TO DAY WOULD HAVE BEEN MY MUM'S BIRTHDAY ,HAD SHE LIVED SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN NINETY TWO ........HERE IS HER STORY

Phyllis was born on January 25th 1914, her parents were Thomas and Susanah Fentem, She was born in Chesterfield Derbyshire. She was the forth daughter and the couple went on to have a son two years later.?

Phyllis early memory of her mother was of a lady kind and gentle, she loved to eat nuts, was always anaemic .and thus always tired.

Father was a farm labourer; it was her mothers dearest wish to move to the town, so that her daughters wouldn’t have to go into service, they later moved to Nottingham,Lentern,Susanah’s other wish was to own a coat ,she always wore a shawl .

Phyllis’s mother died when she was seven, there was such sadness in her voice when she spokeof this.

 Some years later, Phyllis’s father met Phyllis’s future step mother, and Phyllis can remember, her father used to say “I’m a married man, with four daughters and a son, but my wife lies in the church yard”.

I get the feeling that life became very difficult with the stepmother, Phyllis didn’t say a lot about that, though there is a lot of pain in those memories.

Ironically all the girls went into service until they married.

Phyllis sounds happier as she describes this period of her life.

She found employment, with a solicitor and his family, in Nottingham.Mr and Mrs Mein ,they had a son Geoffrey,Mrs Mein taught Phyllis so much ,how to cook ,to sew and to keep house ,she was almost one of the family ,and was treated very well ,she speaks of her time off, when she and her friend Betty Crowson,would go to the theatre, the pictures, and on shopping trips into Nottingham. Phyllis loved nice things, and wore all the fashionable clothes of the day .she was provided with a uniform for work, and since she was well paid, she had lots of nice clothes.

She remembered catching scarlet fever, whilst, she was with the family and they took good care of her when she left the hospital, and convalesced.

Whilst “on holiday” with the stepmothers family in Kings Cliffe, she had to look after their children, whilst their regular nanny took her holiday, she was soon noticed by the village boys ,she was really quite lovely and must have stood out in a village ,where everyone knows everyone.

One young man did fall for her and used to sit on the wall and sing songs and whistle to her, as she sat out side in the evening, cleaning the children’s shoes. They started to ‘walk out together’ and when the time came for her to go back to Nottingham, they wrote to each other, and would send each other photographs, taken in photographic studios .On one visit to Kings Cliffe, Ike as he was known, though he was christened Isaac, proposed to Phyllis and she accepted and wore his ring for two more years, before they married in the Register office in Oundle, In 1940, by now the war had begun.

Phyllis remembers being at work at Mrs Meins when war was declared, she also remembered. The Prince of Wales abdicating because he loved Mrs Simpson, these things she learned about through the wireless, which was in the kitchen at Mrs Meins house.

Whilst she was engaged to Ike, Phyllis collected lots of things for her bottom drawer, and also had a lovely trousseau, helped by Mrs Mein,who also gave Phyllis and Ike some beautiful silver as a wedding present .What a lovely lady.      

 

  THIS IS PHYLLIS ON THE RIGHT 

to be continued  >

                                  GRAPHICS BY DONNA