The following reminiscences
were told to me over a few occasions when I visited my mother at the Hillcrest
Nursing Home, Sydney on October 22nd 1993 and subsequent visits. Having
an interest in family history we talked about her family as I was keen to find
out more about herself and her parents George and Alice who lived in Eye, Suffolk.
These notes are not necessarily
sequential but as she recalled them at the time with the help of a lot of cups
of tea. Mother had a very good memory considering she was 95 years old at the
time. I have not corrected grammar or details as I was keen to convey the
conversations just as she spoke to me. It is not a full “Memoir” nor is it
intended to be but recollections of a remarkable lady who lived a remarkable
life. When speaking to her on the telephone who can forget the traces of
Suffolk accent that lingered after all those years.
"I was born on 10th
November 1898 in a house in Magdalene Street, Eye, Suffolk. Most children at that time were born at home,
delivered by a midwife and not in a hospital as they are today. The Doctor was only called when there were
complications which seemed to be less prevalent than today perhaps because of the
different plain food of the day. My mother
Alice (often called “Granny Reynolds even by friends and neighbours) was called
quite often to deliver babies in the village.
For some reason they always seem to come during the night.
My mother Alice Beatrice
Rayner was born in Bury St Edmunds on 11th December 1860 the second
of ten children as they had large families in those days. When I was born she was a late first time
mother by today’s standards as she was thirty eight years old. My father George Reynolds was born in Eye on 3rd
March 1855 to James Reynolds and Sophia Burroughs the last of nine children so
I had lots of aunts and uncles. George
trained in Ipswich as a watchmaker and later had a jeweller/ watchmaker shop in
Magdalene Street, Eye. He was sitting on
a gate with a friend in a meadow leading to Abbey Farm when a horseman came by
and told them that his horse could jump the fence. Apparently, he tried to do
that but the horse’s hooves caught the top rung of the gate which broke the
gate, but because my father’s foot was caught in the gate he ended up breaking
both legs. The local Doctor didn’t set the leg properly which resulted in one
leg being shorter than the other and was subsequently lame as a result of the
accident. I didn’t know how my mother and father met but possibly George could
have gone to Bury St Edmunds for supplies for his shop or through the St Peter
and St Paul’s church choir which travelled fairly extensively. Both of my
parents were in the choir and George had a very good tenor voice and had sung
in the choir for about 20 years during which time he had gone to Belgium and
France twice with the choir. I think that he was the third generation of his
family to sing in the local church choir.
When I was about three years
old I can remember standing on the kitchen table whilst my mother fitted a
frock on me which she had made for me (and stuck a pin in me) There is a family
photograph of me when I was about four years old sitting on a couch in a bright
red coat with a red velvet collar edged with fur (red with black on it’s edge)
plus a big white hat with white gloves that had been taken off and laid down
besides me. I loved that coat. At the same time I wore high button up gaiters
to my knees indicating that it was taken during the winter. My mother gave me a
birthday party for some friends and I was sitting in front of the fire when I
suddenly fell forward and burnt my finger on the bars of the fire. Still have a
long scar on my right middle finger which doesn’t allow me to straighten the
finger completely. Needless to say it was the end of the party.
My father had a small Governess
Cart and I used to go out with him prior to school to the big houses of the
district where he attended to the clocks in the house. He would wind them up
and regulate the time on them. I used to love it because I would sit in the housekeeper’s
room with a piece of cake and a glass of milk feeling quite important. My
father also looked after the Eye Town Hall clock and I can remember seeing
white mice at the top of the stairs there when climbed up to the top to where
the clock was.
My first school was the Eye
National School which was located near the foot of the old ruined castle built
up on a mound. Mary Ann Reynolds (who was my Aunt Dudie) was headmistress of
the infant school prior to me going there.
The castle no longer exists and only a few ruins remain. A Mrs March who
lived in a thatched cottage at the foot of the hill used show visitors around
for a shilling a time. I can remember
steep round stairs going up to the top of the hill or mound. The ruins fell in
on itself after a very high wind one day. Then I went to the “big” school for
older children. I enjoyed the school and made quite a few friends there who
became lifelong friends. After that school I went on to the Grammar school near
the church and the Headmaster lived in the Tudor style building next door which
later became the Guildhall. One day
after school, my friends and I went for a walk and came across a large tree
near school which had blown down and fallen over a ditch. My friends Vicki Norman, Doris Day, Ida
Torbell and myself played at walking over the fallen tree which spanned a
sewerage ditch. Guess who slipped in? Later on the ditch was filled in but too
late to help me. Being very wet and smelly I had to go home straight away but just
before I got home a man named Cork Hines was standing at his gate and said
“Beattie Reynolds, wait until your father sees you”
Just as I reached the front
door my mother opened the door and obviously smelt me right away because she
said,”Don’t you dare come in the house smelling like that” She made me strip
off all my clothes in the stable next door until I was naked and then I had to
run into the house where she was waiting with a bucket of water. We didn’t have
a bathroom in those days but used a tin bath in placed front of the fire. When
my father came home from work I got a good hiding and told not to go there
again. An old man who lived next door to
us had an old swaybacked horse which he used to let me ride when he took it
down to the River Dove for a wash. I used to walk it home because it was still
wet. I would have loved to have had a
horse of my own to ride whenever I wanted to.
