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mum.and.dad.by.roland

By: Roland Pullen
About:Samuel Pullen (his Father) and Winifred Pullen (his Mother)
September 2002

Part 1: Dad I
Part 2: Dad II
Part 3: Mum
Part 4: Anecdotes (Mum & Dad)
Part 5: Mum and Dad during the War
Part 6: Mum and Dad II

Part 1: Dad I [top]
"Born 10 September 1917 in London - don't know where. Dad went to school until he was sixteen - this was unusual for his generation and was because he was 'smart'. He was good at mathematics, among other things. His dad left school unable to read or write but well able to play the tin whistle. He learned the 3 R in the army. Dad father was stationed in India for much of Dad's childhood and he was largely brought up by his mother. They had their family rituals, one of which was to spend his every Sunday with his Gran to eat a pint of winkles and dry bread. Dad was very very good at swimming, without having coaching, and swam races as well as water polo. He spent most of his time as a young boy, and much of his energy, he claims, in the swimming pool. He enjoyed it immensely but I always also felt he regretted the extent of his commitment.

At school dad also gained medals for high hurdles. In the war Dad worked in REME and as a result spent a lot of time doing tug-of-war!? This must have further helped develop his great strength and endurance. This is what allowed him to live till he was eighty in spite of many serious medical problems.

Dad was a life long socialist; a very short term communist (until Mum, Winifred, gave him a choice 'me or them'); a life long scout at least in spirit; an idealist. Dad was short in patience and long in enthusiasm and energy. He ran everything he could that he joined. The list of his 'involvement's' that I remember and knew about are huge. They include; the Labour party, Labour party tote, Labour party candidate several times - failed, war time fireman, scout master, group scout master, road safety council member, horticultural society secretary, church coffee morning organiser, trade union secretary / treasurer / chairman; company partner, trades council member, school governor and so on."

Part 2: Dad II [top]
"He was a keen gardener for much of his life, having at least one allotment and at some points in his life two and three, even when he had a bit of a garden.

Dad was a very skilled turner and fitter who was also able to use most other tools competently. This was his background trade for most of his working life. He started off as a manual worker and gradually moved into engineering, learning it as he went. As far as I know he never had a formal apprenticeship. Apart from the employment at a number of firms as an engineer he was self-employed for many years, firstly, as a tailor at 19 Trinity Square, Margate and then as an engineer in Pullen and Walford at Sandwich. The tailors business, with a sweet shop was never a great success but the Sandwich firm did a great deal better, without being a great source of affluence.

These are some of the things he did but do not really describe him; Dad thought he could do anything and would give anything a try. If what he was trying was mechanical and craft based, he could generally do it and do it well. If it was inspiring people he could also do it. If it was being political dad was not so good; he had too much idealism and not enough political science. When this was mixed with a healthy proportion of impatience, particularly with fools, and no deep rooted confidence then it becomes an explosive mixture.

Dad was a caring and generous man, with no great materialistic leanings, who loved his wife, his children and his friends. These were the motivating springs of much of what he did. At the same time he had faith in Jesus Christ and was an active member of his church at various times during his life, including the last ten or so years.

Dad had a problem with his thyroid in his thirties and from then on his health deteriorated. He had his first heart attack when he was less than forty and although he lived till eighty he had several heart 'incidents', a serious cholesterol problem, a problem with his aorta for many many years and in the last ten years increasing blindness and deafness. This affected him a great deal causing him to become seriously impatient with himself when he could not hear or see. One thing dad did not do was allow himself to become and invalid in any way by his medical problems.

At one point, the backbone around his sciatic nerve was crumbling in three places so that it did not protect his sciatic nerve. This became so painful that he could not walk and became totally helpless. He became wheel chair bound for six or more months while the doctors decided what to do. Their final conclusion after x-rays, scans and every other sort of examination was to perform a major operation on his spine to attempt to reduce the pressure on his sciati nerve. In the mean time he was being earnestly prayed for and when he went to have his pre-operation examination it was found that he was 'cured' and only needed physiotherapy. I know this was a miracle of God and so did dad. He told me of other times he had received intervention from God, even a visitation by an angel. This love of God really help sustain his faith in all the dark times in his life.

The darkest time of his life was when Win, his wife died. The 24 hour nursing and then the loss of her nearly drove him to distraction. It was years before he could even pretend to have recovered from that loss.

He died a believing Christian and in my eyes a great man who I love very much."

