The CBB :: View topic - Sharlie Andrews - life before, during and after school

Sharlie Andrews - life before, during and after school

#1: Sharlie Andrews - life before, during and after school Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 3:40 pm

Don't worry, I'm not going to shamefully neglect 'I lift my eyes up' since I've already written, um, rather a lot of this. I've always felt a bit sorry for Sharlie since she had the potential to be more important than she was exept EBD just sort of shoved her into the background so here is her story, according to me anyway. I just thought I should get on with posting this whilst my net connection is reliable, and also before I forget that it was just shoved in my drawer...

I only have one photograph of myself before the age of ten, the one tie that binds me to the life I was born into, the life that I left behind all those years ago. If I close my eyes I am that six year old in the photograph again standing at the top of our street with my sisters, overlooking the industrial panorama.

The photograph was taken in the summer of 1936. I can tell that it’s the summer because we all have white ribbons in our hair. It was always that way, white ribbons in the summer and blue in the winter. I’m wearing the navy blue dress that was my favourite of my two everyday dresses. I can still feel that rough cotton against my skin, I know every stitch, every repair, every mark where the hem was continuously let down to accommodate for my growing.

I was born Charlotte Louise Andrews in Liverpool in March 1930, the fourth child of my parents although the two eldest boys had died as babies. Mam and da never spoke of them, and I never asked. Rebecca had been their first to survive, she was fourteen months older than me. Elizabeth, Harriet, Bridget and George all followed after me. Life was hard for us, da worked in one of the big factories making parts for ships; mam had been in service but had stopped when she married da. Money was tight surviving on da’s meagre wages, I remember being hungry most of the time. But that must have been nothing compared with mam who so often went without so that we could at least eat something.

Date edited for Pimism!

Last edited by pim on Mon Nov 22, 2004 5:41 pm; edited 2 times in total

#2: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 3:44 pm

Very intriguing, Pim. Please go on with this. You did say you had written a lot of it already, didn't you?

#3: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:00 pm

Oooh, Pim! This is a lovely beginning Very Happy

If you have more, why aren't you posting it? Confused

Please?

#4: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:07 pm

Very interesting beginning Pim. Please post all you have written very, very quickly!!!

* Tigger

with happiness*

#5: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:25 pm

Yay! Another Pim drabble!!!!

More soon please!!!

#6: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:27 pm

Any chance of some more 'New Family' as well, Vikki?

#7: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:31 pm

Well, okay then Jennie, since you ask so nicely.....

#8: Author: claire, Location: South Wales

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 5:26 pm

Ooh intriguing, you're right Sharlie has been neglected (both in the books and drabbles) glad to see you'll set the record straight

#9: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 5:29 pm

Since you all asked so nicely... and the more I post hopefully the more I will get written as I will eventually run out of bits to post. There'll be some more when I get back in later.

Da never really had time for us girls, to him we were a mere inconvenience. George was a different story entirely. Da would take George out of a Sunday, in training for ‘how to be a man’ I suppose. Mind, it wasn’t all that often that da took George out, usually when mam stopped his drink and cigs money because we needed it for something more important. He didn’t like that but it was just as well he had George to distract him. He was never violent my da, or if he was it was never in front of us. He was awful to mama however, always belittling her, telling her how useless she was. I remember being three years old and screaming at da to stop making mam cry. He stared at me as though I was something that had just crawled out from under a stone before walking out of the room. It didn’t happen often, only when he’d been drinking. He drank a lot, but so did his mates, that was just the way it was.

From around my third birthday mam encouraged me to spend as much time out of the house as was possible. Rebecca and I would spend endless days running around the cobbled streets with the other children. We had all our secret places and all our games. Our games were our escape, pretending to be princes and princesses, lords and ladies, dukes, knights, damsels, maidens. We had our imaginations and they would take us anywhere from the gutters to the stars. We were never told not to dream.

Sundays we’d always put on our Sunday best and go to Sunday school and church. I had a white frock for Sundays; the first one I remember had puff sleeves and a pink sash to match my Sunday hair ribbons. I wasn’t a particularly attractive child but mam tried her best to make me feel special and beautiful. I had lank dark hair which insisted on sticking out instead of hanging straight and I was painfully thin with a sallow complexion and hollow cheeks. My redeeming feature was my eyes, a brilliant shade of blue inherited from da.

After church on Sundays we’d go and have lunch at nan’s and I loved going there. She lived in the next street with mam’s younger sister, Aunt Carol, who had never married. Granda had died in the Great War, he was killed fighting on the Somme in 1916. Mam never talked about him but nan would tell me stories for hours on end. Mark my words Janet, she’d say to mam, your Charlotte will turn out just like her granda. It always felt funny to hear her say that. I knew granda had died a hero defending his country. I wasn’t sure that I ever wanted to go to war, it’d be nice to be a hero I often thought but all the same I was never quite sure what nan meant, and I would never get to find out either.

#10: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 5:54 pm

Wonderful stuff Pim, thanks.
looking forward to more soon!
xxx

#11: Author: karry, Location: somewhere cold and miserable! :(

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 6:39 pm

whow Pim, This is a brill start! Surprised

I am at home, suffering from a really rotten cold and sinusitis, wanting some comfort and pim comes up with a new drabble! Bliss!

#12: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:01 pm

Wow Pim! More please. As soon as possible. What a start in life for a CS teacher!!! Shocked

#13: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 7:48 pm

This is wonderful Pim, and what a great character to choose. Boo Hoo

#14: Author: Helen P, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 9:41 pm

This is great Pim, thankyou! I've always liked what we saw of Sharlie, and am really looking forward to hearing more about her.

#15: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 10:13 pm

Ooh yay! I always liked Sharlie too. It will be nice to read some more about her. Very interesting seeing her come from such a different background from the CS norm.

#16: Author: Ann, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 10:30 pm

This is a fantastic start, Pim - please post more asap!

#17: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 10:37 pm

Wow, I never imagined Sharlie coming from that background. This is sooo interesting Pim, please post some more soon.

#18: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:00 pm

Last bit for today, although according to my clock it's tomorrow. Ouf my brain. More when I get up.

When George was born mam said there were to be no more babies, it was 1935 and I was five years old and quite disappointed by this edict. George was a sickly baby who cried all the time, the only escape I had from him would be to go outside and play. Rebecca looked after me and I in turn looked after Elizabeth. George was born in December so the days were short, some days it never really got light. I hated those days, stuck indoors listening to George’s seemingly endless cries. Money was even shorter than normal then and affording coal for the fire was hard. We were only allowed it lit when da was in; the rest of the time mam would wrap us in blankets in the kitchen.

Rebecca had started school in the January of 1934, long before George was born. I remember mam had bought her a new frock and coat for Christmas. I can picture her in it even now parading it on Christmas morning. The coat was green with brown buttons down the front, the dress blue with a white pinafore over the top of it. Rebecca looked so happy and proud in it with her eyes shining as she twisted and turned this was and that to try and see herself from all angles. I wanted to go to school with her that first day as she walked off with the other children from our street. I stood on the doorstep hopping impatiently from one foot to the other asking mam if I could go as well. She just laughed, next year Carlotte, next year, she said.

At that age a year was a lifetime, I drove mam with my incessant questioning about going to school. I’d make Rebecca show me what she’d learned in school, it became a new game – she the teacher, I the pupil. She couldn’t understand my wanting to learn and yearning to go to school. Rebecca wasn’t all that good at lessons and I soon realised that she wasn’t teaching me anything. As winter drew to a close and the days grew longer my thoughts were more easily distracted by my outdoor games. Somehow someone had managed to scrounge a piece of chalk. We would chalk a hopscotch grid and play for hours on end. The rain would come and wash it away but we’d always start again as soon as it dried out. It took more than a bit of rain to distract us, we were tougher than that.

#19: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:18 pm

Ohhhhh...
lovely imagery, I am almost there with her!

#20: Author: Shander, Location: Canada

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:30 pm

This is so well written.
I'm eagerly awaiting more.

#21: Author: Pim - being lazy,

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 12:55 pm

New bit for now, and some more later on - tea time ish.

We lived on a cobbled street lined with two rows of two up, two down terraced houses. The only traffic we ever saw was the milk float or the grocer’s boy on his bike, doing deliveries. Downstairs in our house was the kitchen where mam reigned supreme and the front room which was da’s domainm except on Friday evenings after we’d had tea and our bath. Upstairs was the bedroom I shared at first with Rebecca, and then Elizabeth, Harriet and Bridget as well. Rebecca and I had to share a bed and for a while Elizabeth shared as well until Harriet was moved out of mam and da’s room.

The week before my fifth birthday in 1935 mam took me to the draper’s shop to buy material to make my school frock. It was the first time I’d ever been to the drapers and I thought it was the most wonderful place in the whole world. There were rolls and rolls of materials in different colours and patterns. Mam spent a long time looking at the materials. She never asked my opinion on what I’d like but I was aware that it would have to be something cheap. Mam eventually settled on a dark blue colour which the young lady behind the counter said went well with my eyes. The day after my fifth birthday was my first at school and I was so excited I could hardly sleep the night before. I drove Rebecca mad asking her a hundred questions after we’d gone to bed. I could see my new frock on the back on the chair and knew that my new red coat was downstairs. I’d never looked forward to anything so much in my whole life.

