After daddy died I got to sleep his old bed with my sister. So away from Mam I used the light that he had used to read in bed until I was discovered
They took the light bulb out. So I lay there in the dark with my sister who was fast asleep by then until I got the idea of going on to the landing
Landing was small but there was a light and on the floor there were some oil cloth. It was very cold but like a medieval saint I did not let the suffering of the body deter me from reading my library books although sadly I have no recollection of what they were.
Of course you went to school so you could learn to read but some people some children just want to read too much and it will be very bad for them… they will be living in another world .
Well that was the point I think it was very cold on the landing in the winter and although my mother had had a door put at the bottom of the stairs where they went into the kitchen nevertheless at any moment someone might open that door and see me. I don’t know what the punishment would be I would have been but just being scolded was bad enough. It wasn’t just that you will be a naughty child but you’ll be an evil sinner bound for hell
I wonder if it was simply that I didn’t like to lie in that bed where daddy had died
When I was older I could stay downstairs for longer and read sitting on the sofa which had a wooden seat because the springs had gone and Daddy had made this into a cupboard . Where they really so short of money?b m
Maybe it wasetter sleeping with my mother and my two sisters in my mother’s bed rather than in that bedroom
A child can feel so lonely in a bedroom at night even when there are other people in the house because we are forbidden to get out of bed and to go screaming into someone else’s bedroom
There was so much fear and so much darkness and yet also so much happiness and joy