Part 3: Mum [top]
"Mum was born in Peckham, London on 24th September 1913. She lived till she was about 76. Mum Mum was a loving and very determined woman. She loved her husband (Samuel) with an all consuming love. How do I know that? She would not permit herself to die, even though she would welcome it in the last period of her life, until dad was ready to let her go. This is will power and love. At the end of her life the various organs of her body were shutting down one after the other as the pressure on them came too great.

I will remember my mother, throughout her life, as intellegent, fiercely protective, mentally very strong, adhereing to definite and unswerving standards, strongly loving of her family and children in general. She was not greatly interested in cooking and housework but could cook her range of foods very well. She was a great home maker and could run a home on almost any budget in a way that brought, food, cheer and contentment.

Mum was in the scouting (guiding) movement for not less than 20 years of her life and at one time run 3 brownie packs simultaneously because the packs kept growing too large. She did this with out a strong physical presence, because she did not have it, without a strong voice, because she did not have it, but through alertness to each and every need, a ready solution to each and every problem, an unswerving standard and desire from all her girls and an inexhaustible fund of the activities for the brownies involved. These qualities exemplified her character.

When we, her children, were young it was mum who dealt with the schools and any officialdom on our behalf, to get justice for her young, to stop any oppression of her family. In times of other stress she always had the wisdom to offer which brought comfort.

Throughout her life she supported 'Sam' in both his ups and his downs. When the family was prosperous she would squirrel money away and when we were not then these caches would come to the rescue. She had come from a generation where the wife supported the husband and there were good and bad times, without a dependence on some welfare system to protect her. She came from a very poor background where her mother had two different husbands, both of whom died, so that my grandmother had to bring up the children through taking in washing and such things. This meant that food was scarce, mum and her sisters were not strong (one of her sisters died as a child). This was normal with poor families in the early 20th century - you experienced near or actual starvation. This led to mums total commitment to the Labour party who brought in the welfare system and stopped that starvation. No other issue was relevant.

Mum had a kidney removed after she had Roland and Ralph (twins) and that was meant to stop any more children. If did not, as is evidenced by Diane and Tim, but it did mean she was strong in health. She taught us not to complain about such things by never complaining herself.

Mum was very proud of her children and very content, right to the end of her life, with having raised a fine family. She more than Dad was committed to the church but had difficulties with such things as the church council, of which she was a member for some a period.

I remember my mum as a strong, impressive, loving and wonderful mother."

Part 4: Anecdotes [top]
"Dad loved cycling all his life and took Mum on a tandom a great deal before they were married which resulted in a number of accidents due to Dad's enthusiasm!

Dad owned an Austin Seven (or something similar) before the war, which he used to go off camping, but he never could get with driving after the war.

Mum worked in Kelly's directories before she was married and as a result she knew where most everywhere was in the country and which county it was in.

Mum and Dad went camping with a crowd of people nearly every weekend before they were married. This was due to their responsibilities as Scout, Rover Scout and Guide leaders. They also had permanent tents set up in Essex. They would cycle there most times on Friday and back on Sunday. Mum had strict times when she had to be in.

Dad thought he was indestructible, as a younger man. When he lost a fishing line in the sea at Clacton, he simple took off his jersey and dived in the sea after it. He got it back and was none the worse for it. It seemed like a bit of an over-reaction even to a five year old. I guess I was afraid of losing my dad.

We had a fire at 119 Verdant lane in Hithergreen - where we lived for most of my toddler hood in london. It was started by an electrical fault. Diane was very young then - a baby - and she was laying in her room thinking the flames were sent to entertain her. She was chuckling and cooing at them. This fire cost the family a lot and stopped us emigrating to Australia. At the time Dad had a wood lathe he had made in the back room for turning wooden things to make more money and they were saving to emigrate but it all went up in smoke. It is hard to know what difference it would have made if we had emigrated.

Dad was always taking on things which would help his sons and daughter. So when there was a need for a 'proper' Scout troop for his sons to belong to he took over the 3rd Margate and we became a proper troop. This meant that there was a concentration on sport, trumbling and gymnastics, camping, woodcraft, marching, religious observance, bands and a de-emphasis on badge winning. Dad set up a handball tournament and supplied/made the trophies, which we proceed to win. We were instrumental in an area scout sports day for which we won the tug-of-war! We needed our own camp site so Dad found a suitable piece of land and bought it - years before the district got around to doing so.

Dad thought we needed a swimming club so that we could do a bit of competitive swimming. As there was not a public pool or club in the area he negotiated with the Queens hotel to use their pool, formed a club and ran it for years. This was a wonderful period of our lives.

Mum did the same for brownies. Starting many packs. Working with her daughter Diane in this arena."

