Mrs Kathleen Kiddle at the age of 88

I live at the Garvestone Post Office. I was born at Reymerston Post Office. I got married when I was 29 and came to Garvestone Post Office in the 30’s. I had three brothers and three sisters but unfortunately a brother and sister died when they were only 7 years old and 2 years old. Both died of Scarlett Fever, in those days they were not taken into hospital. An old lady in the village took them because you were not allowed to keep them in the shop because of the fever. My brother died quiet soon and my sister a bit later. I was born that same year. I was the 6th child, one before the youngest. We were a close family, always concerned about each other, we never left home, we never went on holiday. We had a marvellous Mother and Father; they really were wonderful. My father never hit us, he only had to speak and if he said no then that was that. If it was yes then that was the same way, so we never argued about things, never asked twice about things because we got the answer and we knew that was that. There was a great respect for my father and he was respected in all his work and by all the villagers. He used to travel by pony and cart with a few groceries to people and they all thought a lot of him. Mother did a lot in the Post Office while he was away and then when us children grew up, we all helped, my eldest sister helped a lot. We used to do the indoor house work between us, that was hard work as there were no vacuum cleaners, brick floors had to be scrubbed. We had mats down, no carpets. We had a sitting room, a little room where we used to have meals and a kitchen, we had 4 bedrooms, so it was quite a big house with a lot to do. Mum did all the cooking, she used to make bread on a Saturday and again on a Tuesday, they were the two big baking days. The oven was in the wall, we had no electricity. The Post Office was joined onto the house. We had a lot of ground, my mother’s father, my grandfather lived in Dereham and he used to come over and do a lot of the gardening. It was big enough for him to grow potatoes, so they got sold in the shop. We had lots of apple trees.

We went to Reymerston School until we were 9 years old and then we had to go to Garvestone School. There were lots of children then and we had to walk to and from school, as there were no cars. My youngest sister was the only one that ever had a bicycle when we were young, the others all had to walk. We used to skip, play at running hoops and spinning tops. We played individually and all together with Mother and Father. We were fortunate in winter evenings with no TV or wireless that Mum and Dad would always make time to play with us, we played Ludo and things like that to help pass the time in the evenings. 

The countryside has changed a bit, there are more houses now. The people don’t stay so long now as they did, they used to come into a house and stay until the finish but now they only stay for a short while and then they move on and someone else comes in. It is a bit harder to get to know everyone now. We used to know the generations and people who have grandchildren, we knew them themselves as babies. I liked that and people used to bring the babies in to show us. We were very much part of the community with the Shop. People say why don’t I retire but what would I do if I retired, just myself on my own. I would miss the company of the people and while I have the health and strength I hope to go on. 

I have worked since I left school- I helped at home and in the Post Office when I left school but my eldest sister was there as well and my parents felt they could not afford to keep us both, so I got a job at Reymerston Rectory as a cleaner. I never regretted it, I was there two and a half years until my sister got married then I went back home to work.

I go back to my childhood home at Reymerston regularly. The village is very quiet there, as it is very much off the beaten track. We get lots of traffic through Garvestone, so it is never quiet, even at night. You don’t see people walking about like you used to, they all hop into a car. I would not want to live there now as it is very quiet, it is so different. I feel part of the life and bustle of Garvestone, people call in and buy a little something. I am a country woman and I would not want to live in a town. My elder sister lived in Norwich; I would not want to live there.

I did not see the sea until I was 8 years old, that was a real treat. Mum and Dad could not go together as one of them had to be with the Shop and Post Office. I remember my Dad taking us and we met some friends on the platform to go to Great Yarmouth, so we all went together. I remember people asking me what I said when I first saw the sea but I don’t think I said anything. It was such a vast piece of water; we had seen ponds and things around in the meadows but nothing like the sea. I didn’t go in as I was a little frightened. We went to the sea maybe one day a year. With the Sunday School at Reymerston we went out once a year and I can remember we went to Brundall and we thought that was a real treat as we had to cross over the railway line. Occasionally we went into Dereham and Norwich and enjoyed it when we went there. I remember the farmers moving the sheep to market, they all came by foot along the road. They had two dogs with them and when it came to a gateway the one dog would run ahead and stand in the gateways, so the sheep would not go in, they had to keep them on the road. It was a marvellous sight and you would hear them coming from a long way off. 