I was sixteen when I left the
Grammar school. I stayed home for a
while helping my mother out due to my father being in a wheelchair. He had had
a stroke after his accident and lost the use of his legs below the knees about
a year earlier but could still manage to get up and down the stairs by himself.
Because my father couldn’t get around my mother use to send me with a small
pail with a lid on it to bring her back some stout from Daisy’s mother’s pub the
“Queens Head” which was next door. My parents weren’t big drinkers but loved a
daily drink of stout rather than beer.
I also used to go up to the
railway station every night to collect the London evening paper for my father
so the staff got to know me quite well.
I used to spend all my
holidays with my aunt Dudie (Mary Ann) who lived in West Ham, London. Her
husband was a builder but had died after falling off a scaffolding around a
building. My aunt had an old lady living
with her that I used to call Aunty Charlotte but she was no relation. She had
worked with my aunt Elizabeth at Windsor Castle but had been pensioned off.
Charlotte had white hair and used to dress beautifully so obviously had money
and usually wore black silk frocks. When I used to visit my Aunt Dudie, my
father used to put me on the steam train at Eye and I was met by my Aunt at
Liverpool Street Station. Her family
were quite rich and we went to her home in a very large car which I loved. My aunt used to take me to visit her sons and
my cousins as all her sons were married and I enjoyed spending time with them
all. Especially as I was an only child and it was a novelty to be with a lot of
people. The sons lived at Forrest Gate
not far from West Ham. To visit them I used to go by horse drawn bus and we
used to sit upstairs as we could see more. There was a little mackintosh thing that
pulled out over our legs to stop them getting wet when it rained which was
quite often. My Aunt was very good to me
and used to take me to such places as parks, museums etc. Aunt Dudie used to
visit Eye fairly frequently as she and my father were very close. Prior to his stroke my father used to visit
London quite often. My aunt Maria (Dudie’s sister) was a widow and lived in a
flat opposite Dudie’s house. Maria was a large happy soul and had two step
daughters, Laura and Bessie from her second marriage.
Her son Alfred who used to be
called Alexander had moved to South Africa.
When I was sixteen I applied
for a position as a Nursery attendant at the local new Infirmary. There were
thirty-six little children belonging to the inmates of the Infirmary and they
were mostly illegitimate. Most of them
were happy little souls and played well together. Their mothers worked in the
laundry, kitchen or wards to help pay for their keep. I wore a nurse’s uniform, the same one as in
the photograph, and was the youngest member of the staff. My mother was very pleased because the
Infirmary was near my home so I was able to get home quite often. I had one half day off a week and every other
half day on Sunday but we got used to working the long hours there. The
children stayed in the nursery until they were three years old after which they
were sent to the children’s home. Sometimes
I would get attached to one of the young children and got upset when it became
time to leave the nursery. I was given
two imbecile women named Gertie and Phoebe to help me in looking after the
children and their main jobs were to get meals from the kitchen, dressing the
children and bathing them. They were good workers and we got on well together.
The Matron used to inspect our area every day and we could hear her coming by
the jangle of the keys hanging from her belt so we were warned in advance. I
had a bad experience there, as one day I was called to help “lay out” a dead
body and as we went to start on him he suddenly half sat up due to wind in his
stomach or something so my friend and I both screamed. During the time I was there the war had just
started. I two very close friends Ida
Torbell and her sister Lily. Lily’s
husband joined the Army and within a few weeks was sent to France. The Welch Horse Artillery was stationed at Hoxne
which is near Eye. They, of course, were horse soldiers and as Ida’s parents
had a confectionary shop (bread, cakes, buns etc.) the boys would go there a
lot as their own food was pretty monotonous and I got to know some of them
quite well. Ida had a boyfriend named
Frank Dowdall and I had Dewi Hopkins. Both of them had been together at a University
in Wales but I can’t remember which one. Frank later became a schoolmaster and
Dewi became a bank manager after the war. My uncles Enoch and Ephraim had both
moved down to Wales with their families. After the soldiers were sent to France we had
the Lovett Scouts, Scottish Regiment which had been raised by Lord Lovett. The troopers had to find their own horses and
uniforms. I also made friend with some
boys from the Stafford Yeomanry as there were many soldiers stationed around
Eye.
