Pauline Hilary Booth: early childhood in Rawdon

I was born in Bingley, in a private maternity hospital.  I was the only girl in a ward of baby boys, and I was the only baby who slept through the night, amidst the cries of baby boys.
I was my mother's second child, and I looked very different from my sister, Carolyn.  I was ginger-haired like my dad, whereas Carolyn had a head of thick, jet-black hair.
I don't have many early childhood memories.  They've all faded into momentary images interspersed with peak experiences that refuse to leave my memory because of the emotional turmoil I felt at that time.
I remember playing with my friend, Irene Foster, in the street (Canada Drive in Rawdon).  I often used to run back to the safety of our garden whenever I saw a dog in the street.  I was terrified of dogs.  Games we played included making mud pies in the garden.  We also played bus conductors: we'd been able to obtain spare rolls of unused tickets that we'd use in a makeshift bus conductor's ticket machine.  Besides dogs, I was probably scared of all living creatures.  My dad used to keep toads in his greenhouse in the garden.  I was scared to walk in there knowing that these little creatures lurked there.  My sister used to make fun of me, too, by running after me holding her pet tortoise.  But maybe that memory was at a later date, when we had moved to Kent.  I was still brave enough to ride a donkey on the beach though!
I was such a painfully shy child.  I was petrified of mixing with other children.  When my sister and I went to birthday parties, I was so scared and embarrassed.  I remember a party we attended in a house at the beginning of Canada Drive.  I think it was Carolyn's friend's house.  We played a game of passing a ring round a piece of circular string, trying to hide it as we moved it to our neighbour.  I was so petrified I would be the first one to go out.
Another memory sticks firmly in my mind of when my brother, Michael was born.  I was three.  When mum went to hospital, Carolyn and I were shipped out to our Auntie Cora in Cheshire.  It felt like torture to me.  I was forced to eat boiled eggs and I missed home so much.  My aunt tried to keep us happy and maybe I settled down.  She had a beautiful house with woods and a river running across the bottom of her garden.  It was a magical place full of solitude.  The leaves had just come out and nature was coming alive again.  My brother, Charles Michael arrived on 12th May 1953.
The photograph here is when we went to the photographic studio to have our first formal picture taken of the newly extended Booth family.  He was such a happy little baby, as pictured here.  He was a little imp from the word go with a very adventurous spirit.