when it’s still buttoned up.’
I was so relieved to have the benefit of her experience and she certainly reassured me that it would be all right but I was more than relieved when my period began a couple of days later. As for the coat that saved me, it was thick brown mohair with three coaster-size buttons down the front. Boy, was I glad I was wearing it!
Joe who came from the Middle East fell in love with me. A big man with dark skin and a ready smile, he was a student and although his parents were wealthy, he never seemed to have much money either. He was kind and loving and I have always regretted that I didn’t stop the relationship sooner. I’m afraid that I unwittingly hurt him deeply. He came home and met my parents, which of course must have given him hope that our relationship would go further but he was a Muslim and I wasn’t prepared to change my culture or beliefs, something which would have been required of me. Joe’s father was a well-respected newspaper publisher, regularly commuting to New York and the UN, where he represented his country.
At the beginning of our relationship, Joe complained of the cold English winter, so I told him I would knit him a sweater. We chose some bright red wool and big needles and I began. When I decided that I wanted to break up the relationship I still had to knit the wretched jumper and because I knew it had cost him a lot of money, I felt honour bound to complete it. He was a big man and it took forever but eventually I’d finished. He was so proud of it, but then I dumped him. I was trying to do the right thing, but looking back I obviously sent out some very confusing messages.
Another boy I met was called Nafis, who came from Pakistan. One time when Nafis and I had a date, he was looking very sad. He kept shaking his head and saying, ‘I wish I hadn’t done it.’
‘Hadn’t done what?’
‘Last night Marilyn Monroe telephoned me from Hollywood,’ he said. ‘She begged me for a date but I said I was busy. I told her I was taking you to the pictures and now look what’s happened.’
It was a bit of a sick joke but I laughed from politeness. It was August 1962 and Marilyn Monroe, reputedly the sexiest girl in the world, had just been found dead. Nafis didn’t last very long as a boyfriend either. Not because of his bad taste jokes or the fact that his mouth tasted like an ashtray; the problem was that he was tiny. I thought I was overweight, although looking at photographs at the time, I wasn’t really. But I hated being made to feel big and Nafis made me feel like an elephant. He never knew why I dumped him.
Then there was Coover. He used to send Evie red roses. How I envied her, with all those lovely roses and Coover.
When she got back to nursery, Hilary decided Evie was too prudish for her own good and so when she was in the bath, Hilary rattled the bathroom door until the bolt slid back. She and I marched in while poor Evie struggled to cover her ample bosom with the smallest of flannels. We were being heartless really and I don’t think for one minute we thought we were going to change how Evie felt but the event was typical of the tactics Hilary enjoyed.
I became something of a dressmaker. One time Evie didn’t have a thing to wear and she was going on a date. I had a day off so I said I would make her something. In her morning off duty, she hurried into town and bought something which looked an awful lot like curtain material. I spent the afternoon making her a sack dress. It had three large sunflowers down the front, a scoop neckline and no sleeves. I finished it just as she came off duty and she wore it that night.
Now that I had a little money in my pocket, clothes became increasingly important. 1962 saw the rise of Carnaby Street in London. It was near Oxford Street in Soho and was full of fashion boutiques. Hilary and I were still stuck in the ‘everything to match’ era of the late 1950s but that didn’t stop me drooling over dresses which I couldn’t afford. My best outfit of the day was a patterned orange and brown blouse, worn with a brown pencil skirt and a big orange cardigan. Hilary looked very smart in her pink swagger coat over a navy dress. She had navy stilettos, matching handbag and long navy gloves. Contrast that with Mary Quant’s mini skirts and the sack dress and you can see how radically different the fashions were becoming. The bright bold colours were amazing.
There wasn’t a great opportunity to help the children develop a taste in dress and appearance although just like every other child, the children in care showed some interest in clothes. They liked nothing better than to see us in our ‘going-out clothes’ as they called them. Often a girl would promise the older children to come back into the nursery and show them her ‘party’ dress if she was going somewhere special. I remember going into the night nursery to show the children my new dress when I was on my way out. I did a couple of twirls in the middle of the room when Rosie climbed to the end of her bed. ‘What are those?’ she asked, as she patted my chest.
‘They’re my boobs,’ I said.
‘My daddy’s got some of those,’ she said gravely.
The only real way to foster a personal interest in what you wear is when you are given a choice. The children in the nursery had little of that. I do remember the odd occasion when a child hated a certain dress or pair of trousers and in that case we would change it for another item from central stores but that isn’t really choice. Even so, sometimes getting dressed could be fun. Cory was supposed to be getting dressed but instead he was fooling around. ‘Cory,’ I said, ‘would you like to put your socks on?’ ‘No thank you,’ came the reply. ‘I think I’ll wear my feet today!’
The one time when children did have choice about what to put on was when we got out the dressing-up box. It was interesting to note that sometimes the shy child seemed to come out of his or her shell when they had something different on. Our dressing-up boxes were really good. Sometimes when the children had chosen their outfits we would put on a record or switch on the radio and have music and movement as well. There were always a few items of dressing-up clothes in the Wendy house and an apron or a hat could transform any game into something much more exciting.
For me, the discovery of boys was a welcome distraction but we still worked incredibly hard. Matron would move us around, especially if she thought we were making what she called ‘an attachment’. Every day began at 6.30 a.m. when the ‘duty girl’ came round with a cup of tea. Everyone had to be on duty at 7 a.m. so the scramble for the bathroom was pretty hectic and you had to be quick. No time for a bath of course, as there was a queue of girls behind you, all rushing to be on duty at the same time. We all took it in turns to be the ‘duty girl’. The night nurse would bring a large teapot to your room and leave it. Then the duty girl had to pour the tea and make sure everyone else in the house was awake.
The decorators were in and Hilary’s and my room was top of the list. While it was being done, we both had to move. I think I got the better deal because Hilary’s bed was squashed into a room with two other girls while I was asked to share with Christine.
Christine’s room was on the ground floor in the ‘cottage’. The room had once been part of the stables of the big house. I was duty girl for the morning, so the night before I had laid out the cups and saucers on a tray and put them on the floor in between our beds. That night we had a fierce summer storm, which was highly atmospheric. During a brief lull, we heard the distinct rattle of cups.
‘What was that?’ I said into the darkness.
‘I don’t know.’ Christine’s voice was little more than a strained whisper.
The sound of rattling cups echoed through the room.
By now my heart was bumping with fear. Neither of us had a bedside light. The only light was from the light switch by the door. ‘Get out and put on the light.’
‘I’m not getting out of bed,’ said Christine. ‘I’m too scared. You get out.’
I couldn’t do it either, so the pair of us lay in bed utterly terrified and unable to sleep. Who or what was in our room we hadn’t a clue, but we were both thoroughly spooked up. I imagined it to be a snake or a rat or a ghost. Daylight was painfully slow to come and it was first light before we finally dropped off. But when the night nurse switched on the light as she brought in the teapot, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Rolled