Mam waved Rebecca and I off from the doorstep the following morning with Elizabeth, Harriet and Bridget gathered around her skirt. I remember Harriet shouting ‘bye bye Sharlie’ as Rebecca and I walked down the road hand in hand. I’d been Sharlie as long as Harriet had been talking. She’d had problems with saying Charlotte and had taken it upon herself to call me Sharlie and it had just stuck with the rest of the family. Rebecca and I walked to school with a group of children who lived on our street and the surrounding ones. The school was a fifteen minute walk from our house but I was so impatient to get there that it seemed to take forever.

#22: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 12:56 pm

Very intriguing start - wonderful way to make a character your own.

#23: Author: Kat, Location: Swansea

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:42 pm

This is brilliant Pim, can't wait to read more.

Totally fascinated by her early life now!

#24: Author: Ciorstaidh, Location: London

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 2:45 pm

Wonderful, Pim, wonderful. Have you spent much time in Toxteth or near the docks at Liverpool? My Grandpa was born in Enid Street in 1924, and his family would have been contemporary with this - they lived in one of those turn-of-the-century 2up 2downs - the 3 boys had one room and the 4 girls another. Yep, that's right, seven kids were born and brought up in that house. Don't know where his parents slept.

MORE, please! I can visualise this so clearly! Very Happy

#25: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:20 pm

Ciorstaidh, I haven't spent too much time in L'pool (despite having spent all my life in Manchester) but I was visiting a friend there last summer and found an old print which I knew must have a story behind it - just took me a while to realise what story. Some of the stuff in this is based on my parents' childhoods - they both grew up in Yorkshire mining villages, albeit 20 years later but the principles the same...

At school we were divided, girls and boys and then separated by age; I found myself in class one where I would stay until I was eight, and then class two where I would stay until eleven. At eleven we would have to go to a different school but I would never make it there, not that I knew that at the time. Our class teacher was called Miss Hathersage, she was quite young, a bit younger than mam. She had reddish hair which she wore up in a bun and very green eyes behind glasses which she wore on a chain around her neck. She was quite short and very thin and usually wore a red dress. I sat between two girls from my street, Ruth Baker and Joan Mather. School began at 8.30 and went on until 10 when we would go outside to play in the school yard for half an hour, then more lessons until midday. In class we were divided into three smaller groups according to age and Miss Hathersage would take it in turns to teach us whilst the other groups got on with their work. That first morning was spent copying my letters and learning to recognise them. I was hooked from the start, I loved it.

At break I soon realised the importance of age at school when Rebecca said I wasn’t to talk to her at school. I went over to Ruth and a couple of other girls I knew; Ruth said that her elder sister had told her the same thing. The school was just a stone’s throw form the factory where da worked. I remember looking over to it and wondering which window he worked behind and whether he could see us at school from it.

For lunch Rebecca and I would go home, there I talked mam to death about everything I’d learned that morning. Rebecca just looked bored and fiddled with her food but mam tried to take an interest even though she couldn’t understand my enthusiasm. We met da as we were walking back to school, he was coming home for his lunch. He caught me up in his arms and asked how school was going. I wanted to tell him everything there and then but Rebecca was scowling so ferociously and we were getting behind the others.

Moments like that with da were rare and so I cherished them all the more. That evening I was allowed into the front room where I sat on his knee and told him all about school. I remember he looked so sad as I told him and I wondered why. I found out much later that da had been clever at school but had never been allowed the chances that I would eventually have and he resented having been forced out of school and to the factory. It was one evening, one look on da’s face and it changed everything. He may have been difficult at times but we had connected then and I knew that we would be able to work through anything.

#26: Author: Kelly, Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:36 pm

This is fantastic Pim.
Looking forward to more.

#27: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:46 pm

This is wonderful Pim. reading

ing it avidly. This is one I can so easily see myself getting hooked on.

#28: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:01 pm

*settles in for the long haul* This is fascinating pim. Smile

#29: Author: Ann, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:16 pm

Brilliant - I'm looking forward to seeing how she manages to get enough of an education to qualify as a teacher.

#30: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:19 pm

Liking this a lot Pim.

*makes cocoa for all, puts feet up in front of fire and joins Mora for the long haul*

#31: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:32 pm

Lovely Pim!!!!

PLEASE post more soon!

#32: Author: catherine, Location: York

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:35 pm

This is really interesting, pim. Please continue with it as soon as you can.

#33: Author: pim - being lazy again,

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:55 pm

Last bit for today... more when I get home from lectures tomorrow.

Over the next weeks and months I grew to love school more and more as my knowledge continued to grow. I was quick and keen to learn picking things up easily. Rebecca resented the fact that I was doing so well. She’d never really cared for her lessons and was always trying to persuade me to do badly so she didn’t look so bad. I tried that once but Miss Hathersage was so fierce that I knew I couldn’t do it again. On the other hand it did spur Rebecca on to trying a little harder if only for a short while.

George arrived just before Christmas in 1935; we girls had been sent to nan’s the fortnight before he was born and only went home at the end of January 1936. At first it was hard at nan’s; it always was. We’d been sent to nan’s each time there had been a new baby due only this time it seemed so much harder. Nan was like mam, she didn’t understand my enthusiasm for school and would only hear our Bible lessons. I missed my Friday evenings with da, sitting on his knee in the front room and going over my lessons with him.

Nan was much stricter than mam and we had more chores with her. Nan was an even worse stickler for cleanliness and would examine everything Rebecca and I did extremely closely. She was a bit softer on Elizabeth; Harriet and Bridget were exempt from chores as they were too little. Nan taught us to sew properly in that time, she’s make Rebecca, Elizabeth and I practice for hours on end. We invariably ended up with stabbed and bloody fingers as we tried to live up to nan’s high standards.

We were allowed to go home on Christmas day after church to visit mam and baby George. Mam looked tired with huge dark circles under her eyes, sunken in her pale face. Rebecca was allowed to hold George for a few moments but mam told me I was too young. Mam didn’t talk much so we had to instead to avoid silence. Harriet cried when it was time to go but I knew that I couldn’t, especially as mam called Rebecca and I her ‘brave big girls’. I was determined to live up to that. I wanted mam to be proud of me.

George was ill a lot in the first few months and every time he was ill we were sent to nan’s. It got easier going to nan’s as time went by. We knew how to keep her happy and knew we had to do as we were told. Between us we shared the same cold passing it between ourselves during the winter of 1936. We were never allowed to miss a day of school, Rebecca minded but I didn’t. Miss Hathersage allowed me to work with the six and seven year olds even though I wasn’t quite six. She told nan that I could do great things if I had the chance. Nan said that no grandchild of hers was going to be a teacher’s pet and that there was more to life than learning. Besides, nan always said, there was no point teaching girls.

#34: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:01 pm

I love this Pim. It really captures the time and the attitudes of the people so well. We are not worthy

#35: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:16 pm

Pim. this is brilliant!!!

*looking forward to more!*

#36: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:17 pm

Really wanting to see how Sharlie manages to win against the attitudes of her mother and gran.

Thanks Pim.

#37: Author: Pim - guesting again,

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:17 pm

Vikki wrote:

Pim. this is brilliant!!!

*looking forward to more!*

*koff* Vikki, also looking forward to more *koff* new family *koff*

#38: Author: Chelsea, Location: Your Imagination

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:19 pm

I know that she is just a product of her time but - Boxing

to Gran

This is very loverly (though I free it will have many cliffs and sadness).

#39: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:10 pm

Ickle Sharlie sounds so lovely! Looking forward to seeing her grow up.

#40: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:02 am

What a lot in so short a time! Thanks, Pim!

*impressed by Sharlie's powers of observation*
*would be dreadfully worried just now if I weren't certain she'd become Miss Andrews of the CS*
* poke

Nan*

#41: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:18 am

Lovely PIm! Thank you, look forward to more after your lectures!

#42: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:37 am

Looking forward to more of this, Pim.

#43: Author: Kathye, Location: Laleham

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:33 am

Yes more please.
I'm really enjoying it

#44: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:25 pm

This is really good, Pim. I like the way you even got the origin of the name 'Sharlie' in!

#45: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:32 pm

Pim this is lovely. As has already been said you have captured the times and the reactions of the people so well. I feel poor little Sharlie and her brother and sisters are going to have a hard time of it. What a contrast for her, a start in life like this and then to end up teaching at the CS.

#46: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:38 pm

Thank you Pim it really does capture the time so well and its fascinating seeing Sharlie grow up.

#47: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:37 pm

I lived in a two-up, two-down terraced house until I was 2 1/2, but in a mining village in Nottinghamshire, not Liverpool. It's a very truthful picture of life as it was lived then for a great many people.

#48: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:32 pm

This post is dedicated to Ally, nowt to do with her, but a congrats on the new job pressie! More later on. (PS It's not MY fault the only class I have on Monday is at 4pm... Wink

)

When school finished that July for the summer holidays Miss Hathersage cane to see mam and da. She told them that I had a lot of potential and that when I was older I should be allowed to try for a scholarship to a decent school. Mam said it was a daft idea but the look of pride on da’s face said so much. It was the first time I’d ever seen him look that way and I knew that was the way I wanted to keep him. I wanted a scholarship to a proper school more than anything even though I didn’t understand the enormity of it all, but mam was so resistant to the idea that it looked as though it could only be a dream.

