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really enjoyed himself when Mr. Farrow visited. Mr. Farrow was an accountant who used to come to see Grandfather; they both fortified themselves with a glass of beer before they dared to go down to my grandfather. Grandfather would go mad if Mr. Farrow asked him for sixpence in the pound income tax!

“It’s my money”, he would say, “I earned it nobody can have it”

“But you must pay this tax,” Mr. Farrow would reply.

“I’m not paying any Income tax!” and so it would go on. Yes her father and Mr. Farrow quite enjoyed them over this beer.

Her father never went to the pub; he bought his beer at the off licence. There was also a traveller who called every other week. He had a glass of beer with my father and as we were his last customers he would leave me his samples. There may have been a little box with a sweet in it. These sweets were lovely little creamy things; she used to love them. She longed for this ‘Pinks’, traveller to come. She would be asking all the time is the ‘Pinks’ traveller would call this week.

The only holidays she had were to Wales to visit her Welsh grandmother Dorothy was put on the train at Paddington, in the charge of the guard. She would take a packet of sandwiches to eat on the journey. Her grandmother had three servants. It was no disgrace to call them “servants”in those days for it was an honourable position. The girls her grandmother had were very happy. The servants would be hired at the Hiring Fair at Barmouth Bridge. Quite often her grandmother would know the farmer whose girls they were. Those poor girls had to leave their mothers but were lucky for my grandmother was kind to them.

Some families of shepherds or labourers were very poor; they perhaps had six of more children. If the eldest ones could get into service it meant one less mouth to feed. When the girls were old enough they would be taken to the Hiring Fair. These people could not read or write so advertising was of no use. There were no newspaper advertisements and no job centres, so there was no disgrace to go to the hiring fair. A cowman would have a favour (badge) on him and a shepherd wore a different colour badge and in this way their employees were easily identifiable.

The girls would stand around and the employers like her grandmother would choose the one she thought would be appropriate. The girl was given the opportunity to say she didn’t want to go with the prospective employer. Dorothy’s mother could remember going to Barmouth Bridge to see the Drovers assembling their cattle ready to be taken to London. It was two hundred and forty miles to London and the drovers and cattle had to walk all the way.

Wales was a very poor country in those days but when the railway was introduced it brought many visitors to see this wonderful country. The visitors rented rooms with her grandmother. There were no cars in those days and a whole train would be hired to bring the family from London. At the station in Wales there would be a carriage and horses waiting one for the parents, a carriage for the children and their nurse, a carriage for the servants and a carriage for hangers on, such as poor aunts or unmarried sisters. The entire luggage was put in the luggage van. The attics in the house were saved for the servants. Dorothy slept in the attic with her mother. She remembers on one occasion, she threw her coat on the floor and her mother told me to pick it up. I refused saying one of the servants could do it. My mother told me off and made me apologise to

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