As a young woman

At the age of 87 in the year 2012, I have realised that life today is very different from my life as a child and young adult. For this reason I have written my life story from the 1920s to the present day, almost a century. This version of my life is how I see it. It may not necessarily compare with how the rest of my family may view our lives in the past.

I hope that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren might find my autobiography interesting reading.

Acknowledgements?

Dedication?

Obviously, I have no recollection of this, so I do not know if my birth was greeted with jubilation or with despair, as being another mouth to feed or for some other reason. I was the third child of four surviving children born to my parents, Rose and John Collingridge. Twins died before I was born. The eldest was my sister Gwen, by four years. Then there were the twins who died shortly after birth.  Next came my brother John, and thirteen months later I appeared on the scene.  My younger brother Gordon was born fifteen months after myself.  My mother must have been worn out with so many births over such a short period. There wasn’t the contraception that is available today, which was safe to use. But, if you research you would find some very unpleasant and dangerous methods were used.

Although I was too young to be aware of what was going on in the world, I read that at the beginning of the thirties we had the Great Depression. In 1929 we had a Labour government headed by Ramsay McDonald with Liberal support. In October 1929 there was the Wall Street Stock market crash in New York which had an immediate effect on this country and by 1932 created three million unemployed. The country recovered reasonably well in the late thirties. I was not aware that this affected our family significantly.

By 1934 the National Grid was completed and this fed electricity into most homes, which previously relied on gas for lighting and cooking. This also allowed more houses to have telephones. These are some the historic dates I lived through as a child:

In 1935 George V celebrated his Silver Jubilee and there were street parties all over the country to celebrate.

1936 Edward V111 became King but he abdicated the throne so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, an American who was a divorcee, which excluded her from becoming Queen. This was a very sad moment for the country and for the royal family who had very little to do with Edward from then onwards. He and Wallis Simpson went abroad to live.

In 1937 George V1 took over the throne and when he was crowned I was taken with the school to see it up in London. I shall never forget watching the beautiful Golden coach carrying the new King and Queen and the colourful uniforms of the soldiers marching and on horseback. There were hundreds of union jacks hanging all along the Mall besides the thousands carried by the masses of people.  I was twelve then and the thrill an excitement at watching the parade along with thousands of people in the Mall was something to remember forever.

All during the thirties there were rumblings of war, of which I was not aware as a child.  However, the changes, since WW2 and the new technology, has advanced to such an extent none of us can now, truly live in a small community anywhere on this island, as we did in my childhood. Now we are bombarded by the media into our homes, every day with the news from all round the world – good and bad. So, our community now means the whole world and how it affects all of us.

The following version of my life is how I see it. It may not necessarily compare with how the rest of my family may view our lives.