One day that August a motor car appeared around our streets. I’d never seen one before and I don’t mind admitting that I was terrified by it. It just seemed so unnatural and the noises it made chilled me to the bone. Rebecca, Elizabeth, Harriet and I were playing outside waiting for mam to call us in for dinner; Bridget and George were playing in the rough patch of land beside our end terrace where mam could see them if she sat on the doorstep.

Two men got down from the motor car and started unloading an array of unusual looking equipment. They were photographers and I was fascinated by what they had brought with them but I was too shy to approach them. Three year old Harriet on the other hand had no such qualms and then men were clearly enchanted with her. I remember even then that she was strikingly beautiful with long straight blonde hair and enormous saucer like blue eyes. She really was out of place in our family, the only one of us to inherit da’s fair hair, and the only really attractive one. The men patiently explained everything to Harriet but I could see that she wasn’t really understanding so I went over to fetch her back before mam came out.

They looked at me funny as though they were trying to reconcile this angelic looking child with the odd looking one which was me. They turned their backs a moment and muttered between themselves occasionally pointing at Rebecca and Elizabeth. Then they turned back to us and said they’d like to take a picture of the four of us. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea but Harriet was so enraptured by it all that it was hard to say no. I don’t even need to look at that photograph now to know what it shows. I stand on the left holding Elizabeth’s arm as if to show her something. Harriet is on the right looking animated and trying to see what I am pointing at. Rebecca stands a little way back, separate from us all. We stand at the top of the narrow cobbled hill that was our street overlooking the rooftops and factories of Liverpool. It would be many years before I eventually got to see that picture.

Mam wasn’t really interested when we tried to tell her about the photographers. She heard a few days later that they were from a shop in the centre of Liverpool and were photographing industrial areas for a magazine article. Mam said she didn’t see the point since we’d never get to read it anyway but I often wondered about it.

#49: Author: Kathye, Location: Laleham

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:49 pm

I am really really loving this Pim, any chance of some more today ?

*wheres a begging smiley when you need one !*

#50: Author: Kat, Location: Swansea

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:11 pm

Thanks Pim - I'm really enjoying this Very Happy

More?

#51: Author: Kathye, Location: Laleham

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:54 pm

Excellent Kat, just what we needed ! Laughing

#52: Author: Kat, Location: Swansea

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:04 pm

*Utterly fails to look in any way modest!* Wink

#53: Author: Kathye, Location: Laleham

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:11 pm

Lol

#54: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:01 pm

Thank you Pim.

Very intrigued about photograph....... Laughing

#55: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:14 pm

Sharlie's mother seems really beaten down by child-rearing and poverty, doesn't she. I don't think she can see an escape for any of them.

#56: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:40 pm

Sharlie's mother is meant to be the antithesis of my own nan who got in trouble in the mid-60s in the mining village where she lived because she allowed my mum to stay at school until she was 16 instead of her leaving at 15. Mum's elder two sisters had both left at 15 in the late 50s and her three younger ones all ended up going on to uni. But I digress. Wee bit for now, and another chunk before bedtime (my bedtime that is Wink

).

Rebecca, Elizabeth and I returned to school in September after a long summer of endless days out of doors. They returned somewhat grudgingly, I returned full of eager anticipation for another year’s learning. I’d practiced my sums and my letters whenever I’d had the chance over the summer. Da had continued to hear my lessons after work on a Friday and he’d let me read bits of his newspapers aloud to him.

The winter of 1936-7 was bitterly cold and we had the fire lit almost constantly. Da allowed us to spend evenings in the front room with him. He’d laid off the drink since George had arrived and the atmosphere at home was lighter. He was often frustrated with Rebecca because she wasn’t too good at her lessons; really Rebecca and da frustrated each other. Rebecca didn’t understand why lessons were so important, she didn’t see that da wanted us to do better in life than he had, to have the chances that he had been denied.

#57: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:42 pm

I like Sharlie's growing understanding of her father.

#58: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:54 pm

Last bit for now, more tomorrow, hopefully around 5ish.

Nan died in January 1937 from pneumonia. I’d known people die before but nobody who had affected me so directly. It was my first funeral as well and I hated it. I couldn’t reconcile the casket at the front of the church with nan, stern and distant nan who loved us in her own funny way although she’d never show it. Mam said her last words had been carpe diem, da said that mean seize the day. Nan meant we had to take our chances as they were thrown at us. I’d spent my early years striving to please nan and that made me all the more determined to make best possible use of my time on earth. I knew that she disapproved of my learning, but it had been all so different in her day.

The day of the funeral was cold and grey with a biting wind that nipped at our bare legs. We’d had to wear our Sunday frocks and I felt a bit disrespectful wearing white at a funeral. Nan had always liked that dress though, but I always felt uglier than I was in it. We’d promised mam we’d be brave but it was hard not to cry when they lowered the casket into the ground. It was the final farewell and things would never be the same again.

~Ashes to ashes, dust to dust~

#59: Author: catherine, Location: York

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:06 pm

Wow, pim! This is so evocative!

Looking forward to the next update!

#60: Author: Helen P, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:28 pm

As I read this, I am just there, with them.

I hope this drabble is going to run and run - it's a wonderful beginning.

#61: Author: Kathye, Location: Laleham

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:42 pm

Thank you Pim I am getting extremely addicted to this !

Starts count down......

#62: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:00 pm

I go away for less than a weekend and come back to find a fully established new drabble from Pim - yay! It's brilliant - I've jsut read it all in one sitting and am completely utterly hooked into it - fabulous

Vikki - maybe you should note how often Pim is posting Wink

(ducks and hides)

#63: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:32 am

*ignores Dawn's comment*

This is just wonderful Pim!!! PLEASE post some more soon!!!

#64: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:01 am

Thank you Pim - lovely descriptions.

Oh and Vikki? You may only ask for more if you've posted on yours! No excuse girl - it's already written! Wink

#65: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 9:27 am

Pim this is wonderful, thank you.

#66: Author: pygmy, Location: glasgow

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:57 pm

This is great - really looking forward to the rest (and hoping there's lots of it).

#67: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 3:45 pm

I notice Vikki hasn't taken Lesley's hint!

Lovely, Pim, very evocative.

#68: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:11 pm

New bit for now, more in a couple of hours after I've been out to be very un-CS-girl-ish to somebody who really deserves it.

Two months later, just after my seventh birthday our minister at church died. He was an old man but it had been sudden and unexpected all the same. There was a grand turn out for the funeral service and it was there that I realised the depth to which my faith ran. When I heard the words that opened the service, something struck a chord inside me.

~The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms~

Until that point in my life church had been somewhere we went on Sunday, Sunday school was recitation and prayers were to be said at night. In a way it had just been a chore but then those words meant something more. In that instant I realised that I would never be truly alone so long as I believed that God was beside me and would help me through the troubled times.

~Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me: ‘In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.’~

#69: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:21 pm

Lovely, Sharlie is so perceptive.

#70: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 6:10 pm

Thank you Pim.

Smile

#71: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:22 pm

I have just been a very un-CS-girl and feel very proud of myself! So have more drabble to celebrate!

A new minister arrived in June, Rev Phillips was a young man. He was so enthusiastic and sincere that I began to look forward to Sundays. His wife helped with out Sunday school, I remember her as a pretty thing with white dresses who was always kind to us. Rev Phillips proposed a Sunday school outing into the Liverpool centre to see the work on the cathedral. I’d never been outside of the streets surrounding ours and awaited the trip with a mixture of eager anticipation and excitement, and fear and trepidation.

The morning of the excursion mam waved Rebecca, Elizabeth, Harriet and I off from our doorstep. We took sandwiches in our satchels and were allowed to wear our Sunday frocks. A motor coach collected us from church. Some of the other children had been on one before, but I hadn’t and was half excited, half scared by it. Harriet’s incessant questioning calmed some of my fears and I positively drank in the journey as I watched the scenery changing as it went by.

We left the motor coach at Lime Street station and walked from there. I was in a totally different world to the one that I was used to. The noise was so different to that of the factories and I’d never believed that there were so many motor cars in the whole world let alone in Liverpool. The streets were so much wider than ours, and the buildings so much taller. And there were so many people, business men in suits and top hats carrying briefcases, elegantly dressed and dignified ladies. I tried to peer in the shop windows to see what I could buy if only I lived here. As we walked in pairs, hand in hand, I knew I could never spend the rest of my life round our street. I knew that I had to get out into that bustling world of the city centre, that was where I belonged.

I never told mam and da of course, it wouldn’t have been fair on them. It was a secret dream that belonged to me. The others would talk about our excursion but I didn’t dare in case I let out my deepest desire. I was clever and I hoped that I could get that scholarship Miss Hathersage had talked about. If I went to a decent school I could be a young lady in a shop, or maybe even a secretary in an office. I could be one of those elegantly refined ladies who glided along the streets immaculately turned out.

#72: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:26 pm

Love that her first ideas are for office and shop work - I suppose the idea of being a teacher was too far away. A pipe dream! Laughing

And Pim, please explain how you have been very un CS girl-like!

#73: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:34 pm

Lesley, I had my heart broken by a very un-CS-doctor type - check out the bad morning party in BV for some of my more imaginative insults! There are some people who you really shouldn't let break your heart, he is one of them. Let's just say my language was not exactly as Miss A would have liked it to be... *whistles innocently*

#74: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:54 pm

I love this drabble Pim, it's all so very, very real. I can really see, no feel, those streets, those factories, those children.
I hope there's lots and lots more.

#75: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:38 pm

Thank pim and many hugs!!

