Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:34 am Post subject: Where do you come from.
I don't mean where do you come from in the spiritual sense but rather where were you born and do you think that your childhood made you what you are today be it nice or nasty loving or hateful selfish or giving.
I was born at No 83 Vicarage Road Leyton E10. Not quite an Eastender but rather more an East Londoner. I was brought up together with my two brothers and my sister in three rooms on the third floor of a crumbling and condemed house. Condemed because it was damp and in places you could look through the floorboards into rooms below.
In the basement lived Mr and Mrs Black together with their son and daughter. Mrs Black died of Tuberculosis when she was still very young and looking back at their living conditions I am not suprised. They literally lived in the cellar next to the coal hole. I suppose, infact I know that their were lots and lots of families worse of than them of course.
Above them in the front of the house lived Mr Smith. He was a dapper man who as I remember used to give me sixpence to get his newspapaers on a sunday morning. Next to him lived Mr Hammond. He was a lunatic in the genuine sense of the word. I can reember seeing four strong men trying to get him into an ambulace on more than one occasion and having to use all their combined strenght to achieve the task in hand.
His flat stank. As you walked into the house the first thing that struck you was the smell. It may have been the pyramid of rotting egg shells permanantly standing on his kitchen table which grew taller as the weeks past, or perhaps the straw on the floor but what ever it was even the gale force draught coming up through holes in the floorboards didn't seem to help get rid of the stench. You would often see Mr Hammond crossing the hallway from kitchen to living room with his fried eggs and bacon on a sheet of folded newspaper in place of a plate. I suspect that Mr Hammond and Mr Smith were more thatn just friends. In between bouts of insanity Mr Hammond was a good and kind man who loved experimenting with radios and anything electrical. I often thought him a genius and that it was an awful shame that he was mad.
Next you came to our rooms and then above us lived my Nan and Grandad in one room and in the room next door my uncle Ron and Aunty Pam.
All in all it was a bit crowded and I wonder if that is why I like my space now.
Good heavens, David, that sounds completely Dickensian! What decade are we talking about? It really makes you wonder how some people survived!
My birth family comes from Botesdale, a small village near Diss, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, but I was actually born in Cuckfield, Sussex. My mother was unmarried, which was a terrible scandal and disgrace in those days, so she went far away from home to have me, and I learned a few years ago that the rest of the family didn't even know she'd had me until I was 3 months old.
She was desperate to keep me, but my grandmother was a martinet who decreed how I should be looked after - and I use that term loosely. If my mother wanted to take me out, Nana would tell her when to be back, and god help her if she was late. When I was ill, mother went to get me some medicine in her lunch hour (she had to work) but Nana wouldn't let her give it to me. One day, mum came home to find Nana in the kitchen with a social worker, discussing my adoption. My poor mother was distraught, but she had no option but to obey, because Nana threatened to put her out on the street, which she actually did when my half-brother was born 7 years later.
My mother's elder brother and his wife were in their mid-40s and childless, and they said: 'Well we'll take her if you don't want her'. Mother and Nana took me down to London on the train. I was 23 months old at the time. My aunt (now my adoptive mother) came up from Hampshire, and the handover was done at the station. My real mum got up to go to the toilet, and I began to cry. She told me: 'Don't worry, mummy'll be back in a minute.' And my aunt said: 'You're NOT her mother any more - I'M her mother now.'
Nana was to come down with my aunt to Hampshire to help me settle in, but when they got on the train, my mum couldn't bear to let me go, and had hysterics. My aunt wrenched her away from me and ordered her - ordered, mind you, off the train. Poor mum had to travel back up to Suffolk on the train alone, and cried herself to sleep every night for the next two weeks, so that Grandad had to send for Nana to come back and sort her out.
And so I was brought up on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border, an only child of adoptive parents old enough to be my grandparents, in an old cottage in the middle of woods and farmland, miles from anywhere. It was a beautiful location, but I was all alone with no other children to play with, and no brothers and sisters, and as I grew up, I was always discouraged from wanting to know my real family, and to this end I was told a pack of lies.
