Pam Goodchild

PAM GOODCHILD

Surname

Goodchild

Forename

Pamela

Date of recording

Feb 2013

Year of birth

1925

Place of Birth

Friston

Occupation

Worl war 2 land girl, maid, cook

Fathers occupation

Carpenter

Present Address

Aldeburgh

Location Interview

Aldeburgh

Interviewer

Summary

Colin Fletcher

Duration

125 Mins

No of tracks: 12

Mother's occupation: domestic service, nanny.

This recording is on 12 tracks.
Track 1   (20 seconds)     Introduction

Track 2    (12 minutes)
Born in Friston, 1925. Friston shops. Childhood cottage. Oil lamps and candles. Home-grown vegetables. Water from well. Bathing. Wash day. Cooking range. Oil stove and oil oven. Home baking. Pigs on allotment. Slaughtering pigs. Salting pork. Goose for Christmas. Rabbit pie.

Track 3    (12 minutes)
Childhood family. Under-developed infants. Twins. Friston school, 1930’s. General good behaviour in school. Teacher-pupil fist fight. Sand trays. Learning to write. Bead trays for counting. Geography. Knitting and sewing. Snape school. Changes in Friston. Flood. Fun in the snow in ‘The Pit’. Mr Wright the miller. Friston mill. Bread. Butter and milk from the farm. Milk delivery.

Track 4   (12 minutes)
Friston mill. Decorating the mill sails for coronation. Parents from Friston. Grandparents. Hazlewood. Darsham. Grandparents dying young. TB. Mother’s work at Tower House. Parents married, 1920. First World War. Leiston Works. Thorpeness Meare. Father a carpenter on Blackheath Estate.
Blackheath Estate: large staff; Wentworth family; workers’ pay and conditions; children’s Christmas party.
Knitting. Mrs Wentworth’s Personal Service League. Father on Leiston Works. Walking to Leiston. Spinto, the field. Father volunteering for World War One.

Track 5   (12 minutes)
Friston farms. Wentworth’s property. Troops in World War One. A nanny to Charles Wentworth. World War Two evacuees from Dagenham. First employment as a maid at ‘The Firs’ for Mrs Upcher. Learning to cook.
Land girl: harvest; the binder; muck-spreading; sugar beet.
Marriage. Moving to Aldeburgh. Post lady. Evacuees. Outbreak of war.

Track 6   (12 minutes)
Outbreak of war. Chamberlain’s broadcast. Air raids. Soldiers on Friston Common. Searchlights. Doodlebugs. House bombed. Spitfire dog-fight. German propaganda leaflets dropped, 1944. Doodlebug at Friston Hall. German plane crash. Foster’s horse and cart. Vegetable deliveries to Aldeburgh. Warreners. Rabbits to London. Friston Common. Meeting Ken. Sixpenny hop dances.

Track 7   (12 minutes)
Sixpenny hops. Meeting her husband, 1944. The Meare. First married home in Aldeburgh. Friston wedding. Aldeburgh homes. Constructing Mulberry harbours. Shuttering. Reades of Aldeburgh. The Goodchild family. Mr Goodchild, postmaster at Aldeburgh. Aldeburgh Post Office bombing.

Track 8   (12 minutes)
Aldeburgh bomb damage. High Street pillbox. Sprat boxes. Her home on Town Steps. British Legion Hall. Aldeburgh cobbler. Air raid shelter. High Street shops, 1940’s. WRVS canteen.

Track 9   (12 minutes)
Aldeburgh High Street, late 1940’s. Wm C Reade’s of Aldeburgh. Her wedding ring from Hedley Ing’s shop. Rationing. House in Lee Road. Electricity installed. 1953 flood. Flood relief from Canadian charity.

Track 10   (12 minutes)
1953 flood: help from charities, carpets and tinned salmon; help from Americans; Aldeburgh flood damage.
Adopting their son. Heatherlands children’s home, Aldringham. Aldeburgh Town Football Club. Working for Reade’s, 1950’s. Living in Reade’s tied flat. Mr Freddie Corke. Aldeburgh Festival not good for Aldeburgh. Benjamin Britten. Watching festival-goers.

Track 11   (12 minutes)
Aldeburgh Festival. ‘Us and them’ in Aldeburgh. The Aldeburgh Players. Aldeburgh Cinema. Baggie Baggott. Friston Chequers. Changing ways at the pub. Friston Sunday School and Chapel. 1920’s christening. Prayers at school. Church-going. Aldeburgh’s ‘snooty’ church. Rev Tony Moore. ‘The Light’, a lane at Friston. Friston racecourse. Reflection.

Track 12   (3 minutes)
Looking back, reflection. How world has changed. Modern discontent. Finding a home then and now. Very little furniture when first married. Finding employment then and now. Youngsters today. Happiest days.