There was so much to say that we decided to publish both audio and a written story. We hope you enjoy them! With thanks to Stockland.
Army trucks used to come up the hill during the war and my grandma used to make lots of cups of tea and coffee for the soldiers. I remember standing on my tip toes holding up mugs as they drove passed. I was most frightened during the war when going to and from school because you might be half way there and the sirens would go so you’d have to run to a safe place where you could hunker down.
My first teacher had a monkey. If we learnt our tables she’d bring in the monkey the next day as a treat. It had a chain around its neck and would sit on the teacher’s desk. We thought it was absolutely fantastic.
My grandmother, mother and sister all played the piano but I learnt the violin instead and was the youngest member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I remember the emotional feelings of being part of a big sound like that.
Overall I was a hopeless case. I made myself fail my high school exams because I didn’t want to go to the same school as my sister. I just didn’t give the right answers. It was easy. Also, I was given a new iridescent light green racer bike, which I thought was fantastic. I used to ride my bike to school and I had to ride it on the canals where the gypsies used to be. One day the gypsies knocked me off my bike and tried to steal it. I was screaming and crying and wouldn’t let them have it. My mother was very strict and I was always in trouble – I remember her tearing up the stairs with a hairbrush to smack my bottom. So when the gypsies tried to take my bike I was too scared to tell my parents what happened. I used to ride an extra two miles out of the way so that I didn’t have to pass the gypsies. I was punished for being late home from school every day. To this day I have never told them why I was late!
We came out to Australia when I was 13. I hated it. School in Australia was awful. You were forever being called Pommies and teachers were unkind, in a sense, because they assumed you would know every single thing that came up about England. But we only knew things about the area that we lived. One day when I was supposed to be at school, I got on the bus to Perth and got a job, telling the agency that I was 14 when in fact I was still 13. When I told my mum, she nearly had a heart attack on the spot.
I was supposed to find an appropriate person to marry, and was engaged. But I couldn’t go through with it and ended up eloping with somebody at work, two days before that wedding was due to take place. So yes, I do believe in love at first sight.