You Would Have to Walk in My Shoes

By Matilda Woodward

The story of a woman born at the beginning of the Second World War, Matilda. Her father dies on her second birthday. After this, her childhood was a happy one, marred only by the frequent fights between her two elder brothers, this leaving her terrified of violence. Yet she married a man not only violent, a Jekyll and Hyde, paranoid character and serial womanizer. In her late twenties, Matilda was introduced to spiritualism by a friend. This became her salvation, the one thing that kept her sane. After seventeen years of abuse, Matilda filed for divorce and met the love of her life, a man as spiritual as she. One year on, he committed suicide. A trail of events forced her back into the old relationship. Every time she tries to escape, circumstances send her back. Matilda now believes it is her destiny to be with him and accepts.

Read this book for insight on how he perpetually terrorized her and how her spiritual beliefs and love for her family kept her together and the knowing that she will one day be reunited with her soul mate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477217702

Book preview

MY BELIEF

M Y FIRST INTRODUCTION to spiritualism was in my late twenties.

My friend, Christine, invited me to see a medium, Joseph Benjamin. Since then, I have never looked back. At first, I was afraid of the unknown. Joseph once said, "You will be into this the rest of your life. You will try to push it aside but to no avail.

I thought, Never! How wrong I was.

I have had and shared many unusual experiences that I now completely trust and most certainly believe in.

My belief is that each of us is born with a blueprint of our lives—

a map if you like, with motorways, side roads, traffic lights, one-way streets, caution signs, two-way traffic, keep clear signs, roundabouts, and other everyday signs wherever you are or whatever you’re doing.

There are certain main roads we have to follow; the route is our choice. In my own experience, I have been quite happily going my own way when, for no apparent reason (at that time) my route becomes blocked, and I am pointed in another direction.

Whilst on this new road, I must either face and overcome the obstacles or find myself travelling along the same old route.

This, especially where my personal relationship is concerned, has been unbelievably frustrating. Yet now I accept because I finally trust my soul’s knowledge and my road map.

Many a time I have tried in my stubbornness to deviate and, only when I am back on my main route, do I look back and realise why.

I often find myself drawn to someone who is going through one of life’s many trials. I am called upon to help these people however I am able and will stay in contact until the person is strong enough to continue his or her journey. This has happened many times. I must never take money for my gift, as I know that is not part of my journey.

I also believe love is the most important thing to give and be able to receive graciously. My mother had a great capacity for love, which she in turn passed on to her family. Never prejudge, always try to look inside, and never be too proud to forgive.

My life with Eric has taught me many things. And despite the unending hurt, degradation, thoughtlessness, violence, lies, and anger he heaps on me, at times, his guard drops, and there is just the little lost boy asking to be noticed and loved.

The things that as a child and always I have taken for granted. Whereas I had a very loving family, he and his two younger siblings were abused, unloved, beaten, and made to work even as children as young as eight.

The two older children were treated better, even though both girls were raped when they were as young as thirteen.

My spiritual belief and trust have been my crutches for many years now, and whilst every day I learn something new, I never cease to be amazed at people’s strength in times of often terrible ordeals. Through my faith I would hope (I’ve certainly tried) to have become a more tolerant human being.

Stranger things can exist between heaven and earth than we will ever know, and we must never stop believing.

CHAPTER 1

I WAS BORN IN London on January 14, 1940, at the beginning of the Second World War, in a ground-floor back room, as the clock struck 2.00 a.m. My mother was twenty-nine and my father fifty-six. I was the third and youngest child, the only girl with two older brothers—Robert, aged ten, and Arthur, aged seven.

My first memory is of being walked around the block by my two brothers. I was wearing a brown siren suit, and it was raining. I remember walking up to a house, up the steps, and into a room where there was a lady combing her hair in front of a mirror. I remember thinking, Who is this lady? She looks like Mummy, but she can’t be because Mummy is around the other side.

My mother was part Irish, part Scottish with some Gypsy roots. Her name was Ruby Selina. She was a flower seller with a stand in Knightsbridge. A very good-looking woman, she was five foot seven and had jet-black hair, dark brown eyes, and dark skin. She was a real character, a survivor. She was very psychic. Everyone called her the old witch because she would read the cards and tea leaves. She was very good at it, but I used to think she just made it up as she went along.

