As promised, I am very excited to introduce the very first guest post to our little Team Sainsbury blog.
Just to give you a bit of background... sadly, my Grandad passed away in July. I won't dwell on the why, when etc. all you need to know is that he was a truly amazing man. An amazing man who for the majority of his life was in love with my Nanny. I always catch snippets of stories about when they were young, what the Fox family were like when they were all growing up, where they went, who they met, what they did. But then I think, a lot of those things that will happen to my family will be available to look at and reminisce on the internet in years to come. But how will we do that with Lil & Pete's stories? Yes, we have photograph albums and I'm sure that a lot of you will have tales to tell. But I want to try my hardest to document at least a fair few of these stories on this blog. As afterall, there would be no 'Team Sainsbury' if there wasn't a 'Team Fox' first. So, every Wednesday when I go to have a 'date night' with my Nanny, I will be scribbling down the details from the stories she wishes to share with you all. And oh boy the first one is a good'un.
When I was 15, I was working in Woolworths. But my Mother wanted me to work in Kaser Bonder as Rach was working there and she earnt more money. They made beautiful ladies underwear. To get a job, I had to do a test. I couldn't do it quick enough... I couldn't thread the needles and still can't thread a needle today! So I got a job there, but in the packing department.
I started working there on the Monday - and hated it. I finished the following Friday. It was the smell, the smell from the stuff they used to keep the oil off of the underwear you know.
I told my Mother, and she was furious.
I wanted to go to Cornwall with Joyce, she was my best friend at the time. She's the one that now lives in Wales, the one that we went to see the other weekend. I told my Mum, she told me to go to hell. I told her, no - I'll go to Cornwall.
I got a job in the hotel. Mrs Crarey called and she sent our train fare and we went the next week. We were there before Easter for the hotel guests. Mr. Crarey picked us up from Truro Station. On the way, he told us that we needed to pick Tessa up. We thought that this was another person, but it wasn't; it was Tessa the dog from the vet.
We slept in one of the outbuildings of the hotel . We started to get the hotel ready for guests, washing, painting, getting the bedrooms ready - we had lots and lots of fun.
We would work from 07:30 for the breakfast and then clock off after lunch and go spend a couple of hours on the beach. We had a lovely time on that beach. Julian Manion, the journalist, and his family used to come to the beach with us every year.
One of us would then had to do the teas at teatime - sandwiches & cake (Mrs Gardner would always make lovely rock and fairy cakes). We would serve and clear away, then do the dinner at 7pm and afterward cut the bread ready for the morning toast, fill the salt and pepper up, have our dinner at 8/9 and then go out for the evening dancing.
There was a gang of us - the other girls from the different hotels.
I opened my first bank account in Lloyds in Perranporth. We got good tips.
At the end of the season, it was time to go home. Food was still on ration in those days but Mrs Crarey gave us our ration books untouched. She also gave us a locket each, I think I've given mine to Rosie now, plus she gave us lots of goodies - tea, sugar, tinned fruits. Mrs Crarey was strict but lovely.
We had to be back at 10pm in the evenings, so didn't have much time to be out. Mrs Crarey would check on us so we went to bed and then waited for a while and then popped out of the back windows. We went out with the soldiers.
We did get caught out though. One time, there was a robbery at the jewellers in Perranporth, and they thought that it was the soldiers that we were with. But it couldn't have been as they were with us. The soldiers told the police that they were with us, but Mrs Crarey said that they weren't as it was after our curfew, but we admitted it. She called us gangsters, malls and hussies!!!
We went home on the train. Joyce didn't go again as she was engaged to Doug who was on national service. I went back the next year, and that's when I met your Grandad. It was the year of the Coronation.
A lot of the time, we went to Rosemary Cafe which was run by Sid and Ida. They were both in the fire service and had retired. I actually met Ida on the bus going to Southampton years after (Ricky was two). Sid worked at Marley Tiles and they lived in Hedge End.
Anyway, they always had photo's of all of the girls stuck on the wall. It was like a souvenir, Sid would say. He would always take pictures of visitors, well, Colin the photographer would. And Sid would put them on the wall, he never asked permission, he just put them straight up.
Your Grandad came back to work in Penhale Camp. He came on the train from Hedge End/ Botley to Perranporth. He went to the Rosemary Cafe for a cup of tea whilst waiting for a truck to pick them up. That's when he saw my picture, and took it off of the wall.
A couple of weeks later, we were at a dance at the Women's Institute. He was there, and he recognised me. He didn't say anything though. I asked him to dance as he looked so lonely and shy. He was a very good dancer. Later that evening, he took my picture out of his pocket. I asked him ' Where did you get that from?'. He replied 'The Rosemary Cafe'. I said ' You've got a nerve... have you got a girlfriend?' . To which he replied 'No, I'm going to be a vet'...
We met the following weekend, nothing arranged. He was broke, so I bought us a glass of lemonade and two straws and we shared it. He asked me out to go for a walk across the beach, and we then kept each other company for the rest of the summer.
He went back to Botley and asked me to come with him when it got to the end of the season. I asked my parents, and they said no. I went anyway.
Rosie (Pete's Mum), was waiting for me at Southampton train station as Pete was on duty.
Before I got there, when he'd write to me, he would always enclose a sprig of lavender. When I came to Botley, he took me for our first walk there to where it used to grow - in Brooke Lane by Marks Farm on the corner.
He took me for our first Botley walk there, and I took him for our last.
