Home Page

On 30^th June 2004, my wife and I were on our way from Chippenham in Wiltshire to Dover to catch the ferry at the start of a touring holiday in Germany. As we were passing close to West Malling, we stopped off at the cemetery to place some flowers on the grave of Annie Couchman who was my maternal great aunt. We had done this many times before and often wondered who had kept Annie’s grave so neat and tidy. As we approached the grave, we saw a lady busily clipping the grass with shears and having introduced ourselves, we found out that the lady was Mrs Maud Souter a friend of my late aunt. She told us that Annie had left with her a copy of her memories about her life in West Malling (from 1897 to 1987) and was only too pleased to let me borrow them when we returned from our holiday. I would now like to share these memories with you.

Annie Couchman was born on 3^rd January 1897 at Elm Cottage, Birling Road, West Malling, Kent, along with her twin brother Richard. Her other siblings were Edith, Grace Elizabeth (my grandmother), Beatrice Violet, Harry and a female child who was Harry’s twin and was sadly stillborn. Her father was Albert Edward Couchman who was born in Yalding Village, Kent. Her mother was Mary Ann (nee Hall) and she was born in Poplar, London. Albert and Mary were married in about September 1889 in West Malling, Kent.

Albert worked as a gardener at the Grange in Leybourne and apparently had a quick temper! Mary was a very gentle person and hard working.

Annie lived all her adult life in West Malling and worked for 33 years at Foreman’s bakery in the High Street. She moved into a nursing home in Portsmouth where she died in 1990. She is buried in the churchyard in West Malling, near the school.

I have fond memories of Aunty Annie, she was a kind and gentle lady who spent many hours knitting hassocks for the church and doll’s clothes for charity. She never forgot family birthdays and there was always a card from her at Christmas and Easter.

I would like to finish by thanking Maud Souter for keeping these memories safe and also Mrs Phyllis Stevens and her daughter Ros Dunnico, who have enabled these recollections to be published on the website.

[email protected]

12 September 2004.

ANNIE’S LIFE STORY

1897 - 1987

I was born at Elm Cottage at the corner of Birling Road on Sunday 3^rd January 1897. My mother went up to see her mother the evening before. Granny lived on the terrace in Ryarsh Lane. Father went to the Club on Saturday nights. In the evening Granny said to Mother “Would you like a drink, Polly”, and then went over to the Bull and bought Mother three-pennyworth of gin and cloves. My mother said to Granny “Don’t tell Albert I have had a drink, as he may take me in on the way home and buy me another one” - and he did. When they got home she started labour. Mother made a meat

pudding for Albert to cook and give to the children the next day (Edith, Grace and Violet), and they sent for Mrs Startupp, the midwife.

I was born at eight o’clock and the midwife called down the stairs “Are you there, Mr. Couchman” and he said “Yes” and she said “It is a girl”. Father said “Thank God that is over”. A few minutes later she called down again and said “It’s a little boy this time”. What a shock, as Mother did not know she was going to have twins. She had only enough clothes for one and no cradle and no layette, like they have today. She had a clothes basket for one and a drawer out of the chest of drawers for the other one.

Father left her to cope while he was having a good night’s rest in the other room. One night she took one of us into him and said “If you don’t take this baby, I shall throw it out of the window”. He went back and had one of us his side and Mother had one on her side. She used to have one in her arms and the other laying across her feet to get us off to sleep.

Mary Ann Couchman

(Annie’s mother)

A Mrs. Brown, who lived at the bottom of Malling Wood, went to see Mother and asked her if she had any sewing for her, as she was deaf and her husband didn’t talk to her much. Mother said “I have, can you make my babies some clothes, as I did not know I was going to have twins”. Mother went upstairs and got some white chair covers and the good lady made some nice gowns for the babies.

Mother took in washing, as there was five of us to keep. My sister Edith was born deaf and dumb and nearly blind and she could not go to school with us. She had to go to a deaf and dumb school in Derbyshire. Mother had to see the Relieving Officer in West Malling. His name was Mr. Allison and he asked her if she could pay 1/- a week towards Edith’s schooling. Mother said “How am I going to pay all that”, but she managed to keep her there for a time. Then Edith was taken ill with meningitis and Father had to go and bring her home. On the way back he met a gentleman who was out with his baby and he let Father put Edith in the pram and the gentleman carried his own baby to the station. Edith got over the meningitis and lived until she was 26 years old.

