1) So Many Addresses

As I write my address in the top right hand corner of a letter I think of how many different addresses I have had to write over all the years and I am amazed. I often have a twinge of envy for people who have lived all their lives in one place, who know all the people around them have watched the development of their areas and have always known where they would end their days. But if I had always stayed in one place I would have missed so much, there would be people I would have never known and my life would have been a much duller one.

My address at the moment is Forresters Beach 2260 NSW Australia, before that it was
3 Uvongo Rd. Waterfall KZN South Africa, then
7 Hulletts Rd. Mpumalanga, KZN South Africa, then,
5 Sunbird Rd. Inchanga Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal or KZN) South Africa, then,
4 Nuffield Rd., Tassbett Park, Witbank, South Africa, then,
5 Rosemary St. Jackeroo Park Witbank, South Africa, then,
16 Moffat St. Morningside Mutare, Zimbawe, then,
Kalise, Nyahamini Rd. Vumba, Zimbabwe, then,
71 Alexandra Drive Hatfield Salisbury (now Harare), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), then,
10-66th Ave Haig Park Salisbury, Rhodesia, then,
9 St. Dunstan’s Close Braeside Salisbury, Rhodesia, then,
1-20th Ave Mabelriegn Salisbury, Rhodesia, then,
3 Prue Close Greendale Salisbury, Rhodesia, then,
5 Gardenia St. Kubundi Chingola, Zambia, then,
82 13th Street Chingola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), then,
11 Penlan Cres. Glanmore, Swansea, South Wales, United Kingdom.

I know there was another house before Penlan Cres but I don’t remember that one, my first recollections are of moving into that house with my mother, father and two sisters, Dulcie 7 years older than me and Adele, 3 years younger than me when I was about 3 or 3 ½. We lived there with my grandparents and our maiden aunt Emily. My parents Dominic and Ada Pelosi ran a business and having my maternal grandparents living with them was convenient, it enabled them to work long hours and not have to worry that we girls were ever left unattended.

Childhood for us all was good and uneventful, in post war Swansea I remember that many things were still rationed. Petrol, clothes and most important to me then, sweets. I remember that Swansea had a lot of bombsites but did not really understand what had caused the destruction, in fact for a long time I thought they were “Bon sites”. I was fortunate to have been born at the end of the war and do not remember any of it. I do remember that when I went to school we could not buy sweets without ration coupons and the war had been over for about 5 years by then. The only clothes that could be bought without coupons were school uniforms and I remember well the pretty pink party dress my mum bought me when clothes rationing finally ended.

Penlan Crescent was a quiet street in a fairly good suburb of Swansea, mostly inhabited by very conventional Welsh people. I remember the story that our neighbour was supposed to have said, “I don’t know what this street is coming to, first we got Jews and now Italians” but my grandfather was very proud of the fact that “none of his grandchildren had one drop of non Italian blood in their veins”. He was of Italian stock but was actually born in London. His birth certificate states he was born in Greenwich in the sub district of St. Paul at Deptford on 2nd Nov 1882 and it even gives the time of his birth probably because he was one of twins and the time might be needed to establish which twin was the oldest. His family were travelling entertainers and he had travelled around Yugoslavia and Bohemia and other places too. My grandmother was born in southern Italy and they travelled to the United Kingdom after their marriage to make a better life for themselves. My mother was born in Scotland and my father who was born in Wales but he was from an Italian migrant family so although we were a couple of generations from Italy our blood was according to Grandpa “pure Italian”.

We all went to a local convent school, St. Winifred’s. Both my sisters did well there but I am afraid I did not shine academically but was rather spoilt by the nuns. They always made excuses for me and being inclined to laziness I took advantage of it. My spelling was always poor, (thank goodness for my computer spell check) and the teachers thought it was because I was Italian and did not understand the English language too well. I who never spoke any other language but English soon cottoned to this excuse and got away with it for years.

