But That’s Another Story!

By Ann Brown

Once I was Annie Carter, a young girl who got up to all sorts. Then I became Ann Brown, and, well, not too much changed, except that I had my darling husband and wonderful children by my side for life’s continuing adventures.

I’ve had my ups and I’ve had my downs, but I’ve always faced them with a smile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781291145670

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But That’s Another Story!

by

Ann Brown

This is a work of fact. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are all recollections of the author throughout her childhood and adult life.

But That’s Another Story!

Edition Copyright © 2021

[Ann Brown]

ISBN: 978-1-291-14567-0

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

How It All Started

I’m going to start at my beginning. I was born on the 23rd December 1932 in a waiting room at Westminster Hospital, London, apparently 2 days ahead of myself. So here is a good start, my mother was booked to go in on the 23rd for the 24th or 25th of December. Well things have not changed much since, because they couldn’t find a bed for my mother according to my auntie Ann who went with mum to the hospital. While waiting in the waiting room I started to arrive. When I was delivered they said I was a very small baby so they wanted a name straight away so my aunt called me Annie, well no bed, so they carted us off to St Stephen’s Hospital in London where they took us in as Mother and baby so there was no record of a birth, but I didn’t know this until I was nineteen and I wanted a passport to travel to Austria for a holiday, well the balloon went up then. My father was called and was told it’s an offence to conceal a birth, he may have to go to prison, how did I get a ration book and an identity card during the war years. Well, I did and I’m here to tell the tale.

My earliest recollection as a baby was having my head stuck in the railings outside of the basement flat my parents had when they lived in London. Another time, I was about three or four years old when I had my tonsils out in hospital. I remember being taken in a great big wicker prom somewhere and a lady with a lovely white hat on saying, ‘I think your mummy gave you too much jam today.’ She was talking about the blood from the operation, I think, can’t think of anything else it could have been.

My other early memory is of being with a little girl like me who must have been about the same age. We had wandered off to a park near where we lived, and I fell into the big pond. I remember people lifting me out of the water and being dried off. My mother told me after that we were lost, and everyone was looking for the pair of us. The people at the park took us to the police station, and they took us to our mums from there. I can't remember anything else about it.

Well now the war as you know started in 1939, I was 7 I think, I remember the announcement on the wireless and my mother and father saying how serious it was, so we were all sat down. My brother and I were told how everyone will have to be careful and look out for each other, everyone in our street was talking about Germany and about how it could have happened, and we should be lucky that we live in the countryside and not in any big towns. Then I remember the man who lived in the corner house had a uniform on and he came around to everyone’s house and advised us how to put sticky paper on all of the windows in case we got bombed and we wouldn’t have glass flying all over the place. He gave us all very good advice on all sorts of things apparently, he was in the Army years ago and was a volunteer to help people to be safe during the war. My father volunteered to be an ARP warden because he couldn’t go into the Army due to a limp in his leg which he wasn’t fit for fighting.

The war didn’t affect us very much at first, like most people we all just got on with daily living. We lived in an area that had a little forest down the end of our road, it was a bird sanctuary at one time and quite a big area. It was lovely. Trees and ditches on to open fields and a lovely park nearby as well and allotments that seemed to stretch for miles. You must remember we were all just children about seven years old then, so everywhere was big and open spaces.

My Caring Parents

Parents in those days had to do war work so they worked long hours. My mother was a machinist, making stretchers and silencers for the side of ships. She didn’t get home until half past six at night. My father was on the railway, so his time was erratic. My brother and I had freedom to do almost anything with some of our pals. There were about five or six of us always up to some such things.

Then it was time for home, all our chores used to be done in about half an hour and we had the pots on for mum to cook the evening meal such as it was for rationing was on. I think if my mother knew all the things, we got up to then I think she would have had a coronary fit, but we didn’t do anything to hurt another human being or destroy anyone's property, the Germans were doing that any way.

When your parents did war work you were allowed to stay at school for lunches. It was soup and sandwiches at first. The soup was awful, and the sandwiches were always cheese and it always tasted mouldy.

I think we all had such good fun in those days that I don’t think we thought about how dangerous everything was. Like one day the siren had gone, it was a Sunday, and we were having dinner, so dad said just stand in the alcove and eat your sweet, so I’m eating my rice pudding, it was, and a bomb dropped. I think the whole house came out of its surroundings. The rice pudding came out of the bowl and plopped back in again, so I finished eating it.

