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 Post subject: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:23 pm 
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Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:46 pm
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Location: Leicestershire
I kept in touch with the woman who I will call Madge and the three children. The children very often came round to me for a drink or something to eat.
The 12 year old girl who I will call Jilly came everyday after school and I gradually taught her to knit and read patterns.
The two boys were a different kettle of fish because Jilly’s blood brother could tell the biggest lies while looking you straight in the eye with his big blue eyes. I found out more about his wily ways later.

Jilly’s stepbrother ( the one who had his head trapped ) I found out was a head banger.
He was always banging his head against the headboard on his bed and caused quite a bit of mayhem at times. I suppose in todays society he would be regarded as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD as it is known nowadays.
Yes he was a bit of a handful but I used to keep him amused when he came to see me by giving him a very large box of buttons that my mother had given me and a ball of wool. I would ask him to find all the same buttons and thread them on different lengths of wool. This kept his attention from wandering.
I made sure that they were off the strands by the next time he came so that he still had plenty to go at.
Crafty on my part I suppose but as long as it kept him amused that was all that mattered.

Madge used to come round but usually on the cadge for something such as sugar or money to get cigarettes. She usually got short shrift from me by telling her I had use my sugar ration up and I had no money to give her.
She topped it all one day though when she came round and asked me if I had any new knickers because she was going to a wedding. My mind boggled as I gave her my last pair of new ones just to get rid of her.
I had the children that day while she went to the family do with Jilly’s father.
NO children were invited.
I had known this family for about six months when my hubby came home and said that he had been offered a house that belonged to the firm he worked for.

I was over the moon because I would have my own front and back door and as much as I had enjoyed living at “Kerry’s” I still wanted a place of my own.


When I told Jilly she sobbed her heart out because she did not want me to leave her.
I was taking the place of a real mother even though I was only nearly 22 years old myself.
Having said that somewhere out in that big wide world her real mother was still alive and had remarried from what I could make out.
I told Jilly she could come for weekends if her stepmother would let her because the house we were moving to had three bedrooms.
This consoled her and she was quite happy to help me pack my things.



We had been in the house for roughly 8 months when one day there was a knock on the door and who should be standing there but Madge and the three children.
Fortunately Cliff had worked the early shift so he too was at home when this happened.

Madge said she had come to ask me if I would look after the children for a while because she was pregnant and was getting a new house sorted out for them through the council.
One that would be on the outskirts of Loughborough so that the children could go to school at Loughborough.
Cliff and I said that we would on the understanding that something was paid for their keep. She passed over the childrens ration books, because we were still on rations at that time, with promises that we would get something each week.
When Madge went I was under the impression that she was sending the children’s clothes over .
How naïve could I have been?

She went out the door and it was nearly ten months later when I saw her again.

She had dumped the children on me without even a change of clothes. It’s a good job I had a decent next door neighbour who passed some of her two boys outgrown clothing to me for the lads.
Jilly had to make do with some of my stuff until I got sorted out.

It was quite a dilemma and I could have contacted the police BUT the last thing I wanted was for Social services to put the children in a home.
I had been in one myself for seven years and I certainly did not want them to be subjected to the cruelty that I went through when I was little.

I sorted out the bedrooms and took my lads cot back into our bedroom so that the two lads could sleep in the other double bed. I did not like putting my sons cot back in my room because he was about 16 months old then but it was the only way I could fit everyone in.
I used to get up in the middle of the night to get my lad out to go to the toilet and Jilly’s stepbrother because I had caught him the first night he stopped with us, just about ready to water the flowers on the ruddy wall paper that we had not long put on the walls in that bedroom.
He was still asleep so I could not scold him.
It used to be awful to hear him banging his head against the head board before he finally went to sleep.
We padded it well with two big bolsters so that he woud not hurt himself. It was quite a gruelling time .


I contacted the firm where Jilly’s father worked and told the boss to tell him to come round and see me when he got back from his long distance driving job.

He finally made an appearance three weeks after I had first taken the children in and told me his wife was in Liverpool but he would be calling each week with some money to keep the children.
There were NO family allowances then to help out with clothes and shoes.
That did not come into force until 1956.

I never saw Jilly’s father again until just before Jilly left school at 14.

Yes I was taken for a ride but I would not have had it any other way.

When the children first came to me Jilly’s brother told folks that I would not let him go out to play.
It made me sound an ogress but the truth of the matter was as he only had one set of everything to wear in underclothes I had to wash and dry them every night so that they would be ready for the next morning.
That was why I could not let him go out to play until I got him some more. He could tell such convincing lies I even started to doubt myself at times.

