| Description | An interview with Jean JAMES, a widow woman with two daughters, who is a NVQ Assessor/student, born in Bidford-on-Avon and now living in Birmingham. Jean JAMES’s father was a Factory worker/security, born in ENGLAND and her mother a Factory worker born in ENGLAND. In the interview, she talks about …
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I was born in 1943 in Bidford-Upon-Avon just outside Birmingham…my mother was evacuated during the War.
Grew up in Acocks Green.
43” This is in the late forties, early fifties and it was a new housing estate.
1.01 Describes the house, had an inside bathroom and hallway. They were close to the country-side and had a farm at the back of their house.
2.48 There was no supermarkets when I’m talking about in the late forties, early fifties…
2.59 Co-op shops, iron mongers.
3.57 Never went to the city centre.
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Went to Lakey Lane School.
36” My early schooling…early fifties, late forties…
1.46 Pitmaston Rd school.
Didn’t like Secondary School, boring.
2.54It wasn't a good system because it separated people up very early and if you were just unlucky enough to fail your Eleven Plus…you were in…a second-class system, it wasn't such a good education..
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3” Description of her education, comparing with her brother’s grammar school education.
1.39 Left school at 16. Got job in office, although wanted to study nursing.
3.31 Joined the army, trained as a wages clerk.
4.11 First time she’d ever left Birmingham.
4.20 …when I was 16, which would have been late fifties…
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Regulated way of life in the army, she liked and hated it.
1.54 I think I was a bit of a rebel actually…in the sense that I didn't want to do what everyone else was doing...
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7” Excursions, no holidays except one to Blackpool until she was married.
54 Sunday School outings, free. First time she saw the sea in Rhyll; didn’t like it. Too much open space.
2.06 All went to Sunday School, whether parents were religious or not.
3.00 We’re talking about …early fifties to mid-fifties, I probably went to every Sunday School every Sunday.
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6” I left the army when I was 20 because I was expecting my first daughter…another rebellious move on my part, and I came home…
19” My family were very good about it... I had no problems with my family, I suppose they were a bit upset and a bit disappointed..
30” …my daughter was born in 1963, the year I was 20 and I went back to work within 5 weeks…
56” No benefits available. Moved in with her grandparents, where her daughter was brought up.
1.58 I met my husband when she was 3 and we married when she was 5.
2.13 Reactions to her pregnancy.
2.25 Unfortunately you couldn't stop in the army once it had happened, that was it, you were out. I kept it hidden…and I wasn't discharged from the army until daughter was born… (details about strenuous activities she did whilst hiding her pregnancy.) I did have to come out…I didn't have the option of staying...
3.18 Reactions of friends and neighbours.
…They didn't sort of say anything… I suppose I was ostracised in a way, people just didn't speak to me,they didn't actually say anything nasty…except for close friends and and neighbours and they were fine..
3.34 Grandfather: ‘It’s nobody else’s business but ours.’
3.57 I think my mother…she wanted my daughter adopted. My mother never mentioned it again from that day to this…Life wasn't very pleasant, it wasn't terrrible and I wouldn't say it was terrible…People couls ay more by not saying anything…
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8” …I've never regretted it…I'm glad people's attitude has changed to these sort of situations… people were very two-faced…there were girls in my street that I knew had had to get married and I could never understand why having to get married was better than not getting married, but it just seemed to be that that was the way it was done.
45” Story about her friend in same situation being ‘banished’ to a Mother and Baby home, her baby was taken away from her and adopted, never saw it again.
1.15 People making snide remarks, ‘poor little child,’ or would ignore her child.
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8”
People would ignore her in the street.
1.04 …You'd get snide remarks if Deborah was dressed up or she was…in a pretty dress…"Hm, I wonder who paid for that" …"It's peculiar isn't it that the child down the road hasn't got pretty dresses but she can have them."
1.32 A neighbour went to see the vicar before she was christened to say she didn’t think it was right to christen her, two other christenings were cancelled that were due to be held the same day.
2.09” …it was utter disgrace, it wasn’t just a hiccup…I think if I'd robbed a bank I wouldn’t have had the same attitude…it was the worst thing you could possibly possibly do…you were expected…to wear a wedding ring…to cover it up…
3.15” story about taking her daughter to the clinic.