One other thing I did not do very well at was singing. Our singing teacher gave up on me and let me do my homework during the singing lesson. When we got a new singing teacher, Sister Paula, she saw me doing my homework and wanted to know why. She called me to the front of the class and asked my name. “Marina Pelosi, that’s not Welsh, where were you born?” I told her I was born in Wales but of Italian parents and she said “A mixture of Italian and Welsh, the two greatest singing nations of the world, you must be able to sing, try this” I “tried this” and she was very disappointed, “the two greatest singing nations of the world, I wonder what went wrong”

We were not only different from our neighbours because we were Italians but also because we were Catholics. Our neighbours were all Church of England or Welsh Chapel, except the Jewish family of course. The lady next door to us who attended the Welsh Chapel was scandalised that we were allowed to play with a ball on a Sunday, her granddaughter was not allowed to and I remember her complaining to my mother because our cat was feeding her kittens on the front lawn, “in full view of everyone”

There were two elderly maiden ladies who were always nice to me. When they came up the back lane one day and found me sitting in the sun trying to learn to knit they looked at my work and tried to find something positive to say about it. Believe me it must have been hard to think of anything positive about that bit of tangled dirty wool. One of them said, “My, you do knit nice and tight don’t you” so I assumed that tight was right and pulled all the tighter. It must have put me back years, I did not learn to knit until much latter, when I was expecting my first baby.

I remember the wall between our garden and the one next door collapsed, no one was hurt except my poor grandmother who fainted because she thought we were playing beside it but we had been in the house at the time.

My grandmother had come from a small village in the south of Italy, very rural and very poor. She like most girls of that time and place had had no schooling and could neither read nor write. It’s hard to imagine now. But she and my grand father were in business all their married lives, and she was very hard working and managed the business whenever her husband was not there. Grandpa started with an ice cream barrow that he pushed around the town, they finally opened a café. My grandmother may not have been able to read and write but she certainly could count. I remember when I started school and was learning to read. I tried to teach her too, and was very surprised that she just could not grasp it, it was so easy. Maybe I was not a very good teacher.

My grandfather was not a great believer in education for girls, and made my mother leave school as soon as it was legal for her to do so. She was expected to help her family with the business. She had always done well at school even though her father had taken the family back to Italy and then back to the United Kingdom once or twice which had disrupted her education. She loved to read and wanted to join the library but being under age needed a parental signature and as her mother could not write she had to ask her father. He said that reading was a waste of time for girls and would not sign it. One of the customers in the shop caught her crying and asked what was the matter. When she told him he asked to see the card and he signed it for her so she joined the library but had to hide the books from her father. Her teachers were sad when they learnt that she was leaving school as they knew that she was very bright and they wanted her to go on to be a teacher.

My Mom was the eldest of four children. Next was her brother Gus, then her sister Emily and the youngest sister was Elfina. Gus and Elfina both married into Italian families so none of my maternal cousins had a drop of non-Italian blood. Gus had four children, Gloria, Anita, Rosanna and Mario. Elfina had three boys, Paul, Laurence and Eric and of course Emily never married. Gus, Elfina and Emily all died from leukaemia, I don’t know how old they were but I don’t think they reach 40. It was very hard on my poor grandmother; she never really got over it and always used to say, “Why didn’t God take me instead?” She suffered with arthritis and was in a lot of pain.

My Dad was the eldest of seven children. He had a younger brother called Louis and then came twin boys Fred and George. His sisters were Theresa and twins Amelia and Adeline. When I was very young the girls were all still living at home in Llanelli with my Nan, who was a widow. I liked to go and visit as the twins were only about twelve or so years older than me, teenagers who petted me and dressed me up and gave me pretty things that they no longer wanted. When Theresa got married to a hansom Italian whom she had met when he was a prisoner of war I was a flower girl and got to wear the pretty pink party dress my mother had bought for me when clothing rationing finished. I thought that my new uncle Bruno was the most hansom man I had ever seen and at five year old was a little in love with him myself. After their wedding they went to live in Venice, where he was from. When they came to visit two or three years latter with my cousin Rita I was amazed that she was blonde. I had never seen a blonde Italian as all the Italians I knew were from southern Italy and were dark haired.

