If I was going to play near to the house I had to remain clean and tidy; there were few real playthings to amuse me – all I had was a few model cars; there was a limit to the number of times you can push them around. There were two swings in the side field, made totally out of metal. Neglect over the years had made them difficult to use and rather fragile, so only light use could be attempted.

 A small bicycle was given to me by the owners of the house; this had lain unused for many years. I was forbidden to take it out of the grounds; if I had gone out onto our lane, the steep hill would have made the bicycle uncontrollable.

The gravel path made it quite difficult to cycle; any indentations in the gravel path that I made had to be put right by the use of the rake before I came indoors. The lightness of the gravel meant that if I attempted to wear shoes or plimsolls they soon became very uncomfortable when a single piece of stone would become lodged inside. On most days I wore my long leather riding boots which the owners of the house had also given me.

I could easily manage to put the boots on, but I needed the help from my mother in removing them. On returning indoors, I had to wait until my mother returned to our part of the house to help me take them off. Providing they were clean I was allowed to wear them indoors but any mud on the floor normally confined me indoors for the rest of the day.

My mother decided that as I was older I should now have slightly different punishments if I was naughty. The main worry for her when she did punish me, by stopping my treats or confining me to the flat if I had been naughty, was that I might do something more disagreeable in retaliation for a long drawn out punishment. If this were something that affected her employers, then she might lose both job and home.

During the previous year, I had become used to the very boring regime of missing treats or being sent to bed very early. At this new location there was no headmistress living here to dissuade my mother from smacking me. My mother explained what she had in mind. In an odd way, I was happier to go back to the punishments that had been given to me before I had gone to that school. Once a punishment had been given, that was the end of the matter. Not having any sweets or treats and being sent to bed early seemed to last for ever.

My temper was normally the main reason for getting into trouble. As we lived in the house of my mother’s employer, I would have to be restricted in both where I went and the amount of noise I made.

When my mother found out that my bedroom here was relatively sound-proofed through having a strong kitchen wall and storage room surrounding it, sending me to my bedroom where I could cry and make a noise after a quick punishment solved the problem of me annoying her employers.

We came to an agreement that for any minor matter I did wrong, I would go back to having a slap on my legs or bottom with her hand. This to me was something I was quite happy to return to. Knowing that there were a selection of sweets in my mother’s room at the school, and not being allowed to have any had been one of the worst punishments. My mother now explained that as I was a year older I could expect a little harsher punishment for things that were naughty.

I thought my mother meant a caning, as my grandmother had done, but it appeared that her idea of the next stage in punishment was that instead of her hand, my school plimsoll would be used. I could only ask if there would be anything worse than the plimsoll. It appeared that restricting me to my room for the entire day and confiscating my sweets would be the ultimate punishment. Having already experienced almost a year of such punishment, I made the decision that I did not want to return to that form of reprimand.

I was told never to tell any of my friends, or anyone else, that I received the plimsoll from her. If they told their parents I misbehaved and was punished, I might find they were told not to play with me.

 With my active forms of play and annoyance, I soon experienced the odd slap across my legs over minor matters, and took it as part of my play activities. Fun was trying to dodge my mother’s hand as it was approaching my legs. She did not have the time to pursue me throughout the flat; in most cases if I reached the safety of my room, I was not in any position to cause any more problems and was left alone. When I thought it was safe to come out, I could return to our sitting room.

The use of my plimsolls could cause a problem when I had left them at school, which for the odd occasion did get me out of a punishment. Only when I outgrew a pair and my mother decided not to throw the old ones away did I learn that there was one readily on hand with which to punish me.

I did not bother fighting her or throwing a tantrum. When it was decided on the odd occasion that I had been naughty, the sooner I got the matter over with the sooner I could return to whatever I had been doing.

My mother was tall, and had the strength and physique to apply the plimsoll with force to cause real pain; fortunately when I was punished with the plimsoll it was more for show than for pain. I was told to lie face down on my bed; two or three hits were applied to my bottom. Once the plimsoll had been given, my mother left me alone. There was never any massive pain – just enough to bring me slightly to tears, which was to me more the anger of the punishment than the pain. I did not want her to see me in tears whilst she was in the room; when I had finished crying and had decided to be good, I was able to leave my room. On coming back into the flat, I normally had to say sorry about what I had done wrong and give a promise not to do it again.

The plimsoll was a punishment that seemed fair; it was the thought of my mother stopping my sweets and going outside that I was fearful of. When my mother decided to punish me with the plimsoll, it could easily be down to the way she was feeling at the time. In the normal way, my mother was one of the most easy-going adults one could ever hope to meet; these were on the days when there might be the odd short time to relax with a cigarette. On a day when she had run out of cigarettes, the most minor item of mischief could displease her. With the nearest tobacconist over a mile away, and funds always short, frayed tempers were a common occurrence.

Christmas was a disappointment. At the age of almost seven, I was growing out of the idea that there was a real Father Christmas. Whilst friends from school stayed indoors on Christmas Day and had their relatives visiting them, I was left alone in our flat whilst my mother worked in the main part of the house.

There were a few new toys from relatives, but as the items were sent by post to our remote location, they were of the smaller variety. My main present was a toy typewriter. The illustration on the box, when I had been allowed to choose it a few days before Christmas, made it seem that it would really work. On opening the box, the excitement soon turned to disappointment when it became clear that there were no real letter keys to press and each letter had to be selected by turning a wheel, then a single bar pressed to form the letter on paper. With a limited area that the paper could be printed on, the eventual things that were produced took too long for me. Total boredom over the toy set in when the single fixed piece of ink ribbon lost some of its ink. Parts of a line could be read but the centre area of each line became too faint to read. Extra special ribbons had to be purchased. The shops were closed over Christmas, and with them all in town, meant the end of that toy for the time being.

With just the two of us and a lack of money, a Christmas cake was a luxury we couldn’t afford. For a treat, we had a Swiss roll with an extra layer of chocolate on the outside. Decorated by the shop with some green leaves it was disguised a.s a Christmas log. I loved chocolate so I was quite happy when my mother purchased this rather than the traditional Christmas cake. When it came to actually eat the log, it was very sickly; the covering was soft. This was not real chocolate but something based on cocoa powder and flour. We managed to get through about half of the log before it was put out for the birds and the local squirrel population, which would normally eat anything in sight – but they left the remains of the log alone.

Continued

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