Nouveauté
Born in 1940: Those Were the Days
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- FormatePub
- ISBN978-0-9564470-6-7
- EAN9780956447067
- Date de parution18/10/2025
- Protection num.pas de protection
- Infos supplémentairesepub
- ÉditeurP.G Glynn
Résumé
My birth in 1940 coincided with the arrival of a bomb outside Farnborough Hospital. Fortunately the bomb didn't explode, but it set the scene for a life that has been likened to a roller-coaster. A second bomb, this time damaging (but not demolishing) our home, sent my mother and me from Kent to Monmouthshire where mountains rather than barrage balloons dominated our landscape. With a Welsh father, a half-Austrian mother and many far flung relatives, once the war ended I was destined to travel.
In Wales, along with my young brother and sister, I met various members of Dad's extensive family, while in Vienna I met my grandfather. He was still married to my beloved 'Nama', who lived in London and had never forgiven him for taking her away from the stage, where she had been a leading lady. He had taken her to his family's castle in Czechoslovakia which now accommodated factory workers, rather than the Nazis who in 1940 had 'confiscated' it.
The castle had housed many family members, one of these having been Aunt Carla who, when (aged fourteen) I met her in Vienna, seemed to me the epitome of elegance and sophistication. She took me under her wing, promising that if I came to stay with her when I turned seventeen she would teach me how to be 'all things to all men'. Uncertain what that exactly meant, but awed by her, I resolved there and then to return and learn how to follow in her footsteps .I was deaf to warnings from my mother and Nama that I was seeing Carla through rose-tinted spectacles and that going to stay with her would be disastrous.
They both knew her well from life in the castle, but I was convinced I knew her better than they did. That is until (after my seventeenth birthday) I discovered how naïve I had been. How I wished I'd listened to those who loved me!Lessons were learned, however, and these stood me in good stead for my life ahead. After leaving Bromley High School with much regret (I'd have loved to stay on forever) I did a secretarial course and - deciding I'd like eventually to go to sea - I soon secured a typing pool post at the Union-castle Steamship Company's Passenger Office in London's Old Bond Street.
Promoted before long to be the Passenger Manager's secretary, my new boss sent me on a Mediterranean cruise 'to test my sea legs'. They passed the test - but now I learned that Company rules meant I couldn't work at sea as a Purserette (or in any capacity) until I was twenty-three. Aged twenty by then, and impatient to fulfill my dream, this seemed very unfair to me. More or less in a fit of pique, at a friend's suggestion I answered an ad in the Evening News for a secretarial post in Berne.
Sod's Law was at work because - following an interview in Scarborough with a man I despised on sight - I was offered the job and, though I'd now changed my mind about leaving my current adorable boss behind, family pressure was brought to bear and against all my instinct I was soon off to begin a new chapter in Switzerland.
In Wales, along with my young brother and sister, I met various members of Dad's extensive family, while in Vienna I met my grandfather. He was still married to my beloved 'Nama', who lived in London and had never forgiven him for taking her away from the stage, where she had been a leading lady. He had taken her to his family's castle in Czechoslovakia which now accommodated factory workers, rather than the Nazis who in 1940 had 'confiscated' it.
The castle had housed many family members, one of these having been Aunt Carla who, when (aged fourteen) I met her in Vienna, seemed to me the epitome of elegance and sophistication. She took me under her wing, promising that if I came to stay with her when I turned seventeen she would teach me how to be 'all things to all men'. Uncertain what that exactly meant, but awed by her, I resolved there and then to return and learn how to follow in her footsteps .I was deaf to warnings from my mother and Nama that I was seeing Carla through rose-tinted spectacles and that going to stay with her would be disastrous.
They both knew her well from life in the castle, but I was convinced I knew her better than they did. That is until (after my seventeenth birthday) I discovered how naïve I had been. How I wished I'd listened to those who loved me!Lessons were learned, however, and these stood me in good stead for my life ahead. After leaving Bromley High School with much regret (I'd have loved to stay on forever) I did a secretarial course and - deciding I'd like eventually to go to sea - I soon secured a typing pool post at the Union-castle Steamship Company's Passenger Office in London's Old Bond Street.
Promoted before long to be the Passenger Manager's secretary, my new boss sent me on a Mediterranean cruise 'to test my sea legs'. They passed the test - but now I learned that Company rules meant I couldn't work at sea as a Purserette (or in any capacity) until I was twenty-three. Aged twenty by then, and impatient to fulfill my dream, this seemed very unfair to me. More or less in a fit of pique, at a friend's suggestion I answered an ad in the Evening News for a secretarial post in Berne.
