Margaret Rosemary Hutchings - born 21 May 1938 – Brighton

I was born at BuckinghamRoadHospital, Brighton, Sussex on 21 May 1938 and lived at No. 39 Park Road, Coldean, Brighton, Sussex. I was baptised in ChapelRoyalChurch, North Street, Brighton on 18 June 1938.

Education I grew up in the 1940’s directly following World War II and I went to Falmer Church of EnglandSchool (by FalmerVillage pond) from age 5 - 9 when I transferred to MoulsecoombCountyPrimary school. As Coldean came under Chailey rural district council and not East Sussex County Council, all children from Coldean had to attend Falmer, then in 1947 we came under Brighton, but all 11 plus children had to go to Lewes for secondary education following scholarship. I sat my scholarship examinations at 11 yrs. at Moulsecoomb school and there were 2 places for girls and 3 for boys at Lewes Grammar schools - it depended on what you wished to do on leaving school if you passed or not. I didn’t choose a ‘satisfactory’ profession according to the examiners after interview, so went to Moulsecoomb secondary school and then when a new Secondary school was built at Stanmer I went there in 1952 until I left age 16 and after taking my ‘O’ level examinations, (the first secondary school in Brighton to allow children to sit O levels).

In September 1954 I attended Box’s Commercial College in Brighton (St Peter’s Place by St.Peter’s Church) for a year until 1955. This was a private college run by the Box family who also owned Remington typewriter shops in the town. Here I obtained qualifications in Typing, Shorthand,Book keeping and Office Routine. There was a very strict regime whereby no jewellery was allowed to be worn, no bare legs so stockings to be worn and no open toed shoes. I remember a student being sent home because she was wearing earrings. The front door of the college opened at 9.25 am and closed at 9.30am - if any student arrived when the door was shut then they had to go home - no excuses. Punctuality would be very important in our future careers. Fees were twenty guineas per term and I attended for one year (3 terms).

At Falmer Church of England Primary School - there were two teachers, one being the head who lived in the adjoining school house (Miss Sybil Pascoe). There were two classes - 5 - 9, and 9 - 11, a classroom for each. Mostly village children attended, but some came from outlying farms. I remember one little boy who ran across the fields to school in rags. Some gypsy children, who lived in caravans, also attended and would tell the other children ghost stories. My parents kept my school books from age 5!

It was War time so often the air raid warningsiren would sound and we would get under our wood and iron desks and the teacher would sit under her kneehole desk and read to us till the “all clear” siren sounded. Our mothers were often outside the school by the school wall during air raids, waiting for us to finish school at 3.30pm. We would either walk home from school or catch the bus. We had maypole dancing in the summer on the school lawn or in the nearby Rectory garden, and attended Falmer church on Ash Wednesday each year. The school toilets were across the playground, housed in a small brick building. There was no mains water or sewage system - the toilet was a large wooden ‘shelf’ with a hole in the middle, no chain to flush. Once a week a big cart would come round the village to empty the cesspit. We called it the ‘lavender’ cart. A local man would deliver milk to the village in the mornings, with a huge yoke across his shoulders and milk cans hanging from each side, then in the afternoon he would clean the school toilets. We spent a lot of our playtime playing mums and dads and as there were only about 20 or 30 children in the whole school, there was usually only two ‘families’ and all the rest of us were the ‘children’ ! In the winter when the pond iced over we’d have playtime skating on the pond.

There was huge emphasis on good handwriting called Penmanship and good grammar and spelling. I remember singing lessons as the teacher (Miss Francis) - a rather plump lady with a ‘trilly’ voice would strike a tuning fork on the desk so we all started in the same musical key. The district nurse (Nurse Rimmer) visited the school on a bicycle to make sure our hair was free of nits - we called her ‘nitty Nora’. She was a very upright, stern looking woman in a dark blue uniform.

The following extracts from my school books were written at age 6 and 7.

“7.6.1946 - Today is Victory Day. We are glad we won the War. We must work hard to keep everyone happy. We must grow food so that no one is hungry.”

“Penmanship - How to keep a book clean. Never touch a book when your hands are wet.”

