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 ALMA TUNSTALL

Born: Winsford, Somerset, 1918
Lived: Winsford
Recording made: 1994
Length of recording: 1 hr 22 mins

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Alma Tunstall is the youngest of 15. On Mondays her mother would start washing before she went to school and still be doing it when they came home at teatime. She spent a year rabbiting with her father after school and then went into service, up at 6.30 and finish by 10pm, with two hours off during the day and half a day every other Sunday.

They had an orchard full of plum trees and soft fruit, with apples out of this world. They made cider and home made wine and in every spare piece of ground her father grew flowers, saving the seeds from year to year.

She taught herself to read music and plays the organ in church. She loves dancing and acting and made a magnificent Queen Victoria at the village's jubilee celebrations. She met her husband at a dance. He was an upholsterer, specialising in cinema seats.