A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place

'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Alan Shippam of the BBC Radio Sheffield Action Desk on behalf of Barbara Beddows, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the end of the war, when my husband came out of the forces, I had to learn! He was still the battery Sergeant Major and we were the troops. Clothes folded neatly and placed on the chair every night, children’s toys tidied away, no-one could sit down until the washing up was done. He would say as soon as the meal was finished, “Well, what about the washing up?” It was difficult trying to adjust to a new house, a new baby a new husband and a recently bereaved father.

The loss of my freedom and independence was hard. I missed the companionship of being in the working world, and as that world had been in some of the most beautiful parts of Yorkshire, and I’d had a lovely war, it was even more difficult. I ended up just outside Selby, in the Timber Core (a branch of the Land Army ), working in the woods with a team of girls and Italian prisoners. We were surrounded by aerodromes and were able to go to the parties and dances in the messes, and had a very good social life. So coming back was not easy at all. I couldn’t even go out in the evenings, not having a family to baby sit and not allowed to use friends. So it was sometime before the pleasures of family life became enjoyable. But of course, they did, eventually. Looking back I realise how unreal it was in those days to have a baby, and although you had been married for eighteen months, you’d never spent anytime with your husband. He was almost like a stranger when he came home. On top of that, of course, there had been the problems of getting a house and somewhere to live, and at the same time, helping my father to sell his house and find a cottage nearby. So it was all very different from the world today.

So married life wasn’t at all easy but it paid off in the long run and I had many, many years of very happy marriage with my husband and with the family as they grew up
See also ‘Barbara Beddows 2’ for additional photos

Pr-BR

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