Pauline Cameron Transcript of Interview
Interview with Pauline Elizabeth Cameron (PC)
Interview conducted by Paula Grayson (PG) and Anjum Gray (AG)
15 March 2019
Date of birth: 20 September 1945
Place of birth: Northampton
PG How long did your family live in Turvey?
PC My father and his family lived in Turvey from the middle of the 1800s I think.
PG Wow. And what jobs did your father and mother do?
PC My father was a builder with his father.
PG And that’s Len Savage?
PC Yes. My mum was a nurse, well she was in the Red Cross. She was also a nanny, and they met when she came and worked as a nanny at the Laws House in Turvey and I’ve actually got a photograph of them both standing outside Laws House, by the wall.
PG Please can we have that? Can you find that?
PC Yes I will.
PG Yes? We’d love that photograph.
PC And my mother in her uniform and my dad standing there, so that’s where they first met, and then he went off to the war and, but they obviously stayed together and they got married in ’44.
PG And what was the firm of builders called?
PC The firm of builders was LM Savage but that was for my grandfather that was Leonard Montague.
PG Leonard Montague, I love it. And what was your dad’s name, besides Len?
PC Leonard Henry Arthur. But he worked for quite a long time after the war had ended with his brother as well, which was Charles Savage.
PG Ah, okay. And did your grandfather set up the building firm?
PC As far as I know, that’s not something I know for sure, but I do remember a great big handcart with great big wheels, that they used to put everything on and wheel it round the village to do all their jobs. So, they didn’t have any traps or anything like that. I can still see it, in my mind’s eye, this handcart which they put their ladders on and everything else as well.
PG Oh, big enough for ladders.
PC Yes
PG And the pointing trowels and the brick laying…
PC Whatever they were doing, yes.
PG And were they specialists or just general builders?
PC They were general builders but Dad had trained more on the carpentry front,
PG Okay, tell us a little bit how, because you say your mum and dad got married in 1944 but they met before the war in the interval years when she was a nurse.
PC Well she was a nanny at the Laws House then, and then she became a Red Cross Nurse.
PG During the war, oh fantastic. I don’t know where to start there. Okay, tell me about your mother being a Red Cross nurse in Turvey, how that….
PC No she didn’t in Turvey. She was a nanny when they met but she went home again to Brixworth in Northamptonshire during the war. They got married in Brixworth.
PG In that case I will divert neatly to your father, because why did he sign up for the RAF?
PC He signed up – I think the details are probably in there (indicating his book).
PG Oh, these are his reminiscences, the details are in there, it says Memories of a Turvey childhood between the Wars so that will tell us about that. My War Years and Return to Turvey. Good. So we’ll refer people to the books in that case. And as far as he was concerned, at the end of the war he came back and married your mum over in Brixworth in 1944. And where did they live then?
PC He went away, and was around the mountains of Mourn being demobbed or whatever it was that they did at the end of the war. Basically they got married in August 44 and I was born in September 45. And my dad as I said was away so I was about ten months old when we came to live in Turvey.
PG So where were you living when you were born then?
PC I was living with my grandparents in Brixworth.
PG In Brixworth, oh, so yes your early life was over in Northamptonshire, OK. And you were born in Northamptonshire.
PC In Northampton hospital, yes.
PG So when did they finally set up a household in Turvey?
PC They moved to Turvey in 46 and they moved into Vine Row. (Photo)
PG Oh they were in Vine Row, in those lovely houses up there, so renting.
PC Well there’s no comparison now, because they were tiny two up and two down, They’ve knocked a lot of those together now, but at that particular time there were a lot more little cottages then there are now and the loo was in the barn at the bottom of the garden.
PG You remember that?
PC Yes. Having said that, I was four / five, when we moved to the council houses in May Road because my brother was born when I was four but for part of that time when I was little we went and lived with my grandfather because he wasn’t very well.
PG I just want to pause you a second on Vine Row, so you were renting from the Turvey estate then?
PC I presume so, that I would not know.
PG And then you moved, sorry I interrupted.
PC No we didn’t, we kept the house in Vine Row, but my grandfather wasn’t very well so we went and lived with him for a little while.
PG When you were little?
PC Yes, much to my mother’s…, she wasn’t very keen, but she went because we needed to.
PG Oh, and you’re about to show me a photograph.
PC Yes. That is me and my mum standing on the road outside. (Photo)
PG I love it. At the end we’ll copy all the photographs and I’ll try to keep track. So that’s photograph one. That’s you and your mum where?
PC That’s literally outside Ralph’s (Leaper), you know the window there.
PG Oh, yes it’s Ralph’s bay window, except it isn’t.
PC It’s not a bay window, but that was out there.
PG I love your outfit, your cute little shoes. Oh that’s lovely.
PC But, when we went there for that short time I just remember vividly because there were actually two cottages and my grandfather was in one side, but he’d used the other side. That was Leonard Montague Savage, that lived there.
PG So what is now Ralph Leaper’s house was your grandfather’s house. It’s number 8 now, I don’t know what it was back then, it could have been anything back then.
PC Yes, I don’t know what. Well there were two as I said, because, he lived on one side, and on the other side he used to use it for storage so there were pots of paint and everything else as well. I remember from when I was little, that we had a bedroom in this second part, and to get to bed I used to have to walk through a corridor of paint pots, because they were stacked up either side.
PG Well that makes sense, live and work, they call it live work space.
PC But we only stayed there as long as my grandfather needed us, then we went back to Vine Row again.
PG Talking months, or years?
PC I genuinely don’t know, because you’ve seen that picture. I was three, potentially, but I do remember that. I remember one day we were supposed to be going on a mystery tour on a coach. My grandfather was stone deaf, he had been since he was seventeen, so he really couldn’t hear a thing, he lip read. I was so excited and jumping up and down on the bedroom window seat, and I saw the bus so I went flying to the top of the stairs and promptly fell down the whole stairs. Although he couldn’t hear, he obviously heard the bump, he heard the vibration and met me at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently I went, this I do not remember, but I was told that I went on to the bus with a banana in one hand, an apple in the other and a plaster on my bump on my head.
PG Ooh, and they all looked at your parents thoughtfully?
PC Yes, wondered what they’d been doing.
PG I wonder where the mystery tour went.
PC Yes, that I can’t remember.
PG Well it’s a bit dramatic to be so excited about your mystery tour, to fall all the way down the stairs because they’re really steep stairs in all of those houses. I’ve only seen Cindy’s stairs in number 10/11, but they’re terrifically steep.