The kids in our street were Helen Cowley, who lived next door with her mother, father and her grandmother. Her grandmother got very cross with my sister Dulcie because she told Helen that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. One day Helen, thinking she was being very clever said to Dulcie “Take the first three letters of your name, add and L and that’s what you are” Dulcie with hardly a pause for thought said “Take the first three letters of your name, add an L and go there! Helen ran indoors to tell her gran who came round to complain. It would have been so tragic if Dulcie had not thought of that until later. Then there were the Jewish boys, Gerald and Stanley. They were a friendly family but their father was very worried that his boys might get too fond of the gentile girls, so when he came home from work would always call the boys inside. Their mother was much more liberal and invited us in for tea now and again. I was very impressed that we were given our own plates and cup when we went there and never thought for one moment that she did not want to eat and drink out of the cups we had used. She used to give us matzos with strawberry jam and fresh cream. I still think it is the best way to eat matzos.

The only other girl in our street was Linda Chappell. She was the granddaughter of Old Potato Jones. He was a sea captain who had shipped potatoes into the country I suppose but he was well known by that name. Linda was a nicely brought up little girl and we used to tease her unmercifully. She usually wore a dress, while we were tomboys and were mostly in shorts. She eventually persuaded her mother to buy her a pair of shorts and came out to play in them. We were tickled pink to see that she was wearing her petticoat under her shorts and it was beginning to slip down and show. We laughed at her and she pulled her self up to her full height looked down her nose at us and said, “A lady always wears her petticoat” and marched off home.

At the end of our road there was a row of small shops. At one end was “Miss Jones’s,” the sweet shop, then a haberdashery shop, then a post office, and then a grocery shop. We loved “Miss. Jones’s” once sweets came off ration. I often went to the grocery shop called “Alice’s” on errands for my Mom or Gran. We bought lovely fresh bread there and had usually eaten about half of it before we got it home. At the other end of the row of shops there was “Ye Olde Tucke Shoppe”, a sort of mock Tudor house with one room made in to a little shop run by an ancient old crone with warts all over her face and she and the shop stank to high heaven. Alice used to get out the Air Wick air freshener and wave it about her shop after the old girl from the “Ye Olde Tucke Shoppe” had been in there. We only went in to the “Tucke Shoppe” on the occasions when Miss Jones was shut. Miss Jones must have got tired of the incessant “What have you got for a penny?

Our milk was delivered every morning, we washed the empty glass bottles and put them out on the doorstep and the milkman would replace them with full ones early in the morning. He came round on an electric delivery vehicle that was called a ‘float.’ Once a week he would call in the afternoon and collect the week’s money, he had a leather bag around his neck full of money but was not afraid to being hijacked. In the winter the milk would freeze and the cream would push up in a fat spout a few inches above the top of the bottle and the foil cap would sit on top of the frozen cream like a little mushroom. Sometimes the birds would peck holes in the bottle caps and drink some of our milk. The baker also delivered bread, and the coalman brought our coal in big 1 hundred weight sacks that he would carry on his back and then tip into our coalhouse. The rag and bone man came with his horse and cart, shouting “Rag and Bone” and people would bring out things to give him but I don’t recall what kinds of things. I know all our rags were used for polishing and cleaning around the house and so were put into my mother’s ragbag. I remember at school we had to take furniture polish and cloths at the end of the term to polish our desks. I was always given a piece of someone’s old underwear but most of the other girls brought proper yellow dusters and I longed to have one like that too; to me that was a sign of true wealth, to own a yellow duster.

