CHAPTER 1
It seems to be traditional to ask someone recalling their long life if they can bring to mind their earliest memory. Mine goes back to when I was probably about two years old, sitting in my high chair in the kitchen, wedged behind the table in a corner. That's it, folks! I don't think I was screaming, or refusing my rice pudding, or in any way having a tantrum. I'm just there, and I have no recollection of anyone else. It may be deeply meaningful, but I doubt it.
My next memory is when I was just three. I am standing in front of my father, who is squatting on the floor and dressing me in my Chilprufe vest and knickers. He says I have a baby sister. This is quite surprising. She and Mummy are in the bedroom and I have to be quiet. My sister was called Rosemary, a name we somehow reduced to Rosebud until she became too old for that.
I started school at Chasely School, Ruislip, when I was four-and-a-half—the normal school age in England at that time. The first day—or at least part of it—is burnt into my memory. I was put at a small table in what I now remember as a bay window, and given a book to write in. It had numbers in it, and I had to copy them out. That was fine, no problems. But I was extremely daunted by the other children, whom I found very threatening, though in honesty I cannot recall that anyone ever did anything unpleasant to me. I was a very shy child, a fact that will surprise my many friends today.
In 1934 my brother Philip arrived on the scene. I was sent off to stay with my grandmother Rothwell while this event was happening; my cousin Pat, a few months older than I was, lived with Grandma, and in due course she and I came back to my home in north London. Grandma lived in Lancashire, and I have always had a real affection for that part of the world.
Home, for me, now contained a small baby and—horrors!—a nurse, as well as my parents and Rosemary. I took a strong dislike to the nurse, who seemed to come between me and my mother. At the far end of the garden, as yet uncleared of weeds, was a large patch of sorrel, and I gathered the seeds and made a cup of tea—well, I put some in my toy teapot and poured warm water on it—and offered it to Nurse, who really annoyed me by saying 'no thank you, dear'. I think I had hoped it would make her sick—or at least go away. I wonder if there are many five-year-old murderers about. And could this be a link with the crime stories I started writing half a century later?
Pat and I stood at the foot of my mother's bed. Somewhere, no doubt, the baby snuffled, but I don't remember it. We wondered why Mummy was in bed. Pat, always more outgoing than I in those days, said: 'What's the reason for the cause of the poorliness, Auntie Lily?'—a saying that has gone down in the annals of my family ever since, though Pat doesn't remember it, and was much amused when I told her about it a few years ago.
Pat's early history is worth recording. Her mother, Lottie, was my mother's sister, and she and her husband Norman went to live in Canada with their small sons, Norman and Brian, in the latter half of the 1920s.
Pat was born in Alberta in August 1928, seven months before I arrived in Lancashire. Her home was in a small town, Red Deer, and in the winter after her birth they were snowed in. At this difficult moment Lottie became ill with pneumonia, and they were unable to get her to hospital. She died when Pat was a few months old.
Grandma and Grandpa Rothwell undertook to raise the children, easing a situation that would have been very difficult for Norman, still trying to establish himself. The three little ones were brought home by ship in the care of a nurse. 'Babes of bulldog breed' was the newspaper headline announcing their safe arrival.
In due course, Norman remarried; he and Marjorie had three more children: and Norman junior, Brian and Pat grew up in the heart of the Rothwell family—a busy household, with two young uncles, Tom and James, also living at home.
By the time Philip arrived I had had my tonsils removed, a horrendous operation more in keeping with 19th century medicine than 20th. I developed pyelitis, a condition that has left me vulnerable for the rest of my life to 'waterworks' problems. Worse than that, it left me with a phobia involving mild suffocation and the fear of soft things over my head, as a result of extremely poor management of the pre-op situation, combined with a fear of being thought naughty which meant that I never told anyone, including my parents, how awful it had been. It is ironic that my father, then and for the rest of his working life, was employed at the Ministry of Health!
By the time I was about six, of course, I began to pile up experiences, and the memories are too many to relate (though perhaps I should confess that Tudor Harper kissed me behind the classroom door. He was an older man, almost seven, and I told my mother when I got home. 'Oh, did he!' she said rather meaningfully—and probably smothering a laugh—and I had my first lesson in What One Should Not Tell One's Mother). But my big crush was on my teacher, Miss Norman. When she left I tore upstairs as soon as I got home, shut myself in the toilet and cried very hard. School was never quite the same again.
Ickenham High School, when I was eight, mercifully only lasted a year. I went to school on the underground train—which was above ground by the time it got to us—from Eastcote to Ickenham in the variable care of the 'big girls', who were all of twelve years old and ignored us kids completely. To use the train I had to have a season ticket, and I suppose it is quite surprising that in that whole year I never lost it. I developed a fear, not of trains, but of the gap between the train and the platform. If one is determined to spend one's life in various forms of fear there are always plenty of opportunities. I think this one arose from the story that a woman had fallen under the train a short while before, and both her legs had been cut off. Whether this was true or not I have no idea, but the 'big girls' made a meaty story out of it, and had us, or me at least, properly scared.
I was also terrified of the headmistress, who had a way of taking misbehaving children into her study and 'slippering' them. I don't know whose slipper she used. I only know that I lived with the knowledge that I was going to do something wrong, however hard I tried not to, and the slipper would be mine! The day we were playing netball and my friend gave me a lolly—which if course was absolutely forbidden (as nearly everything except breathing and eating was)—and I was caught! almost brought my life to a shuddering end. Fortunately, nothing and happened—but I knew it would, one day.
I have wondered why I was so timid in those days. With a good home and loving parents I should have had more confidence in myself. I don't recall ever being 'put down' at home. Mum and Dad were encouraging, expecting me to do my best, but not reacting negatively if I failed at something. Although my fearfulness slowly waned over the years I was still very sensitive even in my early teens, and very aware of that terrible thing, being laughed at. I'm thankful that marriage and a family gave me greater confidence. Fear is all right in its place, but not when it inhibits growth.
I remember the old king, George V, dying in 1936. A solemn voice on the...
