Christmas Alone at 81? I'll Still Enjoy It.

The British never used to get bothered by snowfalls in winter. We just expected it. Growing up in Lancashire in the 30s and 40s I saw quite a few cold winters and whenever it snowed we just got on with things. There weren't snow ploughs to clear the roads so if the snow was deep you just had to stay in your home. One year after the start of the war - probably January or February 1940 or it might have been 1941, we had really heavy snow. I was ten or eleven and quite excited because I couldn't get the bus to school for days. The snow was so deep it buried the hedges. The snowdrifts were higher than I was tall. If I'd gone outside it would have just about covered me from head to toe! There was no option but to wait till it all thawed. We had a coal fire in the sitting room. Apart from that there was no heating in the house. My father, mother and I wold huddle round the fire during the day and rather dread going up to bed at night. The bedrooms were so cold there was ice on the inside of the windows. Because the electricity was off we used storm lamps from the late afternoon when it got dark. These were just glass lanterns with a wick and flame inside. They didn't give too much light really and were meant for use outdoors. I remember during my childhood seeing shepherds out in the fields going to check on ewes lambing.
My mother cooked on the stove next to the fire. It was OK, but hard to control - the temperature was just given by the heat of the coal fire.
We didn't get out to the shops for some days but war rations were in force so we weren't missing much. My mother had some preserves, milk, eggs and cured meat in the pantry so that was our diet while we snowed in. And cups of hot tea of course.

Now I've lived in Surrey for decades and when my kids were growing up they enjoyed the snow each winter. My husband and I usually set and lit the coal fires in the house but the girls soon learnt to do it too. They'd spread out yesterday's newspaper on the floor, fold it over and over to make something like a flat paper tube, tie it in knots and use it underneath dry twigs - kindling wood - to light the fire. We had a coal bunker outside where you'd go and put the shovel in the coal-hole at the bottom of the bunker to draw coal out, put it in the coal bucket and lug it inside.

I was talking about snow at Christmas because this year - 2010 - there's been so much travel disruption because of snow. The TV and radio have been reporting passengers at Heathrow airport and other British airports whose flights are cancelled so queues and queues of people can't get away on holiday for Christmas. That must be very upsetting for those who work all year and planned to spend Christmas with friends or family. The snow has caused a lot of trouble on the roads too even though these days there are services supposed to be ready with snow ploughs, grit and salt.

I'm hoping to spend Christmas with my daughter in London and her family. My son-in-law should drive down from London to pick me up on the 23rd of December so I've been listening to the weather forecast trying to figure out if he'll be able to drive or not. At 81, you have to figure you haven't got too many Chirstmases left  (maybe another 10 - I hope!) so I hope to get up to London to be with them.

I told my other daughter, who lives inFrance, that I've bought a pizza and a bottle of champagne so if the snow prevents me travelling to London at the last moment then I'll have Christmas on my own and enjoy it nevertheless! I'm lucky to have some very good friends though - and that's one of the most important things to do as you get older - be a good friend to others and look after your friendships - and two of my friends have said if I get 'stranded' here in Surrey by the snow they'll find a way to collect me and I can spend Christmas with them and their families. However it turns out, it'll be OK.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to make 18 mince pies to take up to London with me. I found a book on my bookshelves called Christmas Made Easy with a recipe for Unbelievably Easy Mince Pies. I started to make them. You don't use any liquid for the pastry, just butter, flour and sugar. You're meant to 'knead the pastry mixture into a ball' but it all fell apart in crumbs. I added a bit of liquid but that didn't help much. I'm going to press the pastry into the baking tin anyway, add the mincemeat and hope for the best.

While I was fiddling around with the recipe and the pastry my daughter called. I told her the recipe wasn's working. "It certainly isn't unbelievable easy" I told her. "Yes it is" she said. "You were warned it was unbelievable..."

Then my new Kurdish neighbour called round. I've met her and her husband a couple of times now. They seem very pleasant but I didn't give them a Christmas card as I didn't know if Kurds celebrate Christmas, or if some do and some don't. It's silly, but it can be awkward asking these days. It shouldn't be - these things are interesting. She has what I think is a red caste mark? on her forehead and doesn't drink so I had the idea she wouldn't celebrate Cristmas. Anyway, she presented me with a long blue tin of Belgian biscuits and a Christmas card and wished me a Happy Christmas. So either she does celebrate Christmas - or she doesn't but correctly assumed I do. I'll give her and her husband a Christmas card and small gift now and when I know them a bit better maybe I'll get the opportunity to ask them about their traditions and culture.

