I have so many memories from my childhood that I thought I would put some of them down on paper.
My parents were Dennis Herbert Poole, born 6th May 1909 in London and died 25th June 1983 at Crawley Sussex, and Grace Hester Poole née Wheal, born 17th April 1908 and died 19th May 1984 at Crawley Sussex.
There is a mystery as to my mother's name. She was registered at birth as Grace Esther Wheal, but on the marriage certificate she is known as Grace Hester Wheal.
On searching the family history I have come across a change of surname as well. I have managed to trace the family history back to 1675 and at that time they were known as Whale, but for some reason that I am unable to find out why, by the time my grandfather was born, Thomas Wheal and registered, the name had changed to Wheal.
The only explanation I can come up with is the way the name Whale was spoken. Due to the local dialect, as well as the illiteracy of the time, I think Whale became Wheal.
My eldest brother was called Anthony Brian Philip, known as Tony, and he was born on 4th November 1933 and died 28th January 2003, my second eldest brother was called David Geoffrey, Geoff for short and he was born on 11th July 1936 and died June 1995. My younger brother was called Christopher Quentin, Chris for short and he was born on 25th December 1946. I came halfway between Geoff and Chris being born on 11th November 1943.
Being the only daughter with three brothers' I was expected to help my mother with her housework and shopping, especially at weekends.
Tony was 10 years older than me, and Geoff was 7 years older. Chris was 3 years younger than me. Mathematically it worked out that there were 3 years between Tony and Geoff, and 3 years between Chris and myself. 10 years between Tony and myself, and 10 years between Geoff and Chris.
I was named Delia Rosemary, my mother said she had chosen a name that couldn't be shortened as had happened with my other two elder brothers, but she forgot that Delia could be shortened to Dee.
I was born at Malmesbury Maternity Hospital, and according to my mother's sister, Aunty Mary, I was so small at birth that the babies clothes they had made for me to wear were much too large, so Aunty Mary went to a local shop that sold wool where there was a doll in the window with clothes. Aunty Mary purchased these dolls clothes so as I at least had some clothes that fitted me.
I gather, from what I have been told, that I was very small at birth, only around 2 to 3 lbs in weight, and in view of this I wonder if I was premature. I do remember being told, I am not sure who told me, it was either my mother or my Aunt Mary, that I was born during an air raid, but as I have been unable to get any medical records from this time, I cannot confirm my suspicions.
I can also recall, again it was either my mother or my aunt who told me, that as my mother was unable to care for me herself, I had trouble taking the milk that was fed to me by bottle so I was given chocolate to suck and this gave me some nourishment. As sweets were extremely rare, being on rations, I don't know if this was prescribed medically for me. I do know it wasn't milk chocolate as we know it today but plain chocolate and even to this day I much prefer plain chocolates.
When I was born we were living at 46 Kings Walk but we moved into number 3 Bremilham Terrace sometime during 1946 and my youngest brother Christopher was born not long after we had moved to Bremilham.
This property was at one time the old workhouse for Malmesbury, but had been turned into houses just after the Second World War around 1945 to 1946.
We lived at Bremilham Terrace right up until the early sixties when my father's work took him to Essex and my parents moved to Southend-on-Sea.
When my parents moved sometime during 1961 I went to live with my mother's sister Aunty Mary because at this time I was attending Swindon Technical College doing a 2-year full time secretarial course and they didn't want to disturb my education. Also at this time I had started courting my husband to be.