PC Yes, I know, that’s right. So anyway, that was one there but then we went back to Vine Row. My father and my uncle basically took over the building work. My uncle then specialised in the electrics so eventually they separated. They had their workshop at the bottom of Newton Lane, which was the old forge which was knocked down to build the houses which are there now. (Photo)
AG Yes, we just missed that.
PC Well it was the old blacksmith’s shop that they bought and that is actually the deed that they, in ’52, where they…
PG Oh, that’s interesting. So Reverend Longuet Higgins, used to own the blacksmith’s shop?
PC Longuet Higgins, yes.
PG And that’s at the bottom of Newton Lane, where the new houses are?
PC It was, yes, where the new houses are now.
PG So that’s No.2. Oh sorry, so that’s relevant to AG’s Newton Lane work. I’m making piles of photos that go with my numbers. Oh that’s really interesting, and so although he’d been using your grandfather’s house, which is now Ralph’s, number 8, as storage, but then when your father and uncle thought “we need to be more tidy about this”.
PC That’s right, so they moved.
PG And what happened when your grandfather handed over the business? Did he keep living in Carlton Road?
PC Yes, he stayed there until he died. I cannot remember how old I was when he actually died, probably not that old, because I remember I was about thirteen when my other grandfather died. So I would have been younger than that when he died. By that time we were living in the council houses in May Road. He used to come for Sunday lunch. I would say he was lip reading but they used to write in the air, so he used to read the words. It was really quite fascinating.
PG And they would be writing the normal way round, left to right, but he’d be having to read it the other way. He could do that!
PC I can still see my dad standing there, writing in the air.
PG But they’d be opposite one another so he was able to read the other way, right to left, mirror image.
PC Yes, so it was really quite interesting.
PG Wow. So tell us a bit more about Sunday lunch, how would that work?
PC Oh well, he’d just come and we’d have a normal family Sunday lunch.
PG What sort of lunch? Meat?
PC I don’t think I remember that bit.
PG OK. Sometimes the tradition becomes that it’s always chicken, or it’s always lamb, or it’s always beef.
PC Well my mother’s father was a farmer, so I’m sure there was good meat on the table, because that’s the way she’d been brought up. That grandfather used to say he didn’t eat to live he lived to eat, and his size showed it.
PG I can imagine. Where was your mother’s father’s farm then?
PC That was in Brixworth, they had a farm.
PG What sort of farm?
PC A mixed farm, but during the war he became a coal merchant as well. I remember him being a coal merchant with dear Freddy, his rather long suffering helper that used to go out on the coal carts and deliver the coal. It was a mixed farm, he had arable, cattle and other animals as well.
PG That’s quite a nice mix. The soil is very good over there in Northampton. Cattle rather than sheep do you think?
PC Yes definitely cattle. I used to help with the milking and things like that.
I used to go and get the cows in.
PG Really? What age?
PC I used to spend part of my summer holidays over there every year, because I had a cousin that was just eight months younger than I was. (Photo)
PG Oh what fun.
PC I would be early teens I guess, or probably even younger than that.
PG Have you got a talent for milking then?
PC No!
PG Was it hand milking then, or had they moved on to machinery?
PC We just put the cups on.
PG So you’re good at giving them a thwack. Do you remember what sort of cows they were?
PC They were Friesians.
PG Oh, good milkers then?
PC They don’t do it now, but back then, when they were born, they used to have a form they had to fill in that showed each side and front and back, and you had to draw the markings of each cow. Because, no two Friesians have got the same two markings apparently. I remember being given the job with my cousin to draw the pictures of the calves because my grandfather thought it was a waste of time.
PG But somebody, the Milk Marketing Board perhaps would have wanted to know?
PC That’s right. Now they tag them so it’s not a problem but at that particular time, I can remember drawing.
PG Early drafting skills, wonderful. What a lovely way to spend your summer holidays.
PC I remember lying in the old farm house listening to the rats running around in the thatch, in the roof. Lovely thatched roof.
PG Might have been birds.
PC I don’t think so. I think it probably was rats.
PG Your farmer grandfather, what was his name?
PC Eustace Hamson. I’m trying to think what his second name was but I can’t. Oh Turland, that’s right, it was unusual. I think it was his mother’s family name, so he was Eustace Turland.
PG When he was a farmer, was it a good living out there?
PC It was fine. He was the only person I think that had a pig with eight legs during the war.
PG How did he manage that?
PC Well they had to fatten them. They were allowed a pig a family, weren’t they.
PG Which was of course a form filling exercise. Well farmers have to have their ways of engaging with the rules in a creative way.
PC My grandmother used to make her own butter. I remember churning the milk and making the butter and the butter pats.
PG And what sort of churn was that?
PC It was a big wooden one that you turned with a handle. I remember helping to make the butter.
PG That’s good for your arm muscles.
PC Yes, being in the dairy watching the milk coming through the cooler, very distinctive smells and things that you remember.
PG Did she make cheese as well?
PC No.
PG Did that grandma work as well, apart from on the farm?
PC No, only on the farm.
PG Well there you were working hard on the farm, but did you ever have a chance back in Turvey, when it’s not the summer, to play games?
PC I’m sure I did, but I can’t tell you what they were. I’m sorry.
PG Skipping?
PC I presume so. I genuinely don’t remember any of that.
PG No, that’s OK, that’s fine. Places where you played in the village?
PC Right. I lived in May Road then, so the fields, where the Stone Field is now, and the back end of Grove Road, they were all fields. We just used to go out and across the fields and down behind Elmwood. There was a field behind the copse. It used to have a pond in it. I remember going and collecting newts. I loved, when I did it, I liked the natural things. I had this bath with these newts in.
PG Back at home?
PC Yes, but that wasn’t in May Road. I was slightly older then and we’d moved, but I remember having them in a tin bath at the bottom of the garden and my mother hated them. She came screaming in one day saying ‘they’ve got out, they’ve got out’ as they’re running up the path in the garden. I wanted to take them to school, which I did.
PG Of course, good. It’s what you have to do. I wonder if the pond’s still there?
PC No, it’s dried up completely.
PG That sounds good fun. Do you remember if the fields were full of larks back then?
PC Don’t remember larks. I remember blackberrying. There were some yellowhammers and others. I remember yellow birds
PG And there you were at home with your wonderful contact with the farmer, so probably always good meat, what about the vegetables?
