Oral History Gallery

Extract Text (Duration 1.34)

J Hodson:  Although it is... I mean although you're on an estate with loads of, you know, wives in a similar position, I must admit, especially... you know, I was pregnant at the time, I did feel rather isolated.  And I suppose really made quite a few journeys back home.  But also it was the fact that, hmmm, you know, being there, no phone... well a public phone box a couple of hundred yards away, no car, and George not being around, because you know my first baby was overdue and he had to go back to sea, and just knowing quite how to handle that situation.  But fortunately, a friend stepped in and I was taken off to her house, which was very good and she was able to drive me to Blake when, you know, Deborah's birth was imminent.

Interviewer:  Was that a naval wife?  Was that about the support of naval wives?

J Hodson:  Yes she was.  Yes, she... I worked with her in the Planning Office and she was quite... well she would have been sort of old enough to have been a gran... well she was a grandmother actually.  And, hmmm, she was a very kind person, she was an ex-midwife, which was bonus, and, you know, she lived over in Portsmouth and also drove, so I went to her house and stayed there and stayed there for the first few days after I came out of Blake, you know, having had Deborah, so...