London Pride Read Free

with a colouring book, which was a lovely present, or would have been if she only had some colouring pencils left. Hers were all worn down to the stubs. She kissed Joan’s cheek affectionately and made private plans to buy herself some crayons bit by bit with her pocket money. And then it was Mum’s turn.
    Mum always made a great fuss of birthday presents, wrapping them up in tissue paper and tying them with a ribbon, but they weren’t always as exciting inside the wrapper as they looked outside. In fact more often than not they were a bit of a disappointment. And this year’s gift was no exception. It was a long, hand-knitted, tweed-coloured, winter scarf, beautifully pressed and carefully folded and undeniably dull.
    When Peggy unwrapped the paper and saw what it was she was disappointed, but she didn’t say so, because she knew you weren’t supposed to pass comment on a present no matter what you thought of it. That would have been looking a gift horse in the mouth and Dad said you must never ever do that. Besides if she said the wrong thing she’d be bound to upset Mum, and that was something they all went out of their way to avoid, because Mum suffered with her nerves and when her nerves were playing her up she could get very shirty indeed.
    It took quite a few seconds to think of something suitable to say, and they were very long seconds because Mum was standing right beside her, poised, with the newly-filled teapot in her hand, waiting, and Dad had his encouraging look on, and Baby and Joan were both watching her every move. She looked at the scarf all the time as though she was examining it carefully, and eventually she found the words among the threads.
    â€˜Thanks, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’ll be ever so warm in the winter.’
    â€˜I should hope so,’ her mother said, setting the teapot down on its trivet at last, ‘the hours it’s took me.’ But despite the querulous tone of her voice, they all knew she was pleased by the answer, because she was patting the tea cosy, and she always patted things when she was pleased. ‘You can wear it tonight,’ she said, ‘when you watch the Keys.’
    â€˜You got another present yet,’ Dad said, handing his across the table.
    It was a pencil box absolutely crammed with lovely coloured pencils.
    â€˜Oh!’ she said, quite breathless with the pleasure of it. ‘Oh Dad! It’s just what I wanted.’ And she slipped from her seat to kiss him rapturously, over and over again.
    â€˜Do you mean to eat this breakfast, Joe Furnivall, or don’t you?’ Mum said, quite crossly. ‘You muck about any longer an’ it’ll all go cold on you.’
    Peggy tidied her presents onto the dresser at once, and Dad looked a bit sheepish, and they all settled down to breakfast. There were meals to eat and chores to do no matter what sort of day it was.
    The chores took quite a long time that morning, because their usual supper was going to be a birthday tea, so Mum was hard at work in the kitchen, and Joan and Peggy had to see to the bedrooms on their own, turning beds and airing bedding, emptying heavy slop buckets, polishing basins, beating rugs and sweeping into all the corners, tidying and dusting. As Joan said, rather wearily, there was no end to it.
    â€˜We shan’t neither of us get out before dinner at this rate,’ she complained.
    â€˜Never mind,’ Peggy said, smoothing a pillow case. ‘We got all the afternoon.’ They were always allowed to play out in the afternoons.
    â€˜Eileen’ll ‘ave been waiting hours,’ Joan said, tweaking the counterpane. ‘If I don’t look sharp she’ll have something to say, I can tell you.’ Eileen was her best friend and not one to wait with much patience.
    Peggy’s friends always waited for her without complaining at all. She had lots of friends because there weren’t many children living in