What was your relationship with Jack like and how did things change after he left?

I was a mouse when I was with Jack. I did everything I was told to do. But leaving was the best thing he could have done. It made a woman out of me because I had to stand on my own two legs. Mind you, I never wanted to leave the children - there wasn’t any chance of that. I received them to school, clothed them, and fed them. I did everything.

Back then, it was Jack’s world. I was too busy at home looking after everything and feeding the master when he came home from work. When he had the TV, he would come in and feel it, and if it was warm, I got in trouble. My poor girlfriend Shirley was in the same boat - her husband would take one of the valves out of the TV set so she couldn’t watch it while he was at work. We were treated very well, weren’t we? At least we could both laugh about it since neither of us had a great husband to lord it over the other.

It wasn’t until years later that I found out he was quite the thief. He had this racket going with one fellow - he was working in a bike shop and his friend was working in a distribution place with clothes and things. They’d swap stolen bicycle parts for tea towels, bath towels, and aprons for me to wear when I was cooking his dinner. Even our first TV in 1959 - I don’t know where he got it from, but if things fell off the back of a truck, they’d be around to catch them.

The children knew more than I did. They were very observant and would pick things up from listening to people talk. A lot of these things were very secret that I was never to be told. I was grateful for anything that came my way back then, so I accepted it all in good faith. It only dawned on me over the years what was really going on. I often wondered where these things came from.

By 1965, I’d had enough. Jack was living elsewhere and was already onto marriage number three. Lorna very soon tired of him and divorced him again, so he was back on his own and met another one that he went off with. He didn’t want the kids anyway. Even after he left, I still had to work every day, cook dinner for the children, and get them all to bed - Maggie was only five and Kevin was 15, with five of them in between. I’d be trying to wash and dry uniforms without a dryer, usually only having one change of things for each child. I was always late to work and the boss wasn’t a very nice man then either - he’d wait all day to have a go at you about being five minutes late.

But you know what? Looking back now, I think I’ve done a reasonable job. I couldn’t have made friends with all of you if Jack was still around. He wouldn’t have liked that at all.

After he left, I learned to stand on my own two feet, and that’s what made a woman out of me. You’ve got to look at life and see things that are going on around you, make the most of it and have as much fun as you can have.