My next door neighbour told me about Providence Cheques which meant borrowing about £50 and paying it back at 5 shillings a week.
Both Cliff and myself were against doing this because we had never had any thing on the weekly before.
Unfortunately it was a case of needs must to get the children school uniform once I had got them settled into schools.
£50 may not sound much in todays coinage but it went a heck of a long way years ago and 5 shillings a week to pay back the £50 was quite a slice out of a man’s weekly wage then.

We did not live as well as I would have liked us to but we survived.

After ten months of struggling to keep the children on my husbands wage Jilly’s father turned up and said that they now had a house and the children could go back there to live.
Jilly was just coming up to 14 years of age when she would be leaving school and sent to get a job.
It was a convenient time for them to want the children back when extra money would be coming in towards the housekeeping because Jilly would be starting work.

When the children finally left I had been promised a cheque to be forthcoming from her father for the months I kept them.
It never did materialise and I would not lower myself to ask for it.

I lost touch with the stepmother and Jillys father but Jilly always came back to see me.
I don’t know what happened to the two lads after they grew up and I have never bothered asking Jilly.

Jilly found her true mother over the years and she brought her to meet me. She thanked me for what I had done for her two children.
I never asked what had happened between Jilly’s real mother and her father.
I only know that NOTHING on this earth would have parted me from my child/children.

Jilly is now a grandmother herself but she always comes to see us when she comes to visit her husband’s family because she and her husband now live on the Shetland Isles.

They are always asking Cliff and myself to go and stay with them for a month at a time.
One of these days I might take them up on their offer.

_________________
For every thing that stands out in life two things stand alone.
That is kindness in another’s strife and courage in your own.


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 Post subject: Re: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:43 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:15 pm
Posts: 3106
This is another beautiful story-which I passed on to my mother as well. We spent along time talking about your life, and the lives of the WW2 British (that's what dad and she called y'all-brethen to our yanks, serving side by side and taking most of the hits.)

She understands why it is that I love my HH friends so very much, and why I relate much better to this global community....whose stories are about so much more, than what cars they drive & what children's activities they can't afford, are involved in.

I found my grandmother's ration coupon book. It still had her sugar stamps, though she kept many a ten pound bag of them & flour on the attic steps....you never knew would be needing a cake for solace, sweet pickles for a favor, or a pie for a funeral. We never got bombed on. But Phyllix saw every single photo of the war ever sent thru the newspaper morgue & is still haunted by those images to this day. It made her a woman before her times....as if she wasn't born to it already.

Kind of like you,
thank you for this story-I treasure them
love,
linnyx


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 Post subject: Re: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 10:03 pm 
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Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:46 pm
Posts: 236
Location: Leicestershire
Many thanks Linny.
Glad you enjoyed the story.
I will have to look through my files to find one or two more for
you that I think you may enjoy. :)

_________________
For every thing that stands out in life two things stand alone.
That is kindness in another’s strife and courage in your own.


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 Post subject: Re: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 10:53 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:15 pm
Posts: 3106
Hope it's not too much trouble...my files are such a mess that I imagine you being swallowed up by paper crocodiles.

Your "voice" is very similar to my beloved grandmother Mallory's (greatly your senior)....she used to let me sleep with her as a "kicking horse," bedmate. She didn't get much sleep those nights, but always was bright and ready to teach me to cook in the morning.

Oh those beautiful nights of stories,
it soothes my spirit to regard yours,
love,
linnyx


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 Post subject: Re: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:43 pm 
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Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:46 pm
Posts: 236
Location: Leicestershire
Aawww bless you Linny. :)
Quite by coincidence my own granddaughter is sleeping with me tonight while my hubby is in hospital.
She is 16 but still loves to hear me tell her stories from many moons ago. :D

_________________
For every thing that stands out in life two things stand alone.
That is kindness in another’s strife and courage in your own.


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 Post subject: Re: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:34 am 
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Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 11:42 pm
Posts: 2311
Location: Devon, England
I replied to this a few days ago but it doesn't seem to be showing.
basically just to say thanks on 2 levels Maisie, thanks for looking after those children & thanks for posting, I love your stories.


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 Post subject: Re: Headlong into danger ..........Part Two.
PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:17 am 
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Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:46 pm
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Location: Leicestershire
Glad you are enjoying the tales from many years ago Lynn.
This is one reason why my son insisted I write them down for any future descendants.

Thankyou and God Bless.

_________________
For every thing that stands out in life two things stand alone.
That is kindness in another’s strife and courage in your own.


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