Biography of Brenda Audrey Parsons

Malcolm Smith's Family History Archive

Biography of

BRENDA AUDREY PARSONS

[Ref. S.5]

The years before marriage

Brenda Audrey Parsons was born at Litton Nursing Home in Reading Road, Farnboroughm Hampshire at 11:30 pm on 13 April 1943. Her weight was 5lbs. Her twin sister Wendy was born one hour later and had been unexpected as Brenda had obscured her in the womb. The family were Roman Catholic's and Brenda was baptised at Our Lady Help of Christians at Farnborough on 22 July 1943. Wendy had been baptised earlier as she was weak and there was worry about her survival. Despite being twins, the two girls were totally unalike and would not even necessarily be taken as sisters.

Brenda had an elder brother Michael who was seven years older and the family lived in a two bedroom bungalow at 13 Manor Road in Farnborough. Michael had the back bedroom whilst the twins shared the front bedroom. Their parents had to sleep on a put-u-up bed in th e living room. Their father was a keen photographer and took many pictures of the children in their early years. As her parents both came from Liverpool, the family often took trips up to there to visit relatives.

When they were nearly two years old, the twins contracted whooping cough. They had barely recovered from that when they contracted scarlet fever from their cousin Frances with whom it had already started when her family came to stay. Brenda and Wendy had to be put in isolation in hospital with their mother. Brenda would not take fluids from the tin cup provided and her condition declined to a dangerous point. The nurse refused to feed Brenda from a bottle as she was "too old" so, in desperation, her mother sent a note out to her father who came and took them home after the bungalow had been fumigated. The note that was sent had to be sterilised by being baked in an oven before being sent. It transpired that Brenda and her sister had scarletina and she quickly recovered once she was taking liquid from a bottle which was the only way her mother had been able to get her to take liquid. Her cousin Frances did actually have scarlet fever and suffered badly with it.

During the war, Brenda's father had kept chickens in the garden but after the war it was cleaned out and used by the girls as a playhouse. They put up curtains and installed their dolls in there. They also took food in there, Brenda particularly liking porrige oats straight from the packet and without milk. She and her sister would dress the family small pet dog Peter as a bride, pinning a net curtain to it's ears as a veil. The family often went to Windsor Great Park or Frensham Pond for a picnic on a Sunday.

When she was five years old, Brenda started attending St.Peter's Infants School in Farnborough Street. Also that year, the family started taking their annual summer holiday at Hayling Island where they had a regular booking for the same chalet each year. Whilst they were away, Brenda's uncle John and aunt Edna came with their children from Liverpool to stay in the bungalow in Farnborough. After the pet dog Peter died, the girls pestered their parents for a a cuddly black puppy they had seen in a pet shop. They called it Micky but it grew too big and was not controllable. It used to get out and steal brushes from neigbouring homes. Brenda's father advertised it and it was taken in by a farmer.

Both Brenda and her sister were good swimmers having started at an early age. They went by bycycle with their mother to the small pool in Boundary Road in Farnborough known locally as "The Puddle" and where they went every day in the summer holidays and learned to swim properly. They also went to the Lido in Aldershot. Later, when they were at their senior school, they would cycle by themselves to the Command Baths in Aldershot. They also occasionally went to the "Blue Pool" in Camberley.

Brenda and Wendy received their first communion at about the age of seven. The service would have been held at the Catholic chapel attached to the Salesian College where she was baptised. In 1954 her brother Michael left home to start his apprenticeship so his parents were able to have the bedroom back.

At about the age of 11, Brenda started to have her periods which, unfortunately, tended to be heavy and prolonged thus causing her some distress. She would get tired and became anemic for which her doctor prescribed iron tonic which tasted awful. When she and Wendy were 13 years old, their mother took a job in a shop for three days a week and the girls were given the responsibility to look after the house and their father. The work naturally divided into the cooking being done by Brenda and Wendy seeing to the housework. At that age Brenda was already 5'10" tall, a bit taller than her sister.

It was not until Brenda was about 12 years old that the family had a car. The first one was an old and unreliable Jowett 8 and they would take trips out to such places as Frensham Ponds or Windsor Great Park. Occasionally they would travel to Liverpool to visit family and the journey would take anything up to 12 hours due frequent punctures.

