• Ref.Number: FB003
• Date: 2.2.07
• Interviewer (I): Liz Rice
• Subject: Life as a child on Calgarth
• Period:1946-1953

I

So what was that hospital for?

W

Ethel Headley was orthopaedic children. You used to see them on the balcony, you know, you walked in the fields and that sort of thing. Yes, it just reminded me, we went - I used to go mushrooming in that field sometimes and sometimes we used to have the - in the woods there was a little beck and you could cross the little beck but the big one, you had a bridge over, and I can remember one day, myself - well I suppose it must have been the whole family. There was Adrianne Wharton who was my friend round the corner - there were her parents, my parents and we went for a walk in this field and coming back over the bridge there was a plank missing and Adrianne said - Oh, I can jump over that. And I said - I can get over without even jumping. Straight down the middle hanging on by my fingers and my dad pulling me out by my hair and clouting me one. Because it was quite high and quite ...

I

Was it quite a fast flowing river?

W

Yes.?

I

Good grief. Were you a bit of a troublesome type?

W

No, no. Not at all (laughs).

I

So were you allowed to go into the wood or did your parents tell you not to?

W

No, we were allowed. No we used to pick flowers and bring them home and, you know, put them in jam jars. Yes. And we used - oh I’ll tell you what else we used to have to do from school, we used to have to collect rosehips to make rosehip syrup and you got 3d a pound. So you were encouraged to go around and look for things. I remember having this brilliant idea - we didn’t have any scales at home - because I mean, you were quite poor in those days - and I wanted to know how many rosehips I’d got so I thought, oh a pound jamjar. So I’d worked out all this fantastic money I was going to get.

I

Ah. Good thinking.

W

Didn’t quite work though.

I

Where was it made? Did you make it in the school? Did the children ..

W

No they used to send it off somewhere, I don’t know where it went to. Farleys I suppose, would it? I wonder if Farleys was in Kendal then?