My World

 Mary MacLeod was born on the Isle of Lewis.  Her family were crofters and fishermen. I don't think they would have wanted any emphasis put on poor, they were just what crofters are, farmers, and when not farming they were out fishing for a bit extra.  The MacLeods had 10 children and Mary was the youngest.  It was expected in those times, Mary was born in 1912, that if you had 10 children you would be lucky if 4 survived and so the croft and fishing would be ok.  However, as lives improved at that time and moved on from Victorian times more and more children began to survive and then it became a problem on the crofts, they might support two or three but not 10. And so the exodus of the families to the New World as they called it began.  Mary was not a shrinking violet and when she was 12 she read in the paper (you see they had the papers) about a young Dundee girl of her age who had won a newspaper painting competition.  Mary was lonely on the croft s...

 I can't wait for the schools to go back and for my life to get back to normal.  During school holidays and half terms I stay in far more than I usually do only venturing out for set appointments that cannot be missed.   When I was a child I was brought up to be seen and not heard.  Obedience to this was paramount and if I was not obedient to my parents then I knew I would answer for it.   I wasn't an unhappy child with this.  We were taken out and did fun things.  We were not deprived in any way.  Our family photograph album illustrates this with photos of beach, funfairs, tennis and garden outdoor teas with friends of my parents and their children.  We visited our cousins in Suffolk at the big house in Bury and had fun mooching around their garden which I remember vividly.  Always there are smiling faces and running around.  My parents friends had a cine camera and we would be filmed in gardens and boats on the Norfolk B...