PC Well I think all the families had gardens. When we were living in May Road, the houses weren’t built at the back there where Grove Road is now, so round the back, we had a very large garden and dad grew all the vegetables.
PG That was dad growing the vegetables. Full range?
PC Yes, as far as I remember. It was a very big garden.
PG And were you a sprout liker or a sprout hater?
PC I don’t remember that bit.
PG It often divides children.
PC Yes it does. I do remember my father putting up an army type marquee on the back lawn so we could camp out in the summer.
PG That was May Road, you used to camp out in the summer?
PC Well, where the row is on the front, and then if you go right round the back there are four houses up there. None of that was there, they were all gardens. I mean the four older houses that are at the top, our garden went right up to a grass bank, before those houses started. It was big. The loo was still out in the garden, in the sheds there.
PG Isn’t that funny, but that was really modern to let you sleep out in the summer. You said you’d got one brother, younger, four years younger.
PC Four years younger, yes. Peter Kenneth.
PG Savage of course. And, what does he do?
PC Oh he’s retired now, but he was a civil engineer. He worked for Bedford Council at one point. He did his degree, as a sandwich course, in civil engineering via the council. All the sewerage works up round Newnham Bridge and in Bedford, were down to a lot of his work and the design that he did.
PG Oh, really. That’s some brave work up there then.
PC But then he did different things and ended up working for Anglian Water. He used to go to Peterborough but he lives over near Cambridge now.
PG It’s nice to know that the practical side has stayed with the family, I think that’s just lovely. Tell us about the schools, that you attended.
PC I went to Turvey to start with and I think it was between eight and nine that they moved us because basically the school became too full. Up until that time they didn’t go to Harrold until they were eleven, but I was one of the first years, that they sent earlier. (Photo)
PG So at nine already you were commuting to Harrold?
PC Yes. On the bus. It’s no different to what happened when they were doing three tier systems. It was unusual then, but they just got full. They didn’t have any room left in the school, so I went to Harrold.
PG So who was your favourite teacher, in the Turvey school?
PC I was trying to think. The only one person’s name I can remember was Miss Harding. She was the Head Teacher and lived in the school house. The school itself was just two rooms and then the school house was there.
PG And how was she memorable?
PC A typical spinster teacher, with her grey hair and her bun.
PG And discipline?
PC Yes. But I don’t remember. I enjoyed school, then I went to Harrold. Mr Thompson, that was his name, at Harrold School, was really really good. He was mainly maths. My father was extremely good at maths, and my nephew has got his Masters in Pure Maths at Warwick so it obviously runs through the family. In my intervening years between nursing I became a Tax Officer, so obviously I used it as well. I actually passed my eleven plus from Harrold.
PG Ooh, right, I bet that made your father very happy.
PC At that time, there was Dame Alice and there was the High School in Bedford that you could go to, but they had opened this new school over in Biggleswade which was called Stratton School. This was what they called a Grammar Tech., so basically it was a grammar school but it had the technical side as well. You had the different levels and I was shipped, at eleven, from Turvey every day, to Biggleswade to school.
PG Oh. That’s a long journey.
PC It was. I had to catch the bus from Turvey at ten past eight in the morning, get to Bedford bus station and then the buses into the school were the Horseshoe Coaches. They were based in Kempston. We all used to get bussed into the school but they came from all around so the school didn’t actually start until half past nine in the morning because we all had to get there. It finished at ten past four and then we got brought back to Bedford, then had to catch the main bus back to Turvey. Sometimes if I missed the ten to five one, it was quarter past, so it would be six o’clock before I got home.
PG That’s a long day at the age of eleven.
PC Yes, then you had your homework and things on top of that
PG Well of course. Gosh, your mum must have looked a bit thoughtful about all of this.
PC Anyway, I managed it. There was the downside, because they didn’t have so many after school clubs and things that they have now. I couldn’t join anything outside the school. The other sad thing was that your friends were very often all over the place. One of my close friends, though, was actually from Harrold and she passed her eleven plus as well so we used to travel on the same bus so that was OK.
PG Good. And your favourite subjects, apart from maths?
PC I did a lot more of the craft side as well, which I really enjoyed. But I liked English.
PG Oh English too. Which crafts?
PC I did needlework. I did art and I did the crafts that went with the art, you know, weaving and things like that.
PG So you were taught all those wonderful skills?
PC We were, and we did domestic science as they used to call it then.
PG And how long did you stay at Stratton?
PC I stayed there till I was seventeen and a half. I did my O levels as they were then and I’d started doing my A levels, but I had decided I wished to nurse.
PG Why?
PC I don’t know. If I’m totally honest what I wanted to do initially was to be an occupational therapist because it appealed to me at that time when they did a lot of craft work. When I found out that the training was as long as nurses training, my mum and I decided I would be better going to do my nursing. Then if I wanted to carry on and do the craft work I could go off and do that afterwards. I went for an interview, now you need degrees, I didn’t even need A levels to get in and as I’d got seven O levels and they only needed two at that time, all those years ago, I decided not to. They offered a six month pre-nursing school, so you learned a lot in that six months and you were on the wards. It seemed more sensible to go off and do that, at that time, than to do my A levels. So, that is what I did, I left home.
PG Whereabouts?
PC In Gosport, I joined the Navy. Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nurse. I was down in Gosport, and also spent eighteen months out in Malta, working out there, in the Naval hospital over there, with the families stationed there.
PG That’s a long way from Turvey. What did you think about all the experiences you were getting?
PC I loved it. It was really, really good and you know, because it was Service, the whole point was to get men fit and back to work. We had a lot of the new equipment and things like that so when I came out into civvy street I was really quite disheartened about what wasn’t available.
PG You had top of the range?
PC Yes, everything because, you know, we had got disposable needles and syringes long before they got them out in civvy street.
PG Oh, interesting and I gather that, the RAF particularly, I don’t know about the Navy, but their rehabilitation unit was particularly good.
PC Yes, it was really good, that was Princess Mary’s.
PG And Malta, what struck you about Malta?
PC Just a fascinating place to be, you know. I do have a love affair with the island, I’ve been back several times since as a tourist.
PG Still got friends there?
PC No, not now, but, yes, because you meet the local people when you’re working over there so it was really good.
PG And why did you leave? Because it sounded fun.
PC Well, I got married for the first time. I don’t know how much history you want here. This isn’t a history of Turvey.
PG Only as much as it relates to Turvey.