I love seeing Sharlie's dreams develop and grow as she gets older.

#76: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 10:46 pm

pim wrote:

Just read post in BV - good for you Pim!! Wink

#77: Author: Pim - guesting,

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 10:54 pm

Last little bit for today. There will be some tomorrow, I don't know when since I'll be out all day and have a doctor's appointment at 5 to find out why my body hates me and is dropping to pieces so it will all depend on what state I'm in when I get back...

The city centre became a new game that summer; I thought it would be good practice for when I was really there. In the last few weeks of school poor Miss Hathersage was flooded with questions about how clever we needed to be to get a job there. On the last day of term she told me that I would be taking some of my classes in Class 2 when we came back in September even though by rights I should have stayed in Class 1 until my eighth birthday. I was so elated I felt as though I were walking on air all the way home. Even mam praised me and that meant more than I could ever express since she’d always been so scornful of our learning.

On the other hand Rebecca was positively furious and barely spoke to me for the first week of the holidays. Da took her in hand and I never knew what he said to her but she started being friendly again; but it was never as it had been when we were younger. There was a distance between us that neither of us knew how to bridge.

#78: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 10:57 pm

Awww! Thanks Pim - lovely that she'smoved up and that her mum is finally praising her.

Not so lovely reaction from older sister - though understandable - glad her dad stopped it!

Hope all goes well for you at the doctor's, Pim.

#79: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 12:44 am

good luck at the Dr's Pim

we'll be waiting for whenever you manage to post more

#80: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 9:09 am

Thanks Pim, lovely to see Sharlies hopes and dreams.

Hope the Dr has some answers, look forward to more when you can!

#81: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 1:53 pm

Hope the dr is able to help. Thank you for posting this.

This is written so well - sitting here on a wet, cold October afternoon I could feel the wind as it bit them at Nan's funeral. Fabulous story. More please as soon as you are able.

#82: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 5:46 pm

Doctor's report: inconclusive. Blood tests came back negative for any rheumatic problems so he's referred me on to the orthopedic people to try and work out why my joints hate me so much Sad

In the interim, more drabble. And some more before I go to bed.George took sick during August. He’d never been particularly strong but he’d always pulled through before. He cried all the time, we barely slept. Da hated it, his way of coping was to spend all his time down the pub. When he came home he and mam would row constantly and their shouting would only make mam cry all the more and then da would storm out. So many evenings I sat waiting for him outside the pub with Elizabeth. No place for young lassies, the other men would say. Then da would come out and tell us to get on home to mam. When we arrived home without da, mam never said anything but the disappointment was written all over her face.

Money was tighter than ever as da would spend it all down the pub. Our frocks got shorter and mam would despairingly let the hems down. Rebecca wore her shoes out and mam put old newspaper in them; she hated it but never dared complain. Mam managed to get a few hours cleaning work in one of the factories which brought in a few extra shillings and meant that we could at least eat. She hated leaving George with a neighbour but he was beginning to make slow progress.

Before we went back to school Aunt Carol took us all for new frocks and shoes. Mam protested but Aunt Carol insisted, she didn’t have anything else to spend her money on she told mam. She worked in a textile mill and rented a room nearby. Without nan she was more fun and going to Aunt Carol’s became a treat. We’d have fish and chips wrapped in newspaper and she’d tell us all the scrapes that she and mam had got into as little girls. Aunt Carol became another escape route for us, a safe haven.

George was much better when school started back in September. I took most of my lessons in Class 2 and started learning some history and geography. Rebecca refused to acknowledge me in school; in class I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my head. Our teacher, Miss Newton, never noticed and at times I longed to be back in Miss Hathersage’s class. But the lessons I still took back in Class 1 bored me as I found the work too easy and found myself frustrated by my slower classmates. Elizabeth was clever but lazy over her lessons and Harried enchanted Miss Hathersage, as she did everybody else, but she was clever and quick with it. Miss Hathersage often made comparisons between Harriet and I, which I sometimes thought was unfair, after all Harriet was much prettier than I was.

#83: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 6:09 pm

Big hugs Pim - hope they find something out soon

thanks for the update and the promise of more later

#84: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 9:50 pm

*hugs Pim, and hopes the doc can find out what's wrong soon!*

#85: Author: pim - en route to sleep!,

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 9:54 pm

The other bit I promised... Some more when I get home from uni tomorrow, tea time-ish.

George’s relapse was only temporary and he deteriorated rapidly at the beginning of October. Mam couldn’t afford to send for the doctor so we never knew what took him in the end. I prayed every day that God would spare George. But He didn’t. George died on 3 November 1937, a month before his second birthday. It all seemed so wrong that George had to be the one, it just wasn’t fair. I was angry more than anything and it was sorely testing for my faith. I just didn’t understand how any God could let a child, who hadn’t even begun to live, die.

Harriet talked about George as an angel, it was her way of coping and it helped mam. She became quieter, her face drawn and her eyes heavy. Even at such a young age I realised that no matter how much I was hurting, mam would always be hurting more. I never saw her cry but sometimes at night I would hear her. Da’s way of coping was drink, he’d come home late and drunk, knocking into the furniture as he made his way through the house.

George’s funeral is forever imprinted on my memory. The tiny casket at the front of the church, mam being supported by Aunt Carol both trying not to cry, da tall and proud, eyes staring straight ahead unblinking, we five girls huddled together on the pew. When they lowered the casket mam gave a funny half choke. It was the closest I ever saw her come to crying. At that point Rebecca reached for my hand and in that moment the gulf between us was bridged.

At Nan’s funeral I’d found comfort in the minister’s words, but Rev Phillip’s words just couldn’t help me. I was so angry and I just couldn’t draw any strength from them. Let the children come to me, do not hinder them, for to such belong the kingdom of God. Even knowing that George was now free from pain and suffering and safe in heaven could not help me. It was selfish of me to want George back after he’d been through so much but all I wanted was for him to have the chances and opportunities he now never would. Carpe Diem, nan had said, and now I understood.

~The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away the tears from their eyes~

#86: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 10:12 pm

So sad and poignant. Crying or Very sad

Thank you Pim, that was very sensitively written.

#87: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 10:27 pm

Beautiful Pim, that was very moving, thank you Very Happy

*Hugs Sharlie and her family*

#88: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:31 am

Very moving Pim, thank you.

BTW, did you know that ginger tea is supposed to help with joint pain? Add 1/2 teaspoon ginger to judt boiled water, sweeeten to taste and drink three time a day.

Another helpful thing is to drink a tablespoonful of cider vinegar mixed with 2 teaspoons of honey, with hot water added. stir well, hold nose, and drink.

#89: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:19 am

Thank you Pim, very moving.

Hope the Doc's sort out what's wrong soon.

#90: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 11:15 am

Thank you Pim, I am truly loving this, like the others I hope the specialist can fgure out what's wrong and stop it hurting.
xx{{{hugs}}

#91: Author: JackieJ, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 12:24 pm

That was beautiful Pim. Can't wait for more.

Hope your aches and pains clear up as well.

JackieJ

#92: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 1:29 pm

Poor Sharlie *sniffles* I love the way you write the relationship between her and her sisters, love and hate, so true.

#93: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 3:28 pm

And the sibling rivalry!

#94: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 4:12 pm

Okay some now, some more later after I've been to my very boring, but hopefully very short (for sanity reasons) hall committee meeting... the things I get myself into Confused

Things were never properly the same after George died. It took time for me to stop being angry with God for taking George but in the end I found it was my faith that helped me through. Da spent more time away from home drinking away his wages. It was his way of coping but it didn’t help the rest of us. Mam took on more work but hated letting us girls out of her sight. Very often she’d take Bridget with her and leave her on the factory steps where she could see her. A lot of women did that as well so Bridget was never short of company.

Christmas 1937 came and went quietly. Da managed to spend all Christmas Day with us without any rows. On Christmas Eve Rebecca and I went carol singing with some of the other children from our street. Elizabeth had wanted to come but she was in bed with a bad cold and mam was fretting over her. Aunt Carol came for Christmas Day but there was something that didn’t add up. She didn’t say much, and preferred to spend time on her own, just thinking she’d tell us. Rebecca said that Aunt Carol had probably got a beau but I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t imagine Aunt Carol married.

It turned out that Rebecca was right and Aunt Carol was to be married in March, a fortnight after my birthday. She introduced us to a charming young man with dark hair and dark eyes, Uncle Charlie. It always made Harriet laugh that he was Charlie and I was Sharlie. In a way it created a stronger bond between Uncle Charlie and I. We got on very well, he always made me laugh. It was like it used to be with da before George died. I missed the time I used to spend with da before George died, him hearing my lessons, me chattering away nineteen to the dozen.

#95: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 4:18 pm

Thank you, Pim. I hope the committee meeting is painless.

#96: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:36 pm

Thank you Pim.

#97: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:07 pm

I hope you come back from the meeting with plenty to write about!!!

#98: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:33 pm

I got to go home early from the meeting since my friend was dropping some Union events posters off for me to go and stick up tomorrow! Yay!

Rebecca, Elizabeth, Harriet, Bridget and I were Aunt Carol’s bridesmaids at the wedding. Uncle Charlie took us all to a big draper’s shop to buy the dress material. We all had frocks in pink, in a soft silky material. They were to have puff sleeves and skirts with netting under them. All I wanted to do when I saw them cutting the material was touch it, it was so unlike anything I’d ever seen. When they gave Uncle Charlie the bill my eyes nearly popped out of my head and mam kept telling him it was far too much. Uncle Charlie just ruffled my hair and said he didn’t have anything better to spend his money on.