3.28” one of the mid-wifes there always made a point of asking, ‘oh, and where is the baby’s father?’…I used to say ‘I don’t know,’ …I think it would have been accepted if I could have said ‘oh well, we may be getting married in 6 months time…’ if I’d have made excuses but because I’d decided that no, marriage was not an option, and this was my daughter and I was going to bring her up, and that was it…I remember one old lady saying ‘oh, I only thought film stars did things like this, and I felt quite good, I thought…I’m on a par with a film star…
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3” …my daughter was born in 1963, which by most peoples’ standards was the swinging sixties and the permissive society, but I don’t think the permissive society had got through to Acocks Green…it definitely hadn’t…
44” I was definitely called an unmarried mother, there was no other term for it…
1.00” her grandfather’s attitude to it all. ‘I had to be squeaky-clean from now on.’
3.22” the only place it was ever kept a secret was at work, because I would never have got the job I got if they had known I was an unmarried mother…in those days…there were no laws that protected the unmarried mother…
4.14 hiding her daughter from work.
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40”her daughter doesn’t remember the stigma attatched to her mother or herself.
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3” the…main effect that affected me really for the rest of my life was that it took my independence away, and it took my confidence away, and it brought home the fact that I had to rely on other people, so I couldn’t do what I wanted to do from now on, it had… to fit in with other people…it had a more lasting effect than I ever thought it would have.
1.20” …I felt that…my mother especially, expected me to feel beholden to her and that everything she did I had to be grateful for…
2.06” I lost that closeness with my mother, and we’ve never ever got it back…
3.04” things plodded on ‘til about…’66, Debbie was 3 and I met Alan who was going to be my future husband.
3.18” he knew about her daughter beforehand.
3.34” so, it was easy and in hindsight, I think I fell into a relationship where I felt safe in, not so much that I would have really chosen in other circumstances, I know it sounds like an awful thing to say now, all these years later, but I think I fell into one sort of situation to get away from another situation, I thinkIi thought as a married woman I would have more control over my life, and more control over Deborah’s life…it wasn’t so because Alan came from a very male oriented family…
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9” reaction of his family to knowledge of her daughter.
1.45” bought a house, moved into an area where no one knew them, all assumed that Deborah was both of theirs.
2.57” …life settled down and our second daughter was born in ’70.
3.12” we were the first people in …both families…to buy our own house…and I think that was the first time my mother ever felt proud of me…
4.16” description of the house. First time she’d had an inside toilet.
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Story about arguing with the neighbours about an unmarried mother across the road.
1.24” …after I’d got married in ’68 when Debbie was 5, I gave up work altogether ‘cos Alan thought that the woman’s place was in the home…and we should settle down…I didn’t work from ’68 to ’73 when my youngest daughter was 3, and then I went back to work…for two reasons…
2.26” financial - Debbie was deaf and needed two hearing aids, had to buy privately.
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14” difference in concepts of distances when there were no cars.
1.35” her love of the pictures, ‘like another world.’
Had television when she was 11.
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Various jobs; nursery nurse, sales ledger clerk, army accounts dept, wages clerk.
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Worked in a supermarket, started home care.
2.03” does NVQ assessing now.
2.07” regrets at underachieving. Obstacles to studying, story about her trying to persuade her husband to let her study.
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Went back to study with her daughter, studied sociology ‘O’ level together.
1.37” …the two girls were grown up, they’d got their own lives and so, for the first time in 40-odd years…I could do what I wanted to do…
2.14” did a return to learning course with some younger colleagues. Now studying a part-time degree.
3.14” it’s took me a good many years to get to this stage but…I’ve only got two more years to go.
3.25” lack of finance information.
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Studying Labour Studies, an expert in women studies.
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Story about seeing her first non-white person in the street.
Story about her mother fighting with someone in the street for calling a black boy racist names.
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some of the areas she works in, she’s seen racial tensions.
4.40” religious beliefs;
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‘you don’t have to be religious to be a good person.’ hypocrisy of religious people who ignored her daughter.
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Her mother was an unmarried mother too, during the war. Her father returned from the war.
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5” eldest daughter also had her child when she wasn’t married. Completely different attitudes in 1988. |