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Two years later I made my entrance into the world, followed by Joe, 18 months later.
I think my father adored me from the moment I was born and he was certainly my beloved Daddy.
My first memories are of being pushed in a large pedigree pram in the Maidstone streets. I believe I was recovering from a TB operation on my neck. I also had a Nevus surgically removed from my left cheek. I must have also worn glasses at some stage. My mother kept them in her dressing table drawer and often show them to me.
When I was a baby I was cared for by a Nanny who today would look like a nun in a blue habit.
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Her name was Nurse Stroud and she stayed with me until I was two, attending to my every need. The nursery where we had all our meals was on the second floor and have a connecting passage come built-in wardrobe to our bedroom. There was always a fire in the Nursery and I can remember warming a penny and putting it on the frozen windowpane one winter and making holes in the ice.
When Nurse Stroud left us, Nurse Tickner came and cared for Joe. At this time we had a little teenager “Between-maid” call Edie. Edie was the daughter of a wonderful working class couple we called Mummy and Daddy Earl. They live in a street of connected houses two down/ two up and an out-house for washing and a “loo” at the end of the garden. One of our greatest treats was when Edie took us to visit Mummy and Daddy Earl. He was a kindly man and work for the railways and she had a lovely smile and china blue eyes. We were always known as Miss Anne and Miss Joey. When Edie was 17 she became our Nurse maid and lived with Joe and me day and night. She came on all our holidays and we literally became her children. She was one of the family Edie stayed with us until I was 11 or 12 and we went to the boarding school and she became a most respected housekeeper to a local doctor with her own car / room
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and even living quarters. We used to visit her. I remember vividly that the Doctor grew magnificent rhododendrons in his gardens. When he died, he left Edie a bequest and she was able to retire and purchase her Mum’s old house(near to where Connie live as a widow) and Henry and I visited Edie when we went back to UK in 1978.
Edie and Daisy