Mam and Aunt Carol sat up most nights sewing our dresses and hers. The first time I tried mine, full of pins ready to be hemmed, I felt like a princess and wanted to show it off to the whole world but mam said it wasn’t for wearing out of doors. Harriet suited her dress best of us all, almost six years old and she could run rings around us all for looks. If I felt like a princess, then she looked like one.

On the day of the wedding we went to church in the grocer’s horse and trap. Da was to give Aunt Carol away, I remember him looking awkward in his Sunday best as he helped her into Mr Green’s trap. As we followed da and Aunt Carol down the aisle, Bridget at the head followed by Harriet and Elizabeth, then Rebecca and I, I could see mam in the front pew dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief and Uncle Charlie with the biggest grin I’d ever seen all over his face.

As they exchanged their vows mam began to cry. It was the first time I’d seen her cry since before George died. Da had his arm wrapped around mam and their distances were forgotten for the moment. Both Aunt Carol and Uncle Charlie looked so happy it was almost impossible to remember her without him.

~With this ring we pledge ourselves to each other, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit~

#99: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 7:39 pm

A lovely scene thank you Pim Very Happy

*bounces happily*

#100: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 8:25 pm

Thank you Pim! Very Happy

#101: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:08 pm

Happy tears this time Pim Crying

#102: Author: JackieJ, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:09 pm

Awwww.... two more lovely bits there pim.

Can't wait to hear more about Sharlie's life and family.

JackieJ

#103: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 8:43 am

Lovley wedding, thank you Pim!

#104: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:25 am

*subtle attention seekig cough* more please *cough*

#105: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:45 am

jackie green wrote:

*subtle attention seekig cough* more please *cough*

*ignores attention seeking behaviour*

I'm stuck in the library trying to write two essays and discovering that I have forgotten how to write such things over the summer Confused

Also, have two budgets to get done for this afternoon as I forgot they were due today Embarassed

Oh, and try and work out why there was £100 missing from the French Society's accounts from last year (and hoping it was the previous treasurer's fault and not mine...) And I twisted my knee doing a poster run for the Union on my bike and it's clunking a lot.

There will be more when I escape this hell later...

#106: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:49 am

Thank you, Pim, hope the evil essays are soon conquered, and the knee gets better.

#107: Author: Rosea, Location: Edinburgh

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 12:16 pm

Good luck with essays etc. Looking forward to more when you have the chance.

#108: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 12:43 pm

Poor Pim!!! Hope the knee improves the budgets get sorted - just make them up!! Laughing

And the essays sort themselves out - think we should discover essay-writing elves for all those drabblers being distracted by essays!

#109: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 2:14 pm

(((((((((Pim))))))))))

Poor you - hope you're managing to get somewhere with the essays/budgets - have you told her how unfair she is being at asking for them at such short notice? And that the knee is improving

Has a vague recollection that Pim was at one point looking forward to goign back to uni Wink

#110: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 2:45 pm

Dawn wrote:

Has a vague recollection that Pim was at one point looking forward to goign back to uni Wink

I think I remember that Pim... *g* I gave up on the library, it made my brain hurt... Did produce something that vaguely resembled a budget though, just wrote a few numbers down that seem to add up!!! Knee is no better, and the other one has joined it now Sad

Anyways, more drabble before I return to essay hell.

Things fell a bit flat after the excitement of Aunt Carol’s wedding as life returned to normal. I’d now moved up to Class 2 full time but was often bored, there was always so much more that I wanted to know. I drove Miss Newton mad because I always finished my work so quickly and asked incessant questions. She was in agreement with Miss Hathersage and told mam and da that the sooner I was entered for scholarship examinations the better.

We went on holiday for the first time that August. It was all Uncle Charlie’s idea but da was keen to go along with it. I was so excited, and scared at the same time. It would be my first trip out of Liverpool. We were to take the train to Southport. I’d seen trains on that excursion into the town the year before but I never dreamt that I’d ever get to go on one. We were to leave on the Monday and come home on the Friday afternoon and stay at a boarding house near the beach. There were a lot of others going from da and Uncle Charlie’s factory so we’d know plenty of people.

The morning to leave finally came; Rebecca and I were awake early whispering in bed about what we’d do on holiday. We both couldn’t wait to see the sea and Rebecca had heard that you could ride a donkey on the beach. I didn’t want any breakfast since I was so excited, but mam put her foot down and said I wouldn’t go if I didn’t.

#111: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 3:57 pm

Thank you, Pim. Hope the committee or whatever swallows the budget whole without argument.

#112: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:01 pm

Thanks Pim! Very Happy

#113: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:00 pm

Thanks Pim!!! (although I'm still sulking about being ignored, took me years to perfect that cough ROFL

)
I can remember my first trip on a train to the seaside, and this bought it all back, lovely!

#114: Author: Ciorstaidh, Location: London

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 7:03 pm

Awh...how lovely!

Hope they get to see the sea at Southport ROFL

it is quite possible to go and not see it, the sands being so vast! Also hope there aren't any dramas involving the sinky sand at Southport (oh, did I just say that aloud? Rolling Eyes

)

Looking forward to Sharlie's impressions of her train jouurney!

#115: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 7:57 pm

Lovely, thank you Pim!

(Double post deleted!)

#116: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 8:36 pm

Thanks Lesley! Still in essay hell, I can't get past the first 50 words on either of them Sad

We were to take a motor coach from the factory into Liverpool to catch the train from Lime Street station. I felt that same thrill I’d felt the previous time as we drove through the city centre. This was where I wanted to be, I wanted to be a young lady in an office, scurrying through the streets in my fine clothes. I was more determined than ever before to achieve that aim.

On board the train I watched the city race by and after a while we left Liverpool behind. I viewed every new scene with wide eyes, there was so much more to the world than factories and back streets and I wanted to experience it all. Da had a sad far away look on his face; I knew he was thinking about what might have been if he’d been allowed to follow his dreams. After that I stopped being angry with da when he wasn’t at home, instead I felt sorry for him. In da I saw a man angry with the world and the person he’d become because the chances to get away had been snatched from him. It was different with mam, she’d never wanted to get any further than she had done so she could never understand da.

Rebecca and I were disappointed at first that the sea was so far away but we soon found other ways to pass the time. We rode the donkeys, made sandcastles, ate candy floss, played miniature golf and all sorts of other things. Aunt Carol and Uncle Charlie were so wrapped up in each other that they hardly noticed us at all. Mam and da didn’t talk much but they seemed happy to be together.

The week passed by quickly and all too soon we were aboard the train home to the back streets of Liverpool where I only too well that I didn’t belong anymore. We were all quiet on the journey home, no one want to speak and break the spell of the holiday.

Back home life returned to normal so quickly it seemed as though Southport had never happened. We returned to our make believe games out of doors with our school friends. Da started spending all his time in the pub again and nothing could coax him out. Mam became quiet once more except when she was barking instructions at us. Chores formed an essential part of life and none of us dared not do them for fear of incurring mam’s wrath. I knew it was because she missed da, not that she’d ever say.

#117: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 9:19 pm

Read all of this. It's so well written!
*Am in awe*

#118: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 9:42 pm

Thanks Pim. A lovely interlude for Sharlie and us.

#119: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:01 pm

Thank you Pim!!!

Hope the budgets will pass muster!

#120: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 7:50 am

Thank you Pim. Laughing

Feel desperately sorry for Sharlie's family - trapped in that way of life. Crying or Very sad

#121: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 8:54 am

Great post, Pim. As Lesley said, trapped!

#122: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 12:04 pm

More for now, and some more a but later on this afternoon if I ever get anywhere with my essays/laundry/cleaning pre housewarming... Argh!

Aunt Carol and Uncle Charlie would call on us Sunday afternoons for dinner and then we’d all go for a walk. One Sunday just before we went back to school they told us Aunt Carol was due a baby after Christmas. We were all so excited by the news and mam went to look out the baby clothes that she’d kept. It made her quite upset as they’d been George’s things but she said that because it happened to her didn’t mean it would happen to Aunt Carol. I was excited as I’d never been a real cousin before. There were some in da’s family but I had never met them, they lived on the other side of Liverpool.

School started again in September 1938 and life continued as normally as it ever did. Miss Newton brought brochures for schools that offered scholarships for children like me to show mam and da. Da took and interest but mam maintained that it was a silly idea. Aunt Carol told her that I should be allowed to follow my dreams but mam said there was no point in dreaming. Carpe diem, nan had said and carpe diem I most certainly would. I wanted to prove to mam that I could make something with my life, all I wanted was for her to be proud of me and not to disapprove of the choices I would make.

#123: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:04 pm

Poor Sharlie, her Mum seems so depressed and beaten down!

#124: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:18 pm

*glad Sharlie's father's still supportive, despite his problem*
*hopes something isn't about to go wrong for Aunt Carol*
*amazed how driven Sharlie is at such a young age!*
*MORE, PLEASE*

#125: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:19 pm

Looking forward to how Sharlie manages to convince her Mum to let her go to school.

#126: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:39 pm

Last bit until tomorrow, I haven't typed anymore and it's my houisewarming tonight (see virtual party in BV) so no time to do so until the morning - the house currently looks like a bomb's hit it!!!!

