True Colours: (Plus Other Stories and Poems Written Especially for Children)

By Angela Goslin

This is a book full of lighthearted and humorous stories and poems.

True Colours need not only be read by or read to a child but it would encourage the child to draw their own pictures, make scrapbooks, act, dance, and sing, using my stories and poems, just like Chloe did in the story Chloe learns about Colours, making True Colours a good book for a child to work with and read at home.

True Colours is in two parts. The first part has a story in eight chapters about my childhood at a boarding school for girls. The second part has separate stories each followed by a poem, one that a parent could read to their child in a short space of time! The last story is about my life as an evacuee during World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546282884

Book preview

© 2017 Angela Goslin. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/21/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8288-4 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Angmering

Chapter 3 Exploring the School Grounds

Chapter 4 The Headmistress

Chapter 5 The Green Room

Chapter 6 School Days

Chapter 7 Extra Activities

Chapter 8 The End of the Story

POEM A MY FRIEND MILLIE

STORY B BEN FINDS HIS FEET

POEM C BY THE SEA

STORY D BIG BEN AND LITTLE BEN

POEM E STARTING A NEW DAY

STORY F POLLY AND HER SISTERS

POEM G OUR POLLY

STORY H A TRULY MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS

POEM I PANTOMIME TIME

STORY J SARAH WAS GIVEN A SURPRISE

POEM K MY BIRD CLOCK

STORY L CHLOE LEARNS ABOUT COLOURS

POEM M NATURE IN SUMMERTIME

STORY N IT’S A DOG’S LIFE

POEM O CATS AND DOGS

STORY P GRANDPARENTS CAN BE OUR FRIENDS

POEM Q THE CHERRY TREE

THANK YOU

Introduction

Let me introduce

Angela to you.

From the time of birth,

In the pink not blue!

She reads many books

And lives them as well.

This is the story

She wishes to tell.

The title she chose

When her book was done.

It changed more than once,

But True Colours won.

Hoping you enjoy

And find it a need.

She offers True Colours,

Which is a good read.

Chapter 1

The Beginning

W ithout Bill and Ida, the following incidents would not have happened, and consequently there would have been no story to be told or written

Bill and Ida were from completely different backgrounds, but fate was to bring them together during the nineteen thirties, and in October 1934 they were married. Bill had been an only child and born to doting parents, whereas Ida had been born the second child of a family of six girls.

Bill was born and brought up in the seafaring city of Plymouth on the Devon coast, and Ida had been born and brought up in leafy Surrey, one of the English Home Counties and not far from the metropolis. Regardless of their backgrounds, they were to meet by chance in a restaurant,when they were sitting at separate tables,and the waitress mixed up their bills.

I mentioned fate earlier on for the simple reason, that as it was an introduction made through a mix up of bills, this practise would not be a normal occurence. Bill had left Plymouth by this time, and was working at a bank in Regent Street, which was situated in central London.

In fact,on the coronation day of King George the sixth and Queen Elizabeth in 1937, Bill and Ida watched the couple passing by in their carriage, from an upstairs window of the bank. In 1935, Bill and Ida announced the birth of a daughter, on the 20th August 1935. They named their baby Angela Margaret, and the second name was after Ida’s sister Peggy.

Ida and Peggy had two years between them with Peggy being the younger child, but all through their lives they remained like best friends as well as sisters. This is where I make my entrance, as Bill and Ida were my parents, and I am the author of this book.

Where my education was concerned, I was not only sent to private schools, which meant my parents having to pay school fees at the commencement of each term,but I also attended until the age of nine, schools that were run from private houses,so it was private all the way!

Being an only child until the age of nine, my mother enrolled me into a dancing class for small children, which was held in a private room at a cinema in Wembley,and where she had hoped that I would mix very happily with the other children.

Her plan was not to work, because each time the teacher positioned her pupils and started up the gramophone, I would go over and turn it off! Why this happened neither mother nor I ever knew, but it did mean that my mother had to apologise to the dancing teacher, saying that she would withdraw her daughter from the class.

Not to be beaten, my mother enrolled me into a second dancing class, which this time was held in a private house at Wembley Park, and this was where my family were living at the time. Now we were able to walk to the dancing class, although it was all up hill to get there,but at least I had begun my lessons in a private house,my first of many!

In 1939 World War 2 was declared, which was a war started by Germany against England and her allies. This meant that my school years would have to be spent against the backcloth, of air raid sirens and the all clears that sounded after a bombing raid had taken place.

The war was to last until 1945, but at least all our family survived. Because the raids around London were increasing in number, my parents felt that it would be safer for their little daughter to be evacuated, not to strangers but to her paternal grandparents in Plymouth. Where I was kitted out in my first school uniform,and sent to a local school.

Grandma and I would walk each morning up onto Plymouth Hoe, where my first proper school would be,with me at the age of four and a half. Here I was to stay for one year,but as Plymouth was a naval city, the German bombers were flying over nightly. One morning, grandma and I found that my school had been flattened by enemy bombs overnight.

This frightened my parents, so my mother arrived in Plymouth to take me home with her to Wembley Park. It turned out to be a wise decision, because in 1941, my grandparents were bombed out of their home at Plymouth,and lived with us until the end of the war. To me as a child everything went on as normal during daylight hours,as the bombers came at night.

I would walk to my infants school every day,which happened to be another private school in a private house, being quite close to home, and I wore a different colour school uniform. I carried my gas mask in a case on my shoulder, as even babies were issued with a mickey mouse design gas mask, but luckily they were not needed in our country during the war.

Our family would retire to the cupboard under the stairs for the night, where at least the ceiling was high, as this ritual was to be repeated for the next five years, but at least when the all clear was sounded, we could all return to our beds. We did not go to a public shelter,because they were often underground,which would not have suited me as I would have panicked.

When we reached 1944, we were not only being bombed from German bomber planes, but we were also receiving flying bombs, and these were even more scary, as they did not have a pilot. You could hear an engine, then the engine would switch off, and there would be a silence as the plane drifted, before dropping its deadly cargo.

In spite of the raids, as I have written before, life did go on in this country, and one piece of good news in 1944, was that Bill and Ida announced the birth of their second daughter, and they named her Susan Maria. When mother was taken by ambulance to the nursing home,it was during a night time bombing raid.

Overnight, our family had increased from three to four, so it was not just my grandma, mother and myself in the hall cupboard under the stairs, because now there was also a baby and a carrycot as well! With my sister now on the scene,I was to find out that she would be an influence on my life during the following year.

Mother was told that she had to have an operation in a hospital during 1945, which was just after the end of world war two. She was unsure as to what to do about childcare for her two young daughters. My grandparents