1958, England

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The witch tries to get my feet by putting her hands under the bedclothes. She comes in the night and I don't know what to do. She keeps turning up while I am asleep and I am sure she is real. I am grateful when the sunlight seeps through the curtains telling me it is morning and the witch goes away. It is comforting to lie in the early morning silence waiting for it to be punctuated by familiar sounds I move my feet up to the top of the bed, just in case the witch returns and don't know yet that I will sleep in a foetal position for years to come. I don't want to eat, but know I must wait for milk and egg in a Noddy eggcup I got at Easter, with soggy toast fingers. You must always eat things up because of the poor girls and boys who have no food and if you don't it is "one for Noddy, One for Big Ears, One for Mr Plod and one for Daddy, Mummy and everyone else." Perhaps if I pretend to be asleep the breakfast will be forgotten. I close my eyes and listen to the morning sounds. Clip, clop, clip clop and "anyoldragsorbones?"is the first thing I hear now my eyes are shut. I imagine the cart piled high with scraps and iron and the plodding old black horse with blinkers. Later there will be anothercart with the coal that goes in the shed out the back. That too, is pulled by a horse. Dad has gone to work long before in the Ford and "Fordsarethebestcars." I am proud because this is one of the few cars in the street and makes us seem rich. It is hard to know if we really are. Then, I pull sheets and blankets and a duck feather eiderdown close around me and hope I won't have to change out of my flannelette pyjamas. Perhaps if I try I will remember A B C and D is for dog. I am then lost thinking about circuses and elephants. Then, there is the clink of glass bottles of cool white milk and the whirr of the milk float with our milkman smart in a grey overall and peaked hat. Letters drop to the floor through out silver letter box flap that falls back into place with a metalic thud. I hear my Mother answer the ring of the black telephone with the silver dial. Her telephone voice rings out "Croydon 5406" Then, my favourite sound of all. God is at the window with his chamois leather. The squeaky cloth music to my ears because He made the world feel safe again with a cheery smile. It has to be God as God lives in the sky. After that, My mother comes into the bedroom with the glass thermometer. 2You musn't bite. That thin red line of mercury is poison and will kill you." She also brings bright pink Calomine lotion for my itchy skin. It is in a huge bottle, also made of thick glass. Sometimes, my tiny sister drinks milk from a bottle that is curved and has a rubber teat at both ends. My Mother tells me If I am good there will be a comic and listen with Mother on the radio, but my Mother also says even if a witch does come and try to take my feet I still have to stay in bed till the scarlet fever is gone and the doctor who visits with a black bag says it is alright to get up. She thinks I am talking nonsense, but I know the witch was there. Later the doctor will come with a cold silver "stetherscope" round his neck so he can hear what happens inside my skin, and chat about the weather and how the last window cleaner broke his back on some crazy paving. He fell off his ladder, poor man. Later the bell will go ding dong and my Mother will give God the money for the windows. I am not clear how God can clean the windows if he hurt himself but then he is God, after all. Exhausted, I fall asleep thinking about how I miss playing on my blue scooter, up and down the road and it isn't fair but this is how it is even if the witch comes back. I wonder how long you have to have scarlet fever for and what I missed at the nursery where the girls sit on pink chairs and the boys on blue.