Margaret's Family
During the war dad was in the Navy, he’d come out of the Navy because he missed promotion but at the beginning of the war he was called back up again and went up to Liverpool to run a training establishment in one of the Liverpool hospitals which was converted into HMS Wellesley. My mum and I used to live just outside Portsmouth but it was on a tenancy which the lease was virtually off in 1939. We went out to acquaintances in Canada and we stayed out there for the rest of the war.
I hate baked apples because that was the only pudding that my friend could do and we had to get water out of the well, which was okay until we got a dead frog one day so, we didn’t like that anymore. They managed to get us a proper water supply and then, Mum had very bad chest during the winter so we were sent into Toronto to a convent and it’s the only Church of England convent that didn’t have a mother house in England.
They used to do the altar breads for Canada and they also ran the Sunday school by post for the Prairie Provinces. They had a house for English war guests which was lovely and I made some really good friends there. And then they had to shut that.
The convent was next door 3 houses down Brunswick Avenue and 3 houses on Major back to back so the gardens were all put in to one garden and we had a great time there.
I made very good friends but that had to shut so we had to find somewhere else to live so we found somewhere else. At first it was a room, then 2 rooms and then half a flat and then we actually managed to get a flat,, which was the top floor of a house. Which was just as well because my dad managed to get himself out there for 14 days at Christmas in 1943. It was the only place we would have had room for him.
When we came back dad got a job with Missions to Seamen and he looked after the Bradford Diocese and the Wakefield one. He used to preach round churches trying, to get money for mission and be a commander. We lived up on Whinmoor Gardens and then about 18 months later dad died. I took in policemen which was good because you got paid for looking after them. And then we had two policemen or police cadets, they moved on and then we had a couple of lasses for about 18 months and they left.
I could run a three bed roomed house. I was married by then, which was the biggest mistake of my life.
Then I went to the council and said I wanted to live down here, and I was very lucky, I got a very nice flat. And that’s how I landed up in Seacroft .
I hate baked apples because that was the only pudding that my friend could do and we had to get water out of the well, which was okay until we got a dead frog one day so, we didn’t like that anymore. They managed to get us a proper water supply and then, Mum had very bad chest during the winter so we were sent into Toronto to a convent and it’s the only Church of England convent that didn’t have a mother house in England.
They used to do the altar breads for Canada and they also ran the Sunday school by post for the Prairie Provinces. They had a house for English war guests which was lovely and I made some really good friends there. And then they had to shut that.
The convent was next door 3 houses down Brunswick Avenue and 3 houses on Major back to back so the gardens were all put in to one garden and we had a great time there.
I made very good friends but that had to shut so we had to find somewhere else to live so we found somewhere else. At first it was a room, then 2 rooms and then half a flat and then we actually managed to get a flat,, which was the top floor of a house. Which was just as well because my dad managed to get himself out there for 14 days at Christmas in 1943. It was the only place we would have had room for him.
When we came back dad got a job with Missions to Seamen and he looked after the Bradford Diocese and the Wakefield one. He used to preach round churches trying, to get money for mission and be a commander. We lived up on Whinmoor Gardens and then about 18 months later dad died. I took in policemen which was good because you got paid for looking after them. And then we had two policemen or police cadets, they moved on and then we had a couple of lasses for about 18 months and they left.
I could run a three bed roomed house. I was married by then, which was the biggest mistake of my life.
Then I went to the council and said I wanted to live down here, and I was very lucky, I got a very nice flat. And that’s how I landed up in Seacroft .