Christmas and Birthdays

My first Christmas away from home did help matters quite a bit. When I woke in the morning there was a pillowcase at the foot of the bed full of presents from most of the staff.

Mostly items of clothing from the woman and cash presents from the family, which made a great improvement to my wardrobe.

Coming from a large family I had never had so much attention as I was getting from all of the staff and they moulded me for my life of later years.

I never forgot my family at home, my little brothers and sisters. Often I sent parcels home for the children, anything that I thought might be of any use to them. My sister Nell who is ten years younger than me told me once, since we have both had children of our own, I quote "You never forgot us younger ones, we used to haunt our local post office for a week before birthdays, Easter, and Christmas to find out if there was a parcel from Mabel, you never forgot us". I thought that was a nice thing to say after all those years.