Sod's Law was at work because - following an interview in Scarborough with a man I despised on sight - I was offered the job and, though I'd now changed my mind about leaving my current adorable boss behind, family pressure was brought to bear and against all my instinct I was soon off to begin a new chapter in Switzerland.
My birth in 1940 coincided with the arrival of a bomb outside Farnborough Hospital. Fortunately the bomb didn't explode, but it set the scene for a life that has been likened to a roller-coaster. A second bomb, this time damaging (but not demolishing) our home, sent my mother and me from Kent to Monmouthshire where mountains rather than barrage balloons dominated our landscape. With a Welsh father, a half-Austrian mother and many far flung relatives, once the war ended I was destined to travel.
In Wales, along with my young brother and sister, I met various members of Dad's extensive family, while in Vienna I met my grandfather. He was still married to my beloved 'Nama', who lived in London and had never forgiven him for taking her away from the stage, where she had been a leading lady. He had taken her to his family's castle in Czechoslovakia which now accommodated factory workers, rather than the Nazis who in 1940 had 'confiscated' it.
The castle had housed many family members, one of these having been Aunt Carla who, when (aged fourteen) I met her in Vienna, seemed to me the epitome of elegance and sophistication. She took me under her wing, promising that if I came to stay with her when I turned seventeen she would teach me how to be 'all things to all men'. Uncertain what that exactly meant, but awed by her, I resolved there and then to return and learn how to follow in her footsteps .I was deaf to warnings from my mother and Nama that I was seeing Carla through rose-tinted spectacles and that going to stay with her would be disastrous.
They both knew her well from life in the castle, but I was convinced I knew her better than they did. That is until (after my seventeenth birthday) I discovered how naïve I had been. How I wished I'd listened to those who loved me!Lessons were learned, however, and these stood me in good stead for my life ahead. After leaving Bromley High School with much regret (I'd have loved to stay on forever) I did a secretarial course and - deciding I'd like eventually to go to sea - I soon secured a typing pool post at the Union-castle Steamship Company's Passenger Office in London's Old Bond Street.
Promoted before long to be the Passenger Manager's secretary, my new boss sent me on a Mediterranean cruise 'to test my sea legs'. They passed the test - but now I learned that Company rules meant I couldn't work at sea as a Purserette (or in any capacity) until I was twenty-three. Aged twenty by then, and impatient to fulfill my dream, this seemed very unfair to me. More or less in a fit of pique, at a friend's suggestion I answered an ad in the Evening News for a secretarial post in Berne.
Sod's Law was at work because - following an interview in Scarborough with a man I despised on sight - I was offered the job and, though I'd now changed my mind about leaving my current adorable boss behind, family pressure was brought to bear and against all my instinct I was soon off to begin a new chapter in Switzerland.
In Wales, along with my young brother and sister, I met various members of Dad's extensive family, while in Vienna I met my grandfather. He was still married to my beloved 'Nama', who lived in London and had never forgiven him for taking her away from the stage, where she had been a leading lady. He had taken her to his family's castle in Czechoslovakia which now accommodated factory workers, rather than the Nazis who in 1940 had 'confiscated' it.
The castle had housed many family members, one of these having been Aunt Carla who, when (aged fourteen) I met her in Vienna, seemed to me the epitome of elegance and sophistication. She took me under her wing, promising that if I came to stay with her when I turned seventeen she would teach me how to be 'all things to all men'. Uncertain what that exactly meant, but awed by her, I resolved there and then to return and learn how to follow in her footsteps .I was deaf to warnings from my mother and Nama that I was seeing Carla through rose-tinted spectacles and that going to stay with her would be disastrous.
They both knew her well from life in the castle, but I was convinced I knew her better than they did. That is until (after my seventeenth birthday) I discovered how naïve I had been. How I wished I'd listened to those who loved me!Lessons were learned, however, and these stood me in good stead for my life ahead. After leaving Bromley High School with much regret (I'd have loved to stay on forever) I did a secretarial course and - deciding I'd like eventually to go to sea - I soon secured a typing pool post at the Union-castle Steamship Company's Passenger Office in London's Old Bond Street.
Promoted before long to be the Passenger Manager's secretary, my new boss sent me on a Mediterranean cruise 'to test my sea legs'. They passed the test - but now I learned that Company rules meant I couldn't work at sea as a Purserette (or in any capacity) until I was twenty-three. Aged twenty by then, and impatient to fulfill my dream, this seemed very unfair to me. More or less in a fit of pique, at a friend's suggestion I answered an ad in the Evening News for a secretarial post in Berne.
Sod's Law was at work because - following an interview in Scarborough with a man I despised on sight - I was offered the job and, though I'd now changed my mind about leaving my current adorable boss behind, family pressure was brought to bear and against all my instinct I was soon off to begin a new chapter in Switzerland.