Winifred Johnson (nee Goodrum), who was born at Bradford in West Yorkshire in 1938, recalls some childhood memories of the time when she first got to know her father.

I was 7 years old when my father returned from the Second World War in 1945. There had only been one man in my life up until then, and that was my maternal grandfather...Life surely changed for us.

The first job my dad got was selling firewood from a horse and cart. The horse was called Charlie, named after its owner Charlie Pearson. I remember my dad putting us kids on top of the cart and taking us to school. We were the envy of all our friends.

Then on Sunday Charlie lent my dad the Trap. It was dark brown polished wood and it had a little door and a folding step at the back...Mum would dress us in a clean frock, and she would put her best hat on and off we would go for our Sunday outing, usually to Bramley to visit friends.

Horses were all the go then, there were not many cars around. If you had a Horse and trap you were deemed to be it and a bit.... We were poor as church mice, but we were a happy lot. The firewood dad sold was really just kindling, and it was made from the offcuts in Charlie's workshop.

Sometimes Dad would get us kids to help him make the bundles up, and he secured them with wire. He could keep the money from these for himself, but the rest was for his boss. They were made with a machine, and a lot better looking than ours.

Dad often said he needed a couple of bob to go for a pint. That's when we would make the extra ones. I remember one Whitsuntide, we all got our usual new clothes, and we went to the Congregational Church in the trap.

Before the service was over a gentleman came into the church and told Dad that Charlie needed the horse and trap for an emergency, so he took it away, leaving us to walk home. We were a grand sight: dad always walked in front with his hands behind his back, then mum would walk with the baby, and then my brother and I would bring up the rear.

Later when my little brother was born Mum still walked behind Dad, and we always walked behind her. I guess as time went on things changed and we no longer went out walking.

My little brother died aged 10 months. He was a Downs Syndrome child, but my mother was told he was a Mongol. He was a dear baby, and was deaf and blind. He died of Pneumonia in the hospital after cutting his first teeth.

It was awful because they brought him home in a little white coffin and he was put on the sideboard. He looked lovely and he had a bunch of lilies of the valley near his little hands. That was the norm in those days.

Both my great grandmother and my grandmother had layed there too in their coffins. We were always made to kiss their foreheads, and when anyone died on our street, we went to view them in their homes, and always kissed them on the forehead, so we as kids were familiar with death from an early age.

We were never allowed to go to funerals.. The worst recollection of death I have as a child was when I was 15. My cousin Jenny was my best friend, and she died aged 14. That was the hardest thing to do, having to go to say goodbye to her and kiss her..

Memories are a wonderful thing.

Wyn Johnson, Australia, 2002