This story is about my
partner's 95 year old mother - Alice May Conabeare. I wanted
to
start a record of her life as it's so rich in history and emotion
that I feel it deserves to be written down. This is very much an
outline though which I will, hopefully, go on to develop further.
Initially, I recorded her speaking to me and I do hope to find out
much more from my research of those times and from interviewing her
again. I've entitled it: "Alice takes no prisoners!"
because it shows how her life has made her the fiercely determined,
strong and independent-minded individual that she is ... I hope these
few thousand words give you a glimpse of Alice's long and interesting
life - enjoy!
I
first met Alice in the early 1990s when her husband, Les, was still
alive. They were the parents of my partner, Graham, the eldest of
their 3 sons. My first impression? Well, she was certainly
forthright! Indeed, she had (and still does have!) a tendency to
speak her mind about everything, including, of course, all her sons’
relationships. I very quickly learned that she liked to say exactly
what she was thinking and if she did deem what she’d said a
‘step too far’ she’d just throw in her cheeky grin,
laugh and say something like, “Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t
say that, but it’s what I think!” Most people would call
it interfering but then, in my experience, most mothers never think
much of their potential daughters-in-law anyway, and I’d
certainly heard worse!
Alice
came into this world at St Mary’s Hospital, near Paddington
Railway Station in London on 5 February 1930 which she says she only
knows from her Birth Certificate. Sadly, that document seems to have
somehow ‘lost itself’ recently (like, oh so many other
things in her little bungalow!) and, oddly enough, repeated attempts
to source a replacement copy have come up with absolutely nothing,
which is a bit of a mystery with so many records on the Internet
these days. Anyway, out of curiosity in October 2024 I decided to
start talking to Alice about her life and my only regret is that I
didn’t think to do it sooner, whilst her memories were more
intact, but better late than never.
Alice
spent her formative years on a narrowboat, based in Paddington Basin,
London. A narrowboat is much like a canal barge but is much narrower
- hence its name! - and is generally accepted to be 7 ft wide by 70
ft long. The stables were in Paddington Basin, and they regularly
needed to change the horse to pull their narrowboat. They’d
travel up and down the River Thames, picking up and delivering goods,
mostly timber and coal. She clearly recalls the smell of beans from
one of the factories alongside the river which emptied their waste
water into the Thames! Although she was only a little girl at the
time, she can remember that one end of the boat was the ‘living
end’ and the other was the locker for the rope used to tether
the boat. She slept at the front end, her parents at the other end,
and in between was the cargo. She remembers that her dad would often
put her on the horse to ride as it towed the boat along the river and
on one occasion he had to hook her out of the water when she fell off
the gangplank. On reflection, she guessed it must have been a bit
cramped on the narrowboat but she never thought about it at the time,
it was all she knew, having been brought up to it, and was only 7 or
8 when she left that life behind her, saying, “I can’t
remember much more about it really, but sometimes you forget what you
don’t want to remember.”
Alice’s
mother’s name was the same, because Alice was named after her,
which, as she pointed out to me, was “just what they did in
those days”. Equally, her brother, who arrived some 4 or 5
years later, was named Charles after their dad. She knows that her
mother wasn’t educated and couldn’t read or write - her
dad wrote everything - because she maintains she saw a cross on her
Birth Certificate where her mother would otherwise have signed her
name.
Sadly,
Alice’s life changed completely a few years after her brother,
known as Chas, was born and Alice’s last memory of seeing her
mother was, she thinks, at Hemel Hempstead where Alice senior died in
childbirth, along with the baby sister Alice was never to know.
After
her mum died, Alice was put into a children’s home in Watford
because her dad just couldn’t cope with two young children and
still do his job, so he had to make the awful decision to give up his
daughter – she never saw him again
... Vaguely
she remembers that her younger brother Chas came to the home a little
while afterwards. He made a terrible fuss and as Alice describes it,
“he kicked up merry hell.” He was crying and lashing out,
kicking the furniture and screaming; staff at the home, “fetched
her to try and calm him down.“ Alice got very upset
talking about those times as all the awful memories of that tragic
time in her young life came flooding back. She cried the tears which
those cruel times had welled up inside her for so many years.
