• Reference Number: DX-1043/20
• Ref No: DX-1043/20
• Date: Jul 2013
• Level: Item
• Extent: 1 item
• Format: CD-ROM
• Description: Track No Time
  (MM:SS) Description
  1
  00:20 Parents Occupations - Interviewee's Father was a pattern maker and her Mother was a ladies maid in service before she was married.
  
  00:45 Mother's role in the home - Interviewee comments that they didn't have modern equipment like nowadays; their boiler used to take all day. Her mother shopped, gardened, cleaned house: things that don't take as long anymore.
  
  1:09 Childhood home - Interviewee was born in Layland Avenue, then the family moved to Springhill Grove where she lived until 1958/1959.
  
  1:41 Education - Interviewee left Wolverhampton Girls High School in 1956 aged 16, her family couldn't afford to send her to university. She comments that she would have liked to stay on in sixth form but went to work for the local authority in education and careers advice.
  2:36 Jobs - After working in the careers office interviewee worked at the eye infirmary on the Compton road in the records office. She left to get married in 1961 and have children but later worked at Penn Hospital as an occupational therapist for 18 years.
  
  3:51 Life as a wife and mother - Interviewee says that you didn't live together before marriage back then. She had four children and you didn't consider going back to work after having children at that time. She didn't have a washing machine; a spin dryer. Interviewee relied on her mother getting clothes from jumble sales for the children.
  6:02 Impact of the war on her family - Interviewees parents lived with her father's mother which stopped them from getting married for years. Her mother booked into hospital to have the interviewee but the war started so she couldn't be admitted as it was reserved for soldiers. So she was born in Layland Avenue and put in a drawer as a makeshift cot. She also remembers rationing
  7:50 Post war - There was still rationing, remembers interviewee. She says they weren't free of war until the 50's as there were restrictions. The Roebuck pub on the Penn Road was partially built before the war and couldn't be completed until after the war so it was half-built for years. After the war people could get back on with their lives.
  1 9:01 Changes to Wolverhampton - Interviewee remembers the old Town Hall which is now the Civic Centre. It used to be a market hall, which was much more interesting than the market in town now. There was a market patch below St Peters church which was very interesting and sold livestock. There haven't been massive changes; places drifted on and places rebuilt. She comments that we were fortunate to have avoided wartime bombing.
  
  10:15 Immigration - Interviewee remembers a girl called Mary Lang. She was staying with arch deacon of Brewood in 1952/53 and visited the interviewee's school with the deacon's daughter. She caused a stir; the interviewee recalls a "mop of hair." She goes on to say that West Indians came over and worked on buses doing jobs that otherwise couldn't be filled. She doesn't remember it causing tensions, but remembers Powell's speech. Interviewee thinks that immigration is both accepted and causes tension nowadays.
  
  12:43 Strikes - Interviewee remembers her father-in-law often being on strike as a sheet metal worker and a strong member of unions. She says that has all "ended now." Interviewee remembers her husband policing a miner's strike that went on for many weeks. He was away for periods at a time and youngest son missed his father.
  15:13 Reaction to the election of Margaret Thatcher - Interviewee felt she was just another Prime Minister but there was great excitement for a woman to be in that position; she was very strong. Describes her family as not very political.
  2
  00:19 Education [cont.] - Interviewee says that lots of girls left school in fifth form like she did. She wanted to stay on but sixth form was seen as more for boys (her brother continued education.) She went straight into work. Many girls had Saturday jobs during school years; her and others worked at Woolworths.
  
  2:15 Entertainment - Interviewee remembers youth clubs being more popular back then, and dancing at the Civic Hall. She said there were lots of dance places in Wolverhampton.
  
  3:02 Schooling - Interviewee talks about the lessons she did at school. Hated maths and was able to drop it in year 9 but otherwise subjects taught were the same as today. She says that school was stricter then. Talks about uniform and jokes that the metal buckle on her belt wouldn't be allowed nowadays due to health and safety.
  
• Access Status: Open
• Contact: Wolverhampton Archives, Wolverhampton Archives & Local Studies

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