Macular Degeneration: Becoming Partially Sighted in Old Age

I had cataract surgery early this year (2010.) I was pleased with the operations - I had both eyes done - and my sight improved. I had to pay for the surgery privately as the National Health Service told me I'd have to wait two years. At my time of life, two years is too long. When you see some of the things the NHS spends its money on it does make you wonder why people in their 80s who've paid taxes and national insurance for decades can't get two simple eye operations when they need them.

Anyway, my sight did improve for a while. I'm 81 though and there's only so much an eye surgeon can do with weary old eyes. Throughout this year my sight has got steadily worse as a result of age-related macular degeneration (the one that can't be cured.) I was referred to an eye clinic and then a pleasant women came to my home to advise me about lighting and other things that might help. I was sent two pairs of hi-tech glasses - one pair for looking at the television and objects further away and one pair for reading. All my life I've loved reading and writing so the fact that they're both getting hard to do is quite difficult to accept. Being told to stop driving was difficult but at least I could still watch films fairly easily, read books, send and receive emails and write this. At least on the computer you can switch the text to large size which is a help.

Yesterday, another woman called round and she gave me a fold-up white stick. It was my fault really because I'd told her that sometimes when I cross a road I have trouble seeing if there's a car coming. Out came the white stick and she advised me to keep it in my handbag so it's always handy if I go into town. I don't like having a white stick in my possession - it makes me feel sort of pigeonholed as an invalid - but I'll just have to get used to it. I've been registered as partially sighted too so there's no getting away from the fact that my sight is not as good as it was up until a couple of years ago. Blindness is a terrible thought for anyone who takes their good eyesight for granted but it's pretty worrying when you find your sight actually progressively failing. You have no way of knowing how fast it'll deteriorate or if you'll hang on to at least a measure of sight.

The woman who came this week also told me I can apply for an Attendance Allowance. It wasn't really clear to me what that means or whether it's for partially sighted people or people with any disability but I think it's to help a bit with things like taxis because I can't drive any more. Or perhaps to have someone come and help me with my shopping because the writing's often so tiny on products that I can't always see what I'm buying. I feel a bit daft asking some young person in Sainsburys to look at a packet and tell me what's in it! Anyway, I suppose someone will explain how I apply for the allowance and what exactly it's to be used for.

One of my daughters has advised me to start getting used to radio and talking books as much as the TV, newspapers and proper books. I suppose that's not a bad idea. I like to see the news on TV and I've always liked spending Sunday reading all the Sunday papers, usually lying on the carpet with them spread out all around me. But it's probably time to make a bit of a transition and get used to hearing the news on the radio.

There's not to recommend about getting older really. I don't know about getting wiser but you certainly start to get a bit worn and creaky after 80. Some chap, I can't remember who it was offhand, said real old age starts at 80. I'll be 82 in September 2011. So far, I tend to agree with him. One of the clichés about ageing is that it's not for softies. I certainly agree with that. Another is that getting old is better than the alternative. For now, I agree with that too!

Lost photos of a dry Niagara Falls found in a shoe box

In 1952 my husband and I sailed on the Niagara River, by the Falls, on the Maid of the Mist - the quite large boat that always looks like it's going to be capsized by the cascading waters but never is. I'd just found out that I was pregnant with our first child, and despite feeling a little queasy we were both in great spirits and enjoying our holiday. My husband was in the Royal Air Force and we were stationed in Washington after the Second World War. We spent a fortnight driving around Canada, stopping at little hotels and taking in the sights. We visited Montreal, Quebec, Ontario and Toronto. Naturally we wanted to see the mighty Niagara Falls, flowing on both the American and Canadian side of the border and once we got there we couldn't miss taking a trip on the famous Niagara River boat, the Maid of the Mist.

There was a sort of cable car affair over Niagara Falls in those days - I don't know if there still is - and it looked like it would give you very dizzy views, looking right down on the cascading water. We must have decided it looked too perilous for me in my newly pregnant state but we decided we just had to sail on the Maid of the Mist. Before you boarded the boat in those days, you were taken off behind the Falls and handed a heavy waterproof cape to protect you from the spray. As we were putting our capes on, one of the staff told me proudly that the future Queen of England - then Princess Elizabeth - had sailed on the Maid not long before me and my husband. "She sat right where you're sittin' now" she told me "and I helped her put her cape on."