Eventually my Dad did have a car, he was about one of the first in the village to get a car. He had one where it had a hood you pulled up. In time he did get a bus and they would organise trips to Yarmouth for the whole village and hire other buses to make up the load. There would be about three busses that went on the day trip. I did go with them once but another time you had to let someone else in the family go as we could not all be away. The villagers used to think that was wonderful to have a day trip out. We had travellers call so we got to know people from various places but we did not have relations away. We did have an Aunt and Uncle in Norwich, my mother had one brother and my father came from Aberdeen, so all his family were away. My father trained to run a shop but when he had gone through his training there was no work up there, so he thought he would come down to Norfolk. My mother was at Wymondham Station and he came off the train, as he had to change trains. It was poring of rain and he had got one of those oily capes and as he walked past my mother, he brushed her with it and stopped to apologise. So of course, it went from there. My mother died when she was 53 years old, she suffered with her heart. She worked hard and having 7 children must have been quiet a thing. I can remember her being in bed several times for a week or so. She had a stroke. I took some hot water and a basin and gave her a wash, she laid back on the pillow and my Dad was getting ready to go into Dereham, to shop from a wholesaler. She did not make a noise but I knew from her mouth which had gone to one side. She could not speak. I managed to call from the bedroom window before my Dad got into his car. The doctors said it was a massive stroke and she died later that day. We were all devastated to think what life was going to be like without Mum. I took over looking after the others and the shop until I was 29 years old and married. I used to cook and look after my brothers, sister and dad. A person in the village used to come and I would help her with the washing, it was all by hand as there was no machines, soap powders, just soda and soap. When the modern inventions came in it did make things easier. Housework is easier now with washing machines and with the cooking you just put something in the oven, all the gadjets and things to make life easier. Also, places don’t get so dirty as there isn’t the dust like there used to be. You had to sweep the floors and sweep the carpet or rugs on your hands and knees.  We were always busy; we didn’t close the shop until ten at night. We had to be open at six in the morning as the mail was brought out to us from Norwich, for all this area (3 or 4 villages). We had to sort it and we had two postmen who came in to delivery it on bicycles. As a postmistress I have been treated well by the village, I have had a party organised by them in the village hall, I opened a fete, they had been wonderful to me. 

My parents and brother are buried at Reymerston and my sister will be buried there but I will be buried beside my husband at Garvestone. I belong to Garvestone. It has changed a lot, there used to be another shop and public house but they have gone now. New houses keep going up, no more new council houses. There used to be open fields where houses are now, where the council houses used to be a field that grew corn. Things won’t stand still; things have to advance. If I did not continue to work in the Post Office, they would just close us and then I worry about the old people getting their pensions. I will have to learn a computer system for the Post Office, there will not be pension books but cards. I did feel a bit sad when they came out to tell me the new systems, it has been nice working in the Post Office as it is. The youngsters learn about computers at school, so I thought surely if they can work them then so can I. They stopped bringing the mail to us, so our two postmen were made redundant. It is brought out by mail van all sorted from Wymondham. They collect our mail twice a day and take it back. I never wanted to be anything other than being a post mistress, maybe I was silly as I could have been. I did pass my exams but I did not want to go to the High School at Dereham. My parents did not force me. We had never been on the train and it would have meant getting to the station and getting on the train every day. I have no regrets. 

In the shop we used to have to weigh everything, sugar and flour came in great big hessian sacks. Treacle and syrup came in a big pale and people had to bring a jar and we had to spoon it out into their jar. All dried fruit, sweets even tobacco we had to weighed out. Cheese came in a huge amount and it was covered in a greasy hessian and you had to skin it and use a long wire to cut it in half and then quarter it. That got wrapped in greased paper. Lard and butter came in a big block and you had to weigh it all out. Shop keeping is easier now as you don’t buy anything that needs weighing out. I have never bought a ready meal; I like to do my own cooking. A lot of people have convenience food and a microwave. I don’t have a microwave and don’t wish for one.  

Years back we had the shelves stacked with goods to sell but the supermarkets have done us a great deal of harm. People have cars and go off to Dereham to do their shopping, if they forget something they will come in and ask. People come to us by car but before you would see a whole family with a horse and cart. In Norwich I went on the tram to go and see my sister, she lived on Plumstead Road. I would get off the train and get on the tram go out and see her. 

When I worked at the Rectory, I earnt my own money, not a lot though. My Mum and Dad had to save up for things, they used to give us pocket money when we helped. If we wanted clothing, they would help us with it but we had saved some pocket money too. We went to church three times on a Sunday; morning service, after lunch it was Sunday School and then to evening service. Mum and Dad had friends who lived the other side of Attleborough and when I was older me and my sister would cycle over there on a Sunday to see them. That was an adventure. I have continued to attend church all my life. We are now in a group of villages, 14 villages, so we don’t always have a service in our own church. People are kind and will offer a lift to get to the other churches. The first Sunday of the month will be a group service so either we visit or others will come to our church. We have a good chat and it is a social occasion. I have a strong faith and I pray every night. It does help me. 

I lost my father when he was 74. He had sugar diabetes; he was living at Reymerston, I was at Garvestone by then. He had worked hard throughout his life.

