A very happy 91st birthday celebration at Bernard Sunley care home

I’ve always enjoyed knitting, sewing, embroidery and gardening – they are probably my favourite hobbies and bring back fond memories of my childhood. When I was a little girl, I remember my father worked nights, so when he was home and asleep, my sister and I had to sit quietly colouring, sewing or knitting. We never got bored, we loved it. Similarly with gardening. It was my favourite subject at school and I remember spending many happy hours gardening at home with my father – they are such lovely childhood memories.

It was scary, but we kind of got used to the air strikes. One day, our house got hit by a bomb while we were hiding in the bomb shelter. Luckily, all my family were fine, but sadly, not our home.

We were taken to safe shelter, I suppose you’d say we were evacuated, and stayed in a big aeroplane hangar warehouse type of building. We were lucky and, thankfully, a charity provided us with some clothes and other personal belongings needed and, after some time, we got back home and started rebuilding our lives.

Working on the buses as a ‘clippie’ – or bus conductor – was a wonderful job, I really, truly enjoyed it. I had so many laughs with my drivers, no two days were ever the same. I worked on the iconic red London buses, I think they were the AEC Regent III and RF buses. They are not in service any more, but still live on in many films and TV shows. I remember seeing them in the James Bond film Live and Let Die, the good old TV comedy On The Buses and, of course, in Summer Holiday, with Cliff Richard singing away behind the wheel. It wasn’t quite like that in real life though.

I’ve had a lovely birthday and our amazing hairdresser here at Bernard Sunley did my hair wonderfully, she always knows how to do my hair just how I like it. What a day I’ve had. I’ve been serenaded by my favourite singer, tucked into a delicious birthday cake, had a birthday visit from one of my sons and been spoilt rotten by everyone, it’s been great.