Once on board the boat, a photographer took a picture of us against the backdrop of the Falls. It's a pretty spectacular photo and we were happy to pay how ever many dollars he asked for.

The Maid sailed very close to the falls but I don't remember feeling at all anxious. It was thrilling.

So I was interested to see the news story about a Connecticut man called Russ Glasson who found family photos taken of Niagara Falls in 1969. It was in 1969 that US Army Corps engineers diverted the river away from the American Falls and over the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. The entire river bed ran dry and for five months engineers worked to move rock falls that had blocked up the base of the Falls. A huge part of Niagara Falls ran dry! I looked at the photos with interest even though I had to study them with the special glasses I've got for my poor eyesight. You can see the engineers at work as well as the completely dry river bed.

I talked to my younger daughter about this. She has the photo of me and her father on the Niagara River and she told me that in the background you can clearly see huge rocks at the base of the Falls with the water cascading over them. Since the main rock falls which the engineers were moving fell in 1931 and 1954 the rocks in my photo, taken in 1952, may be from 1931. Or perhaps they're part of the river bed geology that was there for much longer and is still there today.

Anyway, I found Mr Glasson's photographs very interesting - as anyone who's been to Niagara Falls or enjoyed pictures of it probably will. My own photo has a little more personal meaning for me though - especially as I'd just found out I was expecting my first child.

Sticking chalk up your nose and tending graves with marble angels

Another couple of random incidents from my childhood long ago. When I was 6, in 1935, I did a stupid thing at school one day. In those days the teacher wrote with chalk on a blackboard, a practice that continued right up until my own two daughters were at school in the 60s and 70s. But we children used to write with chalk too.

Paper would have been too expensive in those days. It wasn't something you'd dish out to kids to write all over and then throw away. Instead, we had black slates in little wooden frames and we'd write on them during lessons, sitting on our little wooden benches, and after the lesson we'd wipe the slates down ready to use again. I suppose that's where English got the expression "wipe the slate clean" for starting again or starting fresh. It was a pretty 'sustainable' or 'ecological' practice when you think about it. No paper wasted. No electricity used, as gets used for all the computers and networks that are in schools today.

On this particular day, one summer, I obviously wasn't concentrating very much on what the teacher, Mrs Roscoe, was teaching us because I started fiddling around with my short piece of chalk and after a moment decided to push it up my nose. It went up easily but almost immediately I became slightly alarmed to realise I couldn't get it down again. I signalled to a little friend what I'd done, tried to extract the thing, and gradually got more alarmed that I had my piece of chalk stuck up my nose. The other kids were all busily copying something down that Mrs Roscoe had written on the blackboard. After a while I realised I'd have to tell her what I'd done and put my hand up and confessed. "I've pushed a piece of chalk up my nose and I can't get it down."

She brought me to the front of the class and had a look and then told the other pupils they were to carry on writing on their slates while she took me to the headmaster. I thought I was going to get the cane for being naughty. In those days, the Headmaster or Headmistress of a school was like god. You automatically had respect for them and would never question their authority. If ever you were taken to see the Head it usually meant you were in trouble and you'd be fairly worried. I was only small, too, and the Headmster, Mr Turner, was a tall thin man who loomed very large in my eyes. I suppose I was a bit scared of him.

When the teacher explained what I'd done he had a look at me and then took me by the hand and led me out of his office, down the corridor and out of the school.

I had no idea what was happening and felt a bit scared. I must be in a lot of trouble because I'd never been taken anywhere by the Headmaster before. In fact, he led me to his house and called his wife to have a look at me. Mrs Turner was quite a kindly woman because she smiled and took me into their garden. She was carrying a tartan travel rug - I'd never seen a travel rug before - and she laid me down on it. Then she told me to look up at the lovely blue sky. I obediently stared at the sky - it was lovely, cloudless and clear blue - and she produced a pair of tweezers and hoicked the chalk from its place.

Still surprised not to have been told off and punished, I was even more amazed when she took me back into the house, into the kitchen, and produced an orange which she handed to me with a smile. In those days an orange was a very exotic fruit. I normally had one a year, at Christmas and not on any other occasion. Kids these days have lovely red and white Christmas stockings stuffed with presents but back then a Christmas stocking, for me, as for most kids, was one of my dad's socks, washed and dried, and with an apple, an orange and a penny in it. Then, that was all that was available to ordinary families and enough to get the children excited on Christmas morning.

Anyway, I was then escorted back to school and returned to class, clutching my orange and feeling like a little heroine. It was a wonder frankly, that the other kids, seeing me return with an orange as a prize, didn't all start pushing chalk up their noses to get oranges too.

