Home › Our Memoirists › Muriel Baldrey (Johnson) › 1935–1939
Last modified: 13 October 2026
Muriel Mary Baldrey (Johnson), 1915–1999
I can’t remember much about this year, Stan and I were going strong, he had a friend called Harry Page, who liked Helena very much and at one time we tried to go around in a foursome, but Helena was not really keen on Harry and it did not work out. Stan and Harry shared the same birthday, and they had made a regular thing of cycling down to Esher on their birthday, having a pint and back again, so this year I went with them, as I had bought a bike and had mastered it pretty well considering I had never cycled before. Stan and I went out most Saturdays in the summer, perhaps to Richmond Park (then a lovely place with no cars), or further out to Surrey. In the winter he played Rugby and as his sports ground was over at Epping Forest, I didn’t go over there very much.
Stan’s mother and father asked if I would like to go with them to Worthing this year. They couldn’t book up for me to stay in the same house, but a sister of their landlady could put me up next door but one near to where they were staying. Frank was going as well, but he was in one of his moods this holiday, and hardly spoke to us the whole of the fortnight. Stan and I enjoyed this holiday very much, we often went for walks along the Downs, as we were staying at Broadwater at the back of Worthing. We went along to see Mr. and Mrs. Coxall — who were once keen workers at St. Marks — who had retired to Worthing. The one big snag was that I didn’t sleep very well a we were very near to the tiny village Church and there was a clock in the steeple which struck every quarter of an hour. I think I woke regularly at 3a.m. and heard the clock strike most of the time after that. I expect I was a bit nervous in a strange house.
Around about Christmas time I had an attack of ‘flu, I was very fed up about this as we had arranged to go to Stan’s College Dance, and Betty and Stan’s friend, Jack, were making up a foursome. However, I couldn’t go and Betty went and I think they had quite a good time. Betty, incidentally had left Waifs and was working with the “British Israelites” at Victoria, another friend of hers, Phyllis Dorsett, had got her the job, with more money I think.
I started back to work after Christmas, but then started ear trouble, and the Doctor diagnosed abscesses in the ears. Just after Christmas Mum took the boys up to Olympia to see the Circus. It was a miserable day and I think they got very wet as it was raining. When they arrived home Peter said he felt sick and was coughing quite a bit, the outcome of this was that he developed a high temperature, and the Doctor diagnosed double pneumonia.
One other thing that I remember this year was that I was Minniehaha in the Girls’ Club Production of “Hiawatha”. I remember that I had to die, and they carried me through the Hall on a stretcher. I think when I jumped off the other end, there must have been a reporter there, as in the news flash in the local paper, they said I died very realistically, but soon came to life outside.
One other thing was that my mother did not settle in very happily at 16, Dorlcote, the people round about were very snobbish. Next door to us there was a Solicitor, and at No. 18, the Borough Surveyor of Chelsea lived, then in the end house of Baskerville Road, Lord and Lady Purvis lived, and they had a uniformed maid. Una Linden (now Mrs Stevenson) and her sister couldn’t even bring themselves to say ‘Good Morning’ to us — how are the mighty fallen. Dad and I didn’t mind, but I think it worried my mother quite a bit. However, Auntie Rose was living at Strathblaine, and my mother saw quite a bit of her. She was living downstairs and letting the top flats, but there was always so much trouble that my father sold the house. The new owner allowed Auntie to stay on. Bert was going out with Eva then.
This year started badly as the abscesses in my ears continued and I became very deaf. Peter was also very seriously ill with double pneumonia. My mother had to nurse him night and day, so they had a woman in to cook and do the housework. In January, because there were no drugs to help with the illness at that time, Peter had what was called a crisis — that is, one night when the illness reached its peak he either died or recovered. He was unconscious and my mother went to renew the hot water bottle and found that it had leaked and that he was lying in a pool of water. Both my mother and father cried as they thought this would be the end, however he rallied towards morning and gradually got better.