When I began to walk the doctor called and said to Mother “Don’t put the little girl on her legs as she has rickets”, so Mother had to take me to Maidstone Hospital. I had lovely medicine to take, Mother told me it was just like port wine. I said in a joke “I bet I didn’t have too much of it”, but Mother would not have had it herself, I know.

Mother worked very hard washing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and ironing the next three days. There was always a good meal when we came home from school, although she had so much else to do and she used to send Grace up to Mr. Barkaway the butcher for three pennyworth of bones and pieces. Out of this she made a lovely stew with plenty of vegetables and dumplings in it. I loved her meat puddings. My brother and I always wanted the crust off the top - my brother won every time.

When we went to Leybourne school Miss Bolton, the governess, used to ask my brother and I round and give us some food they had left over. Mother made us egg sandwiches to take to school sometimes - with one egg between the four of us. Eggs were ten a shilling and milk one penny a pint and brought to the door.

Mother was expecting another baby two years and nine months after us, but she lost one and then the doctor said there is another one and she did not lose it - so she nearly had twins again. This baby was a boy and he only lived for eleven months, he died with whooping cough. Mother was deaf and she did not hear him choke. He was a lovely boy and Mother used to bath him and sit him on a mat with the front door open and tell the dog to mind him. A friend came to see Mother and went to pick Harry up but the dog went for her. She went round to the back door and told Mother. Mother said that no-one would touch Harry when the dog was with him, in fact you could go up to Malling and leave them and know Harry would be safe.

Father had a dreadful temper. One morning Mother had a tall wooden clothes horse full of white shirts and with polished fronts and cuffs ready for us to take out Saturday morning. She used to polish the fronts and cuffs with a polishing iron on a slab of marble. Anyway, this morning Father came home in a temper and emptied a teapot over the lot and they had to be washed, boiled and starched and ironed again for us to take out in the afternoon.

One day a friend came to see Mother and asked what the mess was in the fireplace. Mother said “My Albert threw his dinner in the fire”. Mrs Terry said “Don’t you clean it up, he wont do it any more if he has to clean it himself”. Sometimes Mother had nothing to pack for his dinner when he left for work, so she would walk over to the Grange where he worked in the garden and take him a nice hot dinner. If she was five minutes late he would eat his dinner and then throw the plates the opposite way and she would go and pick them up. I told her why didn’t she leave them for him to pick up. We were all afraid of him and sometimes he would not speak to her for weeks on end after he had a row over nothing. I was the one who used to worry for her. I used to say to Mother “Speak to him, won’t you” and she said “He won’t answer if I do “, but I never, ever heard her get out of temper. Father kept ferrets and when he came home from work one night he found one was dead and he threw it at Mother. She was breast-feeding Harry and she lost her milk and was very ill.

Mr. Brown, the woodman, used to tell Mother there was some wood in the park at the Grange and after he showed me where it was, I used to take the hand cart up and bring it home. I had to make several journeys and it was very tiring, the others would not offer to do it.

At Christmas we had our stockings filled with nuts, oranges, pears, apples and sweets and a sugar pig. When we came down to breakfast we had to put them all back in the dishes on the table but we were allowed to keep the sugar pig. We had a lovely party at the Grange on Boxing Day. Mr. Grace the cricketer was living there and we had really nice, useful presents. We loved going down to the Grange at harvest-time and helping toss the hay. The nurse used to give us good food.

We had no sink or tap indoors at home and the loo was outside shared between two families. It had to be emptied very often. Mother had to go along the land way and walk along the bottom of the garden to get to the tap. I used to get it for her sometimes for the washing. I used to put a hoop over my head and rest it on two pails, it kept the pails of water away from my legs. I filled the tubs up ready for Mother to do her washing and I filled the copper. We paid 2/6d a week for the house where I was born at the corner of Birling Road and then we moved to Rock Cottage where we paid 3/6d a week rent.