My father, Robert, was five foot ten with fair hair and blue-grey eyes. He was also a good-looking man. He would have had to be; my mother was a vain woman. Robert was also a man of strong character, a true cockney, born within the sound of Bow bells. At seventeen, he lied about his age and, in 1900, joined the army. He served during the Second Boer War, where he was wounded by shrapnel and survived gas attacks. He was demobbed in 1904 but rejoined in 1914 for the First World War. He was in the trenches when they were blown up, leaving him deaf. Sadly, I have no memories of my father, as he died on my second birthday from bronchitis at just fifty-eight. According to my mother, he gave me a shilling for my birthday (he called me his lady of the lake), and at ten o’clock that night, he died in her arms.

My mother was married and widowed three times, and every year until she died at age seventy-seven, she cried on my birthday. I always hated my birthday and never celebrated it, until these last two years.

A year after my father’s death, my mother married Ernie, the milkman. She always said it was because he gave her free cartons of cream. Very ill at the time, she had a big operation and, at one time, was given a week to live. I remember her saying after she finally recovered, When I went down for the operation, I had my fingers crossed and just thought of my two boys and little girl. She always said that’s what gave her strength to recover.

I don’t have very many memories of the Second World War, but I do remember one in particular. I must have been about four. I was playing outside when a siren went off, announcing that there was an air raid. At the time, we lived at the top of the house. I remember banging and kicking the door, but my mother couldn’t hear because she was deaf; she suffered from Ménière’s disease, which affects the inner ear. I just kicked and kicked the door. Eventually, our next-door neighbour came out and literally kicked the door in. I ran up the stairs where my mother was in the kitchen cooking. I shouted, Mummy, there’s an air raid.

She just grabbed us all and ran down the stairs into the garden, where our Anderson shelter was, and bundled us in. And there we stayed until we got the all-clear.

My brother, Robert, was Mum’s favourite because he looked like her. And of course I was her baby girl. But poor Arthur, although he is my father’s double, was a rebel who did what he wanted. He’d go out with his mates robbing gas meters or stealing, anything to get money. On Guy Fawkes Night, he would dress up as a guy (including make-up) and go guying. He’d give all the money he got from guying to Mum. Arthur also wouldn’t go to school. Pop, our stepdad (we were never allowed to call anyone else Dad), would take Arthur to school, and he would run out of the back entrance.

By the time he was fourteen, he was taken away and put into an approved school in Brighton, where he stayed until he was seventeen. When he returned, he refused to work and continued stealing and fighting. He ended up in a borstal in Wales.

Meanwhile, my mother couldn’t afford the rent, so we had to leave our house in North Kensington. I lived with a neighbour until Mum and Pop were put into what was known as a halfway house in South Kensington, where we stayed until after the war. We were then rehoused in a brand-new, third-floor flat in Vauxhall.

We lived above a family with four children. The eldest girl was called Jane, and she grew up and became known as the Black Rose. Her husband was Buster Edwards, one of the famous Great Train Robbers.

We also became very friendly with the family who lived on the ground floor, the Jones family—Bert and Win and their three children, Arthur, Robert, and Tracey. The eldest son, Arthur, became my very best friend. But from the tender age of seven, I was madly in love with his brother, Robert. Unfortunately, my feeling weren’t reciprocated, as Robert always told me to go away, saying how much he hated me. This had no effect on my feelings, and I had a crush on him until he joined the RAF at seventeen.

Tracey was put into a home, as her mother was unable to cope. She was sent to Wales, where she stayed until she left school. She was, by then, a trained nanny. Tracey is the only member of the Jones family who is still alive, and we are still friends today.

My mother was a very strong character, who thrived on attention. She loved her children and would do anything for anyone; she’d give them her last penny. If someone knocked on the door and said he or she had nowhere to live, Mum would invite the person in. She would feed the person, give him or her a bed, and help him or her in any way possible. She was a very generous, loving woman. Her one fault was her emotional immaturity. As a child, if I did something wrong, she would not speak to me for days. This upset me and made me cry. She would also frighten us, getting out a knife and threatening to kill herself by cutting her throat. But she never hit us.

When I was fourteen, she threatened not to talk to me after I had said something she didn’t like. I said, Good because I’m not speaking to you. And I didn’t. She never did it again. I vowed I would never be mentally cruel to my children, and I never have been.

After two years, we got a transfer to a ground-floor flat that was in the same locality. And soon after, the Jones family moved into the same block, so we were neighbours once again. Win Jones and my mother became inseparable, and her son, Arthur, and my brother, Arthur, became best friends.

Every Sunday, they’d come round for high teas. We’d have lobster or crab with plenty of salads, new potatoes, fresh bread, and cake. After this lovely meal, we would play cards until late. Mum always gave me money to play for her, and I usually won. I loved Sunday nights. They called me the Belle le Grande.

