| Description | An interview with Kay DENNING, a widow woman with one son, one daughter, who is a Retired clerk, born in Wolverhampton and now living in Birmingham. Kay DENNING’s father was a Gun locksmith, born in England and her mother a Housewife born in England. In the interview, she talks about …
' Logged by Sonia Southern
01
I was born on April 11th 1910 in Wolverhampton, where she lived until she was married in 1935.
18”Her parents were working class and her father was frustrated because he never got on as well as he wanted to. Her father was a locksmith and her mother worked in a hairdresser's.
1.27” He parents were pleased when she passed the 11+ and her father brought her a pendant that she still has today.
1.56” “I went to Wolverhampton girls school”. Describes how she loved it there and compared it to her last school. Boys and girls were strictly segregated; she explains how she has no recollection of boys.
4.20” She went to live at her great uncle's house in Wolverhampton.
02
Describes the terraced house that she moved to when she was eight and she was sent to a local all girls school.
03
Anecdote 1921 “It was an all girls and I was quickly moved up as the classes started lower there than they did at the other school”. Gives a description of the scholarship that she obtained.
04
Tells that her daughter found that the rules that were around when her mother was at school were the same.
47” “You got to know the style of essay the teacher wanted”. Tells how she didn’t get the distinction that she had hoped for. She left there in 1926 and recalls the Queen being born in the April of her last term.
05
Talks of finding a job in the Slump.
06
“My family was very hard up”. Tells of the hardship that her parents faced.
07
She had to make her uniform last and recalls her father buying a gramophone at one stage when he was better off.
1.45” He bought a house in 1918, she can’t recall this being a usual thing for people to do in those years.
08
1.09” “We used to draw a lot and paint a lot”. Recalls her childhood memories, playing with her sister and her father taking her to the library and the Art Gallery.
3.48” Playing out in the street was not allowed it wasn’t seen as ladylike, her parents brought her up very strictly. She recalls going to Sunday school in the evening and reading regularly.
09
Re-start
10
“We used to read all the school girl books”. Tells of meeting the vicar and not being happy with him as he told everyone that she had bought ‘Peg’s Paper’, which referred to a common paper at this time.
11
She recalls playing the part as a soldier in a play that was ran by the church.
12
She was never invited to be in the dramas that took place at her school.
46” She didn’t make any close friends, so her sister and she made do with one another.
1.23” “It was lovely at the High School”. Describes how it looked and the education at that time.
13
Continues ...1926 she left school.
14
Tells of her job that she got in a shoe firm.
15
“We used to have to do today what would be done on a computer”. Describes what her job entailed and the wage that she got.
16
Concludes story.
17
“When I was 16 I didn’t know any boys at all”. Describes not knowing anything about boys.
18
Continues …when her mother had passed she was able to do more.
19
Concludes…1929, she formed a group of friends and tells of where they went together.
1.00” “One night the boy who organised the night brought his cousin”. This man was to become her husband.
2.00” It was classed as a terrible thing to have to live in rooms and there was no rented accommodation available. Her husband worked at the Austin.
20
40” 1935, She married and moved to Birmingham in the January of 1936.
21
Nobody who was pregnant was allowed to work.
22
“We came to Birmingham in 1936”. Describes how lonely she felt and how she wouldn’t have known what to do if she had moved there when the war was on.
1.00” “We lived in Northfield, Birmingham, but it was a very different Northfield from what we know now”. Describes what used to be in place of the Bell and the type of shops that were around.
3.18” In 1938 her son was born and then the war started.
23
Anecdote “My husband worked on ammunition”, gives a description of what happened in the area at the time of the war.
1.18” She had her daughter at home in 1941, she wasn’t allowed to have her in hospital because she had a husband and a house.
3.15” “I remember the one time when the children were getting over something”. Recalls about a bomb that had gone off at Smallbrook Queensway in Birmingham city centre.
5.20” End of the war and how everything was rationed.
24
Re-start.
25
“I joined the Townswoman’s Guild in the 1950’s”. Recalls making a number of friends with whom she formed a drama group. They put on a performance for local pubs and elderly people.
26
She played a part as an unpleasant person and the girls that she knew wouldn’t speak to her for a week.
27
She became a producer and used to produce plays for festivals.
1.00” The women were working class.
28
Not many of the ladies in the Guild worked.
29
She took a job in the summer holiday; she worked at a couple of firms until she was 70.
30
“I think really it did keep me young”. Tells of her the work that she did up until she was 70.
31
Job she got as a trouble-shooter.
2.00” Her husband died in 1979 when she was 69.
2.35” The Townswoman’s Guild packed up, Kay believes that television played a great part as people are entertained at home.
3.00” “And my daughter in law introduced me to Professor Bernard Isaacs”. A group called the Thousand Elders was set up for which Kay worked; she used to test to see if elderly people could open certain product containers, stair lifts and window locks etc.
32
“When I was a girl I remember the married woman’s property act coming in around the 1920s”. Recalls having to hand over her money to her father and her husband had to do the same, she recalls men being the head of the household in those days.
2.25” “Even now it surprise’s me when the grandchildren expect their husbands to help after the husbands have done a day’s work, I don’t think that they ought to be asked to wash up and things of that sort”. Continues to tell how it was completely different.
33
She got married in Tettenhall Church in Wolverhampton.
34
She spent her honeymoon in Malvern; George Bernard Shaw was there who Kay thought was a silly old man.
1.19” “In the day when I was married, it was quite a thing for a bride not to say ‘love honour and obey’. She recalls that you were not taught to strike out like the children are nowadays.
2.37” “I used to go into the City and there would be all these black people in colourful hats and frocks”. Her recollection and thoughts on immigration. She agreed with Enoch Powell…
35
Concludes… and of course the coloured people that came were railway staff and have done extremely well at it, and woman and nursing staff, the same.
ENDS |