Did I Ever Tell You?
Vignettes of a 1930s Childhood
by
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Did I Ever Tell You About The Gypsies Who Camped Near My School?
They came in the early spring, when the puddles had melted; when the one tree on the empty lot where they camped was beginning to bud; when we girls rolled down our long white stockings at recess time and the boys undid the buckles of their knickers.
We never saw them arrive and we never saw them leave. They were just there one day and, a few days later, gone! Someone sitting near the classroom window would spy them and pass a note. There would be a flutter of whispering around the room and the teacher, looking very cross, would confiscate the note, banish the writer to the cloakroom, threaten the entire class with NO RECESS and we would settle down to the boredom of fractions.
When the recess bell finally rang, we were off, stockings rolled, knickers flapping, to the lower end of the schoolyard. Ordinary recess time was filled with hopscotch and jump rope for the girls, stick ball and punching each other for the boys. But when the gypsies came....
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About the Book
Did I Ever Tell You?
She recalls the happiness and the losses she experienced with such short stories as Did I Ever Tell You About My Street?, Did I Ever Tell You About My School?, Did I Ever Tell You About My First Lie?, and Did I Ever Tell You About The First Boy Who Loved Me?, just to name a few. She concludes her essays with the end of her elementary school years, before she sets off for junior high school and enters young womanhood.
Although Peggy Hinde, born in 1925, was a prime time member of what Tom Brokaw has since labeled 'The Greatest Generation,' her recollections are timeless and serve for subsequent generations of parents and grandparents to be inspired to record their life experiences for their children and grandchildren. After all, the past teaches us how to deal with the present and the future.
Peggy Hinde died in June 2003 at the age of seventy-eight, having experienced a wonderful life with no regrets whatsoever. Did I Ever Tell You?, therefore, is published posthumously and is dedicated to her granddaughter, Amanda, upon her marriage to Byron in April 2010.
About the Author
Margaret "Peggy" Shields Hinde was born in Philadelphia, PA, in April 1925 and died in Doylestown, PA, in June 2003. Peggy Hinde began putting her thoughts and observations to paper in her early 30s. She continued writing throughout her entire life as a 'closet writer,' never formally published except for many a letter to the editor detailing her stand on a variety of local, national and international issues. Her writings include poetry, prose, essays, fictional and non-fictional short stories, and personal insights on many topics. In 2008 Peggy's children published through authorHOUSE her journal entries for the year 2000, entitled, The Child at the Top of the Staircase. As she herself described these entries at that time, they are a "record of the thoughts, feelings, responses to world events, epiphanies, and diminutive delights that have moved, informed, angered, saddened, amused and uplifted me, the writer."