So I think my early beginnings gave me a heightened sense of cruelty and injustice, and an abhorrence of liars, and also laid down the foundations of the rebelliousness which infuriated my adoptive mother so much. And of course, the more she condemned me for it, the more rebellious I became.
Oh! Beany,that made me so sad,I too had a child out of wedlock,and only just managed to escape the same fate. My Mum wanted to adopt my boy,as she thought my boyfriend was going to desert me. He didnt and we married,had another boy the following year... thats another story.
My early childhood.
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I was born in Ilford [king george V1 hospital] and lived at 18 Wingate road,Ilford. This was quite a posh terraced house,had electric light and cooking stove.
Dad was not well off,he once had his own shopmaking and mending wireless sets when he lived in Hackney. When he married Mum,they moved to Ilford,as my Nan[mum's mum] lived in the same road,number 52. Dad went to work for a carpentry firm in Barking,making doors. The pay was so low,although he was skilled,that we had to move to a cheaper house,number 26, a condemned house,where I grew up. I might add that this house is still standing to this day! The rent difference was only sixpence,but in my days that would buy almost a week's shopping[lol]
Mum was not happy,the new house was damp,painted a mucky brown and had gaslight,no electricity in sight! We didn't have electric till 1957,and telly came later in 1959. No phone,that was a rich mans tool!
My sister and I; [7 years older than me] slept in the same double bed with until she was 15. Then I was carted off to the next door box-room,not told why.... it was all of 7ft.X 8ft,room enogh for a bed,chest of drawers and thats it,funny enough,my grandaughter who lives in the same road as I live now,has her bedroom almost the same.
We had only the two bedrooms,most people in the street had converted the box-room to a bath-room as houses weren't built with those little luxuries. We had a tin bath hanging on the outside wall,which rusted . In the end I had to go to my aunt's flat at the top of our road to have a bath. Her flat was modern,built in 1958.I remember she used 'Breeze' soap.
We had 'steam' radio,it was my job to collect the accumulater and the gas mantles from the shop up the road in my old pushchair. Mum and Nandid the weekly shop with the pushchair too! My school was within a few yards at the end of the road. All my Mum's family, 8 brothers and sisters had gone to the same school. Mum and Dad were Healer's. Dad was the president at our church in Barking and they held spiritualist meetings in the upstairs front bedroom,which had been converted to our parlour.Mum and Dad slept downstairs in the front room,with a jerry under the bed.,, which amused my friends that had posh indoor bathrooms.The loo was outside,no light,and newspaper for toilet roll.
We kept rabbits,for the pot [unknown to me] and next door had pigeons ,also for the pot! veggies came from the garden.
I can remember many a time having to go to the front door when the rent man or the insurance man came and tell him that Mum was out. I blew it once,by shouting back,''Mum's out..Aren't you ,Mum?''
I had a sore bum for a few days.
I could write a book on my childhood,spent in the garden mostly,as my sis was at work at 15,and I was like an only child. _________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
I was born in Sunderland at 5, Lutterworth road. My parents had been married for 5 years and had been trying to have kids for all this time. This is because my mother had only 2 periods a year rather than one every month.
They were ready to adopt when they went on a camping trip with my Dad's best friend & his wife & I was conceived. My mum a little later miscarried & could never conceive again, so I'm an only child. (Ironically my wife and I had been married for 4 years when she miscarried our first child & conceived our son exactly a year later !)
My Dad was a head of a school for the deaf in Sunderland & wanted a better school, so we moved down to Plymouth when I was in my 7th year.
After 7 years in Plymouth my Dad got the headship of a private school for the deaf in Derby, where they lived until he retired.
I went to 2 public schools, one in Plymouth, the other in Long Eaton in Nottinghamshire.