Rock Cottage

On Mondays at dinnertime we used to go up to the Rectory and pay into a Clothing Club. Cannon Howley used to take the money and he used to pay it out to Mother to buy warm clothes for us in the winter from Mr. Smith, the draper in the High Street, where the paper shop is now. When we went to Sunday School and then to church, my sisters and I were dressed in blue coats, all three of us, and a policeman who was riding by on his bicycle sang “Three little girls in blue” to us.

I loved going into the woods to pick primroses on Good Friday with the teacher. We took them back to the school and bunched them up to decorate the church for Easter. They used to be arranged around the pillars and they did look nice. At Christmas Ada Hearnden and I used to go up to the Rectory a few days before Christmas and put evergreens on pieces of wood to put into the archways in the Church. We had a cup of tea at 11 o’clock and a lovely lunch and tea before we came home. It took two days to finish them.

When I was confirmed, Cannon Howley always liked the girls to be dressed alike. He bought the material for our dresses and the mothers went to George Viners to get the material, then they would send the bill to the Cannon. We went up to the Rectory to have the veils put on. He had a carriage to take us up to the Church. When the carriage pulled up at the gate , several people were there to see everyone go in and they said “Here comes the Leybourne girls”. After the service we were taken back to the Rectory where we had a nice tea. The Cannon gave us all a book with the Communion Service and talked about our first communion.

At Easter we wore dresses with no coats and at Whitsun we had cream dresses and straw hats with daisies and buttercups round the brim. Mother used to give us a penny each to put in the bag and she would give us an extra one for her. I don’t know how Mother did it, but she always made us look nice.

A Mrs Morgan came to live next door to us and she had a little girl. I was so pleased, and used to take her everywhere with me. I took her to school, as she started at an early age.

I left school at 14 and the governess wanted me to stay on a little longer, but Mother could not afford to let me stay. Just before I left school I had to have my tonsils out. Mother and I walked to Malling Station to go by train and then from Maidstone station to the West Kent Hospital. The doctor put a red towel in front of me. He froze the throat but I felt the second one being taken out. I bled a lot and we had to go into another room to see the doctor. He had a round looking glass on his forehead. We had to stand in a queue and I came over faint. The porter carried me out. After that we walked from the hospital to Maidstone station and then from West Malling station to Leybourne. When we were walking up Week Street, I said to Mother, “I am thirsty” but she did not want me to have a drink, though when I said I couldn’t go any further we went into a shop and I had a glass of milk. I just don’t know how I swallowed it.

After leaving school I went to work for Miss Bolton, the schoolteacher for 3/6d. a week. I had to get there at eight o’clock in the morning. Miss Bolton made a list of the jobs I had to do, including cooking dinner for her father, who was 80 years of age. After dinner I had to go up to Malling to do her shopping and go back and get their tea. One day I had her bicycle to go and do her shopping and I had a blackout and fell in the middle of the London Road. A gentleman who was manager for Mrs Gifford the grocer, was coming home to his lunch. He lived next door to Miss Bolton and he picked me up and was just going to lay me on the verge when I began to come round. The first thing I said to him was “Is the bicycle all right”. He took it back to Miss Bolton and I went home and Mother looked at me and said “You have had another of those turns”, I began to cry. My sister came home from the Grange, as it was her half day and went and did the shopping. I took it back to Miss Bolton and got the tea ready and never said a word about the fall. The neighbour called on Miss Bolton and told her what had happened. She came back and let me go home. I went back to work the next day.

My aunt was cook for a lady who lived at Harrow-on-the-Hill and she asked if she would let me go there as they wanted a house parlour maid. Mother got me a tin trunk and got my uniform, etc. ready. She took me up and I was there for three months but I had to come home as Edith had died. When I was working there I was paid £1.16s 8d

a month and I had to send Mother £1 which left me 16s 8d to last a month, and sometimes I worked for five weeks till payday. I said to Auntie “How am I going to manage on that”, because stockings were sixpence-halfpenny a pair, indoor shoes 1/11d, caps 1/11d and afternoon aprons 1/11d, but I did manage, though I was very homesick.

