Brenda Edith Fickling (3 Sep 1926 - 19 Mar 2020)

In loving memory of Brenda Edith Fickling who sadly passed away on 19th March 2020

Brenda Edith Fickling nee Holden.

Brenda, my mum, was born in London on 3rd September 1926. Her parents were Daisy Edith Standen and Archibald George Holden. She was the second of four children. Her elder brother was called Reginald (Reg), she also had a younger sister and brother, Marjorie and Kenneth (Ken). Her father was a head waiter at a London Hotel and often had to live in so he was not a big presence in the children’s lives. The family lived in Herne Hill in South London where they rented the upstairs rooms in a house. Brenda often spoke about how her mother insisted that the children were always really quiet when indoors as the owners of the property lived downstairs and their mother was terrified that they would lose their home. Times were hard, the family did not have a lot of money but Brenda’s mother took any job she could get in order to help make ends meet.

Brenda started school in September 1931. The school was Cauldicott Road Infant & Junior School. Brenda was happy in the Infants. When she went into the junior school in 1932 she met Edna Oak who was to become a life-long friend. Brenda started secondary school in 1938. She did not settle in very well as she had several long periods of illness during her first year there. She was in hospital on two occasions during this year, with Diphtheria and then Whooping cough. She was recovered and ready to return to school in September 1939 but World War 2 started on Brenda’s 13th birthday and a few days later she was evacuated to the Sussex countryside with her sister and youngest brother. Brenda was separated from Edna and her other friends as she went with primary school children because she had younger siblings. Reg, her older brother had already left school and was working, so he stayed in London.

The evacuation didn’t go very well for Brenda and Marjorie. Their brother Ken, who was only six, was placed with an elderly couple who were very kind to him but they had no room for the girls. They were passed around several different places, none of them providing a caring or supportive environment. Additionally, as Brenda had been evacuated with the primary school children, they all attended the local village school. No provision was made for more advanced work for Brenda and she was basically used as a teaching assistant for the younger ones. She told me that when she looked back on that part of her schooldays all she could remember was helping the younger ones and knitting woollen socks for soldiers!

Brenda returned to London when she was 15, in 1941 or early 1942. She joined the NAAFI and worked in their offices in Wimbledon. She would travel there by bus and tube. On one occasion, she returned home from work to find a road block in place and chaos everywhere. A bomb had landed on the house next door to where she lived and it and several other houses, including her home, had been badly damaged. Brenda couldn’t find her mother and had a really devastating half an hour or so searching for her, eventually finding her having a cup of tea with a neighbour down the road. All her life Brenda remembered the feeling of desperation as she searched for her mother and the complete relief when she found her. Fortunately her mum had been out shopping when the bomb dropped and was unharmed. However, virtually nothing could be salvaged from the wreckage and the family lost all their possessions.

Brenda was now reunited with Edna and her other friends and before long her sister Marjorie, also returned home. As she got older Brenda began to attend dances organised by local scouting groups and it was at one of these, when she was 17, that she met Thomas Fickling –Tom, my Dad. He used to tell me how as soon as he met her he knew that she was the girl he wanted to marry. I don’t think Brenda was so sure at first, she was enjoying being young and carefree in wartime London!

Within months they were seeing each other all the time and Brenda’s sister Marjorie, had been introduced to Tom’s friend Arthur. All four of them often spent time together sometimes joined by Edna and her boyfriend, Ron. In 1944 Tom was called up and joined the army. The couple wrote letters to each other and met every time Tom was home on leave.

Mum often spoke about the celebratory atmosphere in London when the war ended. She was in Trafalgar Square on the evening of VE day with Edna and other friends. They stayed out all night and made the most of the celebrations. Although the war had ended Tom was still serving in the army and during 1955/46 was in Berlin. During his leaves they used to go on cycling holidays with Marjorie, Arthur, Edna and Ron and sometimes other friends too. On one occasion they were later than usual setting up camp and put their tents up in the dark in a field. When they awoke early the next morning they realised that they had set up camp in someone’s garden. They packed up and moved out very swiftly!