I left the last school before taking my A levels, because the teachers didn't think I'd pass. I wanted to prove them wrong so went to a Sixth form college, where I got 3 A levels & an O level pass in a 4th.
I then went to the same University college as my Dad, but on the other campus, where I studied languages.
I haven't lived in the UK for the last 20 years, only visiting during the summer hols.
Like my good friend Lilly I could write a book about my childhood, but will leave the post at this ! _________________
i was born in eastleigh in hampshire and have lived here for most of my life. i am the youngest of three and the only girl, my brothers being so much older than me , i grew up feeling like an only child at times. we lived a basic but healthy life as a child... i had everything i needed, just without the frills! the secondary school i attended was very rough, and having been taught to speak properly, and to use my brain, i found myself one of the minority ... after a few years of being bullied (usually for not wearing the right clothes, my mother made most of mine) i found an inner stength to get by... and found alternative ways to be accepted... my homelife was frought at times with a father who had an uncontrollable temper, although thankfully this was seldom aimed at me.my mother however is an extremely loving person and everything was always made right by one of her cuddles! christianity was a strong theme within the family and to please my mother i did what was expected of me.... i very quickly though found myself questioning everything, most questions usually aimed at our old vicar, who was extremely tolerant and patient with my questioning and was honest enough to say i would find my own way for the answers i was seeking. _________________ i'm not afraid of dying...it's living that scares me!!!!
Laura, your experiences of school look as if they mirror mine exactly.
My mother always insisted I speak cut-glass English, and when I went to secondary school in Romsey, (not that far from Eastleigh) I stuck out like a sore thumb every time I opened my mouth, and was bullied for years, like you.
Unfortunately, there were no cuddles for me when I got home. I got no sympathy at all, and my dad told me it was my own fault for being such a cry-baby, and that I should hit them back. Easier said than done when it's six onto one, and teachers take a dim view of fighting and prefer to administer the cane and ask questions later, if at all.
I spent my entire childhood being terrified - of my parents, of the teachers and of the bullies.
Laura, your experiences of school look as if they mirror mine exactly.
My mother always insisted I speak cut-glass English, and when I went to secondary school in Romsey, (not that far from Eastleigh) I stuck out like a sore thumb every time I opened my mouth, and was bullied for years, like you.
Unfortunately, there were no cuddles for me when I got home. I got no sympathy at all, and my dad told me it was my own fault for being such a cry-baby, and that I should hit them back. Easier said than done when it's six onto one, and teachers take a dim view of fighting and prefer to administer the cane and ask questions later, if at all.
I spent my entire childhood being terrified - of my parents, of the teachers and of the bullies.
I must have missed this bit! My experience too,my school mates[very few] said I spoke like the Queen! I went to work in a factory on first leaving school,and my life was a misery,so I learnt to keep quiet.I was always the 'odd one' or called weirdo,and witch. I cried nearly every day home from school. _________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
it was awful at the time to experience the cruelty of peers.... but i think it has helped to make me the person i am today... and given me the experience to advise my own girls how to deal with life! ... also to be able to stand alone and be an individual with out always the need to fit in. it is a hard lesson to learn and i try to teach my own children the lesson more kindly.
what positives have you been able to take from your experiences? _________________ i'm not afraid of dying...it's living that scares me!!!!
I was watching The Bill earlier, and it was about school bullying. I sat there, absolutely inside the screen with this poor little girl who was being picked on by this girl brat and her mates, laughed at, ridiculed and humiliated. The little soul looked like a frightened rabbit. OK, I know it was acting, but it was so realistic and so close to home that I wanted to cry all over again.
That nervousness has stayed with me for life, and the only times I've ever felt brave is when I've been protecting my own children. I would have smashed faces in rather than have them go through what I was put through.