“V.E. Days 8th and 9th May 1945. The flats are flying in the breeze. The war is over. Hip Hip Hurray! Buses and ships are decorated with flags.”

17.5.1945 –“The soldiers are very pleased they can come home. We will have Peace and no War. And we will be kind and we will work hard.”

24.5.1945. “What I did. I went on the beach and I had a paddle in the sea.”

5.6.1945. “My Daddy is ill in hospital and mummy goes to see him on Sunday, and I stay with my Nana. I go to church. He has grey eyes and black hair, and will soon come home and go to work.”

(He was in sanatorium for a year)

16 January 1946 – “There is ice on the pond. The ice cracks if we walk on it. Leslie fell in but the pond is shallow”.

28th January 1947. “On Sunday morning I went over the WildPark to see the tobogganing. My daddy went with me. We played the snow game. You have to make footsteps in the snow then the one behind you has to walk in the footsteps you have made. This morning I went on the ice to see if it would bear me. I went with Betty and Hazel. Then the bell rang so we all came in to school.”

Today 29th January 1947. “A blizzard blew this morning. The snow drifts are deep, but the snow plough will clear the roads.”

6th February 1947. “The pond is dangerous. It is thawing and Raymond got his feet wet. His wellingtons were wet through. William fell in the pond too, he got his trousers wet. He cried. On the edge it is shallow out in the middle it is deep.”

11th February 1947. “Composition. Roads. If the ice has rain on it, it will be slippery. Some roads lead up to hills so everyone will want it to melt. The snowplough has cleared the roads and the wind will blow it farther to the edge of the pavement.”

Ash Wednesday. “Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and as we had a holiday from school I went over to Granny’s for the day.”

5th March 1947. “ Icicles. Yesterday afternoon when we came out of school it was raining, and as the rain fell it froze. Icicles were hanging from the branches of the trees and the telephone wires were covered with ice.”

13th March 1947. “Playtime. At playtime I play “A hunting we will go”. I had Betty. This I how we play it. We all have to have a partner and gallop up the middle. When you come back you turn round and skip up again. Then the two who galloped up the middle make an arch. You go through and it is your turn. While they are going up the others clap and sing.”

End of Extracts from school books.

Ration books were issued during World War II to everybody and clothes and food were strictly rationed. The books contained coupons which had to be given up when buying food (i.e. sweets were 2 coupons per one ounce per week, I think). Lots of people grew their own vegetables in the garden and in the summer went into the country on the bus to pick blackberries, black currants, redcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries. These were then ‘bottled’ at home for use during the winter months, also made into jam. Bottling - large Kilner jars with glass airtight lids were used - I can’t remember whether the fruit was cooked or whether boiling water was poured over the uncooked fruit before sealing the lids.

My mother, who was a tailoress and dressmaker, made all my clothes (dresses, coats, skirts) and of course little girls didn’t wear trousers or jeans but cotton dresses, and we always had a best outfit for Sundays. My grandmother knitted jumpers and cardigans, and silky wool vests for the winter. I also wore a liberty bodice, which buttoned down the front with little rubber buttons, for extra warmth in the winter. My mother did dressmaking for Lady Chichester (the Pelham family who owned Stanmer Estate and land around and owned Stanmer House), and I remember going with my mother to Falmer to visit Lady Chichester when she needed a fitting for a dress or coat. I remember going to her house, which I think must be the Pelham Cottages in Mill Street, which are Grade II listed and were formerly Knights Almshouses dated 1869 and were erected in the memory of Mary Chichester, the wife of Henry Thomas Pelham the third Earl of Chichester. There are two stone tablets on the wall which bear the Countess's initials MC and the dates 1869. I remember sitting in the porch waiting for her while she attended to Lady Chichester. Falmer was a lovely village and you would see two very aristocratic ladies (I think sisters and daughters of the Earl and Lady Chichester) who apparently were Lady Prudence and Lady (I can’t remember her name) who would emerge from the Estate Office – I suppose they collected rents maybe from the Chichester Estate tenants. The village blacksmith, Mr Sparks, kept the chimneys swept in Falmer, nearly villages and also Coldean – he would arrive on a bicycle with his long brushes attached to the crossbar, and the children would run outside their houses to watch the brushes come out of the top of the chimney.