When Tom eventually returned home from the army they became engaged and began to plan their wedding. They got married at St Saviour’s Church, Herne Hill on 10th September 1949, exactly a week after Brenda’s 23rd birthday. They had a honeymoon in a caravan in Herne Bay, Kent and returned to set up home in the upstairs part of Tom’s parents’ home in Peckham. There had been no water in the upstairs of the house so Tom and his father had worked to put in a supply and turn the smallest bedroom into a kitchen. I remember that house quite well as it was my first home. I was born in November 1953 and my sister, Sue followed two and a half years later.

By the late 1950’s, when the post-war reconstruction was fully underway, the local council decided to demolish the entire area where our family were living and build a new Estate of flats and houses. It seemed the right thing at the time, but I remember the houses that were demolished, streets and cul-de-sacs of Victorian and Edwardian houses, all they really needed was renovation. However, Brenda was excited as she was told that the council would re-house the family in one of the brand new estates that were going up on the (then) fringes of south east London. I remember that we went to visit some new houses that my Dad turned down and Mum was really worried that we wouldn’t be offered anything else. Eventually we were offered a new house in Sydenham which was still being built. As they were among the first people to be offered homes there Brenda and Tom were able to choose which house they wanted. Our family moved to Sydenham in July 1959 and Brenda was over the moon with her new home. We had a bathroom which she had never had before – and an indoor toilet!

Our new home had a reasonable sized garden which Brenda and Tom spent many happy hours organizing and planting up. Our family spent most of our time in the garden during the summer months. We had apple trees, a vegetable patch with a greenhouse and large area with strawberries, blackcurrant, redcurrant and gooseberry bushes. Also a lawn for paddling pools, ball games and deck chairs.

Although Brenda was busy with the house and garden she always made time to spend with us. When we came home from school we would often go to the local park which was just down the road. We’d take a picnic tea and our swimming costumes as they had three paddling pools of different sizes and depths. On other days we would sit down together, in the garden in summer and indoors in winter with tea or squash and biscuits and talk about our day. As a child I used to dislike getting back from school on Tuesdays as Mum was always still doing the ironing and we had to wait for our drink, biscuits and chat!

Another thing that I remember from my childhood about Mum is that she was always knitting. Whenever she sat down she’d pick up her knitting. She’d chat to us while knitting and watch TV while knitting. She was a very fast knitter too. When we were children she’d knit us school jumpers and cardigans and she’d also knit jumpers and cardigans for all occasions for all family members. She knitted innumerable dolls clothes for Sue and I. When we got older we’d put in orders for what we wanted knitting next. We’d go to the local department store (Cobbs) on Saturday afternoons and look at the pattern books, choosing what we wanted her to make for us next. It was all very fair though, we all had to wait for our turn! Mum continued to enjoy knitting throughout her life. She made baby clothes for her grandchildren and toys for them and the children of her friends. A few years ago she was still able to knit jumpers for herself and in more recent months she was still knitting squares to make a blanket.

In November 1962 Richard was born and our family was complete. Life carried on in much the same way. We’d spend lots of time in the garden and the park during summer. We went on holiday for a week in August, finances permitting, usually to a caravan in Ramsgate or Littlehampton and once (rather excitingly) to a Log Cabin!
Family and close friends were always really important to Brenda. Our childhoods were filled with family times where we’d get together with Marjorie and Arthur and their children – our cousins. We’d also see both our Grandmothers regularly and we would either visit Brenda’s best friend Edna and her family or they’d visit us on Saturday afternoons.

Money was always tight, Tom had a job as an engineer responsible for a team who kept the machines in good working order at a local factory (Dylon) but in those days the wages for that sort of job weren’t great. After Richard was born Brenda got a job as a Dental Nurse in a local dental surgery. She worked from 6-10pm each weekday evening. So, we children would get home from school and mum would give us our tea and then when our dad got back from work she would set off for work.

The extra money was welcome but Brenda didn’t really enjoy the job so when Richard had been at school for a while she began working at the school, firstly as a dinner lady but she was very soon offered more hours as a teaching assistant. She really loved the job and really thrived doing it. She particularly enjoyed teaching the children to sew and knit and enjoyed helping with arts and crafts and doing wall displays. She stayed in this job until she took early retirement in 1985. Tom had had an industrial injury at work in the early 1970s that meant he was no longer able to do engineering work. He got a job as a local government officer with Lewisham Council where he stayed until he retired in 1988.