After a little while Ida,
Elsie Etheridge and I decided that we would join the WAAC”s (Womens Army Auxiliary
Corp) so we all went off by train to Ipswich on my half day off and joined up.
Ida and I passed the medical exam but poor Elsie couldn’t pass as she had a goitre
on her neck. I hadn’t told my parents what I was going to do so when I got home
there was a big row with my Parents as they thought that I was too young. I told them that I was tired of looking after
all of the children at the Infirmary and wanted a change. Very shortly afterward we went off but not
together as my friend Ida was going to France. I enjoyed the Army life very
much and with some of my other friends we were sent to Hasting in Sussex.
Whilst we were there we had
to learn the foot drills the same as the men so that we could go on parade with
them. We lived in Nissan huts with about twenty women to each hut which I found
a bit difficult in the beginning until I got used to it. I found it cold at
night even though there was a pot bellied stove down one end of the hut. Our washing facilities were pretty primitive.
Every morning we had to do drill conducted by a very large Sergeant with a big
moustache after which we went on route marches. At first I was put into the Stores for a
while and then I was transferred to the Officer’s Mess as a waitress as they
were short of them. It was much better
than giving out uniforms to the new recruits.
I liked the life very much and was very happy although they kept moving me
from place to place but was pleased when I finished up in Hasting again. There
were six Royal Flying Corps cadets on each table, including CW Martin, who were
waiting for their Commissions to come through.
Bill Martin sometimes had to go to another training camp at Aldeburgh
but always came back again. He was
training to be a Navigator at that time and became a pilot later on. We got
talking and finally ended up going to the pictures together and for walks in
the surrounding countryside which was very pretty. As he was a Cadet he wore a
white band around his hat but as Cadets and WAAC”s were not supposed to go out
together he used to take his white band off and put it in his pocket. One night
we bumped into one of the Officer Instructors but he didn’t say anything. His
surname was Bull-Smythe and he owned a fat bulldog. There were other girls of course who went out
with the Cadets.
In due course Bill got his
Commission and was then moved around to different places of training such as
Uxbridge and Aldeburgh whilst I of course was still at Hastings. My girl friends
used to call him “ Reynolds One Pipper” Sometimes, we were able to get weekend
leave together and meet up in London as we wanted to spend time together
whenever possible. I then joined the
Womens Royal Air Force as they were disbanding the WAAC’s which turned out well
as I particularly liked the uniform which was a nice blue instead of khaki.
When I joined it involved a move to Shorncliffe , Sussex which made it easier
to see Bill. Sometimes Bill would come
home with me to Eye to see my mother and father and I am pleased to say that
they liked him very much. Then we got
the mad idea that we would like to get married so we got engaged with the
approval of my parents. Bill organised a
special licence and we got married at a Registry Office at St. Giles,
Bloomsbury, London which a lot of couples were doing as the war was still on
and the future uncertain. Luckily we had some family there as Bert Hawkins
(Albert was Aunty Kate Hawkins nee Rayners son) and his wife Agnes were able to
attend the wedding. We stayed the weekend in London and the unfortunately we
both had to go back to our respective camps. He was still being sent from one
training place to another finishing up on Salisbury Plain. After a while I left the Air Force as I had
become pregnant and went home to live with my parents. I found Eye to be very
small after living in bigger towns for a while but luckily I still had all my
childhood friends living there.
One weekend Bill took me up
to Preston by rail to meet his mother Emily.
His father, William, at that time was away from home as he was in the
Church Army in the Middle East. Grandma
Martin spent most of her time telling us that we were too young to marry. Bill was nineteen at that time and I was
twenty so she was probably right. My baby
was born in Church Street, Eye and we called him George Edward with the George
after my father. My mother helped
deliver him as she was an experienced midwife and was often called upon to help
out in the Town. Ted was a lovely big
baby and very contented. By this time the war had finished and so had Bill’s
short term commission so when Ted was about a year old, Bill like a number of
other young officers joined the Royal Irish Constabulary. He was given the rank
of Captain and was sent to Macroom in Ireland, because of the troubles caused
by the Sein Feiners. Bill was moved
around quite a lot but finally settled in Macroom where he lived in the Castle.