Aunt Carol’s baby was born the week after Christmas and mam took us to see it a week later. She’d had a little boy called David Charles after da and Uncle Charlie. I remember him as a fat and contented baby who never objected to our prodding and poking as we cooed over what an adorable baby he was. Aunt Carol allowed us all a turn of holding him, even Bridget who was only four herself.

I think David brought George back to mam and da for they both had a far away look whenever they were around him that said they were thinking about something else. On the day David was to be baptised we all wore our Sunday best and went along to church to see him join us in our faith. By this time I’d lost my anger with God for taking George, I’d realised it had been He who’d carried us through that time. It was something I cared not to talk or think about but it was often in the background.

~The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace~

#127: Author: Kat, Location: Swansea

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 6:11 pm

Pim, this is amazing.

Hope the party goes well tonight - equally hope there is more of this soon!

#128: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 8:53 pm

Have a good party Pim, you deserve it, if only for producing this fab drab.

#129: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 11:47 am

Well after the surreality of last evening, a wee bit for now. Only a wee bit as I have a library induced perma headache Sad

It was a good start to 1939 but it would soon get worse and none of us could have ever predicted how bad life would get. Life amidst our Liverpool backstreets remained the same as it always had done. Yet one day in September da came home and said that Britain had gone to war with Germany. Da had heard it on the radio at the factory so it had to be true. I didn't want there to be a war, nan had often told me stories of the Great War and I knew that I couldn't bear things to be like that.

Da and Uncle Charlie signed up for the army straight away and we waved them off from our street with the other men. We didn't know when we'd ever see them again but all the same it was a happy occasion. We were all so proud that our men were prepared to risk their lives to see the defeat of Germany. I didn't want da to go, I knew I might never see him again but it was a thought I kept trying to push to the back of my mind. Uncle Charlie had told Aunt Carol to get us out of Liverpool; he didn't like the idea that Germany might attack the cities and recommended to da that we all moved away as well. For all that I knew that I couldn't spend the rest of my life here I never expected things to happen as quickly as they did.

#130: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 2:11 pm

Thank you Pim - so sad that the men never came back.

#131: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 6:22 pm

Another wee bit for now. If I can be bothered some before I go to bed, otherwise in the morning.

War was a totally foreign concept to us all and nobody was sure what it would involve. Of course we’d looked at some wars in history lessons but we’d never lived through one. Mam didn’t like to talk about the Great War as it made her sad about Grandda. We tried to carry on as normal with life but there was always the overhanging threat like a dark cloud. Letters from da and Uncle Charlie finally came through months later, they’d both been stationed in France. Uncle Charlie’s letter was jokey, trying to make light of a bad situation; da’s was more serious telling us that we had to be brave and look after mam and Aunt Carol.

Both mam and Aunt Carol got jobs at a munitions factory. They were both tired and I could see that the work didn’t suit them but there was no alternative, we needed to live. Aunt Carol and David moved in with us, it meant things were more cramped than usual but they were a comfort for each other. Sometimes I’d catch mam looking at baby David sadly and I knew that she’d be thinking about George. Aunt Carol was due a second baby at Christmas but she wouldn’t talk about it; it made her miss Uncle Charlie all the more. Mam had us sewing baby clothes for hours on end to get ready.

I followed the news and progress of the war with half an ear. All the propaganda was against Germany but I didn’t think that we could hold the whole German people responsible, surely they weren’t all so evil. War became a new game with the boys in the street but I didn’t think the goodies and baddies were as clear cut as they made them out to be. I wrote to da and Uncle Chalrie every week but their responses were few and far between. Chin up Sharlie girl, da would always write, reach for the sky and don’t let anybody try and take away your dreams, make me proud.

#132: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 7:29 pm

Sharlie's Dad is soooooo lovely Very Happy

Loving this - thank you, Pim!!

#133: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 7:55 pm

Very moving to see how Sharlie is affected by the war. Thank you Pim Very Happy

#134: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:07 pm

Lovely to see Sharlie had the CS ethos even then.

Thanks Pim!

#135: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:19 pm

Thanks Pim. It's interesting to see the war through the young Sharlie's eyes.
I'm not sure that her Da was a good father in the conventional sense, but it's good to see that he helped her keep her dreams alive.

#136: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:00 am

New bit for now, and some more when I'm back from lectures.

Aunt Carol wasn’t at all well with this baby and as Christmas approached she had to spend more and more time in bed. She was laid off from the factory and so we only had mam’s wages on which to survive. I remember being hungry and cold a lot but we didn’t dare ocmplain. There was money coming through from da and Uncle Charlie but it was barely enough. Mam let the hems down on all our frocks and said we would just have to make do. We weren’t the only ones to be suffering, everybody else was in the same boat and there was always somebody else worse off,

Aunt Carol’s baby was born on 28 December 1939, a little girl with a mass of dark hair. The shock was all too much for Aunt Carol and she died only a couple of hours later. Mam named the baby Caroline Mary for Aunt Carol. She always said that the hardest letter she ever wrote was to Uncle Charlie to tell him what had happened. It was hard on mam as well being left with Aunt Carol’s children. David was a mischievous young imp with a penchant for exploration, mam was forever in despair as to where she’d find him next.

They buried Aunt Carol on 3 January 1940, it was bitterly cold and a light snow was falling. Rebecca and I took it in turns to nurse baby Caroline during the service. It just didn’t seem fair that she would never have the chance to know her mam like we knew ours. Uncle Charlie was granted leave and arrived home the week after the funeral. He looked thinner and sadder, finding it hard to be around David and Caroline. I suppose they reminded him too much of Aunt Carol.

#137: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:44 am

Aunt Carol and Uncle Charlie.

Thanks Pim, this is lovely. I'ts fascinating watching Sharlie grow up.

#138: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:43 pm

Pim! That was so sad!

may we have a bit more please!?

#139: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 2:23 pm

Vikki wrote:

may we have a bit more please!?

If I give you some more later Vikki, may we have some more New family as well? *hint hint*

#140: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 3:32 pm

:bawl

sob
sniff
awww
MORE!!!
(please)

#141: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 5:52 pm

Well here's some more. I'm not too sure if the whole evacuee thing is historically accurate... it's more an essential plot device than anything else.

In February 1940 we were to be evacuated from Liverpool, mam didn’t want to send us but a letter from da changed her mind. We went by motor coach to Lime Street station to take the train. We made a forlorn sight on the platform saying our goodbyes to mam, she made us promise to take care of David and Caroline and to try and stay together. Harriet and Bridget both cried, but I didn’t dare. I knew that Rebecca and I would have to be the strong ones and look after the others. Mam gave me a brief hug, be brave Sharlie girl, she whispered to me as we were herded on to the train.

In our carriage I felt so miserable and alone. I knew that nothing would ever be the same again and I didn’t like that. The journey seemed to go on forever; Harriet son recovered from her weeps and was chattering away nineteen to the dozen about what she could see out of the window. I looked but felt too miserable to really take in the beauty of the countryside as it rushed past.

We arrived in the tiny Welsh farming and mining village that would be our home for the rest of the war around teatime. We were all shepherded into the village hall where the village women came to choose which ones of us they took. Everyone showed an interest in Harriet, the animated and enchanting looking young girl in the blue frock with the blonde hair; but as soon as they approached she became tongue tied and hid behind me. Nobody wanted us others with out lank dark hair and hollow, sallow faces. We’d insisted to Miss Hathersage that mam didn’t want us separated but nobody wanted to take in seven evacuees from the Liverpool back streets all together
[/i]

#142: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 6:14 pm

Gosh how awful for them all Crying or Very sad

*Hugs Sharlie and hopes things turn out ok*

#143: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 6:22 pm

Pim, I've just caught up on this and it is so evocative and so true to it's time. So well written and so tear jerking. How lovely to see this part of Sharlie's life. My 'Mam', though a generation earlier, left school at 14 despite the pleas of her headmaster because her father, left with 10 children (of the 13 born originally) needed her wages in the mill to support the family. She never forgot that and I'm heartened that Sharlie does eventually get out of the situation.

This version of Sharlie's early life will be 'canon' for me.

Sorry that your joints are spurning you and hope you soon have a solution. ((((hugs))))

ETA spelling mistakes, probably wine induced Wink

#144: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 6:34 pm

So sad, thank you Pim. Crying or Very sad

#145: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:08 pm

Thanks, Pim. That happened all too often.

#146: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:15 pm

for Sharlie and Aunt Carol. Pim this really is perfect.

#147: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:28 pm

Awww the poor little Pie's Crying or Very sad

Hope some kind person takes them all on! It reminds of the start of Carrie's War, when Carrie was insisting on staying with her brother.

#148: Author: Lisa, Location: South Coast of England

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:44 pm

Oh pim, you are so talented! This is 'my' kind of story - it is like getting a burst of Helen Forrester (who I love!) It's also getting me really interested in Sharlie, who I have shamefully neglected in the past. This is fantastic! Looking forward to more! Very Happy

Had to just retype my post because my cat just walked over the keyboard and deleted it! Laughing

#149: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 8:44 am

Thank you Pim, hope someone will take them all.

#150: Author: pygmy, Location: glasgow

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:19 am

Thanks Pim - this is really gripping. More would be much appreciated.