Alice
thinks she was about 7 or 8 when she was sent to the children’s
home in Watford. Now aged 95, her memory isn’t as sharp as it
was but she can still remember many aspects of her life there. It
was, “a big place, down a dead-end road, but it had its own
park area with a shed in it” and they could go and get toys out
of that shed and put them back when they’d finished with them.
She described this place as being, “all right, not bad.”
except that Alice was always being ‘punished’ for not
doing as she was told – she didn’t like being told what
to do but didn’t elaborate on what these punishments were,
perhaps just as well. I’ve tried to find out what that Home
might have been called and am currently awaiting responses from
Freedom of Information requests to Councils in London. Alice believes
she stayed there until she was about 11, before then being moved into
what she describes as, “a private house in Maidstone run by two
religious women” where she was sent to learn a trade in order
to then go into domestic service. She described this time as, “Not
a bad childhood. We were allowed to go out and about. The house was
up a lane, very near a farm, and we picked walnuts at Christmas time.
We used to be invited out to parties too, I think people felt sorry
for us.”
She
recalls that there were “about a dozen of us girls” in
this house and although they had “more freedom”, it was a
very religious household with regular church attendance, Holy
Communion, Sunday School and prayers round the meal table; indeed,
she was confirmed at 12 years of age in St Albans Cathedral. She
stayed at the Maidstone house until she was trained, before then
going into service. Going into domestic service didn’t, as
Alice describes it, “go well with me.” As a result of her
reaction to being in service, and, of necessity, being subservient to
others, she was always being shifted from one house to another
because she wouldn’t (to use her own words): “do as I was
told, wouldn’t say, yes miss, no miss. They weren’t very
nice to me. You were in trouble if you answered back.”
Interestingly
though, it was in this private house in Maidstone that Alice first
learned to read. She then developed a love of reading which she
enjoyed for the rest of her life, well until only very recently when
it seems to have become difficult for her. I’m not sure if this
is a memory issue but it is such a shame when she got so much
pleasure from reading and would devour a book or two a week -
everything from autobiographies to crime fiction. She learned to read
from the Bible because they had to
read from it
every day. As she never went to school when living on the narrowboat
and then when she did, finally, go to school for the first time from
the children’s home in Watford, sadly, she never learned
anything. She wasn’t, as she describes it, “very quick,”
and so they simply moved her to the back of the class and forgot
about her! “I never learnt anything at Watford because they
just didn’t care if you could read or not.” She was about
12 by the time she did manage to learn to read from the Bible every
morning and night, especially at weekends. She describes it as having
to, “spell it out and read as best I could. Not the easiest
thing but I had to learn, as all the other children knew how to do
it. Mum didn’t read and write, so she couldn’t teach me
and dad didn’t have the time, it was all work for him, loading
and unloading cargo.”
Alice
felt she learned a lot at Maidstone but hardly anything at all whilst
she was in Watford. The only time anyone took any notice of her
there, was when she was taking tea to one of the school teachers and
another girl let the door go behind her and the glass cut her wrist
as she instinctively put out her hand to stop it – this was in
the days before toughened safety glass of course! This meant even
more time out of school, plus it was months before she could do
anything.
Whilst
she was off school, she recalled a nurse taking her on a trip up to
London for the day and her face visibly changed as she recalled the
sight of street after street which had been bombed during the Blitz.
Her face then immediately changed again as she suddenly remembered
that this was the first time she’d ever seen “a man’s
private parts” when a soldier was walking towards them, “with
it hanging out and the nurse got really cross. I was laughing, she
was most disgusted. I went with her to a place that was completely
bombed out, the streets were flattened, there wasn’t a single
house left ... She wanted a cross or something from somewhere, I
can’t quite remember now.”
At
14 years of age, Alice went into service in, “big houses.”
As Alice describes it, “I didn’t do very well, couldn’t
stand being told what to do.” As a result of her reaction to
being in service, and, of necessity, subservient to others, she was
always being shifted from one house to another. One she remembers was so old-fashioned
that there were cobbles where the servants lived but they used to go
hop-picking which she enjoyed, plus it was near the river and they
would have a paddle at break times. One place she worked was in the
house of the owners of Maidstone Zoo. They even brought some of the
small animals, like monkeys, into the servants’ living area if
they were ill!
