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The following memory is about Gladys Hard, as told by her daughter Joyce Gale.
Gladys was born in Kew, Richmond, Surrey on 7th March 1902. She was one of eight children, four of whom died in infancy. She lived with her parents and two brothers and one sister in Lonsdale Mews, Kew.
Starting at number four down to number one, each dwelling being bigger in size, the accommodation consisted of one large bedroom, lounge and scullery on the first floor.
On the ground level were the stables for the horses and cabs. There were four such houses in a cobbled courtyard, outside each stable door stood a stone trough for the dung. These buildings are still there to this day being now nine modern dwellings.
Gladys's father Alfred was a cab driver for a Mr Long; Alfred took the ladies and gentlemen of the day to the theatre and social events late into the night. Thick yellow fogs were very frequent, playing on Alfred's health, and eventually killing him.
Emily, Gladys's mother, was in service, working for ladies at different times, often as cook and housekeeper at ten pence an hour. She was a very keen needlewoman being able to do tailoring, sitting up at night making clothes for the family.
They were always very well turned out, so much so that the ladies often took Gladys and her sister to the zoo, and out to tea several times. At Christmas, a lady gave them presents, one being a wicker dolls pram.
They were also given a joint of beef for Christmas dinner. For their everyday meals Emily would buy six penneth of pieces to make a stew, broken biscuits and cakes.
But they always had a joint of meat on a Sunday. If the meat smelled, it was soaked in vinegar and water. Emily lived to be ninety years (1956) old, which was a good age forty years ago and still is today.
Gladys attended St Luke's School not far from home, and Sunday school three times on Sunday, also the Band of Hope once a week. She left school at fourteen, two years after the war started (1916).
Her first job was in a trading place where they sorted out cards, but she didn't stay long, before moving to a place where they made light-fittings.
After a while she went to a well-known tea and cake shop where she worked for seven years, and it was there she had to put her long hair up in a bun, which was so large the hat hardly fitted.
Sometimes she worked at the desk or waited on tables; she was always very busy. When it was slack she would sit and mend the tablecloths.
The First World War was in progress now and all the wounded Rhodesian solders came to convalesce in Richmond Park. The men wore blue uniforms and they used to go into Gladys shop.
There was once a fire in the shop and the rats ran out down Water Lane, Richmond, in their thousands to the river. Gladys worked in a few similar confectionery places including Fullers.
Her brother Fred ran away from home in 1919. He come back a year later in the uniform of the American Services. He came home once and that was the last she ever saw of him.
However, later, when he had left the Services he opened a restaurant in Denver Colorado with his wife, and wanted Gladys to go and help them. The passport was obtained and she got on the quota entry, which was needed, then her brother took a lot of trouble to get her there.
Her mother, Emily, made evening gowns and dresses for the passenger ship. A week before the ship sailed she met the love of her life and so Gladys never went.
Her father died a few days after she would have sailed. She was just 23 years old. The love of her life was a policeman (James) who came into the shop; like a knight, they courted for four years before getting married.
Joyce Gale, Bristol, 2002
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