Phyllis

Ikes mother,was the sort of lady people would go to if they needed help she would do all sorts of jobs, to earn some extra money, to help George and her bring up their family, she laid people out when they died , helped, mothers when they were in labour ,and helped to look after the sick.She also took in sewing .

It was when a lady died who she had been looking after; she asked the landlord if her son and his fiancée might have the cottage, it was duly arranged

So on  April 21st 1940, Phyllis and Ike became man and wife and set up home with some of the furniture left in the cottage, and Phyllis’s bottom drawer treasures, she also brought some furniture from Nottingham

Although Ike worked as a lorry driver he was also in the fire brigade so was exempt from the war.

Phyllis was very proud of her cottage in the country, she worked very hard with all the skills she had learned from Mrs Mein,to make it a home for her and her beloved Ike ,although the toilet was ‘up the yard’, and the water had to brought in from a tap in the street, neither was there any electricity until after the war ,paraffin lamps and candles were used for light .The water for washday and baths was heated in the copper in the scullery, that had a fire heated under the copper, mostly alright but if the wind was the wrong way ,was a devil to light ,recalls Phyllis.

Phyllis were married a year when their first child a daughter was born, Janet Althea.

They were fortunate as Ike had an allotment, and grew all their vegetables, they also kept a few hens and a pig for fattening, and so were pretty self sufficient and the rationing in the war didn’t effect them to much.

Twenty months after Janet was born they had a son John.

The war finished and life was good for Phyllis, she would go on the train to visit her relations in Nottingham, taking her babies with her , the pram would go in the guards van.Ike didn’t go as he didn’t get holidays.

Soon after this the brick making firm who he drove the lorry for closed down. But he soon got another job on the council driving a dust cart; he was still part time Fireman and became the village barber, in the evenings .He worked for the council until he retired.:p>

In 1947 their family was completed by the birth of another daughter Jean Susan ,Phyllis didn’t go out to work until Jean was ten ,she went to work for a Doctors wife helping her in the house .The Dr was an eminent chest Doctor specialising in patients with tuberculosis. Phyllis worked for Dr and Mrs Royce until she retired aged sixty.

Although Phyllis was what seemed a long way from her family in Nottingham, she still kept in touch, she wrote regularly to her three sisters, who were all married and had one daughter each.

They would come and stay with Phyllis and Ike and enjoy the country side.

Unfortunately, Phyllis’s elder sister died and her niece Brenda was brought up by her grandmother, as the years went by, Phyllis realised she had lost touch, with her late sisters daughter, she mentioned to her own daughter Janet that ‘Brenda had completely gone from our lives’ Janet got in touch with the Salvation Army, who in time, found the niece, and the happy ending to this was Aunt and niece became reunited.