The other random incident that occurs to me is that one day after school I was playing in the churchyard by our house in Wesham (in Lancashire.) I say churchyard but obviously it was a graveyard too as churches all had graveyards at that time. You tended to get christened in your local church, married in your local church, baptise your own kids there and then end up buried there.

I was playing around anyway and noticed two women tending a grave. I would have been, again, about 6, so it was 1935 or 1936. I didn't take much notice but after a while they called me over and asked if I lived round there. Yes, I said, just nearby. They pointed to the grave they were tending and said they lived in Blackburn and it was a long way to come to Wesham graveyard and asked, if they gave me threepence, would I tend the grave for them? I looked at the grave and up at the marble angel on top of the headstone. She probably wasn't huge but I was small and she looked huge to me. She was grey though she must originally have been white and she was half-covered in moss and a bit grubby. So was the headstone. The grave was a bit overgrown and the women were clearing it and had fresh flowers to put on it. I must have looked a bit doubtful about the task because they assured me it was just a question of keeping the weeds off the grave and tidying it up once in a while.

Eyeing the threepence, I agreed and promised to look after the grave. I can't even remember whose grave it was or what name was on it. The two women went off quite happily, obviously relieved to feel they could abandon the grave without having it on their conscience. I pocketed the money, gave the marble angel another look and then dashed home to show my mother the threepenny coin. She swiftly took it off me and put it in my money box. I was crestfallen because I never saw money come out of my money box - I only ever saw it go in. If ever I got a penny for some reason, it tended to go into the box and I think, looking back, that the money must have been used for things I needed for school or maybe helped pay for food or birthday or Christmas presents.

My mother told me quite solemnly that I had made a promise to look after the grave and had accepted payment and I would have to be as good as my word. I was slightly regretting having pocketed the threepence by this point but I understood that tending the grave was now my responsibility.

Over the next few weeks my mother would ask from time to time: "Have you tended the grave this week?"

Admitting I'd sort of forgotten about it, I'd plod over to the graveyard with a heavy heart and a little garden fork and trowel, kneel down beside the grave, and clear the weeds away. That went on for weeks but eventually I think even my honourable mother must have started to think that paying threepence to have a grave tended in perpetuity was a bit unrealistic. She eased up on reminding me about my duties and gradually I forgot about the grave and the marble angel.

In those days of course, relatives and husbands and wives were in the habit of tending graves carefully for many years. Weeds would be cleared, fresh flowers would be brought. In Scotland and the Meditteranean countries they still do that very often. In Italy - and in France, where one of my daughters lives - relatives keep photographs of their loved ones sheltered from the rain and renew flowers on elaborate tombs. On All Saints Day, the 1st of November, they buy flowers and make special trips to honour and remember the dead. English communities don't tend to do that much any more. Old-style English communities broke up largely in the post-war years and these days everyone moves a lot. You wouldn't necessarily live anywhere near a relative's grave now even if they'd been buried instead of cremation, which is much more the fashion.

Maybe those two women were some of the first in that process of moving away - leaving your village, leaving the place of your birth, going to the nearest town or city - Blackburn or Blackpool in this case - or, as people increasingly did, going 'down south'.

Thirteen years later, as a young woman who'd got through the war, survived the rationing and a few incendiary bombs, I would do the same myself. When I moved away though, it wouldn't be to Blackpool or London, it would be to Washington DC in America. Quite a move for a teenager from rural Lancashire in those days. I was to meet, marry and have my children with a man nearly twenty years older than me, a (totally lapsed catholic) man in the Royal Air Force who would take this girl who'd stuck chalk up her nose and played in the graveyard at Wesham church, and marry her in the great cathedral in Washington. He'd introduce me, for a time, to a post-war life of fun, cocktail parties, cigarettes (always cigarettes) and British airforce and embassy culture. It would be quite a change from the life I'd known.

Celebrating Christmas during the war years

Christmas is such a big event these days - mostly for business and commerce, but for children too. My grandchildren, like most kids growing up over the last two decades, are used to lots of presents - electronic gadgets, mobile phones, computers, TVs...

When I was a child during the war Christmas was a whole lot simpler. At our home in rural Lancashire we had a tiny artificial Christmas tree, about 18 inches high, that we put on a little table, and we bought those highly coloured 'link' paper chains and put them up in the sitting room. That was it as far decorations went.