This was about the time that King George V died, and I remember sitting on Peter’s bed and listening to details of the King’s funeral on the wireless.
About February 13th I was attending to the drops that I had to put in my ears when I realised that I had a swelling at the back of my left ear. My mother realised that this was something serious as she had attended to David when he had a mastoid. She rang the Doctor and asked him if he could find out when they had the clinic at the Golden Square Ear Nose and Throat Hospital, and he said he would let her know. In the meantime I went round to see Stan’s mother as I had arranged to do, but my mother came for me in the evening, and with Stan we went up to the Hospital. We were late and I was the last to be attended to — directly the Doctor felt the swelling he said to another Doctor that I would have an operation immediately –was I scared. They took me upstairs, and after I had been given a gown to wear and my clothes taken away I went into the ward and they shaved one side of my head.
I walked to the operating theatre and when I was lying on the table I asked them if they would give me a minute before they gave me the anaesthetic — I thought I was going to die –however, I woke up in the morning and never having been in hospital before, I thought I could get up — panic stations, when I thought I started to get out of bed. They moved me to a private ward, as Dad decided he would pay for this, and there I stayed for three weeks, with visitors only allowed in on Sundays and Wednesdays. I was so glad to see Mum and Dad and Stan and longed to get home. However, I made friends with a rather nice girl who lived at Raynes Park — Vivian –she came in to have her tonsils out and there were some complications. I saw her once or twice afterwards, I think we played tennis once.
I came out of hospital after the three weeks with packing in my ear, and I had to go up to the hospital each day to have it renewed.
At the end of March it was decided that Peter and I should go down to Auntie Edie’s at Eastbourne to convalesce. It was bitterly cold down there by the sea. However, Auntie Lil and Uncle Bob were down there as well and they all looked after us. Stan came down one day, and we walked along the beach in a terrific gale. However, it seemed to do us good, and when we came back I started back to work.
I remember going to the Ideal Home exhibition with Stan, as his father was on the British Legion Exhibition Stand. They had some rather nice rings, and I said I would like one — Stan bought me one, and his father dared me to put it on my engagement finger — Stan thought that was a good idea, and I went along with it, telling them at work that he would buy me a proper one when he left College.
In April we went to Phyllis Pedler’s 21st party, she took us all to the Theatre. So in May when I was 21, I thought I would like to do the same, so about 15 of us had a meal at Mum’s on the Saturday and we all went up on the bus to see ‘Call it a Day’ — we all enjoyed this unusual treat.
Stan took his Finals in the Summer and he passed with flying colours. It was decided that he would come to Lulworth with us this year, and we joined the family there for a fortnight. We did a lot of walking and once got lost in the thick mist whilst walking along the cliffs, which wasn’t very pleasant. Whilst we were away, Stan heard that he had been posted to the Ashford Residential School, and was to start there at the beginning of September.
I think it was probably in the November of this year that Stan had the offer of a car for about £20 from somebody at the school — it was an old Police car with a “dicky seat.” He decided to buy this, as it would help him to go and see his mother who had moved down to Aylesford to be with his father now that Stan’s training was finished. They were now living in a lovely old house called “The Game Farm” and Stan and his brother were still at the flat at Harbut Road looked after by his grandparents. They had taken over the flat from his mother as the rent was cheaper than theirs at Maida Vale. The Grandfather’s sister was also living there, and Stan and Frank slept on a put-u-up in the front room.
We spent part of Christmas at Aylesford, and it was nice having the car.
The highlight of this year was getting married and moving into our house at Ashford Common, called “Oaklands”. It was situated on the Staines Road and faced the big Queen Mary Reservoir. It had three bedrooms, a kitchenette, lounge and dining room. A very long garden ran down to a gravel pit which was filled with water and sometimes used for swimming and boating. We didn’t have very much money, in fact the accumulated amount that I had paid into the pension fund bought most of our things.
