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My name is Joyce Claye. |
I was born in Cheshire and became a teacher
After my brother Jeffrey was killed in the First World War my parents decided they no longer needed a large house and moved to a cottage in North Devon. I moved with them
My brother and I had both suffered from tunnel vision. There were advantages to it though. I remember going to a fair in Barnstable and knocking down each coconut because I could only see one coconut at a time. When I was diagnosed we realized why my brother had been so excellent at tennis and cricket but useless at rugby and football.
Like my sister I never married and lived in Devon for over 50 years.
I taught a school of 44 boys - country boys who left school when they were 14 but they were anxious to learn and a pleasure to teach.
It was different though in WW2. My school received 40 shell-shocked boys from Bristol and I found it impossible to teach 80 boys properly.
After my sister sailed to India during WW2 our father died. I wrote to her telling her but the ship carrying my letter was torpedoed. The first letter she received from me months later was one saying I had given his coat to a neighbour.
One of the nurses my sister had been friendly with before she sailed came from South Africa. She used to visit me a lot after my sister left for India.
When my sister retired and came to live with me in Devon we visited our friend in Durban. She was very much anti-apartheid and would only speak to Africans in their own language
We liked South Africa so much we returned for an eight-month holiday. We hired a little red car and drove all over South Africa and up the Zambezi.
I was not as musical as my sister but I loved singsong and had a good voice.
Written up from a conversation with Margaret Penfold
© October 2000 Joyce Claye Part of the Silver Surfers' Project by trAce Online Writing Centre for the 2000 Cheltenham Festival of Literature