Maureen Hunt remembers a woman who had been in the French Resistance
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 12th September 2011 by Liam Physick
Maureen Hunt remembers Swainbanks, a since-demolished second-hand shop at the top of Chatsworth Street, one of whose employees was a woman who had been in the French Resistance during the Second World War, and who would donate her flowers to the church in Overton Street every Sunday
Interviewee: Maureen Hunt
Interviewee Gender: Female
Interview Transcript
Maureen: I moved out in 57. I do remember at the top of Chatsworth Street, there was Swainbanks . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Maureen: . . . and there was a woman worked there after the War, and we called her, she was called Frenchie . . .
Jenny: Frenchie?
Maureen: Because, apparently, she was in the French Resistance . . .
Jenny: (sounds impressed) Oh, right!
Maureen: . . . she was built like a tank, but what a lovely, gentle lady she was, and she used to supply the church in Overbury Street, Overton Street, with all her flowers on a Sunday, and she used to go a buy them and give them me to take up there . . .
Jenny: Oh, yeah!
Maureen: . . . but she was a gentle lady. How she worked with the Resistance I don’t know, and after they’d pulled all that down I don’t know what happened to that woman.
Jenny: Was she, was she from France or was she English?
Maureen: Oh, she was French . . .
Jenny: So she’d come, she’d ended up here . . .
Maureen: . . . so I don’t know whether she had to get out because a lot of people . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Maureen: . . . from the French Resistance were targeted, weren’t they, because they thought . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Maureen: . . . they . . .
Pat: Yeah . . .
Maureen: . . . they worked with the Germans . . .
Pat: . . . yeah, yeah.
Maureen: . . . and they got out, but she used to wear her hair, like a man’s, cut short . . .
Jenny: Oh, yeah.
Maureen: . . . whether that was done before I met the lady, I don’t know.
Jenny: So, she used to work at Swainbanks . . .
Maureen: Yeah.
Jenny: . . . and what was Swainbanks?
Maureen: It’s . . .
Pat: A furniture place.
Maureen: . . . a second-hand shop . . .
Jenny: A second . . . so . . .
Pat: Yeah, yeah.
Maureen: Furniture shop.
Jenny: Yeah.
Pat: For . . .
Maureen: Antiques.
Pat: Well, it’s supposed to be for antique furniture, but . . .
Maureen: Yeah, it was, it was antique furniture, then . . .
Pat: Yeah, yeah.
Maureen: . . . cos we used to get all our pans and everything there, and me mam used to go down Smithdown Lane, which was only little, and that’s where I got all my nice clothes from, was in a nearly-new shop.
Jenny: Nearly new?
Maureen: It was second-hand stuff, but it was high-class stuff . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Pat: Yeah, yeah.
Maureen: . . . and that’s where I got my clothes from, me mam used to go down there and get them. But you, you managed any way you could.
Categorised under: Landmarks, Landscapes & Locomotives
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