A Child of the 1950's

Chapter Twenty – Family friends

Arthur and May Yeandle

Mum and dad had lots of friends. Some of them went to our church. Mr Arthur Yeandle and his wife May lived a couple of minutes away in Chelsea Road. They were quite a bit older than mum and dad. They had one son called John who was a bit of a loner. Mr Yeandle took Sunday School at our church and was also a Church Warden. He read out the notices at church and helped give out hymn books in the vestibule as people entered. He was a lovely, quiet, gentle person. He felt more like family to me. May never went to church.

Arthur Yeandle and his wife May came over once a fortnight to play cards with mum and dad. Every other week we went to their house, my sister and I went too and played games on the floor while they played cards round the table.  There was always an awful lot of laughing going on and they really enjoyed their evenings together. They usually played cribbage or Wist. I never learned how to play cribbage, but I can play Wist. They spent the evening smoking and the room was full of smoke! We had not heard about passive smoking at the time, and my sister and I were often in the room watching them play. At the time cigarettes were much stronger than they are today:  Woodbines and John Players.

Dad smoked every day, but mum only smoked socially with friends and did not draw the smoke into her lungs.

I liked Mr Yeandle very much. He was a true gentleman.  He had been in the navy in World War II and his ship was torpedoed. He was injured and as a consequence, only had one lung. Not a good idea to smoke when you have one lung! He had a small tattoo of (I think) an anchor on one arm. Typical for a sailor!

Mr Yeandle got cancer, probably lung cancer and died when I was in my early teens. He looked very ill for a long time. We were all very sad. May died about two years later, also with cancer (probably lung). It was the end of an era. It was especially sad for their son John, who appeared to have no friends.

Dulver and Mavis

Mum and dad had friends called Dulver and Mavis. Dulver and dad shared a car, Dulver used it one week and dad the next. I suppose they couldn't afford a car of their own. Dulver helped dad to repair the car in our garden as we had a garage for a while until the roof fell down. Then they had to use the open area where the garage had been! Dulver and Mavis lived along Easton Road. I don't think they had any children. I remember Dulver and Mavis when I was pre-school age, but afterwards they moved away, not sure where. A row of very old houses was to be demolished and they lived in one of them, I believe. After they moved away, we never saw them again.

Vera and Trevor Nun

There was a family at church called Nun. Her name was Vera and he was Trevor. They had two boys called Philip and Terry. Terry was the eldest. He was very serious, but Philip was like a whirlwind, always getting into trouble! He was a handsome boy with blonde hair. I liked him, but people kept saying 'You're nothing like your brother!' which is a really awful thing to say to a child. My mum used to get upset on his behalf! I hope he didn't grow up with a chip on his shoulder. Why should he be like his brother? Don't people say some stupid things at times? And cruel! I expect he settled down when he was older in any case. I hope he made a million! Ha, ha!

I can remember Vera, wearing a smart navy suit and a small hat, close to her head and her husband standing at her side. He was very smart in a grey suit, white shirt and red tie. They were downstairs in the Sunday School room, having come to collect Philip. It was their last Sunday at the church and Vera was telling mum they were moving away because of her husband's job. Going to London or somewhere in the South East. Mum was saying she was sorry to see them go. This seemed to be the beginning of the congregation dwindling down. I was very sad to see them go too! Philip had been with me in Sunday School from the age of four and now we were six or seven.

Aunty Glad and Uncle Alf

Mum and dad had friends called Gladys and Alf. We called her Aunty Glad and we were very fond of her. She was very nice and always good for a laugh. Alf was a bit more serious. They had two children called Margaret and Mervyn. When we started to go to West Bay in the caravan, they also came in their own caravan. We had some lovely times together. I have lots of photographs from that time.