Cultureshock

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Video transcript

Years ago when I was a young married woman naturally I had a child. I had two actually. The second one was a little girl and was about a week old. I lived in New Cross and the next place to go was Peckham, which was quite a long way away. But on the stair I decided to push her in the pram, to give her an airing.

I eventually got there and went into Woolworths and parked the pram in the entrance place. Went and got what I had to and then I was finished and I thought ‘Oooo, I’ll have cream cakes for tea’. So I got my cream cakes and off I went and I thought ‘Ah, I’ll get a bus right away now’, and I got on a bus and I got home and I made the tea and I said to my husband ‘I got you a nice cake for tea’.

So I made the tea, sat down and I was about to take a bite out of my cake and then I said ‘Do you ever feel you’ve had something and something feels missing?’ and he said ‘well, where’s the baby then?’, I said ‘Oh crumbs! I’ve left her in Woolworths!’. He said ‘You left her in Woolworths!?’, I said, ‘I did, I’ll have to go and get her’.

So I got on the bus to go and get her, I got to Woolworths, went to the entrance where I’d left her and there was no pram or baby.

Panic.

Asking people passing by in and out, had they seen a pram here with a baby in it? People were helpful, they were looking for me. Quite a few people had gathered by now and it was all confusion and a policeman came along and wanted to know what the trouble was, what was happening. I said ‘I’ve lost my baby, my baby’s gone! I left her here and she’s gone. He said ‘Are you sure you left the pram here?’. I said ‘I did’. He said ‘Maybe you left it in the other entrance’. I said ‘No, there’s just this entrance’. He said ‘No, there’s another entrance, come and see’. We went round to the other entrance and there’s baby and pram, all safe and sound.

I thought that was a terrible thing. Fancy saying that you left your baby. So I went home, walking all the way home with my head hanging. I was even talking to the baby saying ‘What did you get lost for!? Why did you move, I put you there and you moved into there!’. So I kept that to myself, I never told anybody about it.