When I was about 8 and Adele was about 5 we had our tonsils remove. Adele and I both remember it well but we have a difference of opinion about who had tonsillitis. When we were taken to the Ear Nose and Throat specialist, Mr Robinson he said that Adele’s tonsils were very inflamed and must come out and that “You might as well have the other one (indicating me) at the same time. Adele says that she is sure that I was the one with the inflamed tonsils and hers were just taken out at the same time. My Mom and Aunty Emily took us to the hospital on the bus. Poor Adele did not know what was happening and it was a very frightening experience for her. We both remember waking up in a big bed covered with red rubber sheeting with a lot of other children who were all crying. The doctor came and examined us and sent us home on the same day. I remember it was football Cup Final day. Dad came to fetch us in a car. I don’t know whose car it was as we did not have one in those days. We ungrateful little beasts – were disappointed, as we had been looking forward to a ride home in an ambulance. Because of our sore throats we were allowed to have jelly and ice-cream every day.

That was my only operation but Adele had another one later on. I suppose she was about 7 and I would have been 10 when she had her appendix out. I remember wanting her to play skipping with me but she said that she was not feeling well. I thought that she was just putting it on because she did not want to play the game I wanted but she went into the house and started vomiting and complaining of a sore stomach. The doctor was called (they did house calls in those days) and he diagnosed appendicitis and said that she was to have it removed straight away. He called the hospital and an ambulance was sent to fetch her. I remember my Aunt Emily telling someone about it all and she said that Adele had been rushed into hospital. I was rather jealous of all the attention she was getting and said “She wasn’t rushed in, the ambulance did not even ring its bell.

Life was much easier in those days. We had a lot more freedom. I was going to and from school on my own by the time I was six. It was a walk of about 2 miles I should imagine; I remember when they first introduce Zebra crossings. I was given very strict instructions that I was only to cross when a car stopped. I remember getting home rather late and when I was asked why I was so late I told my Gran that it was “ages and ages before a car came along that road and stopped at the Zebra crossing”. We went to Brownies or Girl Guides on our own, we were not taken everywhere by car. We walked or sometimes took the bus, but the penny for the fare was much better spent at Mrs. Jones’s. In the summer it was not so bad as it did not get dark until 9 o’clock or so but in the winter it was dark by 4 o’clock and we only left school at 4.

We started school at 9 o’clock in the morning and had lunch from 12.30 until 2.00pm. I did not stay in for school lunches and always went home. The girls who had stayed for school lunches liked to ask what we had had for lunch. With my Italian Gran doing the cooking I had things like Spaghetti Bolognaise, Ravioli, or Frittata and I was made to explain what it all was. British children of those days did not know any thing about any kinds of foreign food. They of course in the normal way of children said that it was disgusting and how on earth could I eat that. I must have been a real wet, as I never thought to just say that I had had steak and chips or roast beef and stop the teasing.

My school was St Winifred’s Convent. It was run by a band of lovely gentle nuns. My first teacher was Mother Rosalia. I remember that in her class there were both boys and girls, the boys only stayed until they were seven and had made their First Holy Communion after that they left and it became a girls only school. I did well in this first year and was chosen to represent my class in two items in the end of year concert. I was the mother cat, a leading role, in “The Three Little Kittens” With Tony O’Kane, Michael Murphy and Nigel Yates as the three little kittens, who had lost their mittens. I also recited a poem “The Doctor” that started – He comes up stairs with Mother and by my bed he takes a chair. I remember arriving at school on cold and wet mornings and one of the nuns, Sister Mary Rose helping me take off my Wellington boots, rubbing my cold feet until they were warm and helping me on with my indoor shoes. She was a sweet lady who mostly worked in the kitchen but loved all the children and said that we were “angels without the wings”

The school was in an old house that had been converted and added to. I remember the parquet flooring that the sisters kept so beautiful without the help of an electric polisher, the lovely stained glass window at the top of the stairs in the convent side of the establishment. There was a beautiful little chapel that we attended every evening before going home. While I was there a modern science laboratory was built and also a gymnasium. There were plans for showers in the gymnasium, but when the headmistress, Mother Stephens, asked the teachers who were not nuns what was worn while having a shower and was told what the normal ‘uniform’ for a shower is that project was dropped. But apart from that we had all the necessary equipment, wall bars, parallel bars, a horse, rings, trapeze climbing ropes and the lot.