Food shoppingand household items - our mothers usually went to the local grocery shop and the butchers every day - there were no freezers or fridges, just a cold larder, sometimes indoors in the kitchen and sometimes housed in the older houses in a pantry with a stone floor and marble shelves. My grandmother had a Victorian house (no. 14 Southdown Avenue, Brighton) with a pantry leading off the kitchen. Not many houses had washing machines - I don’t remember any of my friends mothers having one and my mum didn’t have one until the 1950’s but it wasn’t automatic, and didn’t spin the clothes nearly dry, they had to be pulled out very wet and put through a ‘ringer’ or ‘mangle’ I used to help fold the thick cotton sheets ready for the ringer - they were very heavy and my mum would set up the ringer outside the kitchen door with a bowl under to catch the water. In the winter her hands would be blue with cold. My grandmother used her huge old mangle with two enormous rollers and a big handle. She did her washing in a big stone boiler - it had a hole in the top to put the washing in and she had to light a fire underneath to boil the clothes. All our clothes at home were washed by hand with soap flakes or scrubbed with a soap bar. My mother had an electric iron, but my grandmother used a ‘flat’ iron which had to be heated over the fire before use. We had a gas oven for cooking, but no electric mixers or whisks, everything was mixed or beaten with a wooden spoon. We would have a dinner midday and tea at about 5o/c with homemade cake. Every day I would say goodbye to my friend Margaret (Milly) Woollard as we both had to run home to listen to the wireless (radio) and BBC Children’s Hour at 5o/c with ‘Uncle Mac’ the presenter, or an episode of Paul Temple - a detective story.

We only had white loaves which were delivered by Groom’s the Baker by horse and cart to each house. Everybody would rush out after the baker had left with a bucket to collect the horse manure for the garden. I would never eat the crusts on the bread – it was a real battle for my mum. I had no butter on the bread as I had been diagnosed with Acidosis, and didn’t eat bacon either. The milkman also delivered our milk every day, and once my dad was out of hospital he had to have full cream milk with a gold top – the cream went a good third down the bottle! There was no semi-skimmed or skimmed milk. Sometimes I would visit the farm in Coldean Lane (now ColdeanChurch) and the farmer’s wife would give me a glass of milk fresh from the cow. As children we were encouraged to eat up the fat on the meat and everybody was large meat eaters. When I was very small, fish and chips were considered poor people’s food! then it became popular and by my teenage years was a bit of a luxury. School dinners were cooked on the premises at FalmerSchool, but not at larger schools when children all went home midday for dinner. Eating out at restaurants was for rich people and we never ate out – certainly pubs. did not serve anything but drink and children were not allowed in.

House. Our house was semi-detached and built in 1935 and my parents were the first owners – it was a 3 bedroom house with a nice bathroom, kitchen (all fitted cupboards) a dining room, and a sitting room, a long back garden where my dad grew vegetables, and a front garden. We had no car – I can only remember two families in Park Road with a car. No tumble dryer – the clothes were pegged out in the garden once a week, with a large prop. holding up the line above the flowers and vegetables. There was linoleum on the floor and this was polished by my mum on her hands and knees (I would ride on her back when I was very small), no carpets, and little mats in the doorway of each room (they were called slip mats). The stairs were carpeted with large brass clips on each stair at each side to hold it in place. There was no central heating, but there was a solid fuel boiler in the kitchen which had to be stoked regularly, and this heated the water. In the dining room and the sitting room there was an open fire fuelled by house coal, which was delivered by the coalman each week into a coal cellar just outside the kitchen door. We also had a toilet outside the kitchen door which was considered very modern for the 1930/40’s, especially as there was a separate toilet upstairs as well. On the subject of toilets I remember we had very shiny toilet paper, not soft tissue like today. As there was no heat at all in the bathroom, bath times were something to be avoided if possible and certainly not more than once a week. Likewise we never washed our hair more than once a week, as it was considered not good for the hair to be washed too much. There were no duvets only cotton sheets and pillowcases and huge woollen blankets and an eiderdown on top of that, or a bedspread. We had hot water bottles in the winter, either a rubber one or a big stone bottle. The sitting room was not used during the week, only on Sundays or if we had visitors – it was the ‘best’ room and had to be kept neat and tidy. We had a piano in this room, where I had my piano lessons once a week. We used the dining room for breakfast, dinner (always midday) and afternoon tea, and in the evenings my parents listened to the wireless (radio). Before I went to bed my dad would play games with me, usually word games or a board game, or we would read. I was always in bed early and I can remember in the summer, when there was double summertime (during the war) it was still very light I could hear my mum and dad in the garden talking and I couldn’t sleep because it wasn’t dark! The Government, during the war, decided to have double-summertime (March to October) called ‘daylight saving time’ so that the farmers had longer daylight hours for the harvest.

