documented on 11 April 2005

Interviewed by Jean Elliott

We were talking about old Mr Saxon who lived here for very many years in the old Tickhill. I will just start you off with one of my memories and that was Mr Saxon taking a funeral and I can still see two black horses with a plume and it was a glass sided xxx on a car, I have seen them in museums. Do you remember that?

I remember it was something to do with funerals.

He had a black bowler hat and a very fat tummy and a watch on his tummy.

Yes I can remember him very well. When I used to go and see my grandparents at Warmsworth, he would take my pram and I would have David. He didn’t take me but he would take my pram and take it to my grandparents when I went to go and visit them.

Do you remember the East Midland Bus that used to go through and you could give your pram to the conductor and he would put the pushchair underneath the stair?

Yes, but I was meaning a proper pram.

Can you remember anything at all that happened in Tickhill during the war because I am so young to remember but what are your wartime memories?

A bomb was dropped going up towards Maltby, just the other side of the bridge this was when I lived at the bungalow. It dropped in a field near Hattersley, near xxx Dam, it dropped somewhere just down there. I saw them bring it past when they detonated it in 1941.

Did you join in any of the celebrations, do you go to VJ night or Victory in Europe night?

No I didn’t go because I had children.

I was taken, it was around the Cross. I remember them wheeling the piano out. I went to sleep on Miss Lie’s steps, where Mr Snell took over.

I was reasonably new to Tickhill at the time. I knew the Cross. I used to push the pram down there with one of them in it and one of them sat on it, that was David and John. I didn’t go to anything like that because I was on my own. My husband was away in the war at the time, he was in the war for years. He went in 1939. He was in the army and saw service abroad. He came back with Malaria and wasn’t a fit man when he came back.

Presumably there was a gap between Catherine and John then because of the war?

That’s right. There was David and John born and then there was a gap. When my husband came home, there was Catherine and then Janet born. There were three of them born in the bungalow but only David was born upon Worksop Road, which was where I lived when I first came to Tickhill.

My memory of Worksop Road is that there was a lady who was a dressmaker called Mrs Gibbotson. Do you know her?

I can’t remember her but I do know of her.

That was at the end of war, I think I was about 5 or 6.

I lived in the second house, I didn’t live in a row – it was a semi-detached.

It must have been a struggle with your husband being at war and you on your own.

I was only one of many, you didn’t think of anything in those days, you just got on with it, and you accepted things as they came.

Do you remember going to the Food Office, with your ration book. That was next door to my parents’ house. Do you remember Joyce Robinson?

Is she still around?

No, she was in her seventies when she died. My mum used to help as well in the Food Office. Did you do any war work?

No I couldn’t I had John and David.

Did you nurse?

I have been nursing nearly thirty years.

Did you train when the children grew up?

I did my Fiva training for two years, which in those days you didn’t have to sit and write anything, it was practical. I was entitled to a post of SEN.

Which hospital were you at – was there one at Conisbrough?

There was one at Conisbrough but I wasn’t there. I can’t quite remember where I was. For the latter eight years I worked at Doncaster Royal on the Psychiatric Unit but I was only part time. I worked until I was 62. It wasn’t compulsory retirement for me at 60; mine was what they called an escort’s job. For twice a week I used to work on the ECG floor, electric shock treatment floor. Sometimes there was treatment 14-15 times a day. I used to help push them in; I used to help Molly Ford who came in to have treatment.

Molly was in a real state, bless her. When I was in my teens, Molly was in the drama group with a lady who used to produce a play called ‘Molly’s Lover’. Tickhill used to have a very strong drama group. Do you remember Mrs Rice, the Headmaster’s wife?

Yes I can remember her.

Do you remember Mrs Bonnett who lived up Doncaster Road; she sometimes used to help in Jarvis’s. And Nora Snell, do you remember her?

I do remember Mrs Bonnett’s name. I think I saw Nora Snell one day – I think she is the same age as me.

She is a bit older than you, she is ninety/ninety one, and she has lost her sight.

I’ve just had xxx operations; this one is not a success. I had my eyelids sewn back; this other one is drooping again now. I have had cataracts done about 7/8 month ago but I’m not 100%. I am getting the creaking gate.

You don’t look too bad. I think eighty-seven is quite an achievement.

I can still do my own work.

Don’t you think you have had a hard life, four children is quite a lot really?

Well when you have lived on your own you just get on with it. I have been on my own a long time, over thirty years – my husband was fifty-four.

Can you recollect the shows that we used to have in Tickhill, they were held sometimes up at Eastfield Farm where Miss Newborn’s family lived. She was a great personality wasn’t she? – very kind.

I can remember Miss Newborn but I can’t remember the shows – I wouldn’t get to anything like that.

I can remember there used to be ploughing and the local farmers used to put all these wonderful horses in the main xxx.

I can remember my Granddad having horses.

Where did your Grandparents come from?

Warmsworth but they farmed at Butterbusk – on the way to Conisbrough. A tiny place. I’m going back over a hundred years.

So that’s the old fashioned farming, like Dennis’s Grandparents where you sickle and it was hard work.

I still have some of the horse brasses that my Granddad used to have. They used to put them over the hearth. I have still got some of those.

What else do you cling to now?

I have a lot of interests going off. My granddaughter, that’s Janet’s girl.

Was Janet your youngest?

Yes.

So Catherine is a nurse, is Janet a nurse as well?

Janet has worked for over thirty years as a nurse. She told me yesterday she has got to give her notice in.

Thirty years seems to be like a milestone because you worked for over thirty years.

We have 14 nurses in the family, my mother was a matron. If you had been here the other week I had got a photograph of me as a nurse and my mother when she was a matron but I haven’t got them here now. Yes there was14 nurses. I could tell you all of them. That includes cousins, 3 of my own sisters. One of them has retired now but she had private nursing homes in Weston Super Mare. She had two and then they owned a bungalow next to it. My other sister was a district nurse, that’s the second marriage, and then there was Hilary, her mother died when she was born. She went to do her training.

Where did you do your training?

It was all over. If I sit down and had time to think about it I could tell you it all. It depends what’s asked you and probably if you are at home and had time to think about it I would remember.

Well that’s what we will do. You go home and have time to think about it and we will have another session.

I was going to say that Janet’s daughter, my granddaughter (she has only got the one girl – Anna Wilkinson). She has just finished her three years training at Doncaster Royal and she has got nearly 80% pass marks. Now they get the cap and gown for it but they didn’t used to do. I don’t know whether she can keep it. My Grandson, Catherine’s boy, he has just got his Captains Certificate and will have his own ship.

That is wonderful, you must be very proud.

What I am wanting to do is that Anna, Janet’s girl she will have her photograph taken and I asked Catherine if she had a photograph of Peter, in his uniform. She has got one of him and she wants to put them both in the paper together but it won’t be just yet, it might be another month because I don’t know when Anna gets her cap and gown. She wants to go and teach nursing but whether she will ever make it or not I don’t know. She is pretty brainy.