Growing up in Nottinghill Gate

I was 5 and my brother, 4 when our mother died, and Dad took us to live with his mother (originally from Bermondsey) at no 8 Aubrey Walk, Nottinghill Gate, W8 sometime early in 195

My grandfather worked for the British water board situated at the corner of Aubrey Walk nearly at the junction with Campden Hill Road. The water board, had a tower (since knocked down, but for a while also used as an antena for radio) and was fascinating for David and I to occasionally visit, where my grandfather managed the huge diesel fuelled engines (which we believe led to his lung cancer) that powered the water distribution. Behind this was a large grass covered undeground reservoir. This, David and I frequently managed to get onto (although forbidden to) by climbing up over what was at one time a chicken coop, over a 12' tall wall to get on to the reservoir and play. Dad would also use this shortcut to get to the tennis club.

The waterboard owned a small row of terrace houses including no 8. There was only a toilet, no bathroom. 3 bedrooms. A sitting room, no one ventured into unless there was a special occasion. a common room (can't think what this would have been called) with a fireplace which was lit daily from November through April. Then coal fires stopped regardless of how cold it still was. Next to this was the kitchen where we all ate, and a pantry in which David and I would have our toys and play.

My grandfather would use the shower at the waterboard and my grandmother who did housework for the Tennants who lived opposite in a 4 storey house adjacent to a two story house and would use their bathroom once a week.

David and I would have a bath each Saturday in a tin bath in front of the fire when it was winter.

Bed sheets were changed every week. Mattresses were made of feathers and required a lot of shaking to rearrange the feathers from sleeping in them all week.

My grandparents had the front bedroom, I shared the other front bedroom with my Aunt Jacqueline, and David and Dad shared the back bedroom.

Because David was not yet of school age, he was sent to live with our Irish grandmother for about 18 months shortly after the marriage of Tricia and Bill.

I went to Fox's infant school and then to the adjacent St. Georges Junior School. It was not a long walk down Aubrey Walk, across Campden Hill Road on to Kensington Park Road, where the two schools were situated close to the end of that road.

Adjacent to this small terrace of three houses, was the Campden Hill Tennis Club.

There was/is a beautiful old church (situated about a third of the street from Hillsleigh Road, where my Aunt Jacqueline and Uncle Doug were married when I was about 9, and Dad (who had by now remarried - June 1 we refer to her as, who had two children of her own, Debbie (3) and Stephen (4). David, Dad and I joined this family and left to live in a council house in Stonebridge Park. Quite a different area than Notting Hill Gate! I had what was called a "posh" accent developed from listening to all the similar "posh" accents around me.

In 1953, my Aunt Tricia and Uncle Bill married only about 4 days after my mother died. Weddings for poor people could not be postponed because of the cost. Aunt Jacqueline and I were bridesmaids. I remember that the reception was in a hall with a gallery, which all the children had fun running up the stairs and around and down again. By the end of the evening my long blue net dress had a very tattered hem!

It was a relatively happy 3-4 years for David and me, although Nan Munday was pretty strict and firmly believed that children should be seen and not heard. We were pretty fortunate with holidays as we would generally go to the Isle of Wight for a week and then David and I would go to Liscaroll, County Cork, where our Irish grandparents lived.

David and I used to come home from school for lunch, which was the same menu each day of the week, ending on Friday with fish, because our mother had been Roman Catholic.

Dad would generally take us alternate Sundays to a Roman Catholic church and a Church of England one.