It's 12 o'clock midday on the 10th of January 1927. It has been snowing for sometime now, and at 11, Napier Road in the warmth of his mother's arms is the new born baby – yes Frank has arrived! He is the seventh child as he already has 1 brother and 5 sisters.
Six months later he is during the day looked after by one of mum's neighbours, while she goes to work in the local laundry – please remember this now over 74 years ago – and at that time she considered that she was very fortunate to be able to earn a few shillings: no there was no such thing as family allowances etc., but the means test was well known, although this was of no help, we had nothing to sell. Our goods and chattels consisted of 3 double beds, 1 table and nine chairs. Oh yes, and an Aspidistra.
11, Napier Road consisted of four rooms, two up and two down, each about ten feet square and the stairs went straight up the middle. No gas or electricity, all lighting was by oil lamps and candles. The front downstairs front room was Mum and Dad's bedroom, the back downstairs room was the living room dining area. This room had a back door then a window, the the fire copper in the corner of the room for boiling the washing, clothes, etc. This was heated by a fire behind a small door beneath. On the next wall was the fire grate, an open fire and oven combined. All water heating and cooking was done on this fire, which was kept burning all day, summer and winter. If you only wanted a cup of tea you had to boil the kettle on it (no gas or electricity.)
Mind you bread toasted by the fire tasted much better than today's method.
Frank is now 18 month old and is no longer sleeping in Mum and Dad's bed, but is in one of the beds upstairs with his sisters, much to their disgust, as he quite often wets the bed and them! I am now embarrassed to admit I continued for the next 10 years wetting the bed. So now you know, yes, I am Frank! Many reasons were given for the bed wetting, by all and sundry, but after all these years I have my own theory.
At the age of about 4 I suffered quite often with earache. It was only when one night I woke up screaming that Mum sent for the doctor, no NHS in those days, every visit had to be paid for. I was admitted to hospital with ear mastoid and at that time it was a very dangerous operation, a fifty-fifty chance of survival. My fifty percent chance was a winner, but with one draw back. I was left stone deaf in the right ear and two weeks later I was back in hospital. An abscess had developed. This was dispersed successfully. It was about this time that the bed wetting returned. The ear soon healed, but it was left with a discharge, which has a strong unpleasant smell, so for 3 days a week I had to attend the out-patients department of the hospital where the ear was filled with Hydrogen peroxide and then syringed. This was continuous for a few years, so I lost 3 mornings schooling every week. My 3 sisters took it in turns to take me to the hospital so they in turn lost lessons each week. Later I found out that at the time of my operation my mother was interviewed by the then called Lady Almoner who decided how much Mum had to pay each week, and judging by the box of 2 shilling receipts this went on for many, many months.
My school days were the worst time of my life. I became known as smelly the stinker by some of the other kids. It did not help when I became covered in eczema sores, yes you've guessed the laughing faces would shout “scabby.”
By the time I was 6 ½ Mum had given me two more sisters, Hilda and Stella. How about that, 7 sisters and only one brother! Now, as you realise, Mum and Dad and nine kids, money was in short supply. We were now the biggest and poorest family in Napier Road. The upstairs rooms now had two double beds which Dad had to alter to leave a small gangway between them. Also, at the foot of one bed, behind the door, was what I believe was a large apple barrel in which we put all our clothes ready for Mum to boil and scrub. This barrel was used for one of the many pranks us kids got up to. My sister Mabel for the first time decided to go to bed first. Her plan was to climb in the barrel, cover herself with a used bedsheet and when we were all in bed she would rise up and play ghost, alas, one of us because we already knew she was there, blew out the candle. Result? A terrified ghost screaming for it's Mum for help.
Being a poor family short of money was not the only thing we had to endure. We all had secondhand clothes, some with missing buttons, etc., but our Mum always succeeded keeping them and us clean, this also included the house we lived in. Do you remember that table I mentioned? Well, that and the floor were regularly scrubbed, also three times a week a very large tin-bath was placed on the said table, which was then filled with hot water from the copper and all us kids up to the age of 12 took turns to climb in, and then be thoroughly washed with Sunlight Soap. Then my sister Annie, the eldest of the family, would dry us and send us to bed. The rest of the family had to pay 2p each to bath at the local baths. Now, in fairness to Annie, who had a very restricted social life by having to help mum to look after the younger ones, she was like a second mum to us but of course we would always disagree and argue with her orders. But now, when I look back to all those years ago, I realise Annie's young life was all work with no thanks. When I was 8 she was only about 20 still helping to look after ½ dozen kids. It's a bit late but I must now say to Annie a big thank you.