#151: Author: Ciorstaidh, Location: London

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 1:06 pm

Thanks, Pim - this is gripping! And although February may have been a bit early for evacuation, it's not too far off - my Grandma was fourteen in 1940 but was still evacuated (mainly because of younger sibs and to work in the Land Army) and most certainly kids from the docks would have been evacuated - that area was flattened with incendiaries and other bombs in the War.

#152: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:46 pm

My Aunt was evacuated to a horrible old lady for most of the war, she didnt get to go to school and was deprived of a lot of the things those of us aged 12-15 take for granted (mainly companionship)
I'm so glad I don't have to go through anything like that!!!

#153: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 5:41 pm

Rar, new bit... have had a slightly chaotic day!

We had to eventually resign ourselves to being separated. I went with Harriet, Bridget and Caroline, and Rebecca was to take Elizabeth and David. They went with Sarah Evans who had a farm half a mile out of the village. We went with Susan Montgomery who lived in the village itself; her husband was a miner and she worked in the Post Office.

They lived in a terraced house like ours but with an attic room where Harriet, Bridget and I were to sleep. Baby Caroline would go in with Aunt Susan and Uncle John as we were told to call them. They had two children of their own, Tommy who was seven and Mary who was ten. Aunt Susan told me that she didn’t believe in giving fancy names to children and that Tommy and Mary were good, solid, dependable names. I remained Sharlie as Harriet had christened me; she would soon shorten herself to Harri with the village children, Bridget became Bridgie and Caroline Carrie. Aunt Susan said there was no point using our full names for everyday use.

We soon settled in with Aunt Susan and Uncle John, they did everything they could to make us feel like part of the family. I knew there were some folks in the village who begrudged taking in us evacuee children and didn’t like their children mixing with us. Rebecca told me that Mrs Evans would often remind her and Elizabeth that they should be grateful to her for taking them in. Rebecca and Elizabeth had their chores to do on the farm like the Evans children who laughed at them as they didn’t know what to do. Rebecca held her tongue but told me that as soon as she could leave school she would and she’d go back to Liverpool to get a job.

We were to attend the village school in the Church hall. Miss Newton and Miss Hathersage had come down with us to help teach, and for the first time I found myself in a class with boys. I soon found that I could run rings around them in lessons and they resented me for it, I was forever teased in the playground. Take no notice, Aunt Susan would say, they’ll just be jealous, not used to being beaten by a girl.

For the first time I looked forward to the end of a school day as Aunt Susan would let me go along and help her in the Post Office. It was good practice for my arithmetic if nothing else. I’d sit on the low stool behind the counter with my slate and prepare my lessons for the next day. I often thought that Mary and Tommy would hate me for spending time with their mam, but they didn’t, it meant more time to play for them. We’d do our chores whilst Aunt Susan cooked tea and afterwards she’d hear our lessons. On a Saturday we’d go up to the Evans’ farm and help out and have lunch there. Once I stopped being afraid of the cows and the pigs and the other animals I was fine. The Evans boys still teased us but we learned to fight back soon enough.

#154: Author: Rosea, Location: Edinburgh

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 6:44 pm

That was a wonderful section Pim, thank you. I'm glad that at least some of them ended up in a supportive environment

#155: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 7:27 pm

Good for them!

Thanks Pim.

#156: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 7:28 pm

Auntie Susan and Uncle John.

Nice update Pim! Very Happy

#157: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:31 pm

Thank you Pim! Looking forward to see how Sharlie's education progresses!

#158: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 10:07 pm

A wee bit more for tonight. More again tomorrow when I get in around teatime. More chaos abounds tomorrow!

We received a telegram from mam in April 1940 telling us that da had been killed fighting in France. In a way I was glad that it had been da and not Uncle Charlie, we still had mam but David and Caroline would have been orphans. It was only later that I learned to feel that way, when Aunt Susan first told us the news I thought that my heart would break. Da was the only person who understood me completely in the whole world and without him there was a whole piece of me missing. I couldn’t cry, not in front of the little ones, not even when Aunt Susan hugged me tight, only in bed that night did I cry myself to sleep.

We went back to Liverpool for the weekend to see mam. There was to be a funeral service but no burial as there was no body. Mam looked so much older, her face lined and drawn. I knew she was overworking but couldn’t say anything to her. I blanked out the funeral service but I remember leaving with a sense of pride. Da had died a hero defending his country so that the world could be rid of the shadow of Nazi Germany. The visit home was all too fleeting and soon we were on the station platform waiting for the train. Remember Sharlie girl, be brave and make your da proud, said mam.

#159: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:01 pm

Oh Sharlie! And her da! Sad

I think it's so sad, how everyone keeps telling her to be brave, and she's only ickle. Thank you Pim.

#160: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:34 pm

*wibbles*

Poor Sharlie!!!!! Crying

#161: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:41 am

Poor Sharlie, poor Mam, Aunite Susan and Uncle John are lovelyy though.

Crying

#162: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:48 am

*sobbing*

Poor Sharlie, how awful for her and her family

#163: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 11:14 am

Poor Sharlie, I hope no more of her family die. You've already killed three members of her family please kill no more!

#164: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:28 pm

Aww, Cazx, spoil all my fun!!!!!!! Some now, and more later on tonight.

Mam had resigned herself to me sitting for a scholarship, she knew it was what da would have wanted. She and Miss Newton were in contact throughout the spring and summer of 1940 and I began to take extra classes in preparation for the exams. Miss Newton got hold of prospectuses for the schools offering the scholarship and I would look through them with Aunt Susan. From the outset I had my heart set on St Monica’s on the Cornish coast but I knew not to get my hopes up. I was determined to make da proud, and although she’d never say it to me, mam as well. Rebecca complained that I’d become boring with all my work and the other children at school teased me more than ever; but I learned to ignore them.

Da’s final letter arrived in late May 1940 and was sent on to us by mam. He’d sent his usual lines to each of us and his words were to be my greatest comfort. Be brave Sharlie girl, he wrote, remember to always reach for the sky and follow your dreams for no one can take them away from you. I slept with that letter under my pillow for many nights, it made me feel as though da was with me, watching over me.

Uncle Charlie was brought home in the Dunkirk evacuation, he’d lost his leg fighting and was put in a soldier’s home outside Liverpool. Mam took us to visit him during the summer holidays when we went to spend a week. Like mam he looked older and sadder, just a shell of his former self, he wasn’t Uncle Charlie anymore. He just looked through us all and didn’t say much. Afterwards mam told us he’d hardly spoken since coming home. She supposed things must have been so bad over there that he’d lost sight of himself. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he must have gone through.

#165: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:32 pm

Glad Sharlie is learning to follow her dreams and hope she gets that scholarship! But poor Uncle Charlie...

Thanks Pim.

#166: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:04 pm

Poor Charles. Crying or Very sad

Glad Sharlie had that letter from her father.

#167: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:08 pm

The letter from Sharlie's Da was really moving.
Thank-you Pim.

#168: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:11 pm

That was so real. Thank you.

#169: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:06 pm

This is so moving, thank you Pim. I feel for Sharlie, and all the people who really had to endure such experiences.

I wonder, if her Da had lived, if her mother would have been as ready to allow Sharlie to take up a scholarship?

#170: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:43 pm

Pim, that was so sweet, but so sad too. Crying or Very sad

#171: Author: JackieJ, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:16 pm

*Is sure that Pim's determined to flood the board out with tears*

I got a lump in my throat with the letter. Poor Sharlie, and poor Uncle Charlie.

JackieJ

#172: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:27 pm

Well, I did promise another bit tonight. More tomorrow after uni and inbetween tea & biscuits & 'Neighbours' time hopefully!

The week with mam was awkward. I felt trapped in Liverpool, I couldn’t wait to get back to Wales and feel as though I could breathe again. Everywhere in Liverpool was narrow and cramped; the people looked more haggard and miserable than they had done before the war. It just didn’t seem fair that it was the innocent people who had to suffer the most. You’re too much of a dreamer Sharlie, Rebecca would say. But it was only my dreams that kept me going.

I sat my scholarship examination just before Christmas and I would hear the results in mid January. Mam came to spend Christmas with us at Aunt Susan’s, but I was irritable and snappy because of my nerves. I couldn’t bear the wait. Mam had knitted us all new scarves for Christmas, mine was blue. It matches your eyes, mam said to me. I could only smile and say thank you. Being away from mam had made her a stranger to me, we’d never been close but I felt the distance all the more now. She asked politely about the scholarship examination and I tried to tell her but just felt that she didn’t understand. I didn’t want to grow apart from mam but I didn’t know how to stop us drifting the way we had started to.

Finally the letter came through to say I’d been awarded one of the open scholarships and was to choose my school from the list, there was no choice. It was, and always had been, St Monica’s. I was far too scared to open the envelope and Aunt Susan had to do it for me. I’d wanted to get it so badly that I hadn’t even contemplated failing. I ran all the way to the Post Office to send a telegram to mam and I thought I was going to burst when the reply arrived the following day. Very proud Sharlie girl, touch the sky. Mam had always been proud, she just hadn’t known how to express it. Rebecca, Elizabeth and David came down for tea and Aunt Susan let us off prep to have a riotous evening together. As she kissed me goodnight later on I heard her whisper, I’m so proud my Sharlie girl.