Part 5: Mum and Dad during the War [top]
"Mum and Dad had many anecdotes about the war but never dwelt on it for long. I believe this is because it was not a great time for them. Dad put all the hours God gave him towards the war effort as well as merely surviving. The war was an expensive time for all. Dad started the war with 5 or more tents and finished it with one rather worn out tent. The reason for this was that theirs and their neighbours roofs kept being blown off and he used his tents to cover up the houses until the tiles could be restored.

Mum and Dad were bombed out of their houses five times, and in one at least there was a time bomb so that they had to stand around waiting for their house and possessions to be blown up! On that occasion Dad had bought some new leather to repair his shoes and could not bear to lose it so he went in to rescue the leather. I took that to be very unwise bravado, particularly as none of us would be here today if he judged it wrong! The whole concept to constantly having to find a new home and start over because of bombs and fire leaves me awestruck.

Dad was a member of the volunteer fire brigade during the war which meant that during the blitz and the V1 and V2 periods he was on call most nights for much of the night, and worked all day. He remembered being up 3 days straight at one point when things were particularly bad. He had a number of anecdotes about work in the fire service but not many. I believe this was because it was not often good and exciting but grim. He said that it was awful to sift through rubble of a house and find bits of people. This had always stayed with him and I cannot be surprised.

Dad and Mum used to speak often of endless games of monopoly in their bomb shelter which they had to go to each night when Dad was not on duty. They also spoke of the terror that the bombs induced in Ivan and to a lesser extent the twins. They must have been reacting to the bombing themselves and the terror of their parents.

They also used to speak repeatedly of the difficulty of getting provisions, of coupons, of the miserable quantities allowed, of rationing right through to the fifties, of keeping chickens and allotments. Everything was a struggle at that time but the family survived.

They spoke of the evacuation - particularly during the V1/V2 period - with the young family. The first evacuation was to an uncaring, unhelpful, cruel place where they were given an outside shed to sleep in and planks for a bed. Mum sent an SOS to Dad to come and retrieve her and the children which he did. The second time was to Little Wilberham (I think) in Cambridgeshire and was better. I have since made friends with a man who was there at that time and lived for most of his life at Little Wilberham.

Dad had a reserved occupation of engineer during the war, quite apart from being flat footed and colour blind. The result of that was he was involved firstly at REME dealing with vehicles and certainly later with making gun laying equipment for use on war ships. It was all work to him and he never spoke in any detail to me about what he worked on at that time."

Part 6: Mum and Dad II [top]
"Mum and Dad were both pretty heavily against drinking for two strong reasons. The first was that they saw many of their neighbouring families very heavily affected by drink. The father or both parents would drink heavily and the family would be destitute, which meant they would starve to death. Many men would spend their wages in the pub on the way home from work and it would not get there either; at all; or precious little. This was rife. The second effect was that alcohol disabled and killed. The only sure way of avoiding this problem in a family was for the parents not to drink. This was both of their views and stayed with them all their lives.

It seems to me that, although we are better fed, as a nation, and have more physical strength and wealth than then, the same ills and dangers apply. Drink still exacts a massive cost in society and in families and it is now joined by drug taking. Mum and Dad would see no reason for changing their views today.

Another formative influence on them was the poverty in both Peckham and Old Kent Road. This did mean that educational prospects were minimal, and clothing was poor, and food was basic and scarce and health care was not available. Mum left school as soon as was allowed in order to help support the family, having read romance novels most of the time at school. (She read them for the rest of her life also!) They both lived through the depression when work was scarce. Dad remembers a scarlet fever, or something similar, epidemic killing the majority of children in his street when he was a boy. This was not because scarlet fever was especially powerful but because they were ill fed, ill clothed, ill doctored and weak from life long neglect. Dad was sent away with half a crown to camp for six weeks while the epidemic raged or he may have been a victim.

Mum's whole immediate family were not physically fit and one of them died during childhood. It is reasonable to ascribe that to their poverty. Mum was wholly thrifty all her life and could not abide waste or conspicuous spending. Both of Dad's brothers went to a malnutrition clinic and a sanatorium because they were not expected to live but live they did.

This background to both their lives of daily privation fuelled their socialism as they perceived the labour part as caring. This led Dad to being a life long support and active member of anything socialistic in flavour. Mum that the bringing in of the health system was the most important thing in all the political history she lived through and she was a life long supporter of the socialists as a result. It is fair to say that the health system did save her life and if it had not been in place she would have died after Roland and Ralph were born.

I believe we need to remember this past and give thanks for all the prosperity we have now and the distance from want. Their values are still pertinent today."

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