PC Well that’s right, you asked why I left. I left because, at that time, and this just shows how much life has changed, 1) you weren’t allowed to be married and be in the services so I had to leave if I was going to get married, and 2) at that particular time there wasn’t a progression either, so basically if you qualified, you then left. You could come out and specialise and then go back in as a junior officer, but you didn’t have the facilities to continue with your training, because I was only the third year to go through Royal State Registration. They used to just have what they called Naval Nurses before that and my first husband was a medic from the Navy as well.
PG You met him at work?
PC Yes.
PG At what point did you come back to Turvey then?
PC When I was very heavily pregnant with my eldest son, so I came back in the November of ’70.
PG OK. To live where?
PC Grove Road.
PG Oh right. And you set up home with your first husband, and had your child, first son. Some of the prompts for education, I skipped over because I was interested in what happened next. It was things like playground games, and any bad behaviour you remember but it’s down in Biggleswade so not really relevant. Okay, what about Turvey and Harrold, can you remember any saints or sinners at Turvey and Harrold?
PC I think you remember the ones that were characters.
PC Yes but you know, they were lads, they were young men. I don’t remember the things that they did, but I do remember that, like all boys they were a little bit boisterous. But, you know, if you look back on it, the fact that I can’t remember must mean that there wasn’t anything that really sticks in my mind as being a problem, because it’s just not there.
PG No, no, that’s alright. Do you remember any games you played in the playground at Harrold, or?
PC I presume we had skipping ropes, and things like that.
PG Yes. And because this is an oral history we are always interested if you can remember any of the rhymes. Particularly if they have a local one, I mean obviously Ring a Ring a Roses is general, but…
PC No I don’t.
PG That’s okay. Did you go to Sunday School?
PC Yes, I used to go to Sunday School.
PG And who held that? Was that church?
PC I can’t, oh hang on wait a minute yes, Miss Walker used to do the Sunday School. She lived in Elmwood, with her brother, in the house that I eventually moved into.
PG Oh, how funny
PC She decided she’d retire, and so I took it on. I used to run the Sunday School.
PG You ran the Sunday School. From what age, were you at the time?
PC I was probably quite young, I was probably about fourteen or fifteen when I did it.
PG Goodness me. And how would you set the lesson each Sunday?
PC I think I used to base it more on the parables and the stories. I used to make little models and do things.
PG Because of your crafts love. What sort of models?
PC Anything that would help, the baskets for Moses things like that. I remember dad made me a little wooden cross that I could use. I based it on the church, so I had a special little collection that I made. So, yes, we used to sing a hymn and have a story. Thinking about it, I think we held that in the school for a while, in the actual school school.
PG And was this Sunday School while the parents were in church having the normal service?
PC Well actually I think we did it at two o’clock in the afternoon, if I remember.
PG OK, on a Sunday obviously. And how many would you have in a class at a time?
PC Don’t know. Can’t remember that bit.
PG More than two, presumably. Less than twenty?
PC Yes, less than twenty.
PG That’s fantastic, so an early dose of teaching. But you didn’t fancy being a teacher?
PC No, never fancied standing up and being a teacher.
PG No, I can tell. Now, one of the things we like to know very much is memories of shops, so, when you were in Turvey, which shops were there?
PC Thinking about it, the Corner Shop was there.
PG The bottom of Carlton Road.
PC John’s as we know it. Central Stores, that was there. Opposite the old school there was a bakers when I was little. It’s now a house I know but I think it was a shop. (Photo)
PG It was a craft shop in the eighties.
PC Yes. It was an antique shop at one point. It was the general store at one point, but, when I was little it was the bakers.
PG Did you go to the bakers for bread?
PC Yes, and it’s true that people used to cook their Sunday lunch joint in the ovens on a Sunday in some places.
PG They really did, yes.
PC And then where Mr King used to have his shop, there was another shop there as well, that I remember. The Corner Shop was the one that had lots of sweeties. Down near the bridge, the Post Office was down there and there was another shop there as well. So, Mr Oxford ran the Post Office, and his wife Sheila ran the shop. I don’t know if she ran it all the time, and then the old man. His son took over the Post Office so that was the Oxfords there. That’s opposite, almost opposite, a bit up from the Three Fyshes on the other side of the road there. I can remember the gasometers which were also down there.
PG Yes. Did your various houses have gas then?
PC Yes, they did have gas.
PG And that’s gas lights or?
PC No. I think we’d gone to electricity by then.
PG Well, with an uncle who was an electrician it would be a bit embarrassing otherwise. So the gas was for what, cooking?
PC Yes, it was for cooking wasn’t it. And there was the lady who used to live in one of the other cottages in Vine Row, used to collect the pennies from the gas meters for the Gas Board.
PG So that was her job, she collected the pennies?
PC Yes. Miss Vale.
PG Oh, hello Miss Vale. Oh what a lovely, strange hat. (Photo)
PC This was my father. They had a visitor, Wilfred Pickles. He used to do the programme called ‘Have a Go’. He came and they held it down in the Kings Arms I think it was.
PG I know that person, she’s President of my choir, Deirdre.
PC Edwards. That was Ethel Umney, there’s my dad, there’s Wilfred Pickles.
PG Len Savage third in.
PC And that was Miss Vale but I can’t remember his name.
PG Miss Bale, B A L E?
PC No, V for victory.
PG Oh sorry, Miss Vale. She collected your pennies in Vine Row,
PC Well dad did tell me the story that she used to wheel them in a wheelbarrow, but I don’t know how true that is, because I can’t remember.
PG How many pennies does it take to …
PC Well if you think you’re going round emptying lots of meters you’d have lots of pennies, wouldn’t you?
PG And so Wilfred Pickles, what was he doing here?
PC They used to do a programme on the radio called ‘Have a Go’ and people used to answer questions, but they won things like a pound of sausages and things like that. It wasn’t big bucks in any way.
PG Did your dad win anything?
PC I can’t remember that bit. And that was Mabel, that was his wife I think.
PG Whose wife?
PC Wilfred Pickles. And there was always this saying, ‘What’s on the table Mabel’ That was right, because people used to give things for them to answer. I had a letter on that one, that was 1956/57. I think it was that one.
PG Wow. Ooh, it’s the Bedfordshire Times. About 1956. Your dad looks very handsome.
PC He was.
PG He’s clearly at ease with himself. Enormously good fun. And, what about the pubs at the time when you were still in Turvey?