Now, my last memory of the blessed table. It had a small ledge underneath and when Mum was not looking my sister Mabel and me smuggled our bread crusts very precariously on this ledge. But, alas, when the table was moved to clean the floor the fallen crusts resulted in the two of us receiving a lecture about wasting food. I turned a deaf ear!! Then this was the time my sister Jessie came home from school very upset. One of the school girls had told her that her Mum told her that the Terry's did not wear any knickers. This was not strictly true, there were squabbles about who wore which pair when, but my sisters all wore knickers.
My worst experience of this sort of thing which I will never forget, was again back at school. My Christmas present from Mum was a new pair of boots and a pair of socks. My Mum had the boots as was then known as “clumped”, that was having an extra sole put on to make them last longer. The socks were soon discarded, worn out, I would then go to school in boots but no socks. This was ignored until I had to go up a class, my new teacher would keep on to me about my lack of socks, until I had a brilliant idea. My Dad used to wear woolie socks called army greys, and when he discarded a pair there was hardly any of the foot left in them, so I cut of what was left of the feet which left the top length which I pulled on then tucked the ragged ends into my boots. No praise from the teacher but after play time, quite a rough and tumble affair, I had not realised that one of the socks had slipped out of the boot. On returning to class I was called out by the same teacher and was ordered to climb on the table in front of the whole class. The after being forced to pull up the socks, so the ragged ends reached my knees I stood with head bowed, fighting back the tears while the whole class howled with laughter. I never told my Mum about it, but I think it was Annie who kept up the supply of my socks. She had been working since the age of 14 and found out about my experience.
As I now sit here thinking I could write chapter after chapter about the fun and the fights us kids had. Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Frank Terry!
My Mum after having nine kids then suffered a miscarriage, one year later she gave us a baby brother. I was so pleased that I now had a brother as my eldest brother had left home years ago for reasons I have never found out and yes I had forgotten him. My brother Richard, now known as Dickie, was still a baby when the war started. This changed my life like so many others completely.
Evacuation day is still a vivid memory. I was 12 so with my carrier bag containing 2 shirts, 2 pairs of short trousers and yes 2 new pairs of knee length socks, the pair I was wearing were correctly pulled up, so along with my two sisters, Hilda and Stella, we climbed on to a train heading for an unknown destination. As the train started to move I looked out of the window to wave to our Mum. I just managed to see here among the crowd of parents, she held Dickie in one arm and was gently waving the other hand, but I don't think she could see me as the tears were streaming down her face, my two young sisters thought it was funny when I started to cry, they had been fighting for seats.
When our train finally reached its destination we kids decided that we were hundreds and hundreds of miles away from home, but in fact we were only in Sussex.
All of us children from Purley Oaks School were sent to Crowborough for about one week then the authorities decided to move half of us to the villages of Framfield and Blackboys near Uckfield. It was now when my young life began to change. The coaches dropped us all at a little school in Framfield. I and my two sisters were then taken by a car (yes we really traveled in a big car, wow!!!) We were then taken by people who owned a large farm, with a big posh house in Blackboys. We soon found out how posh an environment we had stepped into. Our first encounter was with the house cook, a very kind lady who gave us quite a laugh when she asked us what we wanted for dinner, Turkey, Chicken or Duck? The after convincing us that it was not a joke I decided to have Turkey as I remembered we once had it for Christmas at home. My next problem was dinner time. We were all seated at this very large table, this one was not scrubbed but was very shiny and covered with a very large white cloth. But what puzzled me was the place mat in front of me, there were three knives on the right, three forks on the left and two spoons at the back, and all were different sizes. Hilda and Stella were giggling as usual but I kept my eyes on the adults and tried to use the same knives, etc., as they did. Then came my mistake. Hilda and Stella chose custard and jelly. I chose custard and prunes. Now when eating prunes does on spit out the stones back into the custard? I could not see what the others were doing with theirs so I was reduced to putting a large spoon of custard in my mouth with each stone, and yes I swallowed all three. It was only when the maid cleared the table I saw stones in two of the adults dishes.