Annie Couchman

After leaving there I went to the Rectory as house parlour maid. I started having trouble with my left hip and had to go up to see Dr. Roberts. The surgery was where the Chapel minister lives, next to the chapel. He said I was to go home and straight to bed and he would call in the morning. He told Mother I had hip disease and I had to lie on my back for several months with weights fixed to my leg. The carpenter came and fixed a pulley on the bottom of the bed and the weights were put in a bag and hung down to pull the leg down. When I was allowed to get up I could only walk on crutches and had an iron fixed to the bottom of my shoe to keep the leg off the ground. Then the doctor ordered the iron to be taken off but I still walked on crutches until I began to lose the use of my arms. The doctor said it was crutch paralysis and I had to walk without them. The crutches were just broom handles with a piece of wood nailed across the top. Father made them, they were padded.

Peace Celebrations 1919

Annie as Britannia

When I was better, I went to Miss Foreman to work in the house first and then in their bakers shop for 6/- a week. I was there for 33 years and was paid £1.6s.0d. a week when I left. I had good food there. Miss Jenny Foreman did the fancy cakes and iced the wedding cakes. She taught herself from Mrs Beeton. Miss Emily did the washing and the cooking, she was a good cook. Mr Foreman was the baker. He had three working for him in the bakehouse. The latter part of the time I was at Foremen’s, I slept in and helped Miss Jenny in the bakehouse. I had a very bad wasp sting one day and came out in blisters and went black in the face and eventually unconscious. They sent for my sister, who was working for Mrs Davidson. I went home but came to work next day with a very swollen leg.

Wedding of Beatrice Violet Couchman and Eric Eustace Rabjohn

(Annie to right of bride)

The War broke out in August 1939 and we made up a concert party and called ourselves the Blue Bells. We raised money for the V.A.D. hospital, which was where Miss Neville lived at the top of Town Hill. We had the Swan Room, where the Post Office is now, for the concerts. One night after the last performance when I played an old aunt in a sketch, I said to the girls “I won’t change here, I’m going home as I am”. On the way I met a police sergeant I knew. It was in the blackout and I went up to him as if I was drunk and said “Kiss me, Sergeant” - I got back on the path and he said “Is that you, Annie?” and I said “You are too late”. In the morning, Superintendent Ford came in the shop and asked me if it was right that I had kissed the Sergeant in Swan Street. I did not live that down for some time.

I used to go to dances and one evening there was a dance at the Babington [sic Badminton] Hall, where the cinema is now, in aid of Cancer Research. I went with my cousin Ernest. He was a good partner. That was on a Friday. A lady who lived at The Lavenders came in the shop on Saturday morning and said “I have not come to buy anything but to congratulate you on your dancing, your hair was a picture and you were the best dressed in the room”. Miss Foreman heard what she said and said “You have had a compliment paid to you this morning, Annie”.

I organised several coach loads to go up to London to see plays and ice shows. We went to several Ivor Novello shows. The last one was taken over by an understudy as he had died a few days before the show. I arranged six coaches to go up to London to see the lights, one every night. The last one was a 42- seater and it was a new one. I hired it from a friend of mine, Bill Jenner, who lived at Lamberhurst. I used to go there many times for weekends. Bill used to take us out for a lovely lunch on Sundays. I used to help Hilda a lot, as she had a big garden and she loved to get out in it. There was a wood at the bottom of her garden and we went wooding. I loved it.

One day I hired a coach to take us to Hastings on a summer evening. We started from Malling High Street at 6 o’clock and when the coach came it turned out to be an ordinary bus. I said to the driver “We are not going in this, you get over the road and phone them to have a coach sent for us” and they quickly sent up a nice one. We all had a lovely two hours in Hastings. We started home at 12 o’clock at night. It was a lovely moonlit night and the driver turned the lights out for a while.

My mother had cancer in the womb for five years. She had to go to hospital in London to have it scraped. Twelve months after she had to have it done again. My sister Violet and I paid for her to have it done at home. The nurse was to come and take the swabs out at 4 o’clock but Mother said “Will you do it, Annie, as you have the touch”. She told me so many times that I had the touch.