My mother went to work at six o’clock in the morning and didn’t get home till six or thereabouts at night, so my brother and I had freedom all day. We would get up to all sorts of mischief. Most other children’s mothers were at home most of the time, we didn’t know what it was to have someone in the house to come in to. We would have a slice of bread and jam then go out and play or wander around til it was time to come in and get the veggies done for the evening meal and prepare the table and make everything tidy for mum and dad coming in. We never thought it was odd or different to other kids, we just had to do it and if things weren’t as, they should be you got your ears boxed. Happy days.

Dad’s health wasn’t as good so he used to be off work lots of times, but he would be home in bed most times, but he would cook us some food and it was nice to come home to someone in the house. Weekends were good, mum was home, and she would come outside and turn the skipping rope for us. We used to attach the long rope to the lamppost, and it would stretch across the road to our gate and mum used to turn it for us to skip. We used to have about nine or ten girls in the rope a time, it was good fun. We used to skip to rhymes, fast and slow, there were no cars about in those days, the whole street was like a playground. Lots of mums used to stand at their doorways and talk to each other when us kids were in bed. People thought a lot more of how other people were, well it was war time, and our next-door neighbour was a merchant seaman, and he was at sea for long spells so I expect Mrs Humpreys was glad of my mum to talk to. There were four children next door to us, we all got on very well. There was a poorer family next door but one to us, she had six children all very young. If we had anything left or didn’t want, mum used to send it along to Mrs Upham, I think her name was, my memory is getting dim now on lots of things as I’m writing I’m remembering lots more things we did in the war time.

My Hardworking Mother

My mother was sent down south into service after she had a baby, it was a boy and he was called Tommy, my half-brother. She was about sixteen or seventeen then, but she was lucky she had a very good lady to work for. She was a scullery maid to start with, they were the skivvies of the kitchen and the cook asked her to do the runner beans. Well, she had never seen a runner bean in her life, so she took all the little beans out of them and broke all the bean parts up. Anyhow, the cook had a fit when she saw what she had done, but the little girl of the lady of the house saw what happened and told her mother and she came and sat with my mother, and she showed her how to slice the beans. The cook got told off for shouting at my mother because she didn’t know anything about them. Whenever I have runner beans now, I think of my mum.

Mum said the work was quite hard because it was open coal fires in those days and the fires had to be cleaned out and the surrounds polished and everything looking spick and span.

When the house used to have parties, she said you were in attendance and had to stand in a spot so that if any of the guests wanted anything you were waved over and had to get whatever they wanted. She said you weren’t allowed to go from your post until everyone had gone home, but you still had to be up early in the morning.

After the war we used to meet Mrs Evans (much more of her later) for my holidays. We used to go to a restaurant in Birmingham, not far from the station. Birmingham Central, I think it was called. We would have a cup of tea and then we would meet Mr Evans, and all come home on the bus. That happened about twice. Mr Evans retired not long after the war ended. His son took over from him at the printing works, I think. He was the managing director of the works. Frank, his son, had to go into the police force during the war, so he could still keep in touch with the printing works as well.

Well now, Mrs Evans and Mr Evans were high ranking members of the temperance movement in Birmingham. I think it was the headquarters of the temperance society, that’s what the printing works was all about.

Anyhow, my mother knew lots of the people that Mr & Mrs Evans knew in this movement. She joined the society when she was beaten by her father, and she couldn’t bare drink of any kind. The people she met at these meetings were very kind to her and helped her in lots of ways. I think in her youth she was a tomboy, like me.

On reflection, I expect that’s why I used to get my ears boxed as a child, because she was badly treated by her father. Her mother died when she was quite young, she never spoke much about her young days. I only knew some of the things from my mother’s school friend whom I met once. She had a very hard life. She had five brothers and they were all miners in a Durham or Sunderland pit. My grandfather was a shot firer in the mine. They make a hole in the coal face and put explosives inside, then blow it up and it makes the coal easier to dig out. I’m talking about days when everything was done by hand and they used to come home and have a bath in the kitchen, which my mother had to prepare for them. As I say, it was a hard life for her, as dramatized by stories from the author Catherine Cookson, they were very hard times. I think my mother went home for the first time when she was about sixty years old. She couldn’t get over how easy everything was. They had showers at the pit head and changing rooms and were looked after quite well. I think she thought they were still like the old days; she never went back again.

My Lovely Dad

Dad used to drive great big lorries, double ones, taking equipment to all sorts of places and when he had the smaller lorries, he used to take me with him on a short journey for a ride. I thought it was a nice treat. As I said he suffered quite a lot, he had an