We only stayed at the farm for a couple of months and during that time our Mum and Dad came to see us. They and the farm owners were not at ease with each other, was this due to our different stations in life? I don't know, after all they were very good to us kids, but one week later we were moved out. Being only a kid I had no thoughts on the matter.
I had only one bad experience during the time I was evacuated. This happened on the farm a couple of days before we left. The owner invited me out to hunt, and as we walked through the farm yard he was giving his employees their orders for the day. When we reached the field with the rabbits running about I was told to always stay behind him and the gun, which he said was a double barreled shotgun. Suddenly, he raised it to his shoulder and fired. One of the rabbits was having a job to run, “Come on lad, run and catch him” he shouted. So I ran and picked up the wounded rabbit, it was still alive. The under his instructions I had to stretch the rabbit by its back legs in one and then jerk back its head with the other hand as hard as I could. I felt and heard a sudden crack, this really shocked me. I dropped it and stood back. I refused to carry it as I was really upset. He carried it back to the barn and gave it to one of the young lads who was milking a cow. I have not revealed the name of the farm owners as in later years I realised town and country people do liver different lives, so while we think they can be very cruel they in turn cannot understand us townies.
I know my Dad had done a bit of poaching, but at least it was not just for fun, also, in his defence, he could shoot straight!
My sisters had settled with a couple in the village, but I had three more moves. Was this because of my casual bed-wetting, I was often told off about this, understandably so. I was now nearly 13 years old.
One day it was decided by the head teacher at the village school that I should be punished for being destructive in class (now wait for it) I had to sit on the left row of desks among all the girls, while the boys on the right could call me sissy. I found this amusing as my mind had gone back to school at home, there I was shaken by my shoulders so my head rocked violently back and forth and had to stagger back to my desk. Also the times when my fingers on both hands at first felt paralysed and then the terrible pains inflicted by the downward swish of the cane. One man teacher would lift up his knee and then bring it down at the same time as the cane. Now on reflection I have this week read in the papers that a young kid is to sue a teacher she had actually held his arm to remove him from class for being destructive (boy I could now have been a millionaire).
Now back to Framfield. The Head Mistress of the school was quite elderly and very kind and was quite interested in the fact that thought I was really backward I did have a very good knowledge of gardening. This I had picked up from Dad and his allotment. So I jumped at the chance to cut her garden lawn, we had never had one. So it was arranged by her that each week-end I would work in her garden for a couple of hours and then while I had a drink of milk and a piece of cake in her kitchen, she would try to give me extra lessons, alas, the arithmetic and spelling was a complete failure. It was very hard going, but yes it was her that taught me to read.
Things were now on the up and up. The village kids did not know my nicknames, so now I was known as the teachers pet (unbelievable!)
It was the last move that made all the difference to my life. I was taken in by a farm labourer and his wife. They were not able to have any children of their own and I think this was the reason they began to treat me as a son. The house had a proper indoor toilet and electricity which was produced by a generator, and I had my own bedroom. We also had a bathroom and boy you should have see the bath, it was bit and it had its own hot and cold taps. When I went to bed each night Mrs. Churchill would pop in to make sure I was properly tucked in and say goodnight with a kiss on my forehead. I never understood this action but I never complained. Although they are now deceased I am proud to give you their name, Mr & Mrs. Churchill for with them I spent some of the happiest days of my childhood. Although I thought it was very hard work I used to love to help Mr. Churchill on the farm where he worked, like potato planting, hoeing and hay making etc. Now a bucket of potato seed is very heavy so I began to put the seed too close to each other, this was soon noted and corrected by a stick tied under my shoe, the correct length so with every step I was able to plant at the correct distance. I often went with Mr. Churchill to other farms at busy times. I never received pocket money, but I was treated as a man. I was allowed to use their Christian names and they in turn called me Frank. This was all the reward I wanted, it made me feel proud. Yes, I Frank Terry, was somebody.