PC Well there was the Three Fyshes and the Three Cranes which we’ve got now, and then there was the Kings Arms which was down Jacks Lane. (Photos 1 and 2)
PG Were any of them a sort of social gathering place for you?
PC Not that I remember, because the village hall, as it is now, we had it even then, when I was young. Although that was the original school, that’s where my dad went to school. But, you know, it as the village hall.
PG What took place in the village hall?
PC Well, the adults had whist drives. We had bingo evenings; they were run for quite a long time by the British Legion. We used to have social evenings, and early on the children were encouraged to go. We used to play silly games like everybody would sit round in a great big circle, talk about games, and you’d have a dice, you’d have a tray with a block of chocolate, solid block of chocolate, on it, and a knife and fork. You’d throw a dice and if you got a certain number you were allowed to cut, so can you imagine, trying to cut a hard bar of chocolate as it shot all over the place, but of course everybody loved things like that, so that was something that we had. We had beetle drives.
PG What’s a beetle drive?
PC Don’t say you haven’t heard of a beetle drive! Well, I think they probably just had a card, so you’d throw a six and you’d get a body, and then you’d throw a one and you’d get a head, a leg, and a five is a head. The idea is that the first person to get a whole beetle won the prize.
PG Right. I’ve always wondered what a beetle drive was. Oh goodness me. And was this when you were a young mum, or when you were still a child, or all of these?
PC When I was still at home the first time round. So beetle drives. They used to have the Christmas Bazaars and every year my dad was the Father Christmas
PG Your dad was Father Christmas!
PC Every single year my dad was Father Christmas, yes.
PG But he’s thin.
PC Well you can pad out. And one Christmas, there was a very fat Mother Christmas because dad had to go off and do something else so I was very pregnant and I got dressed up in the outfit. As a very fat Mother Christmas. So that was just before my son was born in the seventies, 1970. I remember doing that. They used to have concerts.
PG Really? What sort of concerts?
PC Well all the local people did things, and I remember playing piano solos up on the stage
PG You’re a pianist, amongst all the other accomplishments.
PC Well, not so much now, I don’t really play at all, but my eldest son certainly inherited, he works in the music industry.
PG Deidre Edwards, she had a choir in Turvey at some point.
PC Talking about that, and the organist that used to be in your chapel. Oh for goodness sake, why can’t I remember her name, she used to be my piano teacher. It must be written down in one of those, I’m trying to remember.
PG I hope it’s written down in one of your memories. Because people haven’t been telling me anything about the organ in my chapel, which has been moderately frustrating.
PC I think it must be in one of those books because I was reading about it, and I can remember seeing…Day, Mrs Day.
PG Ah, I’ve heard of Mrs Day.
PC And she lived with her husband, when I had my piano lessons, up at the station.
PG Oh, you had to go all the way up there?
PC I used to ride my bike up there, to the station.
PG Fred and Olive, I think they were. Fred and Olive Day, I read about them in 1992. So you went up to the station for your piano lessons.
PC Piano lessons, yes, she was my piano teacher.
PG Fantastic. Not every organist can play the piano.
PC No, but she was a piano teacher and that was where I went for my piano lessons.
PG What level did you get to, or did she put you through exams?
PC I got up to about five I think it was.
PG OK, to Grade Five. Well done.
PC When I got into going to Biggleswade to go to school I just had to give it up in the end because I just couldn’t do everything you know.
PG You have told us more about social activities in the village than anybody up to press. Fantastic.
PC Oh yes, there used to be a fete every year, at Turvey House. They used to put on a big fete every year, or allowed the grounds to be used for a fete.
PG And what stalls would there be there?
PC All sorts, you know, they’d do craft stalls, and the usual, sweetie stalls and things.
PG We’re talking seventies here?
PC No, no no, this would be earlier. I mean we’re talking about the sixties, I guess. Mrs Hanbury used to grace us with her presence. And Colonel Hanbury as well.
PG Good.
PC They were really sweet, but I do remember the condescension that it felt like when I was in my teens.
PG It came across?
PC That’s right. And also the Christmas Bazaar, she always used to hold a special stall, of little jewellery bits that she used to do.
PG What, Mrs Hanbury?
PC Yes, for the Christmas Bazaar. That was in the village hall.
PG That’s really very good, back in the sixties.
PC Don’t tell Daniel I said that.
PG No, no never. I don’t think Daniel’s taking part in Village Voices, although it would be quite fun to find out what he remembers. Now, I gather my chapel was a herb and spice warehouse. Luckily Nancy Waters could tell us about that.
PC Well that’s right, because my mum worked down there for a while, packing some of the herbs.
PG Do you remember her talking about being in the herb and spice warehouse?
PC No, I just remember because dad didn’t like her going out to work, because he thought she should be there to answer the phone. So she said she was going. I remember it was a slight disagreement for a while, but she enjoyed it because it got her out. She met other people, because she was always stuck in the house all the time. I think Sheila Peck was there.
PG Oh, I haven’t heard that name before.
PC I think she’s recently died, not long ago actually.
PG Do you remember your mum, like Nancy Waters, saying her clothes used to smell terrifically.
PC They probably did, I don’t remember that actually, because you were saying that I do wonder. I do remember her working down there.
PG Good. Part time or full time?
PC Part time.
PG Mostly everybody did I think, they did different shifts.
PC Well I remember, before it became the warehouse, I remember going there for my tokens. It was after the war. You had to get your vouchers for your sweets and your food, and I remember we went there to have them given out to us.
PG What, to the chapel?
PC Yes, to collect our books, yes, ration books. (Photo)
PG Oh, for goodness sake, why were they handed out in the chapel?
PC I don’t know, but I do remember going there to collect them.
PG Now do you remember a lawn and an apple tree, because in ’54 there was a lawn and an apple tree.
PC I remember a lawn. I wouldn’t say I remember the apple tree. I remember the small Quaker graveyard.
PG Tell me about the Quaker graveyard.
PC I only remember that it was there.
PG OK, you saw it, to the left. Because, the article I’ve had from ’54 suggests that there’s a connection between the chapel and the Quaker graveyard, but he’s the only person who’s suggested that.
PC Well there’s got to have been something hasn’t there, because why would you suddenly get a Quaker graveyard. I mean, there is a fantastic history in the Archives in Bedford, I think was Bell?
PG Oh, Joseph Bell, yes. It doesn’t mention it. No, not that Poppy’s found. Did you come and see the play, Bells of Turvey?
PC No I didn’t actually.