Wartime. My grandmother lived with my mother and father and me during the War. She locked up her house (in Southdown Avenue, Brighton) but visited every week to check up. This saved fuel and light. Every Sunday my grandmother would take me to the Chapel Royal church in North Street, Brighton, on the bus, for Sunday school. After church she would buy me a Kit Kat chocolate bar in Maynards sweet shop in North Street, just round the corner from New Road. The sweets would be in large jars – I can’t remember any packets of sweets. They were all weighed out by the ounce (usually 2ozs) and tipped into white paper bags. Other chocolate bars I remember are Fry’s peppermint cream, Mars bars and some milk chocolate Buttons. We also loved, as children, sweet cigarettes, a sticky white sweet with a pink end – we thought we were very grown up ‘smoking’ these – nothing was known then about the dangers of smoking. In fact it was encouraged by the specialist in Darvell Hall the sanitorium where my dad spent so many months with TB, as he felt the men were more contented if they smoked and would recover more quickly! As well as the Kit Kat treat after church each Sunday my grandmother also gave me 2 shillings (10 pence) each week pocket money. Sometimes in the evening in the summer my friend Margaret and I would go to FalmerChurch to Evensong, but usually she would go with her father or grandfather to St Andrew’s Church Moulsecoomb. Just before the War ended 1945) my dad who was serving in the Royal Artillery, was taken ill with TB and spent 14 months in hospital, in a sanitorium (Darvell Hall – now an Amish/type commune) deep in the countryside at Robertsbridge in Sussex. There was no cure for this illness and a lot of patients died. He contracted it in the tunnels under DoverCastle where he was stationed during the War, and was lucky that his doctor recognised what was wrong with him. I was not allowed to visit him until a few months before he left hospital as children would have caught the disease. The only treatment then for TB was fresh air and good food, and his bed was open to the countryside winter and summer. He was about the only one to survive at the sanitorium and when he came home I was about 7 years old and didn’t really know him very well. I remember I had been learning to play the piano while he was away and I was playing when he came in the door as a surprise. I was very shy and hid behind the sofa after I had finished playing my piano piece. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that a cure was found for TB -streptomycin. It was very contagious and was spread through people coughing and attacked the lungs. I remember people avoiding me and my mother in the street or on the bus as they were so frightened they would catch it from us, even though we didn’t have the disease. We had to attend a clinic in Lewes for an X-ray every six months to ensure we were free of it. As there was no cure there was of course no vaccination either against it. Once he was at home we had to keep all the windows open wide winter and summer and I can remember sitting with our coats and scarves on indoors because we were so cold. Of course we had no central heating, just a coal fire and a coal boiler in the kitchen which heated the water. During the War my uncle Percy (my mother’s brother) who lived in PhiladelphiaAmerica would send food and clothing parcels each Christmas. Sometimes there would be toys, and I can remember the excitement when I opened the large sack of clothing to find a doll - I called her Hilda after my aunt in America. She had eyes which closed when she lay down, brown curled hair, a fabric body, china arms and legs, and was dressed in trousers, jacket edged in fur and a bonnet edged in brown fur. From then on she was my favourite doll. We also had food parcels from Australia (from Uncle Bob in Adelaide - my mother's brother) usually tinned pears and peaches. There was nothing like this in the shops during the war. A large box of Cadbury’s chocolates also arrived each year from my Birmingham uncle Bert (another of my mother's brothers), who worked for Cadbury/Bourneville. He stayed with us from time to time – he had 12 children, so I suppose he was glad of a rest! His wife never visited, nor the children.