We scouted around and bought a dining table and chairs for about £3.00 (we still have the chairs incidentally), Stan had made the sideboard as his final job at College, he also made a desk and a chair for himself, and we had another small easy chair given to us as a wedding present. Also rugs for the bedroom, dining room and lounge. Mum gave us the bed, and we managed to find a wardrobe and dressing table to match for around £5.00. We bought lino for the dining room, bedroom and kitchen, bathroom and toilet, and stair carpet and curtains.
All our china, cooking utensils, glass, linen, I had either bought before, or were wedding presents.
So we settled in. We could only afford to tax the car for holidays, so Stan used his bike to go backwards and forwards to School, and he used to come home to lunch at about 12.45 p.m., then home to tea at 4.15 p.m. Sometimes he went back to the School to take an evening class from about 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The people who lived on the left side ran a big transport business and were quite well-off. They helped us a lot in tackling the garden, lending us tools and giving us plants. We managed to conquer the front garden, but never made much headway with the back. It was completely overgrown with grass, and as we didn’t have a mower, and were unable to afford one, we didn’t get very far.
We had a very good grate in the dining room with a back boiler, this kept us very warm and provided hot water. We were managing on a shoe string, I think Stan’s weekly earnings came to £3.17.6. — our budget must have been something like the following:-
Rent £1.1.0
Gas and Electricity 10.0
Coal 5.0
Laundry 3.0
Food £1.0.0
Insurance 1.0
Stan 10.0
Clothes, etc. 7.6
£3.17.6
He was paid monthly, so we made a little box, and divided it into sections for each of the main items of expense, and each month divided the money into these sections. I can remember that, probably the night before Stan was due to be paid, we were without a penny, and if the electricity went (as it was on a meter) we had to sit in the dark. The Greens, the people next door, sold us a wireless set for about £1.00, and with my parents wedding present a cheque for £5.00 we bought a second-hand suite for the lounge, and polished the floor as we couldn’t afford a carpet. Stan made a bookcase and occasional table, so we felt we were very comfortable.
Pam was due to arrive in December, and my mother helped me to get all the necessary things. I was going to have her at home, and our local doctor — Dr. Macintosh was very nice and towards the end called to give me my weekly examinations. As I was on my own then, Mrs Green would come in when the Doctor arrived. I engaged the local mid-wife, a very large motherly woman called Nurse Walters.
I started labour in the evening of the Monday 30th November, and went all through the night with slight pains and sickness, then all day, and towards the evening the doctor decided that it would have to be an instrument birth, so he gave me chloroform, and of course I remember nothing of it, only coming to and being told that I should have to have more chloroform so that they could get the after-birth away.
I think I must have given them a lot of trouble, as when they finally looked at Pam, her cord had become unknotted and she had lost an awful lot of blood. However, she was a lovely babe weighing nearly 9lbs, and although I felt very weak, it was marvellous having our first child. Nurse Walters was very good, and looked after us both night and morning. I also had a daily woman to cook and clean — I think Mum and Dad paid for her. We were kept in bed for ten days at that time, and were in fear of putting our feet to the ground before the tenth day.
I didn’t like it when Stan had to go to night-school, and I was on my own. However, we got by, and I was able to feed Pam, as I had plenty of milk.
We decided to spend Christmas at home this year, but my mother and father and Auntie Winnie and Uncle Will came down to see us, I think it was on Boxing Day. We had gas fires in our bedrooms, and this helped tremendously with bathing Pam in the morning before we got the coal fire downstairs really going.
Uncle Will gave us a big wooden cot, which stayed in the family until we moved up to No.18 Dorlcote. We had to buy the pram and I believe we paid weekly for this.
This was a very happy year, we liked our little house, and Pam was progressing very well. I was having no problem with feeding her, and had established a very good routine. At Easter, Mum and Dad and the boys came down to stay with us, I can’t remember how we managed to put them all up, but we did buy a bed for the big spare room, and I expect Dad supplied camp beds. Dad and Stan took the boys on a trip in a motor boat from Laleham, and Mum and I pushed the pram down to Laleham to meet them.
