Secrets My Mother Kept Read Online Free PDF Page B

process through the streets along with the older children. All would be dressed in white and many of the girls would wear a little veil. I wore mine and felt so proud as we walked past the houses. People would come to their gates and stand watching us as we walked and sang hymns to Mary the Queen of Heaven and Queen of the May. There was very little traffic on the roads in those days so we must have been quite a spectacle.
    Afterwards I carefully put the dress away. We didn’t get many new clothes. Aunty sometimes bought us a few bits and pieces home from Plessey’s where she worked. I think they must have ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’ and were sold on the factory floor. The other major source of our clothes was a kindly woman called Mickey. She worked in the United Dairies depot near to our house and sometimes Mum would say to Mary or one of the twins, ‘Go into the dairy will you? Mickey’s got some things for you.’
    Mickey worked in the servery. That was the office section in the dairy that kept a record of the milk and other things that the milkmen would take out on their daily delivery rounds. Every now and again she’d send word to Mum that she had some things for us. One day Marge, Marion and Mary were sent into the diary and returned with a suitcase.
    ‘That’s huge!’ I exclaimed, excitement rising. ‘What’s inside?’
    Marge flung it open. ‘Don’t touch, you two,’ she said bossily. ‘We’ll tell you which things will fit you.’
    We ignored her and descended upon its contents, trying to push our way through the big girls’ arms.
    ‘A bra!’ Mary said, shoving Marion out of the way. Marion was always the less confident of the twins and I could see the disappointment on her face. Marge picked up a yellow jumper that was probably a few sizes too big. As she held it against her, Mum said ‘Just wait a minute, will you? Don’t forget Pat and Jo might like some of those things.’ Unfortunately most of the clothes were too big for Margaret and me, so we lost interest quite quickly and just looked over occasionally while the contents of the suitcase were shared between our sisters. We had the last laugh though because when our older sisters were at school and work, we would put on their clothes and bounce on the old iron bedstead singing at the top of our voices!
    I do remember one Easter having a new little suit to wear. Margaret and I had one each. They each had a pleated skirt and a little matching jacket. We thought we were marvellous when we wore them to Mass on Easter Sunday. Mum told us that she had bought them but that we had to say thank you to Aunty, as she wanted us to think that she had got them for us. Poor Aunty, you can probably guess who actually paid the money for them.

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    The ‘Special News’ Day
    Later that year, Mum told us some ‘special’ news. It was a damp chilly autumn and some of the luckier children at our school had gone hop picking. Our family never went. Mum said it was ‘common’ and looked down her nose at those who went, but Margaret and I were always envious at this time of year. All that time off school playing in the sunny hop fields!
    It was Monday and Margaret and I had just started to walk home from school for lunch when we spied Mum across the road waiting for us with her headscarf tied tightly round her head and her big black bag over her arm. She never went anywhere without her bag. She even took it up to bed with her at night, and when she was sitting in her chair by the fireplace it would sit firmly at her feet. No one was ever allowed to look inside. Strangely it seemed almost malevolent lying on the floor next to her, daring us to peep inside. I didn’t know at the time what Mum kept in there, but knowing now, that feeling makes sense.
    ‘You will never guess what,’ Mum said with a huge smile on her face. I looked at Margaret, as her huge brown eyes got bigger.
    ‘What? What? What?!’ we screeched. We were quite used to ‘exciting