Her life story
In her own words, our 2024 Good Neighbour of the Year award winner Marjorie Perry shares her life story.
I was born in 1929 and grew up in Seaham. Two particular recollections I have from my childhood is having to get glass taken out of my foot by my dad because I had taken my socks and shoes off to creep up on my brother and his pal in the shed and trod on some glass and having a bath for the first time. I thought I was going to drown and shouted at my mum to get me out.
I was ten when the Second World War broke out and one day my mum sent me to the shop to get some biscuits. As I was coming up Church Street, the air raid sirens sounded so I ran into my uncle’s house. I was absolutely petrified and all of a sudden, my uncle gave a shout and he lifted me up to see a German plane which has been shot down and the pilot had to be rescued from the sea by a lifeboat.
The night when the war finished, we had a piano and it was dragged out onto the street so that we could all dance in the middle of it. I was up until 1am, it was wonderful!
My first job was working in a shop in Sunderland, but I only did that for just over a year because my mum had a stroke and I had to look after her. She died when I was 16 and the I went back to work, this time at the Woolworth’s store in Sunderland where I trained to be a window dresser.
Through my brother, who was in the Navy, I got to know a friend of his called Jim who married a WREN. When my mum died, she wrote to me asking if I would like to go on holiday to her house in the Midlands. I went and that’s where I met the man who would become my husband, Norman.
Noman was a Metallurgist and we fell for each other straight away. I was 17 at the time and we got married in Seaham when I was 19. We actually went back to the church 50 years later to renew our vows and although Norman was very poorly by then because he had cancer and a history of heart problems, he gave the most wonderful speech. He joked about how I had driven him mad all his life and how about I loved the sales at Rackams’ department store in Birmingham more than him. He was very funny!
When I moved to Birmingham, I got a job working in a laboratory where I tested samples and I worked there until we had our daughter Alison and became a full-time mum. When Alison was ten, I took her to school and one of the teachers asked me if I had ever thought about helping out. I did this for a couple of years and when the education department decided that unqualified helpers could no longer be employed I went on a one-year course and qualified to become a Nursery Nurse at the school working with the very youngest children, which I loved.
Once I was chopping up a turnip and the knife slipped and cut my finger just before a social event at Norman’s work. I wrapped it up and insisted on holding my finger in the air to stop it from bleeding and Norman was very embarrassed, but everyone was laughing and during the dancing all the men had the white serviettes wrapped around their fingers in sympathy!
The firm Norman worked for said they were closing the branch where he worked in West Bromwich and he didn’t want to relocate to the new one in Sheffield so after taking advice, he bought a shop and I left the school to help him run it. We did this for a few years but it put a lot of stress on Norman, who had already had his first heart attack by then, and so we sold it and I went back into teaching and Norman got a job working with young offenders and then went to another office job until ill health forced him to retire.
Alison was living with her family in Barnard Castle and one day Norman said ‘Majorie, let’s get you home’ and we bought a bungalow in Cotherstone. Norman loved it up here. When he knew he was dying, he told me not to waste time bringing flowers to the crematorium. He used to buy me flowers every week, so he said when I am gone buy flowers from me to you for the home, which I still do to this day. We were married for 53 years before he died were as much in love then as we were when we first married.
I didn’t like being in the bungalow by myself after his death and this brought me back to Seaham and where I live now. I have always liked to keep busy and when I was 76, I learned how to tap dance and performed at various shows, including one at the Sunderland Empire to raise money for the families of the men who died in the lifeboat accident in Seaham. I also enjoy baking and no-one who comes into my home goes away without a cake or pie of some description!
