Name witheld (b.1915)

I was seven when I had the first pneumonia , seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and that was just the time when I should have gone to (school)...I was thin as a rake. They put poultices on you - red hot poultices front and back. It was a paste from the chemist...they'd leave it on for so long...'cos you were tight...and of course it used to make you sweat and go delirious, you know, and they gave you ten days whether you lived or not. When I first got out of bed the doctor said she'll be alright now. Me dad carried me down the stairs, put me against a big guard - the hobs were like this, there was that there for the water, that for the fire and the other for the oven and a big rack where your head were, so there were a big guard - he put me against the guard and my legs buckled and I said, 'Ooh I can't stand Dad.'

If you ever wanted to know anything, what you wanted to do was just get your dolls or whatever, pretend you was interested in the dolls and listen to their conversation - I knew no end of scandal about (Earl) Shilton that my mother and her friends talked about and they used to think I wasn't listening.

Well, I tell the truth, I always thought you busted open, you know, like an orange, and one day, I don't think I'd be ten...and I said to mother I'm going down the toilet, well you had to come out the back door and down to the toilet that was a pan lavatory. We had to put us coat on you see and she said, 'Don't go in that stock yard, your dad's got the sheep in there.' So I went with all full intentions not to go in, got halfway down to boiler and this here sheep were going, 'Baaaa!' and I thought poor thing, it's poorly. I just looked over and as I looked over there were popping out a head, all blood and head. Well of course I watched until it all come out and I thought oh I'm going to be sick.

So I went to school and the lady across from one of my friends had a baby and she used to housekeep for this wireless fellow, you know, electrical. So this girl said, 'Oh you know Mrs so and so, she's had a baby, it's come by wireless.' So I said, 'Don't talk so silly, don't you know where they come from?' She came back to school and she said, 'I told my mam what you told me and she said, 'Oh yes it's true.'' I says, 'Oh my goodness!' Her mother was ever such a nice lady you know and I was supposed to be a nice girl.