From the document written by Christine Bate titled Auntie Bessie.doc

My Stay at Auntie Bessie’s and Uncle John’s

The story about my long stay with Great Aunt Bessie and Great Uncle John begins in August of 1939.  Mother, Father, Sheila and I were on holiday at Beckfoot, staying with Mrs. Wannop.  How and why we stayed on the Solway coast between Silloth and Maryport needs to be told elsewhere.  Each year we were invited to visit Auntie Bessie and Uncle John for tea.  They came and collected us from Bank House and we drove to Moor Lea House in their small Austin car, licence number ARM 31.  On this occasion, it seemed to me that the adults were engaged in more   conversation than usual as Sheila and I played in the garden and explored.  This included my private adventure as I went  into the garage side door, closed it quietly and breathed in the smell of oil and petrol. I then sat in the driver’s seat of the car and imagined what it would be like to have a car and drive wherever I wanted to go. I always felt very guilty when I did this  and listened carefuly for footsteps. I was just fascinated by the idea of possessing a car.  Of couse, I did not share this activity with Sheila; she was always the well-behaved one and I was the one who got into trouble. That day, we had tea outside since it was hot, took some “snapshots” and were returned to Beckfoot in the ARM 31.  We must have gone back to Yorkshire on the train and briefly resumed our normal existence. 

Strangely, I have no recollection of returning to Auntie Bessie’s on September 4th with Sheila and I being left there.  We probably went by train from Carlisle to Dereham Bridge, the small station  nearest to Crosby.  From that station it was quite a walk up a country lane to Crosby.  

It was a beautiful autumn and Sheila and I went for walks along country lanes with high hedgerows and hazel nuts and brambles in among the other plants. We walked by ourselves and I enjoyed the companionship in contrast to being with the girls I played with at home.  It was on one of these walks that I saw a lorry marked OHMS and was interested to find that it meant On His Majesty’s service. This opened up a new field of information as I questioned Sheila further. Sheila left Crosby when her school reopened because the air-raid shelters were finished.  I don’t remember Mother coming and both of them leaving, but I do remember the seemingly endless time that I stayed and lived with Auntie Bessie and Uncle John.  

I slept in the front room and wakened each morning  to the sound of Uncle John running his bath, always cold water, and then the splashing noises followed by the slap-slap of him stropping his razor.  He came to my room and called me when the bathroom was vacant and I went to the wash basin and gingerly wiped my face a little, two strokes of two fingers across my forehead, two down my cheeks and then across my chin because the bathroom was so cold.  I loved the scent of the Vinolia soap and it was strange that I used it so little.  Later in the day, when the house had warmed I believe I washed more thoroughly.  One time I was sent back upstairs to wash because Auntie Bessie thought I wasn’t clean, but with a daring that surprised me, I repeated my usual washing technique and was told, “That’s better” when I returned to the breakfast table.  

Evenings were spent in the sitting room, with a fire glowing in the grate. Occasionally visitors called, although most visiting was done in the afternoons.  Usually I was very quiet when others were there, but one evening a woman came and was shown ino the room while I was sitting mending a hole in my long brown stockings.  This she approved of since it was not uncommon for eight year old children to sew and do their own mending, but when the conversation about the war moved on to a discussion of the broadcasts of Lord Haw Haw, a German propoandist, I was foolish enough to make a comment. The visitor let us know in no uncertain terms that she thought it was very inappropriate  for me to be allowed to listen to the wireless when he was  broadcasting, and at that late hour. 

Afternoon visits with Auntie Bessie were very enjoyable. One family we visited were the Gibsons who lived in a large house nearby with a view of the Solway Firth. They were minor gentry with a very relaxed  way of life. One time when we visited we were told about Mr. Gibson receiving a summons for not having a licence for a vehicle then, just before paying a fine, finding the licence in among a bundle of papers on the mantelpiece. Since they had several spare bedrooms, their children being grown and away from home, they had five or six little tykes, all boys from South Shields, billeted on them. This was a trial, even to the Gibsons. I overheard the usual stories of them wetting the beds and rejecting good country food, but for the brief time they stayed there I liked to follow them around. Their favourite activity was to run up the front stairs and down the back stairs, going round and round. Most evacuees returned home quite quickly, back to familiar surroundings and their own Mam and Dad in spite of the danger.  

We called on Miss Williamson either after church or late in the afternoon. Sometimes I played solitaire on a lovely wooden board in the drawing room while Auntie Bessie and Miss Williamson talked,  but my favourite thing to do was to go to the kitchen to visit the cook and maid. The kitchen was at the back of the house and quite dark, with a low ceiling.  It had a lovely homely smell and they sat at the deal table in the middle of the room. I remember they were reading the paper and some comics one time. At other times I wandered around the garden and looked down the fields to the Solway Firth a mile away.   

One Saturday evening we were invited to dinner. I think I behaved satisfactorily, having been told earlier that it was not polite to rest my knife and fork on end while I chewed what was in my mouth. I gathered that I caused quite a stir when I commented to Uncle John and Auntie Bessie, after we met him on the lane to the church, that the rector, who was at the dinner too, may have been hastening to church a litle late because he had drunk so much wine the evening before.  

The petrol allowance was small, but at least Uncle John did not have to “lay up” his car. He was a magistrate in Maryport and so they were able to go to Maryport on Friday morning. Before school started I remember going with them and being with Auntie Bessie while she shopped. I liked particularly going up some  steps that were sideways to the shop front into the baker’s  shop with the baker’s friendly wife behind the counter. On an early occasion, Auntie Bessie bought some rods to hang the blackout curtains on at Woolworths. She concluded the purchase and then asked me to wait while the shop assistant wrapped them in brown paper. The girl must soon have been tired of the job of wrapping the paper round the long rods and  said to me, “You don’t need them to be wrapped, do you?” I said “no” but when Auntie Bessie returned, she insisted that they should be wrapped and we stood and waited for the job to be done. I liked to ride in the car and Uncle John had me do the calculation about how far we had driven. For some odd reason that was how I learned to spell the word mayonnaise as I repeated it as we rode along. It was an odd word to pick on but I suppose it was a new word to me because we had always had Heinz salad cream at home. 

Uncle John was was the retired headmaster of the Crosby school. He was a tall, jovial man with white hair and a small moustache. That didn’t stop me from being somewhat in awe of him. One time we had been out in the evening and when we returned home Uncle opened the front door and I ran ahead into the house and through the hall to the back door. I was trying to be helpful and wanted to perform the routine of unlocking the back door. Unfortunately, I couldn’t reach the top bolt and so I reached up with my hand on the light switch. To my horror the whole thing,  solid wooden base and round ceramic toggle switch, came out of the wall and hung by the electric wires. I was so frightened that I ran into the garden and hid in one of the outhouses where the paraffin for the stove was kept. I heard them looking for me for some time and then Auntie Bessie found me and comforted me as I wept. She reassured me that Uncle John had mended the light switch and I calmed down.

When Crosby school opened after the long summer holiday, I began to attend school, and what a contrast to Brinsworth Council School!  It was at the crossroads in the village 

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