I met my husband when we were at school. We had a courtship of about 12 years. I think if mother hadn’t died the courtship would not have been so long. We did put off getting married as I was at home looking after all the others but in the end, we thought if we didn’t do it then, we would not do it at all. Garvestone Shop and Post Office became vacant so we decided to come. We married when I was 29. That was quite late for that time. My husband had two brothers and one sister. He would come over and see me during the week and then we would see each other at the weekends. He would usually come to our house as I was busy getting the meals ready. We got married on Boxing Day, we had to have it on Boxing Day as the shops were shut then. We had a little party at the old school, it was let then because it had been taken over by the army and was not a school anymore. It was snowing hard and I went and laid my flowers on my mother’s grave. I went to Norwich to get my wedding dress and my eldest sister met me in Norwich to help me. We went into one shop and there was a dress with puff sleeves and lace and it was 35 shillings and much dearer than any of the others I had seen but I could still afford that one. It was a wonderful dress and I lent it to many people as we then went on clothing coupons. 

 My husband had heart problems. He did odd jobs in the church yard but go so out of breath. He would not see the doctor then, until it happened again. The doctor said he had had a heart attack. They did not send him to the hospital so he stayed in bed. He passed away in his bed one morning. That was a shock. I was 67 years old. I carried on in the shop as normal as he had always gone out to work. I did the shop on my own. He died on a Sunday and on the Monday I had to get the order ready for the shop. I carried on; I had some off days but I had some good people around me. We had a happy marriage; we didn’t go out much as the shop was open until 10pm. He helped with odd jobs and liked his garden, growing vegetables. We both would have liked to have children but it just didn’t happen. 

I can remember when we had the first wireless my elder brother – he would have been 13/14 years old, he made a set. You had a little gadget in the set and what they called a cat’s whisker which was ever so fine and you had to get that on the right spot. There were headphones, no loudspeaker. If one was using it and the others were speaking, we were told to be quiet. 

I can remember the flooding in Norfolk, it did not affect us but on one of the Sundays my Dad insisted on taking us down to see the floods at Horsey and it was amazing to see how far the water had come inland.

In the first world war my Dad was a postman at Hingham with a cycle, so he had to go in the mornings and again in the afternoons, getting home about 7pm. He came home one night and said if you put the lights out and all come to the back door with me you will see a Zeppelin going over. He said he had more of less come with it all the way home. It was like a big tree trunk floating in the sky, I always remember that. They were going to Dereham and that night they dropped a bomb in Dereham.

In the second world war we had lots of Americans in the village about two miles away and they were quiet crazy. They used the train station and sometimes would call in and ask for something and we hardly knew what they were asking for. I suppose they were going on the train to Norwich, they had bicycles and were based at Shipdham. One summer morning it was light and we were still in bed and you could hear the planes from Shipdham, circling and gathering in formations. Another morning we could tell it was a German plane as you could tell the difference in the sounds of the planes and then a bomb dropped, not far away and half the ceiling came down onto our faces. That shook the house. We had a flare dropped one night about 6pm just out the back. The home guard came quickly and dug mounds to put the flames out. The plane came back, I suppose they were looking what had been lit up by the flames, so they could see what else to target. 

In the shop we had ration books and you had to cut the coupons out. Plenty of people struggled. They could not save anything for their old age and burials.       

I have visited London, that was after my husband died. I went by coach with some other ladies. Also, I was invited on another occasion to go to lunch in London by the Post Office, I was the only person from Norfolk as they could choose one person from Norfolk and they chose me. We had a wonderful time and met the head Post Master. I was the eldest there, I was 72 years old then.    

In the Shop I had a break in, a fellow came in with a gun. I was very suspicious of him, he came in with a wool hat pulled right down to his eyes, so I said to myself to be careful. I asked if I could help and he said he wanted a postage stamp. So, I went round to the Post Office side and the door you go through if you pull it to it locks. He said he wanted money as well as the stamps. I said you are not getting any money off me. I put the stamp book back in the draw and again he said he wanted money. I said if you don’t leave within 2 minutes, I will be setting the alarm off. He opened the door to leave and a man ran past the shop window and grabbed him. He had left his car right outside the door, so he only needed to get out of the door into his car. The man shouted me to phone a number and that turned out to be Dereham Police. The man struggled and managed to get into his car but the other man got him out again. The police turned up and bundled him into the van. The man said he was passing and he was a plain clothed policeman. He had seen the man come into the shop and he thought there was something suspicious about him, so he stopped and parked up and ran back. I was so lucky. Afterwards we found out it wasn’t a real gun but you don’t know that when you are looking down a barrel. I was more frightened afterwards. I went to Colchester to be presented with a certificate. 

Our village hall was an old army hut they bought when the first war ended and they still use that for community activities.

I would like everyone to work as a community and not to segregate people, to all work as a community and try and help each other.