For
a short time, Alice even ended up in a workhouse, although as the
Poor Law System was officially abolished in the 1930’s the
building was most likely re-purposed as a children’s home. Here
she was, “stuck in a very small room at night and worked in the
laundry during the day.” It was, of course, a horrible place –
as such places were originally designed to be - and when a woman came
along who was paid to take Alice on, much like fostering today, she
moved into her home in Edmonton and was able to go back to school.
One day she was talking to a girl at school and learned about the
Land Army. Apparently, this girl’s sister had joined and really
liked it. Alice asked how old you needed to be and was told 17; she
wasn’t old enough but still went to join anyway! When asked for
her Birth Certificate, she simply said it was lost in the war. A new
phase in her life was unfolding.
She
was billeted at St Albans, on part of the golf course, and that was
where she met the first man in her life – Geoffrey. He had been
a soldier out in Egypt in the War and was much older than her but she
felt that he would be able to take care of her and … they
became engaged within a year. Unfortunately, Geoffrey’s
disapproving mother kept too close an eye on Alice and informed her
son of her every move which, needless to say, Alice did not like.
Although they had been engaged, she soon told him to “stick his
ring” and that she was “clearing off.” At around
this time, she also remembered going to Borehamwood Film Studios and
using the make-up sticks, so all the girls thought they looked like
the film stars of the day. In fact, as I look at a black and white
photograph of Alice as a teenager, with her high cheekbones and
thick, wavy hair, she did, indeed, have the look of an early Ingrid
Bergman or Rita Hayworth. (Please judge for yourself from the
attached photo!).
As
a Land Army girl she was offered training on tractors, field work or
milking. She tried but didn’t like field work so transferred to
milking. Once she’d been trained, she was sent down to the West
Country in England where she first worked at Brindley Well Farm
before going to Smithayne, which was a farm between Cadeleigh and
Cheriton Fitzpaine in mid Devon. In those days, the small village of
Cheriton had a Post Office, Saddlery and Blacksmith, Garage and many
shops, not like today, but the two pubs are still there. She also met
Jean who was to become her closest, long-term friend – known as
Auntie Jean to her sons - and they often went out together, taking
all the 5 boys they had between them!
Having
been separated so tragically from her brother at such a young age,
Alice didn’t see her brother, Chas, again for well over 30
years when they finally found each other again. He had managed to
track her down and he was living in Norfolk with his wife and son.
Chas had a great sense of humour, was a kind and generous man and had
a strong Cockney accent, as does Alice, but then the way you learn to
speak as a child never really leaves you …
Alice
met and married Les, a farm labourer, in 1950 and they lived in a
tied cottage (belonging to the farmer) for years until Les became too
ill to continue farm work and they had to leave. Alice cleaned for
several people in the village, as well as bringing up three sons –
Graham, Nick and Russell. The boys often recounted tales of mum
getting into a ‘tiz’ about something and throwing their
dad’s muddy work boots over the hedge, their untidy clothes out
the window, or her leaving home and trudging for miles through deep
snow. For many years she also cared for Les’ poorly, bedridden
mother. Life wasn’t always sweet but Alice was forged of strong
stuff and always coped, somehow. Very sadly, Nick (her favourite
son!) died of cancer in 2021 and Alice’s sadness cut so deep,
it was almost more than she could take and she was never
really the
same from that day on.
Her
life now is much quieter, still taking her little dog for a walk when
she feels able but her hobbies of sewing, gardening, jigsaw puzzles
and, of course, reading, have all but gone. Dementia has crept into
her mind and almost every day she rings us with a report of something
else that has gone missing – currently it’s the TV
remote, before that it was the door keys, and tomorrow – who
knows what it will be? But on her better, more lucid, days she’s
still that same proud woman who’s experienced so much in her
life, who has stories to tell – everything from watching
Spitfires flying off to fight in Europe, to celebrating 53 years of
marriage. I have so much more to uncover about Alice’s life and
I keep telling her that she’ll get her telegram from the King
when she reaches her centenary!
*****
My
name is Heather Bingham, and I'm Alice's eldest son's
partner, and an aspiring writer. I've only been writing short
stories for about 18 months. I was short-listed in a SciFi
competition (yes, I know, a very different genre!) but then heard ...
absolutely nothing more! I entered another competition where ALL the
entrants were included in a collection, but again, I didn't win, so I
don't consider myself 'published', far from it! One day ...
