"Dad (Joseph Rutland) always used to sit on his windowsill in Weymouth Terrace to see Mum (Mary Ellen Barnett) coming from Mansfield Street passing his house. A lot of teenagers would meet outside 105 Mansfield Street (home of Mary Ellen Barnett).

Shortly after I (Mary Joan Rutland) was born, Nan & 'Pots' (Sidney Frederick Barnett & Mary (Green) Barnett) took on a lease of 122 Brougham Road and we all moved there. Nan & Pots downstairs and Mum & Dad upstairs. We had a nice garden; I think Dad (Joseph Rutland) always did the gardening. I remember 'Pots' killing the chickens we had and they would run all around the garden with their heads chopped off! I think that's where I got my phobia about birds.

When I was 4 I went to a Church School in Brougham Road. The Head Mistress' name was Mrs Moore and my teacher was Miss Porter. When I was 11 I went to a Church School in Pownall Road where I passed my 11+ exam. The Head Mistress' name was Miss Grimwade and my teacher was Miss White. As I had poor eyesight, they were going to send me to an ordinary elementary school but Mum (Mary Ellen Barnett) 'moved Heaven and Earth' to get me into a central school. (They called them 'Central Schools' in London, but they were really Grammar Schools). Mum even went up to County Hall. Eventually, she got me into the class for short-sighted children at Hugh Myddelton Central School. That was in Clerkenwell and I had to go on a tram to get there, and later a bus. (My friends) Ruth Foster - from Stamford Hill, Daphne - from Elephant & Castle & Helen Pinsker - from Audley Road, were in this class, and a lot more children whose names I cannot remember.

Mum worked in a factory making clothes with sewing-machines. Dad used to work for his Father who had a furniture factory and shop. I always called his Father 'Uncle Dick' and his Mother, 'Grandma'. His Mother's (Maiden) name was 'O'Brien' and his Father, 'Rutland'. Dad would drive a van (they didn't have driving tests in those days), and deliver furniture to houses; and under his Father, he learned French-Polishing. He later worked in Curtain Road, just off Bishopsgate at a firm called Cohen's and stayed there during the War until he got called up for the air-force. I remember he was on fire duty one night on the roof and it was one of the worst nights of the war and he was all in (shock?) when he came back to Ashford, Middlesex.

When the war had started, we went to Ilfracombe (Devon) and stayed there a week. Then we stayed in Combe-Martin for about 3 months. We had an old four-poster bed in the main bedroom and we rented a flat above the Post Office. I was 14 at the time and I went to the local school. The Head Master's name was Mr Boundy. We returned to London after that and stayed there for a week while Nan & 'Pots' went to Ashford in Middlesex to rent a place. That was No. 17, Willowbrook Road, Ashford. We all, including Dad, went to live there and Nan & 'Pots' let Aunt Florrie and Uncle Percy (Percy & Florence (Rutland) Spaul) rent the place in Brougham Road.

Dad had a row with Nan & 'Pots' and having been living on the ground floor and Nan & 'Pots' upstairs, Nan & 'Pots' went to live at Stebbing Green with all of Pots' sisters. They eventually moved to Southend when the war was over, and I used to go and spend a month with them when I went to Hugh Myddelton.

We all started work at 14 in those days. I went to a place in Staines to learn shorthand & typing. I got a job with an insurance firm, Norman Frizzell & Ptnrs, where I stayed for a year. Then I got a job at the local hospital, which was just 'round the corner from our house, working for the Matron. I had a lady 'over' me (Mrs Grethe), and after she left, I was working under the Doctor's wife, Mrs Moller.

Eventually, my Mum, Dad, my Sister 'Sallie' and I went to live in Southend at 171 Feeches Road.

'Pots' was baptised in Eastwoodbury Church at about 70 years of age as he had never been baptised before. He eventually died in Orsett Hospital with Cancer of the bowel.