My scholarship caused some friction amongst the others at school. Rebecca had moved up to the high school in the next town and so I couldn’t turn to her for help. Harriet was in trouble for fighting with the boys after one of them taunted her; she may have been small and dainty looking but she could certainly pack a hefty punch. Elizabeth chose to defend me with her words and her quick witted replies never ceased to amaze me. Tommy promised me he’d always be on my side but I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t a matter of sides. All the same I was glad to leave the village school at the end of summer term. Miss Hathersage and Miss Newton both told me how proud they were and how they’d miss teaching me. I in turn thanked them for believing in me.

#173: Author: Helen P, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:42 pm

Excellent

Thankyou Pim.

#174: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:46 pm

Thank you Pim.

#175: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:48 pm

#176: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:03 pm

Yay for Sharlie! *happy bounce*

#177: Author: Mora, Location: Lancaster

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:03 pm

Yay for Sharlie! Very Happy

I'm rather worried that her bullying won't go away in her new school though.

#178: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:38 pm

Thanks Pim, I'm looking forward to the next part of her story Very Happy

#179: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:36 am

Thanks Pim, am really enjoying this.

Liz

#180: Author: Nell, Location: London, England

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:02 am

Yay for Sharlie, thank you Pim.

#181: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:45 pm

And more of this, more before bedtime as well. MY bedtime that is *g*

During the summer holidays I took the train to Cardiff with Aunt Susan to buy my school uniform for St Monica’s. It was all included in the scholarship and had already been ordered, we just needed to collect it. I felt so guilty when we got back to the village and I showed it off to my sisters. Rationing meant getting material was hard and they were outgrowing their frocks so quickly. Part of me wished that they all had scholarships too, part of me wished I was staying with them and being the same.

Mam came to stay for a few days before I went off to school. She was driving an ambulance around Liverpool when she wasn’t working at the factory. Liverpool was being heavily bombed and mam said she was glad she’d seen sense and sent us away. She said it suited us here, we were starting to lose our sallow complexions and turn a healthy shade of pink. Rebecca and Elizabeth had grown enormously as well, but I hadn’t. My little Sharlie girl, mam said pinching my cheek, you’ll catch up one day.

I tried on my uniform for mam and I could see the pride written all over her face. On impulse I hugged her tightly and I heard her sniff. Don’t cry mam, I told her, I’m still your Sharlie girl. But I’m so proud, she could only say in reply. I hugged her again and we both cried. If only your da could see you now, he’d be twice as proud as I am.

#182: Author: jackie green, Location: Rotherham

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:52 pm

sniff.... waahhh ..outright bawl time at that. I always cry at scenes like this.
It's wonderful Pim. Such a talent you have for making me be there with them.

#183: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:04 pm

Yay that Sharlie is going to school!
Lovely last scene, made me feel all happy!

#184: Author: Ruth B, Location: Oxford, UK

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:15 pm

Yay! Good for Sharlie!

Really enjoying this Pim, thank you!

#185: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:48 pm

Thank you Pim. Laughing

(happy tears)

#186: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:04 pm

More, some tomorrow afternoon/tea time.

There was something final in my farewell with mam, as though we both knew that things would never be the same again between us. We’d bridged the gap that had begun to form, it would stay bridged even though we would probably hardly see each other again. Rebecca didn’t understand how I felt and it was something I couldn’t talk to Aunt Susan about.

Aunt Susan gave a party for me the day before I left. I was wearing a dress of Mary’s as all my clothes had gone in my trunk the week before. Rationing meant that it wasn’t much of a tea but we’d all learned not to mind. Miss Hathersage and Miss Newton called round brining me a fountain pen as a present and a card addressed to Sharlie, who dared to follow her dream. I was so grateful to them and promised to write. Rebecca and Elizabeth had begged all the scraps of material they possibly could and had sewn them together to make me a mat. Harriet and Bridget had secreted my handkerchiefs from my trunk and stitched the letters SA on to then, Harriet forgetting I was really Charlotte. All sorts of people from the village passed by to wish my luck; I had never realised how many people cared.

I was up early the following morning as we had to leave on the 6am train. Miss Hathersage was accompanying me as far as Exeter where she would hand me over to the school party. Aunt Susan and Uncle John took me to the station, he carrying my night case and hockey stick. Rebecca, Elizabeth, Harriet, Bridget, David, Caroline, Tommy and Mary came along as well to wave me off. As I climbed aboard the train I realised they would all change so much whilst I was gone. Mind you take care to write Sharlie girl, said Aunt Susan as she hugged me, and remember how proud we all are.

#187: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:27 am

How lovely, wonder how Sharlie will get on at school - hope it is a good one.

#188: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:46 am

I hope the other schoolgirls are nice to her in a CS fashion.

#189: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 2:52 pm

A wee bit for now, and some more later on.

I watched the figures on the platform getting smaller as I hung out of the carriage window waving to them. When they were out of sight I settled into my corner and turned my head to the window so Miss Hathersage couldn’t see the tears that had formed in my eyes and begun to slip down my cheeks. She was lost in her novel and wouldn’t have noticed anyway. At Exeter I was handed over to Miss Benson the escort mistress from school. Take care Sharlie, said Miss Hathersage as she gave me a clumsy peck on the cheek, mind you write to us often. And with that she was gone.

Miss Benson put me in the care of a girl my own age and who would be in the first form with me. Her name was Patricia but everybody knew her as Tish, and she would come to be my very great friend as we climbed through the school. She was very pretty with a mass of red curls, green eyes and freckles, she had a merry laugh and was an all round good sport. She never looked down on me for being a scholarship girl and would always drag me away from my books when she felt I was overdoing it. She introduced me to her special chummery of Annie Sinclair, Lucy Burrows and Nicole Rafter; further on in school we would be referred to as the Quintette, but it was too soon to think of such things. They were welcoming and friendly, although I found it hard to forget my shyness I soon forgot my homesickness.

#190: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:11 pm

I'm so glad they are being nice to Sharlie, I was worrying that they would look down on her! Very Happy

#191: Author: Lisa, Location: South Coast of England

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:53 pm

Fantastic, so many lovely posts to catch up with. Great stuff, Pim, this just gets better and better!

*wonders if St Monica's will be Malory Towers in disguise!*

#192: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:54 pm

Yay! So glad Sharlie settles down and makes friends. Thank you, Pim!

#193: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 4:27 pm

Sounds like Sharlie had a great time at school, thanks Pim Very Happy

#194: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:22 pm

Glad she went to a nice school and made what seem like good friends.

#195: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 9:37 pm

Nice to see something going right after all the tragedy!

#196: Author: pim, Location: St Andrews (right next to the beach)

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:53 pm

Okay, I promised some more before bedtime... I've been having a nice evening in with a good friend!

We arrived at St Monica’s all ravenous and just in time for a gorgeous supper. I’d never seen a spread like it in my entire life, there were foods I was sure couldn’t be real and most certainly had to have come off the black market. Tish explained that the food wasn’t always this good, it was just the first night. We sat at a long table with the twenty girls who made up the first form; six of us were new girls and one was a scholarship girl like me. The other, Polly Redgrave, came from a middle class London family. I felt so out of place and was acutely aware that I was simply Sharlie from the back streets of Liverpool with no place in society. Still, it made me determined to do well in lessons and prove that being poor didn’t mean I was stupid.

After supper we were shepherded to our dormitories and told to wash and go to bed. The dormitory was a long narrow room with the walls painted white and five beds along each wall. Curtains hung around the beds to make cubicles and in these we each had a set of drawers and a chair. I was pleased to find myself in a dormitory with Tish, Annie, Nicole and Lucy. Polly was there as well along with three girls who came from rich families – Laura Hart-Walker, Geraldine Fitzmaurice and Madeleine Thackary. I would have my fair share of run-ins with them over the years but that evening it was easier to ignore them and give in to the sleep I had been fighting all day.

Mornings at St Monica’s were to be a mad scramble for us all to wash and get ready for morning prayers which were followed by breakfast. Then we all filed to the Hall for the Headmistress’ address. When I think of the ones I was to hear in later years this all seemed so mediocre. Miss Fairacre must have been in her fifties, with grey hair in a bun and glasses which kept on slipping down her nose. She seemed keen on lessons and results which suited me, I was keen to prove my worth.

Our classroom was on the first floor of the school with a view overlooking the school gardens. Tish whispered to me that new girls had to wait until everyone else had chosen their desks and we were to take whatever was left over. I ended up in the second row between Tish and, to my dismay, Laura Hart-Walker. Lucy sat on the other side of Tish with Annie and Nicole behind us. I noticed Polly in the front row with some other new girls. As I sat down Laura shot me a frosty glance and made some remark about charity cases. I felt my face burn but Tish laid a hand on my arm as if to warn me off.

Our form mistress, Miss Bell, was to take us for most of our lessons. She was a strict, no nonsense type but she had very twinkly eyes with suggested that she had a sense of humour somewhere. During the first morning we new girls were called by a Prefect to go and see the Headmistress. I was so nervous about the prospect of meeting her but it turned out not to be so bad. She looked over my scholarship papers and commented that I seemed bright enough. Make us proud, she said as I turned to leave, let us see that we made the right choice. That was something I certainly intended to do.

#197: Author: Gem, Location: Saltash, Cornwall (holidays), Aberystwyth (termtime from September)

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:32 am

Thank you Pim! Hope that the nasty girls aren't too evil - but even if they are, at least she has some friends! Lovely update Very Happy

#198: Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 9:37 am

Hope the evil girls get their comeupance at some point!

#199: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:59 pm

Down with the nasty, superior girls!

#200: Author: Catherine_B, Location: Oxford, UK

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 4:02 pm