My uncle was Head Gardener for Benjamin Disraeli

Roma Pearce, 1918

Father Conrad Rene, mother Edith Lydia, both of High Wycombe. Father worked as a foreman for a furniture maker whilst mother worked as a push-chair worker, making the seats. My grandfather used to make Windsor Chairs; he would engrave his initials on the bottom of the chair. My uncle was a head gardener for Benjamin Disraeli. I also had a sister-in-law who was a seamstress-dressmaker for a duchess. I had two cousins who worked on the Windsor Castle estate. I also had a sister who lived until she was 103.

                I attended Priory Road Board School. This was an elementary school which was run by professional people like doctors, nurses and professors. I didn’t like school as I was terribly shy.

I worked on a press in a laundry factory, having left school at the age of fourteen. However, when war broke out, our work there changed dramatically. The government removed and then stored away all the laundry machinery and replaced it with machinery for making telephone cords and cables for the Navy, Army and RAF. I carried out this work for six years. You weren’t allowed to give notice and leave unless you were ill or having a baby. After the end of the war the government brought back all the machines. Of course, the original people were still there, but I didn’t stay.

I met a boy when I was aged seventeen. He was living with his mother who had separated from her husband. She moved to the seaside so of course her son, my boyfriend, moved with her. We corresponded for a couple of years. He then wrote to me and told me that he had fallen in love with another girl; this was before the war. When war broke out he joined the RAF and was initially stationed at High Wycombe.

He came to visit me but my dad answered the door. Dad found me and told me that an American was waiting at home to see me. I told dad that I didn’t know any Americans. I only realized it was my old boyfriend when I saw Wilfred sitting there. He stayed for dinner and then he and I went out for a walk.  He left me, telling me that he would keep in touch. However, he later wrote me a letter, telling me that he wouldn’t be able to correspond with me anymore.

                I met Ronald Pearce and, after six months, we married in 1937. He was from Tattling End, near Gerrards Cross. He was a supervisor for G-Plan Furniture. He had been in the Parachute Regiment in France during the war and was wounded in the temple. It was a serious injury of course. The surgeon, who carried out the operation, told my husband some time later that he had operated on ten other men with similar head injuries but that my husband was the only one who survived. As it was, he was still affected by this injury but managed to live a successful life; he was a devout Christian. The surgeon hadn’t expected him to live for more than three or four years. He studied his Bible and went preaching and was able to use his brain. It affected him in his attitude; it made him strict. We used to move about every seven years and ended up in Stony Stratford. I worked as a CAB adviser there and loved it.

                Whilst I was working there I had to write essays on various subjects. One day, one of the managers came to my desk and requested I go to her office to talk to her. In my head I thought I was about to get the sack. Once in her office she whispered to me, having previously asked that I didn’t tell anyone else what she was about to say. She told me that the CAB officers had been amazed at the standard of my essays, that I had been given an excellent mark, in fact the highest in the country. I felt so proud, especially as I knew that most of the staff had been to university whilst I had left school at the age of fourteen. Hearing this really boosted my confidence. A lot of people still tell me that I use words that they have never heard of. This, in part, was due to my father as he had given me a huge Chambers Dictionary.

                At the age of fifty I began to work in a Christian bookshop. I loved books so this was the perfect job for me. Unfortunately the bookshop was bought out by another company. I was kept on and was in charge of ordering books and this gave me confidence. My husband died ten years ago from a very rare disease. We had one girl and two boys. Ian is a travelling salesman for a dog charity. He had previously worked for a sailor’s charity, helping widows of men who had drowned at sea. He now travels all over the country. Our other son owns a watch repair shop; this is in Milton Keynes. We have seven grandchildren. Sylvia has three children, whilst Simon has two children. He is married to a Filipino lady. Ian is married to a black African and they have two children.

                I went on to become a foster mother when Sylvia was a baby. A boy came from Doctor Barnardos and stayed with us for about five years. I was then asked if I would take care of new-born babies. They came to me from being about six weeks old and then stayed with me until they were ten months old. As soon as one baby left I was given another to look after. I think I have fostered about twelve children. As it happened, the one from Barnardos was with me until he was sixteen, when he went back to his mother. He later asked if he could come back, but this didn’t seem appropriate at the time. His sister had been fostered by my husband’s sister so we knew what was happening to him. His sister stayed with her foster mother until she got married.

                By now I had decided that I didn’t want any more babies to care for. However, sometime later, someone from the authorities returned and asked if I would take in a homeless girl of seventeen, a white girl with two black babies. I took this little family in and they stayed with me for about a year. My days of caring didn’t stop there, though, as I was asked if I would be prepared to take in working men and women. I was asked to house two policemen, which I did. One was quiet and introverted whilst the other was brash and of a different nature. They stayed with me for a year. It was hoped that, in this time, they’d have the benefit of a home atmosphere. They went back into the force. Two years later I read in the newspaper that one of the policemen had killed himself. The other policeman had said to me, just before he left me, that he was the first person who he had lived with he’d never rowed with. Another man came to stay with me. He was a teacher, who I thought was arrogant. As both my sons had suffered head injuries – one fell down the stairs and the other tripped on our hearth and smashed his head on the edge – I thought that this teacher should be aware of their conditions and never tease them. He came to me later and told me that one of my sons had picked up a chair and was threatening to hit him with it. I told him that only I scolded my sons, not anyone else. He left soon afterwards. I’m proud to say that my sons overcame their difficulties of earlier life. One son is a trained advanced chef and works in a prison.

                I live at The Cloisters; I have a little bungalow. I now want to move to Rosewood Manor Court; they have a flat there for me. I have to sell my bungalow before I can afford to move. I love coming to Saxon Hall. My daughter brings me here three times a week.