The Thirties

I was born in that era in 1930. It was a dreadful time worldwide so I was told when I questioned my parents about them putting me in a Sisters-of -Mercy home when I was 6 months old on the understanding that I would in time be reunited with my family. I caught Double Pneumonia when I was about 5 months old and it affected my eyes. I had to have one eye covered over to make the bad one work. Doctors and hospitals had to be paid for then. It was one of the worst eras to be born in because there was no work and my family moved from London to Dagenham in the hopes of my father could find work because I had two brothers and an elder sister. My father was a stevedore by trade or a docker in other words. He was C of E religion and was against me being put in the home but knew he had not got the means of paying for treatment for me. I spent nearly 7 years in that so-called Sisters-of -Mercy home where the children were treated cruelly and beaten with a cane if they so much a sniffed. I finally came out when I was nearly 7. It was a whole new world to me and my brother was put in charge of me. In 1939 I can well remember war being declared and my mother saying ( Hitler or no bleeding Hitler she was still taking her kids hop picking ). It was while we were in the hop fields that a Jerry plane got through our so-called defences and decided to machine gun us. Luckily a Spitfire came to our aid an shot the Jerry down. That is my memories of the 30s.