CHAPTER 2

A FTER THE WAR, there was no TV, so Mum would take me to the pictures about three times a week. When we got our tickets, she would say to me, Do you want some sweets?

Naturally, I said yes, so when we went to the kiosk, she would buy sweets, ice cream, drinks, crisps, and whatever was available. I’d be happily munching this in the cinema.

During the interval, she would turn to me and say, Do you want an ice cream?

Yes, I’d reply.

She would get whatever was on the candy girls’ tray, one of each.

At the end of the film she’d ask, Would you like fish and chips?

And as always I would say, Yes, of course.

At the fish and chip shop, I would have rock salmon and chips with crackling, a pickled onion, or gherkin.

We’d get home, and she’d ask, Are you hungry?

Needless to say, I was a fat child from the age of nine. Putting on a stone in weight every year, at fifteen I was fifteen stone. If you weren’t fat, according to my mother, you weren’t healthy.

Unfortunately, my stepfather wasn’t as strong-willed as my mother, so she dominated him. She taunted him and threw him out of her bed, but if he looked at another woman, she soon put paid to that. He was five foot seven, with dark hair, a large sharp nose, and a thin face. He was nothing special to look at, but he was a very good worker, although a bit mean with his money. I don’t blame him really because, given half the chance, my mother would spend it all and, in her own words, would just forage for enough to get her to the next day.

Even though Mum couldn’t handle money, we never went without. She would always find a way. Always do something. She used to say, The most important things are a roof over your head, a fire in the grate, and a bit of Tommy in your stomach. (Tommy meant food.)

Every Monday, she’d be off to the pawn shop with whatever she could find—someone’s suits, watch, shoes, bed sheets. This made us angry at times, especially if you’d just bought new clothes.

When you asked her where your stuff had gone, already knowing they were down at the pawn shop, she would pretend she didn’t know what you were talking about. This often caused arguments, which were pointless, because you never won.

In those days, we had a tally man who would go from door to door with anything you can think of to sell. Mum would take whatever the tally man had with him, promising to pay two shillings and six pence, or what they had asked for, and that was the last the man saw of her. The next day, she’d go to the pawn shop and pawn whatever she’d bought and then would sell the ticket

When the tally man would return the next Friday, she’d make me answer the door and say she wasn’t in. I hated doing this. When I was fourteen, I couldn’t stand it anymore. One Friday when she told me to go to the door, I said to the tally man, My mum told me to tell you she’s not in.

I got a right telling off, but she never asked me to do it again.

Every year in August, we’d go on our annual holiday for three weeks. It was a working holiday—hop picking. Lots of Londoners did it. We’d pack big tea chests with all of our belongings—clothes, sheets, blankets, towels, and hopping pots. Hopping pots were big cooking pots with handles, which we used to hang from three poles, two dug into the ground and one attached across the top. We then used large meathooks, one end over the top pole and the other through the pot handle. The cooking was done over an open fire.

We caught the train from London Bridge Station to Paddock Wood, where the hop farm was. At 5.00 a.m., we arrived at the station with our tea chests, all excited. The children sat on top of the tea chests and watched for the train to steam in. It was a wonderful, wonderful life. The owner of the farm would send a tractor to pick us up from the station. Sitting with all the luggage, waving to the locals was very exciting.

As soon as we arrived, the men and boys collected the poles for the fire and then went for faggots (large bundles of wood tied together with string) to make the fire. The women and girls prepared the huts, tin huts, in a row of about twenty all joined together. You could hear everything that went on all the way along, which, as I got older, was often quite embarrassing. We made the bed up with straw. Mum used to make a massive bag out of sheets, which we filled with straw. This was our mattress.

We always had two huts—one for men and one for women. We’d get up at 7.00 a.m., go along to the hop field, and pick hops for one shilling a bushel.

In the evening, we lit the fire, did our cooking, and scrumped apples, wrapping them in wet clay and putting them on the fire. When the clay split open, inside there was a lovely baked apple. The camaraderie among the people was wonderful. After dinner, we sat around the fire, laughed, joked, and sang. A good time was had by all. Because we’d been working all day in the hop fields, we’d be dressed in our old clothes. Mum always tied an apron round her waist and wore a scarf around her head.

Our shoes were usually heavy because the fields got very muddy when it rained.

One lunchtime, we went to the local village shop. We walked in and the woman behind the counter became very agitated. Mum started to ask her for something, and the woman very rudely stopped her mid flow, saying, Go away. We don’t serve Gypsies.

My mother soon put her right.

At the end of the three weeks, everyone was paid off and said his or her goodbyes until