I got some quite good presents before the war when I was 7, 8, 9. I remember a chocolate "smoker's set" that I thought was wonderful. It came in quite a big box and had dark chocolate cigars, and white cigarettes made with some sort of fondant paste. They had pink tips as if they were alight. There was a packet of matches made from the same confection, yellowish with pink tips. I thought it was pretty sophisticated to walk around smoking my sweet cigarettes or waving one nonchalantly in the air as I chatted to a schoolfriend. It was a good present.

I also loved a sweet shop that my parents bought me one Christmas. It had small weighing scales and a little till to take money, price labels and little bottles of coloured sugar sweets. I'd set up shop in the sitting room and play shopkeeper and customer with my friend Betty at the weekends.

One year I asked my father to buy me a Hornby train. I can't remember where I got the idea for this. Maybe I saw one in a shop in Blackpool or a schoolfriend had one. I certainly didn't see it advertised on the telly because no-one had one back then. I was thrilled when I received it on Christmas morning and it was fun to play with. But I didn't get to play with it very often because we had to move furniture to clear space for its rails. We'd lug the table and chairs out of the way and lay the tracks on the carpet but it was a bit of a palaver. For a long time I kept it, in its box in a cupboard, and I suppose eventually my parents gave it away to someone else's child. Had I kept it, it would probably be worth a fortune now. In those days of course it was just another child's toy.

One year I got a celluloid doll the size of a real baby that I thought was wonderful. It didn't open or shut its eyes - they were just painted on - but it had nice painted hair and its arms and legs were moveable. They were held together inside the doll with elastic in some way - the limbs all moved - and I remember crying when I somehow broke the elastic and all the limbs fell off. My father, being a practical man, as most men were in those days, soon fixed it and it was as good as new.

The other Christmas presents I remember were edible. Every year once the war started I had a Christmas stocking filled with an apple, an orange and a brand new penny. An apple and orange wouldn't excite a child today but in the war years fruit was scarce, so it was quite a treat. I was also given a pink sugar pig each year and I really loved them. They were quite large, solid, very heavy and had white waxed cotton tails. They were made of hard, crunchy, bright pink sugar! The taste was simply of sugar but I've never eaten anything with the same texture since. I can only describe it as frosted.

These days I spend Christmas in London with one of my daughters, my son-in-law and their three kids. In the last 4 years I see my great-grandson too sometimes. My son-in-law is a wonderful cook and always makes a great meal on Christmas Day - always turkey, but often with some contemporary twist to the recipe. We drink a lot of champagne, beer and wine too. And really enjoy ourselves.

It's strange to think just how much has changed in 70 years in England. At Christmas, for example, I (almost) take for granted now things that I never had as a child. My daughter's lovely warm house. A huge Christmas tree with dozens of nicely wrapped and labelled presents underneath it. A fridge and freezer packed with all kinds of food, often from other countries and continents as is the way these days. Champagne and wine from France. Beer from Belgium and Thailand. Plenty of running hot water whenever you want it. Huge high-definition televisions (whatever that means.) Cars sitting outside if we need them. Digital cameras and digital photographs. Gadgets to put them on the computer.

Back in the war, and before and after, Christmas was a whole lot simpler. Usually dad would kill one of the chickens we kept for their eggs. We'd have a few vegetables with it and my mother would always make a Christmas cake. We didn't have Christmas pudding and there certainly wasn't any wine or champagne!

One Christmas during the war years I remember spending the day at my grandfather's place. I would have been 10 or 11. He lived in a cold old farmhouse with my uncle Jack, aunt Alice, spinster aunt Lizzie, and uncle Tom who lived there till he married a rather fierce local woman who kept the local sweetshop. My mother and father and I walked 5 miles to grandad's house - stopping on the way to go to the catholic Christmas mass.

There were no presents because no-one could afford to give anything, except to their children. We had sausages and a chicken in the farmhouse kitchen and I remember it was cold, with great flagstone floors. In the late afternoon uncle Jack went round and lit the oil lamps and the grown-ups had a glass of sherry. There was a small bottle of port too and that was it. We walked ten miles that day without giving it a thought, which you did in those days. The walk home that night was along freezing frosty country lanes under a full moon. I remember clearly walking along between my mother and father, looking up at the moon and thinking how beautiful it all was.

