Olive Sharman (nee Hewitt) recalls some of what her mother told her about her young days in the 19th century.

'Mum went to a Dame's School - where the old lady (the Dame) taught a few small children their multiplication tables and other items, while she did her cooking and house work.

When Mum was a little girl, she and her friend would play houses near the roots of trees, making little dolls' houses of branches covered with moss, and making dollies with acorns, putting sticks for legs and arms and an acorn cup for a hat.

Any broken crockery was treasured and used for games and pieces of sheep's' wool made soft doll beds, and woven rushes for mats and doll's blankets.

Toys were few. An old bone cleaned and an odd piece of cloth (from the bag kept for mending and rug making) wrapped round the bone made a comforting doll to be tenderly nursed. And there were always kittens about.

Sometimes, older cousins or aunts in service or shops in large towns would bring odds and ends. Hats and trimmings, fur pieces, lace and velvet flowers not big enough for working on. All these scraps of material, etc, were stored to trim garments, hats, etc.

Mum's half-sister Olive, a very kind woman, looked after her and her brother George and Olive's own two brothers.

Life was very hard for women on farms and smallholdings, with fires constantly needing wood, heavy pots to lift, all water fetched in and out in all weathers, and open fire with large hooks hanging from the chimney to hang a big pot on to cook everything in.

Mum's Mum had died young.'