Alice Brown

My name is Alice Brown, I was born in 1896 in Nottingham , and I was an orphan as a child. I had four brothers and one sister, Tom, Albert, Edward, John and Elise, we were all separated orphans in different orphanages so I was told. They were very strict, little food and money was tight. By the time I fourteen to seventeen, I worked fourteen hours a day in a warehouse. It was 1913, on a very cold winter’s November’s evening. I was sitting on a street corner staring into space and freezing cold. I was wearing a grey ragged dress, very thin cotton. Suddenly I noticed a very blond haired man coming towards me, wearing a scarify black jacket and trousers. We talked all night long as he gave me his jacket to put which was miles too big for me. His name was Fred Brown. Fred was bought up be his Father single handed as his Mother Joyce died very young. His Dad was a miner in Nottinghamshire. George married again to a lady named Elizabeth and they had Fred’s step brother Bill. Both George and Elizabeth died when Fred was twelve and Fred raised Bill until he could look after.ok himself. It was a hot summer in 1918, when me and Fred married. He became a coal mine. I was carrying my first baby boy Sam. Me and Fred were looking forward to the future together, then a couple years later I had Richard, he was 10Ibs born, his hair was white blond as snow and bright blue eyes. When he got to six months old, he couldn’t stop smiling and laughing. We tried our hardest to give our children the best childhood we could, which we would anyway but mainly because neither or Fred’s childhood was very good. Matthew was born in 1925, he had very thick jet black hair, he looked like as if he came out of the coal mines with his Father, when I had him. He was a very greedy little boy. In school he made paper out of machete. Painted it green and red, he licked the paint as he pulled a funny face. We were all laughing and crying at the same time. Life was so happy for all of us until Fred died twelve months later in a mining accident. There was an explosion as his body was found in the pits. Hi my name is Sam Brown Alice and Fred’s son. In the end Mum struggling to cope with out Dad, looking after us money wise, as she put her head in a gas oven, it was awful, as I was the eldest, I raised my brothers Richard and Matthew, Richard raised Matthew when was fourteen, when I joined the army at eighteen. When I came out the army at twenty one, I unexpectedly met the I fell in love with to be my wife her name was Lilly. Me and Lilly fell in love on the Yorkshire Moors where we met, then she came to Nottingham to train as a nurse in the Second World War. She moved into my late Mother’s house while I was at war looking after my young brothers Richard and Matthew. she had raised her brothers and sisters too. Ron and Elise had died when Lilly was twelve. Lilly was born and bred Yorkshire. Lilly never went to school, she was educated at home and she went down the mines when she was five years old. At age of seven she was sweeping the chimneys and sixteen till eighteen she was a kitchen maid. Lilly’s brother Robert married a lady who was also named Lilly, he was the last of their family to marry after, Lilly’s uncle Richard died who was Lilly Mum Ellie’s brother. Sooner the war was over in 1945, me and Lilly married.