Whilst she was working at the school Brenda made many friends, some of whom she kept in touch with for the rest of her life. Pam and her husband Eddie were especially close and when Brenda and Tom moved away from London they used to come and visit every summer.

In 1984 I moved to Lincolnshire with my husband Malcolm and in 1988 our daughter Laura was born. Brenda was so excited about becoming a grandmother. She loved children and especially babies. She could never walk past a baby without looking at it and exclaiming at how beautiful it was. Mum came to stay with us before our baby was born and stayed on afterwards to help us. It was wonderful to have her with us and she was a great help, especially as I was quite unwell physically for sometime afterwards.

My Dad took early retirement in 1988 and Brenda and Tom were planning to move to Lincolnshire to be nearer to me and my sister (Sue was then living in Hornsea, East Yorkshire). During the Spring and summer of 1988 they came up to Lincolnshire quite a bit to see Laura (the new baby) and to look for a house to buy. In early September they found a house in Bucknall that they loved and their offer was accepted. Unfortunately, a short while after this Tom had a stroke and was in hospital for quite a time. They decided that they still wanted the house move to go ahead and when Tom came out of hospital shortly before Christmas they came to stay with us for Laura’s first Christmas. In January Brenda and Richard went back to London to pack up the house and arrange the move, leaving Dad with us.

Tom and Brenda moved to Bucknall in February 1989 and settled in well. Their neighbours Sybil and Ted were very welcoming and soon became friends. Tom was still having problems with movement and speech due to the stroke but was glad to be settled in his new home. Unfortunately in September 1989 Tom died. Brenda was devastated but had Richard living with her so was not on her own.

We were very proud of the way in which Mum dealt with losing Dad. After a while she began to build a new life for herself. She went on foreign holidays with Sue – flying for the first time and visiting places such as Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia and Switzerland. She also went on coach holidays in this country with her friend Edna and also had holidays with her neighbour and friend Sybil.

Brenda had started to have driving lessons when she first moved to Bucknall and she continued with these, taking her test many times until she eventually passed. Once she was able to drive she went all over the place, even driving up to Yorkshire to stay with Sue. She carried on driving until she was 86 years old, although in the later years she only drove as far as Woodhall Spa.

Brenda and Sybil joined lots of clubs together and tried out many activities. They took part in Carpet Bowls at Bucknall Village Hall, joined the Woodhall Gardening Club and where early members of the newly formed Spa Afternoon WI which Brenda remained a member of until January this year. Mum was a member of the Horncastle Branch of the cat’s Protection League and always supported their fundraising activities whenever she could. She loved cats and had nearly always had one or two pet cats.

In 1991 Sue gave birth to a baby boy Robbie, Brenda stayed with Sue and helped her in the early days with the new baby. Brenda was so thrilled to have another grandchild and was really excited again in 1994 when Sue had another baby, this time a girl Elizabeth but always called Libby. Now Brenda had three grandchildren and she loved them all so much and was really proud of each one of them. They all had a very special relationship with their Nanna.

Some years ago Brenda joined a Yoga Class in Woodhall and there she met Sandra who became a great friend. They saw each other at least twice every week and went out for meals and coffee together. At one time they went to a Knit and natter group together and when that stopped they used to knit together at Brenda’s house.

The house and garden in Bucknall began to get too much for Brenda and after two falls and two hospital stays she moved to a bungalow in Coningsby. She was very happy there but missed the house and garden in Bucknall where she had lived for 28 years. In 2017 Brenda had a slight stroke from which she made a good recovery but over the following years she began to get progressively frailer. She had a carer Maxine who came twice a week to help with personal care, meals etc and a companion Denise who played games (especially Scrabble, Brenda’s favourite) and took her out for visits, meals and shopping. In early October Brenda had another fall resulting in a hospital stay. When she was discharged from hospital she was not well or strong enough to go home so went to Bramhall Residential home where she was looked after really well and with great kindness by the staff. She had visits every day from family and friends but gradually became weaker throughout January, February and March. She died on 19th March with her family with her.

Brenda had a full and happy life. She had times of great sadness but dealt with them with a determination to live life to the full. She loved her family and her friends and was at her happiest when surrounded by them. She was a quiet and fairly shy person when with strangers but blossomed with those she was closest to. She was also very determined and could be stubborn at times, she certainly didn’t like being told what to do!

Written by Linda Turner April 2020