Mum's family lived in and around Robert Street and Ann Street, very close to the
railway line, near the Plumstead station. I think the railway was a central
part of the children's play activity and mum used to tell me stories of them all sitting on walls beside the track, watching the steam trains go by and waving to the passengers. as they went by.

Her grandfather, Joseph James Barnes, was a grave digger for Woolwich Borough
Council in his later life, around the 1920's through to the 1930's.

Mum used to tell a story about how she, as a seven year old would have to walk on non school days and on weekends, all the way from Ann Street to Plumstead Cemetery to take Joseph his lunch ........... a hot pudding or something similar, still in its oven dish, and then the return walk all the way back home again.

As she was the second child and oldest daughter of a family of eight, Violet often said that she was regularly kept away from school to help her mother with household chores and looking after her younger brothers and sisters as well.

Mike Lucas.