married members of the family were always visiting with their children. We played croquet and, later on, tennis and always gardening. In our homes we danced to a gramophone with a big trumpet, waltzing, foxtrot, polka and occasionally the lancers, such fun. Our holidays were spent in the British Isles

We had boy friends who took us to the cinema or dances. Ballroom dancing of course was the rage then, until the Charleston came from America, apart from the Lambeth Walk which was fun and truly British. Also very occasionally there were visits to the theatre or a promenade concert. Tickets for the front stalls in theatres and concert halls in London cost 7/6d (old money – that’s 37 1/2p today) and for the back seats about 2/6d. I believe theatres in London now cost at least 35 pounds for the stalls, although cheaper in the provinces. Fashions were quite different in those early years, skirts were below the knee and necks weren’t low, we wore long evening dresses and dinner jackets for men when we went to dances. Going up to London was exciting and safe, even on the underground, and even working in an office was enjoyable. Burglaries were rare and mugging and raping weren’t even thought of or worried about.

Most of us had some sort of a job but usually retired on getting married. Then we started off in flats or shared houses and gradually saved up for a house of our own. Jobs were easy to find and food was relatively cheap, so we coped with our small families and had a good life. We earned comparatively small salaries but we managed. A girl in an office in the 1930’s earned about three to four pounds a week, as against probably about 150 pounds a week today. At that time sugar was 3d a lb (old money – that’s about 1 1/4p in present day money – it is about 67p a lb today). Tea was 2/4d a lb for Lyons Greenleaf.

We revered the Royal Family, who were very popular, and we were very patriotic and sang about it. Tabloid newspapers were pleasant to read then, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Sketch had a lot of pictures, but now most papers seem to vie with one another to print as much sleaze as they can manage.

We had to cope with a World War which for some was tragic, meaning separation or death, including nightly bombings of towns and cities, doodlebugs and V2 rockets and the evacuation of children to the countryside.

In conclusion then, looking back over the years I consider that I was so lucky to be born at the tail end of a large family when my parents were considerably better off than they were at the beginning of it. After the extension was built on to what was already a large house, it was a joy to live in and with an extended large garden to play in we were really very privileged. I did not realise it at the time, but looking back as I am, anyone can see how fortunate we were. Again Doug and I had a very stable marriage, as indeed did all my sisters and brother, not one divorce in our family of eight. Also apart from the war, even though we lost dear little Ann during that time, so many people suffered more than we did, so I still feel that we were so very blessed.

Now I am alone I grumble a lot and yet look back with thankfulness for all the good times and the friends we made over the years.

Edith Florence Atwell

Whitstable
April 1992 to March 1994