2 July 2012
Dora is my friend's mother in law. She was born in 1906, she is 106 years old and is still rational but keen to move on to a better place,( her words)!
Dora recalled these memories when she was 95.
Some of my earliest recollections of childhood were when we lived in an upper flat in North West London. I started school at 5 years of age and went to Pound Lane Elementary school. One day I refused to go to school because my mother would not give me a farthing to buy some sweets from the old lady who sold them outside the school. She had them on a little barrow made from a Tate & Lyle sugar box and a couple of pram wheels, her name was Mrs. Deal and she was a very little old lady. There were liquorice braids, aniseed balls and sherbet dabs etc. to choose from. Well, one of our neighbour's daughters picked me up and carried me all the way to the school, it was late when we got there and she left me in the class. At the end of the afternoon, the teacher said that I had been very good (her name was Mrs. Lynch) and gave me an orange which was a luxury in those days. Next to our house was a farrier's yard and the big horses used to go in to be shod. Sometimes they would wait outside and I would run back and forth under their tummies until I saw how shocked the neighbours were. They were afraid I should be kicked so I left off doing it. There was also the Jewish Cemetery at the top of our road and one day a member of the Rothschild family was buried, the cortege was fantastic. The street was lined with carriages, people and flowers - an amazing sight.
Dora Butt.
Memories, by Dora Butt • Opuss № I