One day I went up to London to see a school friend. She was nurse to a Jewish family. I went for the day and in the afternoon after having lunch we went round the shops and then to Lyons Corner House to have tea. I went to a counter as I wanted to buy my sister a present of chocolates. There was a gentleman standing at the top of the steps. I said to Mabel “Don’t look round but that man is staring at us”. As we went by him he dropped a book and I stepped over it. Mabel said “You should have picked it up” but I said “That is just what he wanted me to do. Even if I have come up from the country, I am not that stupid; it would have been - will you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly”.

Then, once I went up to London to see a friend who was in hospital. I had to go on the underground from Victoria Station. On the way back I got into an empty carriage and then a man and woman got in. When the train started, the woman came and squeezed up next to me. I got up and sat opposite. She said “You shouldn’t have done that, you may get dirt in your eyes”. When we got to Victoria, I went up the steps and who should be there at the top but the same woman. She said “I wonder if you would like to accompany me to the Savoy as I have a complimentary ticket for two”. I said “Certainly not, a friend lost her friend that way years ago and they never did find her” and with that, she went.

Mother died in 19[36]. Before she died, she said “God forgive me all my sins and take me to heavenly rest”. She was buried at Leybourne, near Edith and Harry. The church was full.

Joan Longdon (nee Haskell) and Annie

Father took all the furniture and went down to live with my sister Grace in Wiltshire and with my brother in Winchester. I knew he would not get on with my brother’s wife, Louie. I went down to see him for a few days and I went to the Post Office to post a parcel. The postmaster looked at the label and said “Are you any relation to Mr Couchman along the road”. I said “Yes, I am his daughter”. He said “Your father is very unhappy”. I told him he would be, but he thought different. After a while, Father asked me if I could find him lodgings. I found him a place at Mrs along the London Road. He had ulcerated colitis and it did not last long. She was a dear. I managed to get him lodgings again at Mrs Larking, Police Station Road. That, too, did not last long. Then Mrs Chapman said she would have him. She lived a few doors from Mrs Larking. She really was a dear, kind person. One Sunday morning a man came to the shop and told me Mrs Avis had died. I said to Mr Brown “Are you sure” and immediately a voice said “Try for the house”. I went along to Miss Brice and asked her if she would let me have it, as I wanted to make a home for my father and she let me have it for 7/- a week. I had it done up from top to bottom and had electric light put in. It was a picture when it was finished.

No 4 Police Station Road

I told Mrs Chapman and said “Don’t tell Father as I want it to be a surprise”. He came to the shop and said he was going to see Mr Down, the Relieving Officer. I said “Whatever for, you are happy along at Mrs Chapman’s, aren’t you” and then I told them that I had got a cottage and it would be ready by next Tuesday. He did not take it in at first and then he began to cry and so did I. Mrs Chapman brought him along in time for tea. He had taken his money out of his bank and put it into mine. I never touched a penny, only to pay for the house to be made nice and comfortable for him. I wrote to my aunt as she had furniture in store and asked her if I could have it and it came up from Wiltshire by rail for £5.

It was hard going, as I had to work and when I came home at night I did have a mess to clear up. I went to bed crying one night and said to myself “I have taken on too much” but another voice said “Don’t worry, my dear, it is not for long” and it was not. I took the house in November and Father died in May [1938]. He had a stroke on the Wednesday and died on the Monday. I had to send for Dr Hamilton and asked him if he could go to hospital but he said no, he would have to go up to the Union. I said he is not going there. He picked up his hat and walked out of the house. I sent down to my sister Violet and we got his bed downstairs. Mrs Baily next door was another good friend. She washed him and we got him into bed. She sat up with him at night so I could go to bed, as I still had to go to work. There was no money coming in, only his Club - 7/6d a week, but we managed. It was a good thing I kept my job on. At that time my money was 10/- a week. I said to Mother once, “I wish Miss Foreman would give me another 1/- a week” but Mother said “If she did give you that, you would still want more”. Bread was 4 1/2d a 2lb loaf and a 1lb one was 2 1/2d. Dough buns were 1d each.

Annie’s 90^th Birthday