I've never forgotten how the gang chased me round the playground, sat on me and tried to put worms down my neck; how they grabbed the glasses off my face and played piggy-in-the-middle with them, and then threw them down on the tarmac when the bell went, leaving me to grope for them, terrified they would be broken, and of getting into trouble when I got home.
One day in summer, I was sitting reading under a tree on the playing field, as far away from people as I could get. The gang found me and sat on me again, grabbing my arms, and this time they pulled my shoes off and threw them in the stinging nettles just as the bell went.
I was always coming home with my blazer pockets torn where they'd grabbed onto me to make me miss my stop. A favourite trick was for the gang to stick pins down their lapels from needlework, and then jab me with them as we sat in the bus on the way home. Once the driver called me up front to sit on the single seat beside him, because no-one would leave me alone.
Even at the village school I would always come out at home-time to find my bicycle tyres had been let down, and when I finally got them pumped up, I would get halfway down the road to find the gang strung across the road with their bikes, and wouldn't let me pass. Dipping my plaits in the inkwell behind me was nothing in comparison.
In the end, you get so frightened, demoralised and lonely, and you really believe you're a freak, because no-one wants to be friends with you, and you can't understand why. And all that's without including the names I was called. It was torture, no more, no less. And I've never got over it, that's why I'm still so shy today.
it's brave of you to talk about what has happened... you have a great inner beauty that shows such incredible honesty and emotion. being shy is not a negative thing, it means you are able to be in touch with your emotions and are cautious to how you act upon a given situation. i feel that in itself is a strength you have gained xxx _________________ i'm not afraid of dying...it's living that scares me!!!!
I'm exactly the same,funny you said about '' Dipping my plaits in the inkwell behind me was nothing in comparison.''
I had this and actually got the blame for it! My hair was [still is] blonde and the ink turned my hair green.It was so long I didn't know what was happening. As for coming home from school, what a nightmare. I too wore glasses,and was called four eyes by kids that also wore glasses.The local gang waited for me behind corners,tied my long plaits to the railings;Again I got the blame for being late in class.
I have never been able to stand up for myself,and my second marriage was hell on Earth. I was ridiculed,put down,bullied, punched,treated like a slave for nearly 20 years. Some of the things he did are hard to believe,so I don't bother telling any more.
The people who say 'why do women stay with a man like that' haven't got a clue. I certainly wasn't going to leave as it was my house.I was so frightened of him and the threats he made if I attempted to tell,that I put up with it. When I did eventually get away,by a mere stroke of luck, the court didn't believe a word I said against him[he was a marvellous actor] My case came up at the same time as the Eastenders saga of little Mo and Trevor; it was so like my experience I think they thought I'd copied the story line. My main fear now,apart from my mental scars,is using the phone. I go into panic attacks when I have to phone someone,even my friends. I can't explain it to them they think its strange.How can anyone be frightened of picking up a phone? I have blotted out a lot of my memories,but a certain amount of bitterness remains for the way I was treated. I was a shy child and now am a shy adult,tho I do cover it up quite well,while underneath I'm like a frightened kitten. _________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
Oh Lilly, sweetheart, I can so understand just where you're coming from. I do know how it feels - my first two husbands were bastards too. My first one beat me up and stayed out all night clubbing and staying with other women. I know this, because he took malicious pleasure in coming home and telling me all about it. Once he got hold of me by the hair and slammed my head against the wall so hard that a large chunk of plaster fell out. We were both in our early 20s then.
My second didn't hit me - his abuse was all psychological. He was insanely jealous and didn't like me going out or having friends. When I did go out to work, he said he had 'friends' that he'd asked to keep an eye on me to see where I went in my lunch hour and who I spoke to. He didn't like me wearing a bikini on the beach (in the days when I had a figure, lol) and he was always accusing me of shortening my skirts (which I hadn't) and even THINKING about other men! He would never tell the truth if he could get away with a lie, and when I caught him out, as I so often did, he would deliberately start a row so we would end up not speaking and he wouldn't have to explain himself. He lied about everything, even his background. Lastly, he was a compulsive spender on cars, and throughout our marriage he took out loan after loan after loan, which left us so poor I sometimes didn't know where the next meal was coming from, and couldn't afford to buy shoes for my girls. For years I wore things I'd bought from jumble sales, and blessed the day I'd learned to sew.