PG Oh, you should have. You can buy a video, if you couldn’t see the play. Therefore you must have been little, because ration books I think were phased out in the very early fifties, weren’t they?
PC Yes, ’52 I’ve got it in my head, so I would have been seven then.
PG Nancy said in Bamfords Yard there was an organisation which made aeroplane meals, do you remember anything about that?
PC No, I don’t. I remember the stables, in Bamfords Yard. I don’t remember aeroplane meals.
PG What sort of stables?
PC Proper horse stables. It’s where Scorpion Enterprises were, as you come up from the main road, it’s on the right hand side, just before the turning to Elmwood. They used to stable an awful lot of Irish racehorses there. They used to basically look after them, and I used to go down and help.
PG Did you really?
PC And, you know, from that I got riding lessons, so that was fine, because I used to ride ponies on my grandfather’s farm but I remember having a very neurotic racer. They had to pad the sides of his cells, because otherwise he would bash himself against the walls. There was this stable down there that had padding all round the side of the cell. They had a lovely little cob down there which I used to ride. We went out one day with a couple of the other horses, and I’m up over the back fields, somewhere, can’t remember where. I tried to turn left and the horse went right so I’m lying flat on my back in the middle of this field and the, I can’t remember her name, anyway, the person that ran it, she wasn’t quite sure whether she should go and find the horse or get me up off the ground first.
PG Oh, there were two of you riding together. And which did she do?
PC I think she did pick me up first.
PG But the flighty horse was probably worth a lot of money.
PC Yes.
PG Did it come back?
PC Yes, it came back.
PG They usually do. Do you remember the name of the company, the stables people?
PC No, they were Irish. I cannot remember their surname now.
PG An Irish family even back then. How old were you at this point?
PC Probably thirteen, fourteen.
PG Perfect to be riding a wonderful fast horse because of course they have to be ridden every day.
PC It was the cob mainly. They used to take the others out but I used to trot along with the little cob behind them, you know, so that was good.
PG Gosh, how lovely. That’s idyllic. Do you remember any other industries? Cristo Crisps?
PC Oh, yes I remember Cristo Crisps, they were fantastic.
PG Tell us about Cristo.
PC They had the best tasting crisps I’ve ever known. My dad used to do a lot of work down there, and he was allowed to pick up from the chutes at the end of the day. He used to come home with massive bags. They used to call them Oxo crisps, but I’ve never ever, ever found a crisp that tasted like those, they were out of this world. I’ve tried putting Oxo cubes on plain crisps but it doesn’t work. They were Oxo flavoured and they were Cristo Crisps. I remember them very vividly; they were very nice. (Photo)
PG And any idea of when it was operating from and to ish, vaguely, your age something to something?
PC No I can’t, no.
PG No. I don’t think anybody’s volunteered to write up Cristo Crisps. They came and went quite quickly.
PC That’s right. They were certainly very nice and I do remember because dad did a lot of work down there as well. Fixed anything.
PG Walls? Floors?
PC Yes, and everything else.
PG That’s a wonderful bonus of a job, coming back with masses of crisps. So your early diet, I was feeling all impressed about your diet, meat and vegetables and then suddenly you’re on crisps.
PC Oh yes, you are allowed a treat.
PG Exactly so. And how did you get about, you told us about going by bus to Harrold and to Stratton. What did you use around and about Turvey?
PC Me feet, most of the time. I still do remember Bailey’s buses. That was based down Carlton Road.
PG Good, I quickly saw that in the “80 years” book. Oh Bailey’s was Carlton Road as well?
PC Yes, that was.
PG Where Turvey Transport was eventually?
PC Yes. Well the Bullards took that on didn’t they?
PG Which, the Bullards took on Turvey Transport, or Bailey’s Buses?
PC Bailey’s Buses. Yes, that’s right. Well they did but then they became Barton something or other?
PG Barton Coaches operated out of the yard, but it was always called Turvey Transport for some reason.
PC Turvey Transport, that’s right, but that’s where Bailey’s Coaches were. They did run bigger coaches but Mr Bailey, Frank Bailey, who lived in May Road, he ran his own little bus, which was an old Leyland, a real bone shaker. He ran it for years and years and it got so that it was only on a Saturday that he ran it, into Bedford. He had one of these boards with the individual tickets on, so he took it off and clicked it on his little machine, and he just sat and drove it. It really was a bone shaker but he drove it, oh, well into the fifties or even later than that, possibly. Bailey’s Coaches, I do remember them.
PG And I think it says in here that they were red.
PC Yes they were.
PG Oh gosh in your time, moving up and down, well you talked about how all the roads and the council houses came up all round you, so May Road was put into existence. What other changes did you notice, in the streets and the roads?
PC Well, basically where the Pyghtle is now, that was fields because the farm, Grove Farm, was a farm, and the cows used to go there between the milking times. We were living in May Road. That’s all I could see, the field opposite and the cows. I remember my dad doing some work down on the farm at one point and my mum sending me down with his lunch and carrying like a tilly can with tea and taking sandwiches down to him. I couldn’t have been that old then. I was allowed to walk across, I remember one day going down with this tilly can and the sandwiches. I don’t know what I’d been doing but when he opened it there was no tea in it. I’d obviously been swinging it around, so it emptied in between times. I do remember going down with that tin thing with a metal cap on the top.
PG Yeah, like a billy can.
PC Yes.
PG And, oh and yes the river bridge, you said your dad gave Jonah…
PC Well not Jonah. I can’t remember when Jonah arrived, but I think that dad’s probably got more of that story in there. Then I’ve got a picture there of Jonah falling over in the ice. (Photo)
PG In the ice, yes you said. So that’s Jonah falling down in the ice. And that says 1898, do you think, 1898, does that figure?
PC It could be. That’s my query because I got some photographs when I was writing the book from a lady called Mrs Ellis. I’d got her to try and give me some dates but there’s a lot without dates, because even she couldn’t…
PG So the clothes, from that billycock hat for example it is quite ancient. But fancy him falling over, poor old thing. And you said your dad found the bits and pieces of the other statue?
PC For Nell, well he called it Nell, I don’t know what anybody else called it, but he put it there. It suddenly appeared overnight, and nobody knew. It was a long time before dad would admit that he’d actually put it there. I do remember the comments.
PG And did he find both the body and the head?
PC Yes he did.
AG What year?
PC Sorry?
PG The year when your dad found Nell, the bits and pieces.
PC I cannot remember that, again I think it’s probably in the book.
