LIKE COLOURED SHADOWS chapter one

LIKE COLOURED SHADOWS by Leeta (an abridged version)

Introduction

When my parents died, first my mother, then my father, I realized that they had left so many questions about their life and that of my ancestors unanswered. Also that the generation that came before me, is now either dead, or too old to remember the finer details of their lives with any guarantee of accuracy.

There are some periods in my life that I can recall and put a date to without effort. Other childhood memories are difficult to pin down to and pigeonhole. When did I receive my first three-wheeled trike? Was it before or after I started school? Was I two, three or even five years old when I went to my first tap dancing classes? At which age did I develop double pneumonia?
Thankfully I can remember and date some of these incidents that go back seventy-five years. Those memories that I can’t put into chronological order, I will slot into my story to the best of my ability.
Apart from the reminiscences stored in the corners of my mind, there appear anecdotes and information handed down to me over the years by various members of the family, mainly my parents, and I have no reason to doubt their validity.
Some of my siblings may feel disappointed that I haven’t written about their achievements and what they’ve made of their lives. This isn’t because I am not very proud of them all, but because I feel it is for them to tell their history in their own way.
I dedicate this humble life story to my mother and father; two wonderful people who shared their lives and their love for fifty-four years, and who made this story possible.

1: The beginning of it all

My parents Jeanette Fordham and Sidney Leach were married on the 31st of August 1930 in Westminster Cathedral, London. The Wall Street Crash had occurred the previous year, and England was now experiencing mass unemployment, and deep in the throes of the Great Depression, or the ‘slump’ as it was generally known. Not a good time to be starting out in married life, but my parents were very much in love and they felt that two really could live as cheaply as one.
I was conceived the following February, and my mother and father arrange for the local midwife, Nurse Stroud, to deliver me in their small one bedroom flat.
On the day that I decided to make an appearance the midwife and my dad did the best they could. I understood from my father that he had to hold a torch for the midwife while she stitched my mother up after my birth. Of course back in those days there was only gaslight in most homes, and this didn’t afford much illumination!
And so it was that I made my way into a troubled England that 15th of November 1931, at 95, Hugh Street, Victorian Westminster.
I was duly christened in Westminster Cathedral, my Godmother being my mother’s only sister Sissie.
Dad was desperately looking for work so that he could support his new family.
The Assistance Board gave him tickets to obtain free food. He told the Relief Officer (truthfully) that, owing to the lack of proper nourishment, his wife had ‘lost her milk’ and could no longer breast-feed their new baby. He was informed that if he reported to the ‘Welfare’ each Friday, they would give him a supply of Cow and Gate baby milk. This he did, as well as walking miles to get coke for the fire, and to look for a job.
Things got worse, and Mum and Dad were subjected to means testing. The Assistance people came and poked around in their home, to see what possessions they had, and how much food remained in their food cupboard.