Eventually, after 22 years, I managed to leave him, but my name was mud everywhere I went. My mother took his side and disowned me, and told all the family to have nothing more to do with me. Neighbours glared at me or ignored me, and some even crossed the road to avoid me. In the end I got out and moved about 70-80 miles away, down here to Devon.
I'm a bit of an enigma really - half of me is the strong survivor, the bloodyminded rebel, raging at the wickedness and injustices in the world, but the other half of me is so shy I wouldn't say boo to a goose's face, I'd just get completely tongue-tied and probably burst into tears. Then a week later I'd think of what I should have said, and beat myself up some more for not thinking of it at the time.
I'm just so lucky I've finally found John, but it took me literally half a century to find him. So I guess there's hope for us all - even me, lol!
Reading this ,it seems to me that we've lived parallel lives! though there are a few differences! My first hubby [the father of my two boys] was a good man ,but fell under the influence of alcohol,became an alcoholic,which left me ,like you, almost penniless. I was a trained seamstress,so I would make the boys' clothes often from my old skirts!. Shoes were another matter,I couldn't make them. I reluctantly had to divorce,though we stayed friends. He died from liver disease,alone in his bedsit,at age 58.
My second husband,was like the proverbial spider,luring me into his parlour. I met him in a spiritualist church,and fell hook line and sinker to his charms,when all he wanted was my house and money. He could lie better than Walter Mitty. was an alcoholic,which I didn't realise as he was so devious. He had acute OCD . He would go out in the garden after and during a gale straightening the plants and sweeping up every leaf in sight.
He was possessive to the point of mind control,and I'm afraid I can't print here all the things he did,and made me do.
I hate that saying,which I hear so often,that 'you can lead a horse to water,but you can't make him drink!' My argument is; Oh! yes you can make him drink if he/she is so bloody scared of the person making him! After all, circus animals are trained by fear.
Perhaps I was a coward,as I bowed down to obey him,then I was in fear of my life,and the threats of what he said he would tell my sons ''things about me'' . At one time he pointed a gun at my face . It was a while until I found out it was a replica. Btw, he was obsessed with cars and had a new one every year,with me footing the bill!
I don't think I will ever meet a 'John'-- like you have, as he made me lose my trust. I had never met a man so evil,and didn't know what I was getting in to. The strange irony of the last bit is that I DID meet and go out a few times with a man named John,who was an old friend of my first hubby. We got on alright,and had a lot in common. I knew he used to drink a lot,and he assured me that he had given it up. Hah! pigs flying above, another alcy. He turned quite nasty when I dumped him.
In my next life, I'll come back as a pampered pet,like my cat!!! _________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
Is it something about us shy ones, do you think, that acts like a magnet to these evil, controlling men? Sometimes I used to think I was walking around with a tattoo saying Kick Me on my forehead.
I've only scratched the surface of the things that have been done and said to me, and I'm sure you have too, but I've got to the point where it's becoming an effort to remember it all, and that's a good place to be, because it shows that time and distance is finally taking effect, and there's no point in churning it all up for me any more.
That's not to say it hasn't left its scars and its after-effects - it most certainly has, and I will be shy and nervous for the rest of my life. It's just that I've learned to be kinder to myself now and accepted that none of it was my fault, no matter how much I was made to believe it was. These were nasty, negative people trying to pass all their negativity onto my shoulders. Well now I've refused to accept it any more, and I've sent it all back fairly and squarely where it belongs.
