Childhood

'Simple bed, simple life, simple way.'

As children we would be as accepted in the pubs as what the adults were, and we would dance.

My earliest memory would be the twist. The music would come on and us as children would get up and start dancing and people would start giving us money, which was interesting.

Avril Fuller

Black and white picture of girl posing
Image courtesy of Leon Sky ‘Belinda Stanford’
Black and white picture of two young girls
Image courtesy of John Stanley ‘Thurza Browning as small child’
I can remember going to Robertsbridge hop-picking, slept in a tent with my father’s sister Polly.

I woke up early in the morning to get up and get ready to go to work, opened the door and there’s a cow, looking straight at me, about that far. You know, you had really fun times when you look back, and so I was only a child, but you still worked.

Lily Smith

Image courtesy of Avril Fuller ‘Uncle Bill, A Sylvia, A & Sylvia’
Image courtesy of Avril Fuller ‘Uncle Bill & Sylvia’
The boys, the young boys would sleep in the tents.

The girls, it would be either in a girl’s trailer or it would be where your mam and dad is, in one bed and you’d be in another if you were younger.

Marya Sadouni

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