Time Goes By Read Online Free PDF Page A

days of the century. And the tradition was still continuing now, in the early 1950s, Winifred was pleased to see, though not to such a large extent. Winifred and Albert had both been confirmed at their local parish church, Albert and Barbara had been married there and Katherine christened. She, Winifred, still attended the morning service each Sunday, when there were no visitors in the hotel. During the holiday season, of course, it was more difficult and she was not able to attend regularly, but she felt sure that God would understand.
    Kathy did not often go on a Sunday morning – she attended Sunday school, which was held for an hour in the afternoon – but today was a special occasion and she was accompanying her aunt there for the Mothering Sunday service. Winifred put on her best coat, made of fine tweed in a moss-green colour, with a fitted bodice and a shawl collar. It was mid-calf length, the style owing a lot to the ‘New Look’ brought in by Christian Dior a few years previously. She had bought it two years ago at Sally Mae’s dress shop. With the matching neat little turban hat and her black patent leather court shoes – the heels a little higher than she normally wore – she felt quite pleased with her appearance. She liked to look nice, although she didn’t overdo it; vanity was one of the seven deadly sins, wasn’t it? But the weekly visit to church was one occasion on which she dressed up a little more than usual.
    ‘You look nice, Aunty Win,’ Kathy told her, and she felt pleased at the compliment.
    ‘Thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘We must look our best to go to church, mustn’t we?’ There was no one else to dress up for, she pondered, a little wryly, so she might as well dress up for God; although she was sure he would not care one way or the other. Winifred had kept her slim figure and so the new fitted fashions suited her very well.
    ‘And I like your little hat,’ Kathy told her. It was a new one, from the stall in Abingdon StreetMarket. ‘The green matches your eyes, Aunty Win.’
    What an observant child, she thought. ‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ she agreed, although she considered her eyes to be more hazel than green.
    Just a little of her mid-brown hair showed below her close-fitting hat. She wore her hair in a short style which was easy to manage, as she had done for years. She had not, as yet, found any grey hairs, which she thought was quite surprising. Just the slightest dusting of face powder and a smear of coral-pink lipstick added the final touch to her Sunday appearance.
    ‘And you look very smart too,’ Winifred told her niece.
    Kathy’s coat was quite a new one, bought just before Christmas from the Co-op Emporium on Coronation Street. Both Winifred and her mother were keen supporters of the local ‘Co-ops’. The ‘divi’ – the dividend awarded to each shopper on every purchase – came in very useful when it was collected each year, just before Christmas. The little girl had gone with her aunt to choose the coat. It was cherry red with a little black velvet collar, and complemented her dark hair and brown eyes. Her aunt had knitted her Fair Isle beret, fawn, with a pattern of red, green and black. A complicated knitting pattern, but Winifred had been determined to master it. Those woollen hatswere quite the fashion amongst the younger girls and she liked Kathy to have whatever her school friends had. She had been delighted when she had received it on Christmas morning as an extra little present. Her black fur-backed gloves had been a Christmas present too, and her patent leather ankle-strap shoes that she wore with white knee socks.
    ‘Now, are we ready? You’ve got a clean hanky in your coat pocket? Righty-ho then, let’s go. We don’t want to be late … Bye then, Albert,’ said Winifred. ‘We’re going now.’
    ‘Bye-bye, Daddy,’ echoed Kathy.
    Albert was ensconced in his favourite fireside chair in the family living room at the back of the hotel.