It was around that time that I had quite a bad accident at home. We had a cooker in the scullery but another cooker, sort of like an aga, in the sitting room. The one in the sitting room was right beside the fire and used heat from the fire. My mother used it as a way of economising on fuel. It had hot plates on the top and one wintry day I was sitting in a chair reading a book, close to the fire, when my mother put a pan of water on to boil. I managed to put my foot up and knock the boiling water all over my foot. It was very badly scalded and injured and I couldn't walk for weeks. At one point the doctor said I was developing gangrene (or was going to develop gangrene - I can't remember which) and I remember my mother being terribly distressed. (She lost her first child, my brother, when he was about a week old. He was born with spina bifida and I think the doctor prescribed some drug daily for a week which killed him.) Anyway, my treatment was changed - I can't remember if I was given medicine to drink or some ointment was applied topically but eventually my foot recovered (although it's still a bit scarred 70 years later.)

I had six weeks off school since I was quite ill and couldn't walk. I remember a teacher, Mr Fenton, turning up from my school one day to see what was the matter. In those days, in our area anyway, if a child was off school for any length of time a teacher would call round to see the parents and ask what was going on. Presumably Mr Fenton thought I was being allowed to swing the lead because when my mother explained - standing on the doorstep - that I was still ill, he demanded to see me. I still remember the look on his face when my mother brought him inside and showed him my foot. He looked quite ill and said he understood now why I was at home. Then he scuttled off back to the school.

Piano Lessons, 1938-style.

When I was about 9, in about 1938 I suppose it was, my mother decided I should learn to play the piano.

My father had left his job with the water board for a new job as a market gardener and we'd moved from our end-of-terrrace house to a semi-detached house near Westby catholic school in Lancashire. The terraced houe had no electricity, just gas and gas lamps, and no indoor bathroom or toilet. The semi had electricity and a bathroom indoors. I think my mother felt we'd gone up a bit in the world and that may have been what prompted her to decide I should learn the piano. She told me I could become a concert pianist and "have letters" after my name. I had no idea what she meant but I didn't mind having a go at playing the piano.

Since we didn't have a piano, the first thing was to get one. My father bought one from someone locally and a women called Miss Ward agreed to come and give me lessons. Miss Ward was the ugliest woman I'd ever seen. She was short and squat and had hair on her chin and for some reason wore a little woollen cap even in summer. Now I'm older - 82 in September 2011 - I realise it was probably because her hair was very thin but as a child I thought it was very odd.

When she arrived for the first lesson she propped the sheet music up on the piano and told me to pull the seat closer. We sat on the same little bench. Then she asked if I had a ruler. Yes, I did, in my school satchel. She asked me to fetch it and I gave it to her. Then she started putting me through my paces. I didn't know what the ruler was for but at the first mistake I made she picked it up and rapped me hard on the knuckles with it. I tried pretty hard not to make many mistakes after that!

After a number of piano lessons it became obvious to everyone concerned that I was never going to be a concert pianist. I wasn't pianist material. One thing I hadn't grasped, and no-one seemed to have explained it, was that I was meant to practice in between lessons. Since I just ran outside to play after each lesson and forgot all about Miss Ward and the piano till the next lesson, I didn't make a lot of progress.

Eventually my mother decided to stop the lessons and Miss Ward took her sheet music, left the ruler and went. But my musical career didn't end that easily. My mother had decided I would do better with a harmonium and contacted a cousin who had one he wanted to get rid of. I remember the day he arrived at our house with a horse and cart and the harmonium on the cart. The thing was offloaded and brought into the house and then the piano was loaded onto the cart and the horse went off pulling the cart and piano. Before he left, my cousin told my mother he was delighted to get rid of the harmonium. No wonder. It made a horrible noise. You had to work pedals to get any sound out of it and I had to pedal away furiously to make it work.

It wasn't long before my mother and father and I all sort of agreed that keyboards weren't my forté. I never understood why my mother thought that, having failed with the piano, I might be a successful harmonium player.

Years later I won a scholarship to Layton Hill Convent in Blackpool and then worked there as school secretary. The convent had a long corridor with music rooms off to each side where girls had to go and practice piano or violin or other instruments every day. The school didn't do any drama but it had an excellent school orchestra. One of my duties when I worked there was to patrol up and down the corridor just making sure the girls were practising their scales or rehearsing their repertoires rather than sitting around chatting. It was always classical music being played and at the time I didn't find it very interesting. But it stood me in good stead because in later years I grew to appreciate classical music and much of it came back to me from those teenage years, listening to music practice and then attending school concerts.

I never learned to play an instrument despite my mother's ambition for me. But I learned to enjoy classical music and that's not a bad result.