I was born in 1930 on Lord Street in, Skerton.

My mum and dad were Annie and Herbert Wilson and I had my brother Clifford, who was killed in the Second World War; my brother Norman lives at higher Heysham; my sister Florence died 10 years ago; and then myself, I'm the youngest.

I don't remember much about the house on Lord Street 'cause we moved to Beaumont Street when I was only young. Then we moved to Blades Street when I was about nine or 10.

My dad was a driver for Lunesdale farmers. My mother worked for the dentist in Dalton Square, then she moved to the one in Marketgate, she did the cleaning. And then she moved to Oglethorpe the solicitors; she retired from there. When they were on Sun Street she cleaned the offices and lived in the house next door. That was after I'd left home though.

I started school at Skerton when I was four and a half and I went there till I left when I was 14. I really loved school. I played hockey, netball and rounders for the school teams. I enjoyed sport, I still do.

I had an opportunity to go further at school actually but my mother and father couldn't afford it so I had to take a job. The headmistress wanted me to go and do another course and things but money was tight, and everybody else had to work so I had to do it as well.

When I left school I went to work for Aykroyd's shoe repairers. They had a lot of shops and they had an office in Queen Street in Morecambe and that's where I worked.

Then I moved to Dilworth's the builders in Damside Street, Lancaster, doing clerical work. They had a rent collector, 'cause they had a lot of property, and she brought the rent in and we worked it out and sent it to the bank. When I went to work there it was Joe Dilworth who was in charge. The father was dead by this time but they actually made the coffin for him in the workshop.

And they did make one when I was there and put me in it for a bit of fun! But it was a good firm to work for. I enjoyed it and I got married from there.

I was very keen on dancing when I was younger. We all used to go together in a crowd and we had plenty of dance halls to choose from: the Tower, the Floral Hall, Winter Gardens, the Pier.

I used to dance with a young lad from our street, Bill Pinnington, but we never went as a couple, just as friends, you know. He was a terrific dancer 'cause he took lessons. We all enjoyed dancing in those days.

Then I met my husband, Frederick Sinclair, who was staying in Morecambe and we got married in 1951. We got married at St. Thomas' Church on Penny Street; my father at that time was the janitor of St.Thomas' School.

We moved to Cambuslang, just south of Glasgow, where my husband was from. He was a motor mechanic and I worked in the Hoover factory. I was secretary to a production managers.

We lived in Cambuslang in a tenement. Our first tenement was what they called a single end: you only had the one room and you had a recess where your bed was put in. And you did everything in that one room. And then you'd get on a bit so you'd get what we called a but'n'ben, which was a room and kitchen.

You had the room as a bedroom for the kids and we still had the bed in the recess in the kitchen. They all had recesses where you could put a bed in. In these two tenements you had no toilet and no bathroom. You shared a toilet on the stair with three other houses. You got used to it.

And then I moved from there to a four room apartment and we bought it.

It was still in a tenement but it had a living and dining room, a little kitchen and a bathroom.

For a time I worked in Glasgow in an office by the whisky bonds, where they made whisky. And I was there when they had a great big fire in one o' the whisky bonds in Cheapside Street. It was a huge fire 'cause of course the whisky just went up in flames.

Not having a bath in our tenement, every week I used to take the ferry across the Clyde during my lunch hour and pay my money and have a hot bath. It was the only way you could have a bath with not having them in the house. All my sister-in-laws lived in Glasgow. Nancy worked for the council as a home help. When I first met her she was like myself, we lived in tenements, and she wouldn't go anywhere else but the steamie to do her washing.

The steamies in Glasgow were where the swimming and public baths were.

They were huge, great big wash houses. I went with her an odd time.

She'd pull her tin bath full of washing along on an old pram. You paid your money when you'd go in the steamie, you'd take your rubbing board, wood or glass, and you'd do your whites first and put 'em in a boiler and while they were doing you'd scrub your coloureds. And when you'd washed them you'd hang them on these big racks that pulled out and that's where they dried. If you wanted, you could iron in the steamies as well but then you had to pay more money.

When they were dry, you folded them all up, put them back in your trolley and away you went. It was quite a hard morning's work.

But everybody was in at the same time and you got to know the people and there was a lot of joking. It was a very sociable type of thing.

Everyday you saw women going up and down to the steamie, with an old pram or a trolley that they could put the tin bath and washing in.

My husband got made redundant in 1981 and we went out to South Africa to see my son. We had two children, Clifford and Jean. I had four grandchildren till Graeme got killed last year. Cliff worked with the steel works but when they finished they all got jobs in South Africa and he went out. My husband got lots of jobs offered him so we went out to live there in 1982. It was a big upheaval but my husband was in his fifties and couldn't get another job in Scotland. He got a job at Rand airport in Germiston making propellers for aircraft.

I enjoyed the social life in Africa, especially going bowling. I've been a very keen bowler all my days but I had to give it up after I had heart surgery. I've won cups for bowling in Cambuslang and in Africa. I was president of the bowling association in our club in Germiston and I played in national competitions in Cape Town. It's different bowling to here. Here it's crown bowling but in Scotland and Africa it's rink bowling.

We stayed in a rented house for a while and then bought a plot and built a house of our own. Unfortunately, we only had two and a half years in it before my husband died. He was only 58. So I was left there on my own.

I worked in Rand airport as a financial clerk in a private air company, National Airways. You saw all sorts of people coming to go on their private planes. Nelson Mandela used to come and get his plane there. He was very nice, a very pleasant man, and I spoke to him a few times.

When they repaired the planes they used to have to take people up in them to test them. So they used to come in the office and say "I need four of you today" and we would go up in the private plane. Then they would say "I need somebody to go up in a helicopter" and we'd go in that. You'd go round Johannesburg and back just to test them with weight.

I came home every year when I was in Africa because I got cheap tickets with working for an airline. Then in 1991 I fell in the office and broke my arm really badly. I went back to work but I couldn't lift the ledgers and the surgeon said I had to retire. So I came back to Britain in 1992.

By that time my daughter had left Glasgow and married a Morecambe boy, Bob Dawson. I came and stayed with them and moved back to Lancaster in 1995. I was in a sheltered housing flat for nine years and I'm in a bungalow now.

When I get off the bus to walk through the estate you can't walk down the road without somebody speaks to you, whether you know them or not. And you can't fault that.

I'm happy living back here again near my family. I just wish I still had my other half with me."