I was like you, Lilly, I never thought there were any decent men left in the world. When I met John, he too had been dumped on from a great height by both his previous wives, and almost the first thing he said to me was that he'd never trust a woman again. For me, it was instant attraction the minute we met, and I regarded this as a challenge. In the early days of our relationship we had some humdingers of rows, because we both had a lot of baggage to carry, and he automatically judged me by the behaviour of his first two wives. Eventually, he began to realise that I wasn't like them, and over the years we've both mellowed and calmed down as relaxation and trust set in. It was the happiest day of my life when we got married in October 2004, and now I wouldn't swap him for the world. And best of all, his large family up in Liverpool and surrounding area have taken me to their hearts and welcomed me into the family as well, and it's brought tears to my eyes to be loved and accepted into a family at last, who accept me just for being me, and because they see I have made John happy too.
This is my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's been a long, hard road, but it was so worth waiting for.
I'm so pleased for you,its just like the fairy tale ending!
When I was baptised,at my Godmothers' church[spiritualist] Mum said I was-- or she was.,given my life's path reading.
Well,either Mum lied to me,or its yet to come,I don't know. She was told that the first part of my life would be like walking on broken glass--true,then the last part of my life path would be happy; maybe it might happen when I'm in my eighties?
Life has certainly made me pessimistic! but I do not wallow in self pity,and I do know that none of his treatment of me was my fault.A victim support counsellor told me that these sort of men prey on weaker ,trusting women.
I'm not a miserable person,really,I always see the good in people,I'm always smiling.
And I think this is enough of this subject;between us,we have poured out all our woes,and people only want to listen for a while to others moans and groans. I'm now putting it all behind me,as much as I can,as there are other issues in my life that are taking up my thoughts and causing a lot of worry. This is MY pathway and I mustn't burden other people with it,so put on a happy face and face the school of life which I chose.
_________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
Continuation of this thread;
Wednesday 13th,I and my best friend went to memory lane.
We went to her old stamping ground,which is also David's!!!! ,[I've got some pics!] And also to where I was born in Ilford.
I can honestly say I was so glad to get back to the Island.It was 'spot the white person' where I used to live,and we went past David's old school in Fowler road,also spot the whites!
I felt like an outsider! every shop was owned by Indians,and my old house had some Arabic inscription above the door.
It was so noisy too,half the roads were being dug up,looked like pipe laying,and skyscrapers were being built on the site of our old market,at least the new building kept the name it used to be.
We went past the docklands,and I did wave to Raymond!
I must say that on the buses,the 'foreigners' did give up their seats for us.
I don't think I will go back 'home' ever again!
This is my old house,where I grew up,and my Nan lived down the same road.
_________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
David will recognise this road!
_________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
And this one is at the beginning of Fowler Road.
_________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
this is my friends old house in Vansittart Road.
_________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
Chapel in Ramsey Road.
_________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
It is easy to condemn foreigners for changing what we hold to be our London but now it is their London and good luck to them I say.
I used to knock on doors down those roads and try to get a job cutting their hedges and in the winter sweeping the snow from their gardens.
I remember my first Kiss there with Elaine Steiner a nice little Jewish girl. She was plump and pretty and I was drowned in her softness god bless her. She was all of ten years old. My dad was summoned by the neighbours as to what was going on and I was dragged away by the ear, but that soft kiss was worth it and a lot more besides.
It was never to be repeated as in those days women didn't work and they ruled the streets and god help you if you committed a misdemeanour because the news would be back home long before you were. I wish we still had that army of women but nowadays they are all working and saving up to pay off their credit cards. That is something that is lost to society these days.
I remember playing cricket and football along the road and never a vehicle to be seen and never a complaint about kids making a noise in the street because that was what kids did and everyone who could have kids had plenty.
No need for apology David, we are , I suppose turning into our parents' way of thinking.When I look back and remember my Mum and Dad talking about 'the good old days' I find myself doing the same.It was just such a shock to see the changes.If I had been living there and seen the changes gradually happening .... I'm in no way racist,,some of my best friends in Woodford before I came here were from the Caribbean,lovely people,and Dad worked with Indians whom he got on very well with.
