Margaret Ethel Parker (nee Fisher) Life story
I was born in the Eltham hospital in 1931 to Thomas John Fisher and Gertrude Emma Fisher (nee Gidlow). We lived in Bexleyheath until 1940, where I went to a catholic school. Brother John was born in 1939.
John was a few weeks old when we went on holiday caravanning in Cornwall. Whilst we were away war was declared and we had to return home. It was then my parents decided to sell their home and we moved into a rented house in Eltham. I carried on at the same school for a short while but eventually my father was "called up" and joined the navy.
My mother, John and I went to stay along with our Auntie Florrie and cousins Derek and Gordon in Frome in Somerset. However this did not last long and after a short while we all returned home. I was sent down to Goodworth Clatford near Andover to my great uncle Arthur (vicar of the Parish Church) and his sister Gertie. John was sent to a boarding school in Bournemouth where he spent the next few years. Uncle Arthur also hosted several other evacuees from Southampton but I came back home after a little over a year. During this time I went to a school in Andover. This school was shared so that I went afternoons only.
Back home life carried on much as usual and I went to Eltham Hill School. If the siren went I had to sleep under the dining room table but when the "Doodle bugs" came I was sent to stay with my maternal grandparents in Furzehill Road, Borehamwood. By now I was thirteen and I managed to get a job for a few weeks working in a day nursery which I enjoyed but after a couple of months I was allowed home again and I returned to Eltham Hill School where I stayed until I started my nursing.
During the latter part of the war we had refugees staying with us. The first family were Belgium, not the cleanest of people but the second family were French and lovely We always called her Mama and she offered to take me back to France to study, but this never happened
At the end of the war we were turned out of our house in Eltham and we had to move into a "Rest home" in the Elephant and Castle area. This was a room in an old school which was curtained off into four compartments for four different families, absolutely dreadful! By now Dad and John were back home so it was crowded! Eventually we were rehoused in a requisitioned house in Shooters Hill, Woolwich which my parents eventually bought.
I had been a "Brownie" and was a very keen member of the guide company and at seventeen spent a few months as "Baloo" in John's cub group.
In 1948 I started my Student nurse training at Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital where in 1950 I received a gold medal for nurse of the year. It was March 17th of this year that I met David at a hospital dance.
I went from Stanmore to the Royal Free Hospital in Grays Inn Road and then to Eltham Hospital, back where I started life!
February 23rd 1952 David and I were married at Christ Church, Shooters Hill by my great Uncle Arthur and after a week in Eastbourne we moved to Yeovil in Somerset where we lived in a bed and breakfast accommodation until we rented a house in Grove Avenue. David was away from home most of the week and I got a job in Basildon Maternity hospital where on May 4th 1953 David John was born. Kevin James followed two years later on May 2"d 1955. By now we had decided it was time to return to London and Kevin was a month old when we returned. For a few months we lived in a flat in my parents home and David stayed with his mother during the week returning home at the weekend
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This was written by Peggy in the months shortly before her death.
She had surgery on her heart some ten years previously but this now needed repeating. Although the operation was successful she did not regain consciousness and died on the 5th November 2009