Brenda's ambition was to become a hairdresser, having enjoyed brushing and plaiting her mother's hair in the past. She was also inspired by her aunt Freda who was a hairdresser. One day Brenda's mother took her to her own hairdresser in Aldershot as a treat. Brenda felt very grown up and was especially impressed by the hairdresser who was wearing flip-flops, something Brenda found difficult herself. The hairdresser had a fashionable kiss curl held in place by a hair clip. Brenda's father did not consider hairdressing to be a proper job and wanted her to become a secretary. She was encouraged to take an interview at Guildford Technical College for a secretarial course but failed both the interview and the aptitude test and was advised not to persue that career.

Having left school in 1958, just after her 15th birthday, Brenda took a three year apprenticeship as a hairdresser at Owens shop in Lynchford Road, North Camp. There was an hour break for lunch so she used to cycle home for her meal which her mother cooked. Later, her mother came to work at the other end of Lynchford Road and was able to cook lunch in the shop which was easier for Brenda.

In the summer of 1959 when she was 16, Brenda attended a jazz dance at Guildford Technical College where Terry Lightfoot was playing and it was there that she met her first boyfriend, Philip Barnard. He asked to take her out again so she gave him her address as she liked the prospect of being able to dance more frequently. They often went to Farnborough Town Hall where dances were held on Saturday evenings. He was ten years older than Brenda and came from Crondall and it was strange as he never took her home to meet his parents. Brenda's parents wondered if he may have been married. He worked as a civilian for the army in Bordon but latterly as an agent for Waites in London so was staying away all during the week. He had a new green Austin Sprite sports car which impressed Brenda and would take her to motor races at Brands Hatch but would often also take his friend Pete with them. Brenda considered that he seemed to be more interested in his car than in her.

Once Brenda was earning a wage she wanted to start spending on clothes. She had a half day holidays on Wednesdays so she would meet her mother from her shop and they would catch the 1pm Aldershot and District London coach outside the North Camp Hotel in Lynchford Road. They would have picnic food on the coach then get off at either High Steet Kensington for the stores there or at Hyde Park Corner and walk to Oxford Street. They would often shop along the entire length. Once Brenda had moved to Coles, she was free all day on Monday so she and her mother would catch the coach outside the Rex Cinema in Farnborough and spend all day in London. Brenda's father would always be at the Rex to collect them in the evening.

Brenda's sister Wendy left home in November 1960 when she got married so Brenda then had the bedroom to herself. She managed to quickly fill it up with clothes and shoes of which she had forty pairs. In the latter part of 1961, former colleague Leanne told Brenda of a job available at Coles hairdressers in College Town, Sandhurst where she had moved. The journey to the shop was longer than the previous but Leanne had promised to give Brenda a lift on her scooter if she took the job. After a while, Leanne had saved up to buy a mini van which suited Brenda far more than the scooter. However, Leanne then married so Brenda thereafter made the journey by train between Farnborough North and Blackwater stations. She cycled to Sue Selway's house where she left her bicycle, walking the rest of the way to the station. From Blackwater station she then walked all the way to the shop.

Brenda split from her boyfriend Phil in the latter part of 1961 He was becoming more serious about their relatonship but that was not how Brenda wanted it. He had a rather dour temprement and had she never considered him a person she wanted to marry although he had subsequently told her parents that he did want to marry her and would have asked her in due course. He rang her at work the following week to ask her to reconsider but she was not willing to do so. There was a traditional jazz band called High Curly Stompers that played in the village hall in Frimley and Brenda and her sister would be taken there occasionally by their brother Mike. On Saturday 25 November that year she met Malcolm Smith in the jazz club at it's new location in St.Peters Church Hall, Frimley. She had been dropped off there by her father as she wanted to go out to be cheered up. Malcolm had been dressed in the Norwegian clothes he had bought whilst on holiday there so when Brenda got into work the next Monday, she told the girls that she had met this 'foreign bloke'. He'd had his 21st birthday party the week before they met. They met again the following Saturday, her father dropping her off at the Jazz Club and collecting her again. The week after, her father dropped her off at the Rex Cinema to meet Malcolm as she did not think he would find her house too easily. Malcolm took her for a meal in York Town, Camberley then afterwards took her to his home to meet his parents. Brenda was then able to show him the way to her house when he took her home. Thereafter he both collected her from home and took her back every time they went out together. They got on well immediately and were quite relaxed in each other's company.