PG Thank you. That’s good fun, because calling it Nell is rather fun. And did your dad ever do any work on the river or the bridge? The river edges of the bridge?
PC Not that I remember, no. He did a lot of work on the Abbey, before the Benedictine nuns came in. That wasn’t in my early years that was in my later years, so when I came back to Turvey. But that was fascinating actually, going in there, because he did a lot of work and a lot of conversions up there. I remember sitting in the middle of their main hall, where they had to take off the flock wallpaper because it had been put on to battens, so it was slightly away from the wall, and then they’d papered over the top of it. They had to take it all down because it was a fire hazard because the fire could have gone straight up the back of it. They took it down, and it was backed with old newspapers. I remember sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by all this, reading all these newspapers. I must have been in my twenties then, or early thirties even. I remember going up into the roof there, because it was originally a farm house. They converted a lot to make the individual rooms and everything up there. There was the Mother Superior wheeling her wheelbarrow across the beams with her habit stuck in her, in her…
PG Up in the roof?
PC Yes, there were the original beams up in that roof where they’d built the farmhouse, where they’d literally just taken a tree and just hacked off some of the bark. I presume it’s still there, the original beams are up in their roof, and then the new roof was built round them, so that was really quite fascinating.
PG How lovely of your dad to let you go and visit. Enormously good fun. And I’d never thought about it, because obviously we know it was a stately home before.
PC Well no, it was a farm.
PG It had never occurred to me it was a farm house first.
PC The reason that it’s Jacks Lane is it was originally a French spelling, JACQUES, because the original farm house was the living to St James, in Northampton.
PG Good heavens.
PC And so that’s when it was first built, and it was called Abbey Farm, but when they were building some of it, I think they found some stonework that they reckon was from a Benedictine monastery originally. So it was a full circle that the Benedictines came here. Whether there was some link that I didn’t know about that they knew, but it was the living to St James in Northampton, so that’s, it was Jack‘s Lane.
PG All the connections. Lovely. And, you’d come back and were pregnant and you were in one house, but then, later on, you hinted you moved again.
PC When I was growing up we lived in May Road, and then we moved round to Elmwood, where dad was.
PG Oh, even with your dad you moved round to Elmwood?
PC I was thirteen then, when we moved round to Elmwood and we bought the house there. Going back to my lovely mother’s father, it was bought with a deposit from selling a bull. My grandfather sold his bull and the money he got for the bull paid for the deposit on the house.
PG Fabulous, in Elmwood, that’s terrific.
PC Yes, and where dad lived right up to the end. Miss Walker that ran the Sunday School, she lived with her brother which was two doors down. When I came back to Turvey, I lived in Grove Road, and then we bought a house in Elmwood just two doors away from mum and dad.
PG Oh, isn’t that lovely. So you stayed for quite a time in Elmwood.
PC Not that long.
PG Oh, OK, if you wish to draw a veil over that, that’s alright, so not long.
PC Well I came here to Podington in ’85.
PG But you stayed connected with Turvey all this time.
PC Well I mean mum and dad, well my dad was there, because my mum died in ’87. Dad was there all the time. At that time my uncle and aunt were there, down at the bottom of Bamfords Yard. I don’t know if you remember.
PG Oh, is that the electrician uncle?
PC I don’t know if you remember Ivern Electrics.
PG Yes, I used to buy things there.
PC That was my uncle and my aunt, aunty Elsie. Yes, my dad’s brother and aunty Elsie, who is still alive and living in Norfolk now, she’s the last one, she had her 90th birthday last year.
PG Goodness me.
PC Because all dad’s sisters went. His older sisters went, not that long ago really. I kept close contact obviously because of dad.
PG Oh gosh yes. And now, your jobs, I presume you weren’t at work when you were pregnant and raising a small child.
PC Well I had another baby two years later, so I had two boys in two years, so that was fine. I helped to set up the Mother and Toddler group in the village. And I used to work at the Playgroup. I didn’t actually set it up but I worked there and became a Playgroup supervisor when the boys were small.
PG Village characters – apart from your dad?
PC Apart from my dad?
PG Oh, sorry, you were in the middle of saying about you set up a Mother and Toddler Group, I did actually want to know about, so how did you set about setting up a Mother and Toddler Group?
PC Well, we just decided that it would be good to meet and we used to. At that point the playschool was where it is now, which is in the Manor Room. No it’s not the Manor Room, it was the Reading Room. I was very involved with the playschool, to the extent that behind it, where the original loos were for the original school, we ended up having to take the wall down so that they’d got a play area at the back. Anyway that’s carried on going, but because of that, we decided that it would be nice for the younger ones to have a Mother and Toddler Group as well.
PG And what activities?
PC Well, it really was just a meet up. The children played with toys and we had cups of coffee and that was it. It was the very early stages, you know, so it was fine.
PG Good fun. And do you remember any of the other mums?
PC I’m trying to think who, at that time. Well my best friend who is still my best friend, she was there with her children, and she became a teacher at the school as well afterwards.
PG Oh good. Because often it’s that chance decision to do something that turns into a career.
PC That’s right. I think she already had been teaching, and then stopped to have her family and then gone back into it again.
PG And when did you go back to nursing?
PC Right OK, when Richard was four, so Paul was six, and I started by being a practice nurse in the Harrold surgery. That was a part time job, and when I went back there, there was a Dr. Davis that was running it then. He seemed to think that we were just doing it for pleasure basically; we didn’t need money. But we did everything. Looking back on it now, what are we talking about. Richard was born in ’72, so it was the middle of the seventies. We did everything, and it’s stood me in really good stead, because I filled in all the paperwork, and I used to dispense.
PG Oh good grief, you dispensed the medicines?
PC Yes and did the odd bit of nursing then, dressings and ear syringes probably. And then that slowly evolved. I was actually at the surgery for about ten years, that was from when it moved. It moved in ’92 didn’t it? I left in the eighties.
PG And where did you go after Harrold?
PC I went and worked in Milton Ernest Hall Nursing Home for a year, which was private nursing. One of the medical doctors that came to the nursing home, he said, “Did I know anyone that wanted to be a practice nurse” and I just said “Lead me to it” basically. So I then spent nineteen years working in De Parys Avenue in Bedford.
PG Oh, you said about being a tax officer.
PC So I qualified as a tax officer and did that for a couple of years, and then I left to have Paul.
PG And at some point you changed husbands.
PC I changed husbands, when I came to Podington in ’85. He was the GP at the surgery.
