Our arrival in Worcestershire, in July 1939, was a new beginning for my mother and father. In 1938 my Great Aunt Maimie had died, and being a childless widow, as I have mentioned before, her estate passed to her three sisters. My grandmother having pre-deceased her, her portion passed directly to my mother and my Aunt Fay. This must have provided my parents with sufficient financial security to leave my grandfather’s house and set up on their own again.
I presume they made a deliberate decision to move to a property with a smallholding, which my father could work himself, which he would enjoy doing, rather than being miserable trying to sell cars. Why they decided to move first to a flat in London, while they did their house-hunting, I do not know. Perhaps by then they simply could not wait to make a change. It must nevertheless have been a difficult decision for them, as they not only made a school boarder of me for two terms, (which they could probably bear!), but they also sent my younger brother, at the age of only 7, to the new boarding school they had chosen for us, and which I too would be attending from September. This was extremely hard on him and he was very homesick.
It was a new beginning for me too, or rather, it was more as though it was the first beginning for me. I seem to feel a direct emotional connection with the girl who started life in a new home and a new school At that time. The period before that is more like the life of a child observed or read about, but not actually lived by me. But from that point on my life seems to have flowed seamlessly, and I remember it in much more detail. This may have been partly due to the outbreak of a major world war, which is a marker or fixing point in anyone’s life, which will afterwards be seen as having been lived either ‘before’ or ‘after’ that point in time.
I presume they made a deliberate decision to move to a property with a smallholding, which my father could work himself, which he would enjoy doing, rather than being miserable trying to sell cars. Why they decided to move first to a flat in London, while they did their house-hunting, I do not know. Perhaps by then they simply could not wait to make a change. It must nevertheless have been a difficult decision for them, as they not only made a school boarder of me for two terms, (which they could probably bear!), but they also sent my younger brother, at the age of only 7, to the new boarding school they had chosen for us, and which I too would be attending from September. This was extremely hard on him and he was very homesick.
It was a new beginning for me too, or rather, it was more as though it was the first beginning for me. I seem to feel a direct emotional connection with the girl who started life in a new home and a new school At that time. The period before that is more like the life of a child observed or read about, but not actually lived by me. But from that point on my life seems to have flowed seamlessly, and I remember it in much more detail. This may have been partly due to the outbreak of a major world war, which is a marker or fixing point in anyone’s life, which will afterwards be seen as having been lived either ‘before’ or ‘after’ that point in time.
But I think that the more likely cause of my sense of continuity since then, is that I was now happily settled in a boarding school where I remained for the rest of my school years, where I felt I truly belonged, and where I was guided, stretched, supported, and nourished on all levels. Meanwhile, my parents became happier, despite the austerities of wartime, and created a loving home for my brother and myself, which was there for us to return to again and again, until the lease expired in 1960. By that time both of us were married.
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