Four girls and our number one dad
IT WAS lovely to read the article about the ‘outnumbered’ families, which described what it’s like being a parent when all your children are a different sex to you (Mail). In 1953, my father was at home looking after three daughters while my mother was in hospital having another baby. In those days, men were not with their wives during labour. We didn’t have a telephone, so he had to go to a phone box to call the hospital. When he was told that Mum had delivered a beautiful baby girl called Dorothy, his response was: ‘Oh no, not another one!’ This upset the nurse until my mother explained there were already three daughters at home: Theresa, aged five, Pauline, three, and me, 18 months old. Dad always complained about having to wait ages for the bathroom and then being beaten to it by another female, but, in fact, he loved being the father of girls. He would write poems about his ‘four pearls’. My mother and grandmother made our clothes and we were often dressed alike. People would come up and tell my parents how pretty we looked. There was never much money, but we had a great childhood. I remember being taken to a cafe, which was a rare treat, and as there wasn’t a table big enough for the whole family, we girls sat at one and my parents at another on the opposite side of the cafe. The other customers remarked on how well behaved we were. That changed when we became teenagers! We are still close, and though we live in different parts of the country, we see each other often and talk every week on the phone. In September, Theresa will be celebrating her 70th birthday and we four girls will be celebrating with a holiday in Madeira.
KATE TAYLOR, Rugby, Warks.