Vol 3. Chapter 3 - Secrets and Lies

 My sister, Pauline was born 7^th December 1961.  I was 11 and my sister, Irene was 8.

  

In the midst of rejoicing over a new baby sister, I had a sense of unease. Something was not quite right. In a break with tradition, it is my father who registered Pauline’s birth.  Looking at her birth certificate, I noticed that Pauline had a different mother to me.  Her birth certificate clearly said: Mother: Margaret nee Clarke. Whilst mine said, Margaret nee Walters.  How can this be? Pauline and I have different mothers? 

As an 11 year old, all sorts of irrational thoughts go through one’s mind. Am I adopted?  Is this woman really my mother? Had dad been married before and my real mum had died?  Was mum really my stepmother. Such suspicions worried me for a long time. Certainly, if mum was my stepmother then it explained why I felt that nothing I do could please her, why nothing I did was good enough and why there was never any praise for anything I did.

About 5 years later I came home from school to discover mum in floods of tears.  She wouldn’t tell me why she was crying. She simply said that “Things had happened in the past. It is a secret.”   She told me that after she was dead, I was to ask her sister, Auntie Eileen, to tell everything that happened before she was married. Auntie Eileen knows everything. Sadly, Auntie Eileen died before she could tell me.

Throughout my life, mum has wanted me to be her confidante. Often she tried to push me into an inappropriate role of being her counsellor. She said she couldn’t talk to my father. I believe this was symptomatic of problems in their relationship that went back to the very beginning. I think it was also child abuse!

My father had never been a party animal. He was always content with his own company, quietly doing the crossword or reading the newspaper from the price on front page to the name of the publisher on the back.

My mother, however, always wanted to be out and about socialising and meeting people.  This had always been a bone of contention between them dating back to their courting days. Her twin passions were clothes and dancing.

Mum made the running in chasing after dad. My mother’s dream of marrying dad, however, was shattered when he broke off their relationship. She was devastated when he threw her over and within three weeks she had married a man she’d met at a dance. The one thing that they had in common was the love of dancing – and he was the best dancer of the floor.

On the 15^th July 1943 Lance Corporal Margaret Walters married Bombardier Frank Edward Clarke (known as “Nobby Clarke”) at Lambeth Register Office. Three years her senior, he was a “Brummy” ie from Birmingham. (38 Holcombe Road, Tyseley)

As a Bombardier, Nobby flew in bomber airplanes and was responsible to ensure that the bombs were dropped on the right target. 

Looking through her war record, it is a wonder that Hitler didn’t win the war. During 1943 she was on leave for 64 days!

She had privilege leave:

15^th March – 9 days

5^th May – 9 days

5^th July – 9 days

4^th Oct – 9 days

29^th Oct – 14 days

22^nd Nov – 14 days

Looking at the above dates, her July leave ran out the day before she got married.

The marriage certificate was signed by my Nan’s “Lodger” Jim Wright (aka “Pop”).

Both she and her new husband, Nobby, were stationed at the same army base.  Within days of their marriage, a heavily pregnant woman turned up at the main gates demanding to see the father of her child. Mum divorced Nobby and claimed that she never saw him again.

So, this was the secret that mum carried and hid away from everyone. In the 1940s the humiliation and shame would have been unbearable. Mum would not be reminded of it again until the day dad registered Pauline’s birth.  Whilst mum had tried hard to forget the past, dad clearly hadn’t. His action was a reminder to her of her humiliation and shame.

However, the mystery of her relationship with Nobby deepens.  After the War my grandmother refused to allow my mum to go home and live with her and so mum went to live with the Grousell Family at 9 Kenchester Street. Ada Grousell would later marry Mum’s brother, my Uncle Harry. (Ada had two passions in life: dressing dolls – she called them her “babies” and kept scores of them in cupboards all over the house; the other passion was betting on the horses).

In 1947 my mother appeared on the Electoral Roll for 9 Kenchester Street as Margaret Elsie Clarke. But guess who also was living at the address.  Frank E. Clarke! They are still living at the same address together a year later in 1947. It was in January that year that the good looking, now 24 year old, piano player returned from Hamburg and was demobbed from the Army.

Coming soon. “The shoes now leaving from platform 1”