I was born on 17th December 1920 at Northorpe Lodge, a red brick house that can be seen from the Stamford road looking towards Thurlby Wood. Mum and Dad were Sydney and Florence Gray and he worked at the Mays chemical and manure factory in Eastgate. I was the youngest of their family of five, the others being sister Ivy and three brothers, Fred, Sydney and Stanley. We all had the best mum and dad you could wish for and so my early childhood was a very happy one.

We moved to Bourne when I was seven, our first home being the Wellhead Cottage and eventually moved to No 24 George Street where I stayed until I left to get married. I was a pupil at the Abbey Road Primary School and enjoyed my time there. One day we were fetched out of our classrooms into the playground to see a huge airship passing overhead, a marvellous sight I have never forgotten and I believe that it was the famous R100 before it finally went out of service in 1930.

I left school at fourteen, the usual age in those days, and started work straight away. The job was mainly housework and caring for a four-year-old boy for which I was paid 3s. 6d. a week. In later years, when the war broke out in 1939, I worked at the Bourne Laundry in Manning Road. Another vivid memory from those years was during an air raid one night in May 1941 when a German bomber which had been shot down by one of our fighters came over our house on fire and crashed into the Butcher’s Arms in Eastgate, killing seven people inside.

Wash day was the hardest time because of the amount needed for the copper which had to be lit and then kept burning. Bath times meant a tin bath in front of the fire which the children, Irene, Martin and Iain, all loved but then they didn’t have to carry the water in from outside.

After a while, Reg’s boss, Jack Wallace, who owned the property, installed a tap at the front of the house but both houses were without inside sinks. The lack of electricity also meant that we had to use paraffin lamps for lighting and an oven heated by the fire for cooking but I eventually got used to it.

A few years later we moved to the last house in the village but by then Reg had a new boss, Leslie Dungworth, who had taken over the Wallace farm and he had different ideas for his employees and so we soon had electricity, an inside kitchen sink, water, bathroom, all mod cons in fact and what a difference that made to our lives.

John was born there to make our family complete. This was very special to us because he arrived on our wedding anniversary September 24th. I was then 45 years old and what a lovely surprise it was.

Reg and I were both home birds. He loved his garden and I always knew where I would find him. For some years we cared for two donkeys which came to us from Skegness when the summer season of children’s rides along the sands was over. Their stay with us was a winter break from work but Irene and her friend had lots of fun riding and looking after them and they all loved it until it was time to go back to the beach.

A few years later, after the children were grown up and going to school, I cared for Herbert Jefferies who lived in the village for about a year. Both he and his wife had been in service, he as a butler and his wife as a lady’s maid, but after she died he became ill. His sister-in-law used to come one day a week but she was getting too old and his only other relative was a niece who lived away. I stayed with him each day after Reg had gone to work and the children to school until he died aged 85.

He once offered me wages for going to see him but I just couldn’t take anything because it was not in my nature and when he insisted I said I wouldn’t go again if he did pay me and so the matter was quietly forgotten. The last day I was with him I knew that the end was near because he was unconscious for most of the time and he finally passed peacefully away during the night. He was such a sweet gentleman and I just could not leave him during those final hours.

Reg finally retired when he was 65 and was honoured by the East of England Society at their annual agricultural show in Peterborough. Each year they give out special awards to farm workers who have set records for their employment and in 1985 Reg received a commemorative medal from the show president, Sir John Harvey-Jones, for completing 46 years of uninterrupted service while working at the same farm in Toft. We were both very proud.

But perhaps the most exciting part of our lives was what you might call a brief excursion into show business which all came about quite by chance. There was a very popular television game show on ITV during the 1970s and 1980s which was watched by millions with presenter Derek Batey, his wife Edith and daughter Diane, and after a while they took it on the stage and cabaret circuit.

After that, we went to a lot of their shows at various places around the country and Derek and his wife and daughter became special friends and we visited them often when Reg always took a load of fresh country vegetables from the village as a gift. When he died they sent a lovely wreath which I thought was particularly touching.

Reg died suddenly in 1990, aged 69, and I left the house at Toft and went to live with my son, Ian, and his wife at Clenchwarton, near King's Lynn. Their daughter, Louise, was just three months old and I spent my time looking after her, a wonderful therapy which gave me something to face up to each day. So Louise, just for you and although you were too young to understand, a great big thank you. But I wanted to go back to Bourne and in 1992 I moved into my flat in Meadow Close where I still keep busy, helping some of the others who are less able than I am with their washing even though one of them is a gentleman of 94, and I also tend the flowers and plants in the lounge. I also have many good friends and a wonderful family in Martin, Irene, Iain and John who are always there for me. Also my grandchildren Andrew, Iain and Joshua, Louise and Emily and great grandsons Paul and Luke and now that I am on the TalkTalk telephone service I can speak to them all at any time and have a long chat without running up a large bill.

When Reg left me a big part of my life went too, but with the love and support of my family life goes on and not a day passes without me realising that I have been very lucky indeed.

PHOTO ALBUM
Sydney and Florence Gray with three of their children, Ivy, Sydney and Fred.

See also Life in the laundry