Nelly grew up in Hotwells in the early 1900s. Her parents would pick over the 'pinky' (rotten) fruit for the family to eat. Breakfast was simple and consisted of 'bread and margarine and a cup of, well you couldn't call it tea, it was water'. There was no lunch.

Evening meals usually comprised potatoes, stew, giblets, cod heads or chicken feet and giblets. Sometimes there were wild blackberries and mushrooms to be stewed up or old bits of dried crusts. 'Father'd help mother dish up the dinners and he'd hand it to us up in the stairs, there wasn't room round the table for all us lot.'

The children had to be polite to their parents. They were brought up to say: 'Please, thank you, yes dad, no dad, yes mum, no mum'. Nelly remembered that 'Mum had to mind her Ps and Qs as well as us' because 'Dad was boss.' However, although he was strict he was considered fair, and she felt her parents taught her to respect other people.

Nelly got a 'good hiding right up to the time I was 18', but their father would not use a cane. When their mother bought one home he caught hold of the cane, snapped it and threw it into the fire. 'If we'd argued we'd get our heads banged together. Dad would bang our heads and say, "forget it." And you'd forget it but you'd have a headache. You couldn't argue; no you couldn't quarrel with one another, he wouldn't have it.'