PG At Harrold. It’s all local, isn’t it?
PC Yes.
PG Lovely. We’ve done that.
PC Oh, you’ve got lace making there.
PG Yes, we’re hoping to cover it. Do you remember any jubilees?
PC I remember the Queen’s jubilee. I remember the Coronation as well.
PG Oh, tell us about the Coronation.
PC Well, what I remember of the Coronation was that we had a big party in the village hall, all the children were dressed up in fancy dress, my mother was religiously making it. She dressed my brother up as a Beefeater, with red crepe paper. So I remember him being in a little costume. Where were we, ’53, so I was eight, or coming up eight. He was dressed in this little red outfit, with all the yellow, you know, like a Beefeater. She dressed me up as Good Queen Bess, you know Queen Elizabeth the first. I remember having beads on my head, and a little puff sleeved dress and everything, being dressed up as Good Queen Bess. That was the Coronation in ’53.
PG And was there food and drink at the village hall?
PC Yes, there was a big party, jelly and ice cream.
PG Marvellous. And then the Jubilee?
PC Well, which Jubilee are we talking about?
PG Any Jubilee.
PC Well, the ’51, I don’t really remember, I was around but I don’t really remember the ’51. The next one that I remember is the ’77 but I wasn’t there then. Oh no, I was in the village, that’s right because we went down to Plymouth with the children, to my friends for the Jubilee. But, like all the village events, there was bunting and things like that.
PG Oh good. And, you’ve already given us Wilfred Pickles which was a new story, do you remember any politics of the village, or in the village?
PC Not really, I mean, before I left, the first time, I think when you’re seventeen and a half you’re not really that worried. I was good, because I did have a little job in Woolworths, when I was in my last year at school. I used to stop in Bedford on the Friday evening to fill the shelves up and go home later, and then I used to do a Saturday job so I used to go in on Saturday morning.
PG So you started work early?
PC Yes, I used to do a Saturday job when I was sixteen in Bedford.
PG In the days when we still had Woolworths. And you talked about meeting places and societies. Any sport, did you do any sport?
PC No, I really wasn’t a sporty person, I didn’t like sport at all.
PG And your family didn’t have an allotment, I’m assuming, if you always had big gardens?
PC Well, yes they did, where the new school is on the corner of May Road. My dad and my uncle had an allotment there. And we had a pig on there as well.
PG Oh, marvellous.
PC So I remember the pig sty and you know, where we used to do work.
PG You were allowed to keep a pig sty on an allotment?
PC Well, then you were, yes, but the whole of (Turvey) was.
PG And did you give the pig scraps of food?
PC Yes, they used to make up a mash.
PG Oh a mash; cook a mash?
PC Yes, and take it along to him, and we had chickens and stuff.
PG Oh, you did, gosh, in the garden or in the allotment?
PC I think it was in the allotment, but I remember having chickens but I was trying to think where we had them.
PG Collecting eggs? Did you do egg collecting?
PC I did that, I used to do it for my grandfather. He used to buy in day old chicks and grow them up. I remember my cousin and I trying to catch them as they got bigger, to put them in the baskets to go off. You’d put six in and the seventh would fly out.
PG Not easy. You can imagine we planned this chart out when researchers sat down and talked about are there any superstitions in the village. I did get one, from a chap who’s ninety something. He said at one point, the bridge, Turvey bridge, was described as where old Noah lived. Nobody’s said that one to me before.
PC No I’ve not heard that before.
PG No. He was a visitor to the village.
PC I know what Turvey means, which is a fording place of the river. When that bridge was built, if you look at it from the side, the arches are different, so they were built by different people.
PG Any particular village words, or dialects?
PC No, I really don’t remember, except that we never say our Ts. It’s Bedfordshire rather than the village. It’s “wha’ the ma’er”, with no Ts.
PG Which of course you didn’t pick up. Any ghost stories?
PC Not that I remember.
PG OK. And yes as you spotted in the photos, lace making. (Photos 1 and 2)
PC There were the lace cottages.
PG So you just knew of them?
PC By the time I was little, the lace schools had actually finished.
PG OK. You said right at the beginning how much you loved the wildlife around and about. Have we missed out on anything there?
PC Well yes, I have become more interested as I’ve got older, that I probably wasn’t before. I obviously knew what the birds were. When people say “I don’t even know what a blackbird looks like” you think well, how come? When I was first married we moved as I said near Hitchin. We had red backed shrike which is not that common, which we didn’t realise was uncommon. They used to sit in the garden.
PG Any village accidents or incidents spring to mind, that you can remember, when you were either a child or when you came back as a young mum?
PC My son having his leg broken because his brother rode his bicycle over him.
PG Whoa, Oh, gosh, that’s bad luck.
PC He didn’t do it on purpose. That’s one of things that I remember.
PG Ooh, that would have kept you busy!
PC Yes it did. No, not big ones.
PG Floods. I saw a photograph of the floods
PC Floods. That was interesting because when we were doing the millennium exhibition we set up a whole display in the village and in the church and everywhere else. We did all sorts of things. We’d had a brook flood, which was quite unusual, and it was right up the High Street, right the way back. I got pictures of my sons. I’d taken the pictures and what I did was compare. I’d got the old school photos and I’d got the current school photos. I also put up pictures of the floods so the old one, that you’ve seen, that you’ve got there I was doing comparisons on has anything changed. (Photo)
PG Of course. And indeed, the floods briefly got deeper. Oh, interesting, funny. Oh, we haven’t got on to what you’re doing now. You retired from nursing and then what?
PC I retired, then what now?
PG You told me on the phone that you still go to Turvey and take people to Harrold surgery.
PC Oh yes, I still do voluntary driving.
PG Oh, yes. Quite.
PG I can imagine. And finally, I suppose any reflections on Turvey as a place?
PC It’s lovely. I think, you know, like a lot of people when you grow up and you had basically a happy childhood. I’m very, very fond of Turvey. To be quite honest if dad had survived a few more years I think I would have taken over his house and moved back, but at the time, I wasn’t ready to do it, so we sold the house. I think, it was one of the things in my head that I might do at one point. He stayed around quite a long time but he didn’t stay long enough for me. (Photos 1, 2, 3, and 4)
PG But he stayed around long enough to write books, which is marvellous. Well Pauline, thank you so much.
PC Is that alright?
PG Absolutely fabulous. And we’re so grateful.
Signed: Paula Grayson and Pauline Cameron Dated: 20 August 2021
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