Besides taking Brenda to the jazz club every Saturday, Malcolm would visit her at home on Sunday evenings and occasionally on Wednesday when they would watch TV with her mother whilst her father read the newspaper in the kitchen with a large cup of tea. Malcolm started to get his hair cut on Saturday afternoons at the gents shop at Coles. Sometimes, Brenda cycled to work and if Malcolm had cycled to work in London, he would come back via the shop and accompany her home. The girls in the shop liked to look out at Malcolm in his shorts. A significant event took place at the Whit weekend in 1962 when Malcolm took Brenda to the party of a friend in Egham. Due to having drunk too much, they were not fit to drive so stayed overnight, sleeping on the floor. When Brenda got home in the morning she quite expected to be in trouble with her parents but they did not say a word about it. She missed attending church that morning and was taken by Malcolm down to the seaside at Selsey for the day, meeting up with others from the party. In her own words, she was smitten with Malcolm from thereon.

Brenda had expressed an interest in being a hairdresser aboard a cruise liner, despite being told that it was not as glamorous as it may seem. She persisted so her aunt Audrey arranged for them both to go a cruise in September 1962 so that Brenda could see firsthand for herself. This was enough to persuade her that it was not the kind of life she had expeceted as the job entailed working all the time and out of sight of the sea. Prior to going on the trip, Brenda had to have a booster smallppox vaccination as there was a scare on at the time. She did have a concern about going on the trip as now had Malcolm to consider as she didn't want to lose him.

In 1963 Brenda's parents gave her and her sister money for a trip to Italy with their friend Susan Selway and they made the trip in July that year. Before the trip Malcolm proposed to her. The proposal was rather casual in that, whilst driving her through Frimley on the way home, he said "I think we ought to get married". Soon after he took her up to Regent Street in London to buy an engagement ring.

Brenda and Malcolm attended the June Ball at Sandhurst Army Cadet College that year. This was always a magnificant affair and Brenda had scrounged tickets from one of the administrator girls from the college office who came to the salon. That same year they attended the summer ball at Keeble College, Oxford, where Mick, the brother of brother Michael's wife was a student.

A gift to Brenda by a customer was a pair of tickets fot Sunday Night at the London Palladium, a popular televised show, and they did not know until they arrived that The Beatles were top of the bill.

1963 was also the year that Brenda passed her driving test in Aldershot at the third attempt, and was issued her first licence in August that year. She had started taking driving lessons the previous year in a Morris Minor which she did not like as she could not see the corners of the car as it was very rounded. Between lessons she would practice in her father's Morris Oxford. Her father bought her a three-wheeled Powerdrive car but it proved to be no good and she purchased a Maroon Triumph Herald. Unfortunately, it had been a hire car in Jersey and consequently had a rough life so needed much work to put it right. One day, Brenda broke down by the Toni factory in Camberley on her way home from work. Luckily, her father was able to do all the repairs.

Brenda and her twin sister Wendy celebrated their 21st birthday on 23 April 1964. They held a party in a room in Ship Lane. Malcolm's present was a suede coat. That same year they attended the Keeble College summer Ball for the second year running. The same year, Brenda and Malcolm took their summer holiday together, staying in an hotel in Torquay. Malcolm had discretely booked separate rooms. They travelled about locally and also flew to Jersey for a day trip. Later that year, Brenda had the feeling that her fianc�e was going cold on her so she asked him that question. She was worried that he going to ask for the engagement ring back. It transpired that he was not enjoying working for his current boss and also finding the commuting tiresome. The matter was resolved and they made up.

Having decided to be married, they had started looking for a suitable place to live and liked the idea of a cottage with roses around the front door. They set about looking in the West Country, eventually finding a place in Verwood, Dorset. Brenda had saved enough money for the deposit whilst Malcolm took out a mortgage for the remainder and they purchased the cottage at 44 Manor Road in September 1965. They travelled down each weekend to start pulling out rotten timber and so on before Malcolm started the rebuilding work. He moved down before the end of the year, lodging with Brenda's sister and her family at Mudeford. Brenda would then come down each weekend to assist.

Around April 1966, Malcolm went back home whilst working in London again then moved into the cottage early the following year so that he could spend more time working on the refurbishment. Brenda continued to go down to help each weekend and start getting the domestic arrangements organised. She managed to buy a second-hand Hotpoint twin tub washing machine which helped Malcolm do his laundry at weekends. However, he had not been very enthusiastic when Brenda brought it to the cottage but wrote to apologise a few days later. She became worried that he was not eating properly having found out that he had eaten only potatoes one evening due to having spent all his money on building materials. She insisted that they get married without delay so arrangements were put in hand and, six weeks later, on 11 November 1967, the ceremony took place at Farnborough Parish Church.

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