I think we spent an awful lot of time practising for concerts and religious feasts. Every year we had Reverend Mother Birthday that was celebrated with a ‘surprise’ concert. At the beginning of May we always celebrated with the crowning of a statue of Mary and we sang, “Mary we crown you with blossoms today, Queen of the angles and Queen of the May.” We also re-enacted Mary being presented in the temple and in my first year I was chosen to represent Mary and was led by the hand into the chapel by Reverend Mother who represented Mary’s mother Anne.

The school had a sort of ritual cheer called a “rocket” I really can’t remember how it went but at the end of any festivity we had the Head Girl would shout “A rocket for Reverend Mother” and we would all stamp our feet slap our knees, throw our hand in the air and hiss and shout hooray. Then someone would shout “A rocket for Mother Stephen and all the nuns” and we would be off again. A bit like the All Blacks Haka.

Of course we studied for our First Holy Communion and learnt the prayer off by heart and recited them in a very singsong way. On that special day we girls all wore white dresses, and veils and the boys wore white shirts, long grey trousers and ties and we all looked very smart. I remember that I wore the same dress when I went through Confirmation so I must have been confirmed very soon after that as kids grow pretty quickly.

Other nuns I remember were Mother Baptist, she was round and jolly and taught us history. She could be side tracked very easily so we only had to ask a question on some unrelated but interesting subject and we could get out of a boring lesson on the kings of England. Mother Loretta taught us art, a subject I did quite well at, I don’t know why as I cannot draw at all. Mother Loretta told us to make a good painting one must, “Mix your colours, make big figures and fill up the page.” I obeyed these rules and so I usually got good marks. I remember having an argument with Mother Loretta, she was teaching us art appreciation and she was showing us a copy of Ford Maddox Brown’s painting “The last of England” She told us that the artist had made a mistake and painted the woman in the picture with three hands. Two clasped inside her cloak and another outside. I said “But she is holding a baby in her arms under that cloak, and that is the baby’s hand she is holding.” She would not admit that I was right and we spent a great deal of time arguing over it, if you ever get a chance to see the painting have a look and see what you think.

My closest friends at school were Cherry Jones, Barbara Pearson and Ellen Murphy. Cherry was an only child; her father was a baker and a part time trumpet player. Barbara had a younger sister called Janice and their father owned a florist shop. Ellen had a brother called Michael who was later to become the mayor of Swansea and a younger sister called Mary. I think their father had been killed in the war. One of the other girls in my class was Heather Stewart whose father was a pilot, a pilot on the boats not on planes. She used to get very dramatic and say her father had gone on another voyage when he only went out into Swansea bay to guide the ships into dock.

I remember the very first time I saw television. My uncle Eric, he was my Mom’s sister Elfina’s husband had bought a set and as it was coming up to Easter we were all invited to see the Pope’s address broadcast live from St. Peter’s square. I suppose that would have been Pope Pius XII who maybe only spoke Italian and Latin, as I don’t remember understanding a word he said. The TV set was small, the transmission was in black and white and the reception was very snowy, in fact I was not very impressed but I do remember that my Gran was very pleased to see His Holiness live. It was only years later that we had television in our home. It was black and white, one channel and no adverts. We listened to the radio a lot. Grandpa had to listen to the news, that we thought was very boring and we had to keep quiet while he did so, even radio reception was not so great. But we loved to listen to The Goons, Take it From Here, Hancock’s Half Hour, Journey into Space, and when I was pre-school to a program called “Listen with Mother”. It was on at 1.45pm and was for the very youngest children, and always began – “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin”. The adults like to listen to ‘Mrs. Dales Diary’, and ‘The Archers – an everyday tale of country folk’. I suppose that was the equivalent of today’s soap operas. I remember when one of the actresses wanted to leave the caste they wrote a barn fire into the script and poor Grace was supposed to have been killed. People were very upset and sent flowers and cards as if she had been a real person and the fire had been a real tragedy.