I think I'm getting old, and apart from the colour of some folk's skin,they are probably more British than I am! _________________ Remember words spoken complaining may blight every effort and plan,
A kind word would help in attaining,
So say a kind word when you can.
I like to think I am not racist and then I have to think what exactly is a racist.
I do feel different to foreign people because my entire background is different.
In business I have had bad experiences with Asians and I don't give a toss about saying it.
I would be very cautious about dealing with people from that background.
Then again I have been turned over for about 70.000 pounds over the years by English white folks so as far as I am concerned I do what I want to do these days and the Devil take the hindmost.
This forum helps me to recognise and consolidate my everyday prejudices and emotions and you know what.
My prejudices and emotions are totally meaningless in the scheme of things.
Meaningless from the point of view that they mean nothing either in this life or any supposed next.
I went back to my old house in London a few years back and it has been pulled down. Not surprising really as it was already falling down.
It just made me happy to know that by either accident or design I had left a shit hole and now lived in a place of my own choice with a few fields around me and relatively clean air.
I remember the vicar from Elim Church who according from the overheard words of my father was knocking of the lady in the flats next door. I remember her well as she was a large lady by the name of Betty. I did not of course understand what knocking her off meant but I do now.
Although my father was an ignorant fighting man he did have a kind of wisdom and I only realised this after his death.
I can sympathise with you about bad experiences with Asians, David.
In 1973 I took a job as a shop assistant which I was offered by Tom Singh, the founder of the New Look chain. He had just opened his first shop in Weymouth with his wife, Kuljit. She was a snooty so and so who looked down her nose at me and treated me more like a servant than an employee. She used me to run errands and go shopping for her, and when she had non-English speaking female relatives down, she would have me tagging along behind them wherever they went. If they wanted something, Kuljit would give me the money and tell me to go and get it, while they waited across the road.
Her husband, Tom Singh, first of all used to pay me in cash out of the till, no pay packet or wage slip or anything. One week he said he couldn't pay me all in one go, and I got my pay in cash in dribs and drabs through the week. I was furious at the inconvenience, as I had rent to pay for my digs, and my landlady wasn't very impressed either!
Then he announced that he wanted me to travel by train from Weymouth to his new shop in the Arndale Centre, in Poole, on Saturdays. I actually had to ask him for my train fare, and after that he drove me there in his car. He also took to paying me with his own personal cheque, on a Saturday, when all the banks were shut. I used to have to put it through the shop's till, or I wouldn't have had any money for almost a week.
The final straw came one closing time in May, just as I was leaving to go home. It was a Tuesday, 5.30 pm, and the next day, Wednesday, was my regular day off, which I'd negotiated with Tom Singh before I accepted the job. I was actually in the act of closing the door behind me, when Kuljit called out: 'Oh, by the way, we want you in tomorrow.'
I said: 'But it's my day off tomorrow - I've made arrangements to go out for the day!'
She said: 'Oh well, you come in in the morning, and we'll see about the afternoon.' No mention of an extra day's pay of course.
Now that was like a red rag to a bull, so I took my day off as usual anyway and spent the day on Studland beach as planned.
When I went to work on Thursday morning she said: 'Where were you yesterday?' And that was it - I let rip, I'd had enough, and then I walked out.
I would have dropped them in it up to their necks if I could have, as all the time I was there I never got a payslip, and I was paid cash in hand, which meant that they hadn't declared me as an employee, or paid any tax on my wages. It was nothing to do with their nationality, it was the way they treated me like dirt that infuriated me. No wonder Singh became such a millionaire.
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Oh! Beany,that made me so sad,I too had a child out of wedlock,and only just managed to escape the same fate. My Mum wanted to adopt my boy,as she thought my boyfriend was going to desert me. He didnt and we married,had another boy the following year... thats another story.