Pam was christened at Christ Church, Staines. Betty and Phyllis were godparents. Also Dennis. We invited the Greens and had quite a good christening party.
Stan wanted to go to the school camp this year at Walton-on-the-Naze, and so it was decided that I should stay with Mum, this was a fortnight in June. During this time Phyllis was married to Frank Pedlar at the Mallinson Road Baptist Church, and Mum, Dad and I went. They had a nice reception at the Express Hall at the Junction. When Stan returned we took out the tax on the car, so that we could run it through the summer. We spent some time in August with Stan’s Mum and Dad at Aylesford, and I can remember that we took his mother across to Worthing for the day.
Frank, Stan’s brother, was married this summer to Phyllis, and their mother and father came up to the wedding and then came back to Ashford for the night, it was the only time they saw our house as his father hated travelling.
I went to Stan’s school sports, and met the Headmaster, Mr Bailey — he was a very nice man. Stan was very friendly with the metalwork Master, Mr Frost, and also got on well with Mr Wright, Mr Jones and a Mr Buckle, who, of course, we were friendly with after the War.
We had Pam’s photograph taken on her first birthday and sent copies to the grandparents for Christmas. I think we spent Christmas with my parents and then went on to Maidstone.
It was about this time that I knew I was expecting again and so I went round to Doctor Macintosh once again and arranged for him to attend me. Nurse Walters had retired, so I booked another mid-wife, who lived in Village Way.
I had also become friendly with a Mrs Smith, who lived further down Staines Road, and who had a little girl called Anne, who was about a year older than Pam. I sometimes had a cup of tea with her in the afternoon, and also often went into Mrs Green’s in the afternoon, or we played cards with them in the evening. Of course there was no T.V. but we liked listening to the wireless, and one show we enjoyed was “Band Wagon” with Arthur Askey.
It was very nice in the summer as we faced the reservoir, and in those days we often saw herons on the banks, and the walk along by the golf- course was very nice. Our garden was very overgrown at the back, but we had conquered the front and it looked very nice.
We sometimes spent a day with Bert and Eva at their house in Morden, or with Frank and Phyllis Pedlar who had a house at Banstead. Stan’s brother had a flat at Bromley but I only remember going there once.
Considering what was to come it was a lovely time and I don’t think the world has been as nice since the War.
This year started quite peacefully. I kept well whilst carrying Wendy and Pam was very forward with talking. She walked at 14 months and was really a little imp, as once she started walking it was a job to keep her inside. I remember on one occasion I was having a little nap after lunch and she was playing with her toys. I woke with a start to hear somebody with high heel shoes on coming down the path to the front door. It was Pam. She had put my shoes on whilst I was asleep and gone out the back door, which incidentally wouldn’t shut properly, and was parading up and down the front path. This was highly dangerous because of the main road. Just before Wendy was born we started fixing some wooden fencing on the very low garden wall in order to stop Pam climbing this and going to see the neighbours, as she sometimes did.
My mother and father spent Easter with Uncle Henry in Manchester, their first visit to Vincent Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy. I think it was then that Den first met Edith. She was in Madge’s class at school and spent a lot of time with them. We went up to No. 16 and looked after dad for a week after Easter and I can remember we took the old banger up to Euston and met mum and the boys when they came back.
I was given the 16th June as the date on which Wendy was expected, but nothing happened. The doctor and nurse were due to take their holidays in July, so they were both anxious that I should have the baby before that. However, nothing happened until Saturday evening the 15th July. Stan was out in the garden seeing to the fencing and I was reading a book before putting Pam to bed. I felt the first twinge and it was action stations, to get Pam to bed and get our bedroom ready for the birth.
