Before I Sleep Read Online Free PDF

a candle. There was no clock in the house. Walton’s whistle blew at 7.15 each morning and my father made it to work by 7.30. It blew again at 5.00 p.m. to announce knock-off. After midday on Saturdays, we estimated the time. My father eventually inherited his parents’ family clock, and this simplified getting off to kindergarten on time.
    Soon after my birth, my mother had put my name down on the cradle roll of the Lavis Free Kindergarten in the next street, Wright Street. It was run by the West End Baptist Mission. From age four until I turned six, each weekday morning my mother walked me to the kindergarten and then escorted me home in the early afternoon. I enjoyed my time there and maybe it is the reason why I have stayed a Baptist. There were some other kindergartens in the West End but these all charged fees, something my mother could not afford. My preschool years at the kindergarten helped me to learn to read, but there were no books at home to look at, except the rent and the time-payment books. Mrs Hardy occasionally had a women’s magazine, Violet, which her husband had rescued during his train cleaning duties. It was never offered to me to glance at, presumably because it was considered not suitable for young boys’ eyes. I did note that it had advertisements for corsets and underwear! Nobody ever mentioned a public library and I don’t think my parents even visited one during their lifetime. Perhaps because of this lack of access to literature, I somehow developed a strong urge to read — to read anything. No doubt this reading helped with my general education but later, when it came to boys’ weekly periodicals, it became an obsession.
    I sometimes heard through the common wall of our adjoining houses Bill Boushall “rousing” loudly on his children but they never mentioned being hit, nor did I ever see on them any signs of evidence. Such harmony came partially from the fact that neighbours never borrowed money from each other (nobody had a surplus except perhaps the Hardys) but they — and we — did occasionally ask for the loan of a cup of sugar. We had sugar with our breakfast, which was always bread and hot milk. I have forgotten our midday meal, probably because on weekdays I ate at the Lavis Free Kindergarten. The weekday evening meal, which was placed on the table punctually at 5.30 each day, was stew, or minced meat, or sausages and mash which we ate with slices of bread. But for lunch on Saturdays, without fail, we had the weekend “roast” of a leg of lamb, and because the oven was hot, my mother would always bake a delicious apple sponge. Then we would have the lamb in cold slices for Sunday’s main meal with hot mashed potatoes. Except for weekends, I always left the table still hungry for more food. But there was always the daily spoonful of codliver oil to prevent colds.
    My mother, no doubt because of early childhood responsibilities, was a capable cook and handy with the sewing machine, so that my short pants were always home made. My father, however, was not a handyman and I have followed in his footsteps. It should be said, however, that a large amount of my father’s incapacity stemmed from an absence of tools. For example, each evening he chopped up the next day’s supply of wood for the stove or copper. This was a hard chore; the axe was always blunt — we could not afford a sharpener. And because it cost too much to oil the handle, it quickly splintered. When we had saved enough, father would buy a new handle but without the necessary tools, fitting this into a socket already occupied by the broken handle was not easy.
    After the Boushalls had moved to better accommodation at West Croydon, our family spent Christmas week with them for a number of years. It was a cheap holiday. I enjoyed playing with Fred again, mostly trying to kick an old football around. When we finished we would go inside and Fred would ask his mother