I had just had my fourteenth birthday, in 1951, when I went to live in the USA with my mother. I had two sisters four and six years older that didn’t go. One of the reasons I recall was the fact that one was born in India and one in Egypt and although born to English parents there were problems being allowed into America! They were both engaged to be married so I suppose they weren’t too upset although I don't really know how they felt at the time, but in those days we just accepted things and I don’t remember any discussion about it. The reason mother and I went to the USA was because mother had met an American airforce soldier, stationed where we lived during the war, when my father was abroad in the army. She had been unhappily married for many years and when father returned home after the war she upped and left. My middle sister was taken to live with an aunt and my eldest sister and I were left at home with our father. After some time, I don’t know how long as I would only have been six or seven, and after my sister had secret meetings with our mother, one night while our father was out at the pub my mother and her American boyfriend came and took us away. I went to live with an aunt in the country who lived in a railway cottage and my uncle who operated the signal box and level crossing. My cousin, a boy, and I used to spend lots of time in the signal box playing cards and I remember going up the lane to help bring the cows down to another field. The cottage had no running water and the toilet was in the garden – a wooden seat over a bucket that uncle had to empty!! I can remember torn up newspaper on string for toilet paper. After weeks (or months?) mother came and took me to live with my grandmother who lived in the same road as my middle sister lived with an aunt. I don’t remember having much contact with my sister at that time though. My eldest sister, who would have only been 14 years old went to live in London with my mother and went to work with her on a Smith’s bookstall in one of the mainline stations, I think Waterloo. After a year or so we all went to live in London with my mother and her American boyfriend. We lived in various flats and I went to various schools. My mother worked and my stepfather to be went to Imperial College to study. Sometime later my stepfather went back to America and that brings me back to where I started writing this when mother and I went to America. We went cabin class on the Queen Mary, which was 2nd class (above third class and below first class) and it was luxury that I had never known but I don’t remember being overwhelmed which is odd as life in England was still quite austere I would have thought – I remember rationing and using coupons for 2 ounces of sweets! We were met in New York by my stepfather (to be) and stayed for a couple of days. I can still remember the name of the hotel - Hotel Dixie. I remember my mother buying me a new outfit to start school. We drove to where we were to live in a very nice detached house with grounds which belonged to my stepfather’s cousin, who owned a supermarket, and who spent their winter in Florida enabling us to live in the house. Rather different to living in a flat on the top floor of a block in South London! I started school which was quite an experience. I was probably viewed as a bit of an oddity. In a small rural community they’d probably never met anyone from another country, but I remember they were all right and one girl, Ruth Ann, who lived on a farm took me under her wing. All I can remember about the time I was there was spending weekends on the farm and making a huge circular red skirt in needlework class. Later we moved to the city of Cleveland, Ohio and went to live with my stepfather’s mother. In a separate flat upstairs another brother and his wife and two children lived. Once again another new school, South High, where I spent the next couple of years. My best friend was Ginni and I became a typical American teenager. (I am in contact with Ginni and have visited her on three occasions and she has visited me in England). Mother wasn’t happy with her new husband and missed England a lot so secretly arranged for us to go back home to England. I don’t remember complaining although I must have been upset as I was happy in school and ‘in love’ with my boyfriend Ted. Ted's mother had a little party for me and Ted and I got engaged and I said I’d go back in 2 years time! We went on a train to New York and on the Queen Elizabeth back home to England. I was 16 years old – too old to go back to school. My mother gave me half a crown and I went to the city of London to an employment agency and got a job as a typist. I’d learned to type at school in America (and I hated it!). I worked in a little office in a lovely old building with one of those old fashioned lifts with a grill. In our office was a fireplace and in the winter we had to put the coal on! I shared the office with my friend Pam who was the telephonist (a doll’s eye board with plugs) we used to sometimes listen in to conversations! Pam and I became best friends and we used to go to dances and the pictures. I can remember we used to sing the whole score of Carmen Jones (a film we'd seen) in the office! Mother returned to USA several times over the next few years and eventually she and my stepfather settled in England, although it wasn't exactly a 'happy ending'! By this time I had a boyfriend, Doug, who I later married (not Ted!) and we introduced Pam to his best friend Chas and they eventually got married. We still saw a lot of each other after we were married but then we moved to Bletchley in the 1960s and she moved to Folkestone to run a pub with Chas, we both had children and it became difficult to see each other although we did visit now and again. Sadly Pam died when she was in her fifties and although it’s many years since I saw her I still remember her very well and we're still in touch with Chas. I moved to Bletchley when I was pregnant with my second child and went on to have a third daughter. I have now lived in and around Milton Keynes for over 40 years. Although I've put the title to this "my memories of the 1950s" I've gone on to the 1960s so I had better bring this to an end. It has brought back many almost forgotten memories of those years from so long ago and I wonder how different my life might have been if I hadn't spent those 3 years in America or if I hadn't moved to Bletchley!