Later Stan rang the doctor, but our own doctor was away and Dr Pickard was on call, but he had gone to a party and finally a young doctor came along. Of course, my nurse wasn’t there either and an older woman who didn’t seem to have much experience came along. I think all went well with the birth, I don’t remember much about this, as the woman was letting me have frequent sniffs of chloroform. Then the rot set in, as the afterbirth wouldn’t come away and they obviously didn’t know what to do about it.
I think finally the doctor tried to get it away which took ages and they finally left me at about 5am in a terrible state. The nurse came back at about 10am to clean me up but it had been a pretty awful night.
Mum came to stay a few days and Stan took Pam up to Victoria to his mother who was going to look after her for a week or two. I remember it was mum and dad’s Silver Wedding on the 18th July and dad came down and they had lots of telegrams. That evening I didn’t feel so good and when the nurse came I was running a temperature, so she called the doctor and they decided that I would have to go to hospital. The nurse wasn’t allowed to look after me any longer in case I had something infectious which could be passed to other mothers. I was in quite a state and begged them not to send me to hospital. However, I suppose I was really ill and had to have better attention.
I arrived at West Middlesex hospital late at night and I think Stan had quite a job getting back home again. I was in an isolation ward, as they probably thought I had puerperal fever. However, I think it was something wrong with my blood due to having lost so much at the birth. There were too many white corpuscles, I can only remember having a terrific pulse rate and not wanting to move much as I had a terrible headache all the time. Finally a young Australian doctor saw me and decided he would have to try out a new treatment to save my life as I wasn’t responding to drugs.
This was called the constant drip and meant being attached to bottles of blood, which was dripped into me through a vein in my leg.
At that time there was no blood bank, transfusion was in its early stages. My donors came in and laid on a bed in the same ward when giving blood. One night the tube came out and there was blood all over the bed. They called a woman doctor to see to it and she was horrible — said it was all my own fault that I was in this state as I hadn’t had my teeth attended to. At that time my front teeth weren’t in a very good state, probably due to having two babies too quickly.
However, I started to improve, afterwards they told me I was on open order and I used to wonder how it was that Stan was allowed in so frequently — he said that my father was a friend of one of the governors, in order to allay my suspicions that I was so ill. I managed to feed Wendy, at one time one of the nurses held her as I was so weak.
When I was nearly due for discharge, mum and dad decided that they must take their holiday or dad wouldn’t get one. So they took the boys down to Lulworth and it was arranged that I should go down to Aylesford when I left the hospital. One of Stan’s friends, Mr Frost, said he would take us down there in his car and it was lovely to see Pam again. She had been so happy with Stan’s parents and they idolised her. Wendy was a funny looking little baby but very good, gradually she grew into a very pretty, happy child.
After a week at Aylesford, which brought us to about the 25th August it became obvious that there was going to be a war — by this time everybody had blackout in their house, shelters in their gardens and gas masks. A letter arrived for Stan telling him to report to the school as they were going to be evacuated. I couldn’t believe it but he had to go and left me with his mother. Of course it didn’t work out, it wasn’t fair on her, she had had weeks of looking after Pam and now she had me and the babe. I couldn’t walk very well, as where I had had the transfusion was a very sore place — very slow to heal and making my foot stiff, so I limped a bit. I was also under the doctor down there.
I think also Frank and Phyllis were there, as they had arranged to have their holiday there before all my business cropped up. His mother got more and more tense and when Stan came down at the weekend I begged him to take me home, he had helped to evacuate the school to Maidenhead and he had gone into digs down there, so I was on my own when we got back to Oaklands. However, dad came back from Lulworth and said I couldn’t be on my own, so he arranged for Alice to come and stay with me.
Came Sunday, 3rd September, and I went down to the phone box to ring Stan after hearing that war had been declared. I was in the box with Pam, when suddenly the sirens sounded and Police cars came tearing around from all directions. I was absolutely terrified, I picked up Pam and started to run back to the house, people in gas masks were looking out of their windows at me, I don’t know how I made it back. Of course, it turned out that this was a false alarm, but everybody thought Germany were going to attack.
With thanks to Muriel’s family.