This is the story of an only child living in a Suffolk village during the Second World War. It was on the day before my fourth birthday that the Prime Minister announced that we were at war with Germany. I was not aware of the situation, being far more interested in birthday presents. From that day on life in the village of Yoxford would never be the same again.
I was named Gillian Rose (Rose was my mother’s maiden name) Starling, born by Caesarean section in Anglesey Road Hospital in Ipswich on September 4th 1935. The pop song of the moment was “Red Sails in the Sunset” and was the first piece of music that I heard as I understand that the nurses were always singing it. My mother was ill for some time after the birth and “Auntie” Smith was employed to look after me. I remember her as a comfortable sort of person, very calm in contrast to my rather excitable mother who always blamed me for all her woes. It would have been nice to have had a brother or sister to take some of the blame but mother and father had been married for seven years before I was born, Mother was thirty-two, Father four years older and so my longed-for siblings never materialised.
Mother was very house-proud, dusting and polishing every day. Her front doorstep was whitened with bath brick .At that time housework was done to a rigid routine, washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, cleaning on Wednesday and Thursday and baking on Friday. There was a roast dinner at the weekend followed by a cold-meat dinner on Mondays. Mother did not go out to work but helped Father with his butchery business. She did the secretarial work (but no maths) and also made pork cheeses, dripping, lard and served in the shop when he was out delivering. It was because of her being so busy that I became able to amuse myself.
My mother never looked untidy and she stayed that way until her death aged 83. Sewing, knitting and gardening were her hobbies. These three pastimes also fill my leisure time and my neatness in sewing and embroidery is due to her habit of always inspecting the wrong side first. Although adept at making things she could not make alterations to a dress pattern or “see” a knitting pattern and relied on my help as I grew up. Father maintained that sometimes he was afraid to return home if she was working at a difficult pattern. When you have “green fingers” gardening is easy and mother loved raising seedlings in her makeshift greenhouse. This was actually an old car body suitably adapted. Father grew vegetables on an allotment but his heart was never in it as his fingers were certainly not green.
Father appeared to be calmer than Mother and did not seem to get upset even though he had been gassed in the trenches during the First World War and also suffered from shell-shock. The only time he became cross with his daughter was when she had the temerity to chatter whilst the news was on the radio. I believe that any special message regarding German invasion was to be broadcast during the six or nine o’clock news. I called him ‘My Daddy Bert’ to distinguish him from Uncle Bert. He called me ‘Jilly Jinks’ or ‘Tiger Tim’. He would take me out for walks on Sunday afternoons. We would wander as far as Darsham Station where, before the war there was a machine which dispensed Nestles chocolate bars. On the way we had to pass a small wood. Leading to the wood one had to climb ‘the slippery slip’. Actually it was a rather muddy slope leading over a bank to the wood. This was a very special wood as fairies lived there. Father would solemnly look around for signs of a fairy presence. I enjoyed it but I think that I may have read too much Enid Blyton and ‘Sunny Stories’ and that they were responsible for my fancies.
Father worked hard but would take me out with him when on his rounds delivering meat in the summer. This was a bit boring when he was a long time with a customer but I learned a lot about our small part of Suffolk and often took a book with me.
Both parents had older siblings. Mother’s eldest sister was sixteen years older than she was and as my grandparents had both died comparatively young, mother was fond of her sister, Nellie. She lived in Ipswich so we were able to visit quite often and I was even taken there to stay ‘for a holiday’.
Aunt Nellie, Uncle Bob and Uncle Arthur 1951.
Their house in Westholme Road was built on unstable ground and was gently settling. I was terrified that the whole thing would collapse with me inside it. Aunt Nellie kept rabbits and chickens. I loved the rabbits but didn’t like the chickens. She kept house for my Godfather, a tall man with a deep voice. In the dining room he had a full-size snooker table on which he tried to teach me to play but even then I was useless at any game involving balls of any size or shape but it did make a very good air raid shelter.
Mother’s two brothers were also much older than she was. Uncle Arthur was in Australia and Uncle Frank in Persia (Iran) and I did not meet either of them until the 1950s.
Father had three brothers all of whom were his elders. Uncle Bert lived in Colchester and was great fun. He would come and visit and play with me. His other two brothers were Jack and Harry but I never met them. Travelling was much more difficult in the 1930s, 40s and 50s than it is now with very few people actually owning a motor car.
Gillian Bryant (nee Starling) 2020