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I was born during the War in 1943, wrote Jean Smith, so I don t really remember much about the war, only what I have been told by my parents. My Grandparents, Archie and Kitty Jenkins lived down the Old Kent Road; in those days all the family lived very near each other so there were many family parties.
My parents, John and Kathleen Fraser were married in 1940, and they moved to a rented house at Peckham Rye with my grandparents. My Grandparents were both born in 1883, a few days from each other, they married in 1910 and the dinner service, which was a present and survived two wars, takes pride of place in my kitchen display unit.
My father, by this time, was away in the Army; he was mostly stationed on the coast with the radar. In 1944 we were bombed out of Solway Road, and we moved to a house in East Dulwich Grove; it was near to Dulwich Park so I had many outings in my pram to the park. We moved back to Solway Road, in 1946.
I started my first school, Friern Road, in 1948, and the first teacher I had when I started school, later taught my daughter when she started school in 1966.
At the infants' school, I remember on the nice sunny days we took the tables and chairs into the playground, or if we were very lucky we crossed the road into the park.
On Empire Day, I recall we went into the playground where flags were parade around.
The junior school I went to was Grove Vale, [by this time my sister Jill was born]. I can remember when the queen came around to visit the area around her coronation time and we all went to see her.
We all made a scrapbook on the coronation [ I still have mine in the loft]; I must admit I cheated, as my dad helped me quite a bit. My granddad helped collect pictures out of the newspapers and my dad took some cigarette picture cards of kings and queens out of his collection.
On coronation day I went into a friends house to watch it on the television, which had such a small screen, but it certainly was a time to remember.
In the afternoon we all went out into Kent with the Sunday school, and all I can remember is the rain that fell while we were watching the Morris Dancers.
In 1955, I went to my senior school, Thomas Carlton, where I stayed until 1959. I always dreamt of being a hairdresser, but my dad was against it as he had always worked in an office, so I went along with him and started work in a stockbroker's.
It was quite an exciting job, working with the senior partner's daughter typing envelopes and working the telex machine. I was in another world now and it was quite a thing to go down to the old Stock Exchange Building to see all the men in their top hats dealing on the floor.
Nowadays it is all done on screens, but I'm sure the personal touch was better. Another part of the job was looking after Enid Blyton's interests, as my boss was part of the limited company, which took care of her royalties. This again was amazing as I was a Famous Five Fan in my younger days.
In 1961, I gave birth to my daughter so I left work for 18 months and then went back part-time, but I stayed in the city in the stockbrokers for another 13 years, and then I left to work in a hospital where I still work today.
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