Granny Trotter

A Memory of Eton.

Immediately on the right here was Eton College's Rectors House (?), mum's mum was cook, she was a WWI widow with 5 kids and walked daily from a railway slum in Stoke Gardens Slough. When mum left school in the 30's at 14 and was too young for work the rector's wife said to gran to bring the girls along (Nell, mums older sister), mum was "tweeny" (in-between stairs maid) and hated it. Rector took them all on a "holiday", I think to Littlehampton. The girls were laughing at some joke, sitting on the lawn with their mum when they were told off by the rector's wife and given some sewing to do. Mum swore she'd never go into service and got a job packing razor blades, cutting her fingers. Gran also did a "bagwash", washing packed in a pillow case, mum collected and delivered it in an old pram, gran caught her hand in the mangle. A treat was a rabbit which one of the boys caught whilst caddying at Stoke Poges Golf Club, gran was left with the rabbits head to pick the meat off. Stoke gardens had 2 bedrooms, 3 boys in one and gran and the 2 girls in another. Mum never slept on her own till dad died