Category: Dance

part 8

So we walked in to the Forge restaurant and it was lovely inside.  We were ushered to our table and my Mum ordered drinks. She started drinking and I was very nervous as she would behave badly when drinking and this was such a classy restaurant. I was afraid she would end up embarrassing us both or we might be escorted out. Needless to say, we did have a wonderful dinner till all of a sudden my mum got up to go the lady’s room.  She was gone for a long time and I started to think she was maybe at the bar. I was about to go get her when she came towards me almost dragging a gentlemen by the arm and talking very loud.  Everyone heard her saying she wanted him to meet her friend, meaning me (whom she never introduced as her daughter). He was a tall distinguished looking gentlemen nicely dressed and he looked to be somewhere in his late 40s.

I assumed mum was trying to pick him up for herself, so I put on a brave face and tried help rescue him from her clutches. I shook his hand as he introduced himself as Art.  I noticed he had lovely kind eyes and I felt sorry for his being dragged over to our table like this.  Apparently, she had spoken to him on her way to the powder room and told him a story of our coming on holiday. She also told some stuff about me and she wanted to introduce him to me. OH My God, I did not know what to say or where to look.  So we sat together and he ordered more wine and we talked and talked and talked.

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part 7

Back in St Annes with my family so wonderful to be with my sisters and brothers working and staying at home with my mum and her new husband Stanley a retired income tax inspector and lifelong bachelor with no children my mum managed to snag him up and he yes he married her.

I was working different jobs I would like them for a while then get bored and move on to something else still did not know what I wanted to do when I grow up. Just to give you an idea in those years I was a Texaco girl pumping gas, a window dresser, retail jewelry,clothing,groceries store cashier. Office workshop stint at Premium Bonds filling all day.

Took as many ballroom classes and social dance as I could and tried to learn the guitar, during this time.Then I got a job working in a Council home for the elderly, and I loved it .Started out as a n attendant bathing feeding and general care of elderly bed patients and worked my way up in a shot time to assistant matron at age 22.

Met my first husband Jim Shenton tall dark handsome charming guy, who I fell madly in love with though he was 9 years my senior was previously married and had children.We bought a little house in Black pool and I got a job close to my house in a bigger nursing home for the blind. I loved my job and loved taking care of the elderly, I was strict with my staff and devoted to my resident’s, we had our own mortuary and in those day’s we let people die peacefully in our home not in the hospital whenever possible so we pretty much did everything we could for them to have dignity and peace in passing.

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part 5

I spent the time between age 16 and 18 in and around Blackpool and St Annes spending time with my sisters and brother who had now moved from Ashton-Under-Lyne to St Annes, first staying with Auntie Minnie and Margaret and later moving in to my own house. I had my own flat with a couple of my friends and went from job to job trying to make enough money to live.

I did product promotions in retail stores for a while, was a demonstration of novelty items such as the ream clean brush that picked up anything from crumbs to nails in one sweep,and the non slip trays that were coated with a film of plastic to stop the items such as plates and silverware from sliding around when you carried them. I was good at this as I put on a show and gathered a crowd around my booth, and would do a live demo of the product.

This was a salary based on commissions so was tough, even though I was selling a lot, sometimes the boss would not pay me and once I was thrown out of the store by the police because my boss had not paid the rent for the booth in the store. I even did a few gigs singing in a local pub and was always looking for ways to make a living but did not really know what I wanted to do. All I was sure of was that I wanted to dance and be around music and musicians every chance I got, even though that meant underage drinking and hanging out sometimes in the wrong places.

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