Ted was about eighteen months old at that time so I thought it was about time
that Bill and I were together again and I managed to go over to Ireland. Bill had managed to get me rooms with the
Protestant Sexton and his wife who were a lovely couple and the rooms were near
the Castle so it was very convenient. Life turned out to be quite social as a
lot of young officers used to visit us to play cards. Bill was very lucky as he managed to obtain a
sleeping out pass. The thought of trouble was always there so he used to sleep
with a loaded revolver lying on the chair by the bed. The Sein Feiners were very active at that
time and we could often hear shots being fired in the hills at the back of the
town. One day Bill had gone out in a
convoy from the Castle and a curfew was placed upon the town. The time of curfew was indicated by the
ringing of bells at seven pm. When the convoy came back we realised that they
had been ambushed as several bodies were lying on a tarpaulin on the back of
the truck. Of course I was very worried until I saw that Bill was driving one
of the trucks because the driver had been killed. Four of the R I C had been killed. The bodies were put into the little
Protestant Church until they were able to be sent back to England and it was
very sad for all of us. A little while
after the ambush I found out that I was pregnant again and as we had concerns
for safety I went home to live with my parents in Eye until Ray was born. We called him Frank Rayner Martin and the
Rayner was because it was my mother’s surname.
By this time Bill had
rejoined the Royal Air Force on a short term commission so as I now had two
children I thought that I would be better off in my own house as my parent’s
house wasn’t very large. Luckily I was able to rent a house in Church Street
which was the same street as my mother’s house and it was named Denmark
Cottage. I paid six shillings a week rent for three rooms upstairs and two
rooms downstairs. Needless to say in
those days the toilet was in the back garden. A funny thing happened one night
when I was down the back and was in the toilet. I was seated when suddenly the
flap at the back opened up and the night soil man tried to take the toilet pan
with me sitting on it. I yelped and the man said “You take your time love, I’ll
wait for you” Very embarrassing. My friend Lily Scrivener and her husband helped
me to clean and paint the house out as the previous owner, a schoolteacher, had
had three cats which had made a great mess everywhere. Pink carbolic soap was
used with lots of elbow grease and the soap made my hands very sore. I used to
go to auctions where I bought furniture, carpets crockery etc. The Auctioneer, George Lay, was very kind to
me and used to bid on my behalf and then bring it home on his truck. He had a
good idea of just what I could afford to pay and I am sure that he didn’t make
a profit on those items. Being a small town in those days people were very
friendly and helped each other. I soon had
the little house looking very nice and my mother was a great help to me both in
the house and looking after children as she loved small children since I was an
only child. Our washing was done in a
big copper in the laundry down the garden and we used an iron mangle with
wooden rollers to get rid of as much water out of the clothes as we could as it
made it easier to get the clothes dry.
Mrs Brunning my next door neighbour used to bake every Friday for a
weeks bake and there were Pies, Bread and Cake etc. Ted was old enough and used to go and collect
a big bag of goodies every Friday afternoon about five o’clock. At that time Bill was still in the RAF moving
around a lot although he managed to get home quite often until he was sent to
Egypt for flying training. Once again I
found that I was pregnant with my third son, Tony. He was born in Denmark
cottage whilst Bill was still away.
Whilst Bill was in Egypt he
fell off the back of a truck and got severe concussion so they put him in the French
Catholic Hospital. He was in there for some time and then came home for three
months convalescent leave. When Bill went back to work we moved closer to where
he worked to Caterham to a bungalow name “Dolce Domum”. I fell pregnant again and eventually had John
and Joan. During my pregnancy I didn’t know that I was having twins until the
night they were born. Expectant mothers
are so lucky now with all of the advances in knowledge. John was a big happy baby but Joan was the opposite. Joan cried a lot, had a touch of jaundice and
three hairs only on the top of her head.
When the twins were about a year old, Bill was moved to Henlow
aerodrome. We were able to rent a gloomy old farmhouse very close to the
aerodrome at Clifton, Bedfordshire. It had oil lamps, very dark inside and
wooden shutters to the windows. It was evident that no-one had lived there for
some time as it was reputed to be haunted which we didn’t hear about until
after we started living there. There
were certainly some strange things or happenings that occurred and we got
scared even though we had electric light put on in the house. A friend of mine
was staying with us for a week and rushed into our bedroom one night screaming
and claiming that she had seen an old lady standing at the bottom of her
bed. She was able to describe the clothes
that she wore and facial features. When we spoke to the farmer who owned the
house he said that the description fitted an old lady who had been murdered in
that bedroom. Around that time the cat
arched her back with her fur standing on end and shot out of the house and we
never saw her again. Cupboards used to open and shut with no draughts being
there and we heard noises on the stairs with no-one there. Dad was reading a paper one night when all of
a sudden the pages started turning over by themselves. Pokes in the back were not uncommon. Needless to say after six months we had had
enough and moved to a modern bungalow in Tunbridge,Kent
Just after that Bill left the
Royal Air Force and took it into his head to buy a greengrocery shop in
Tonbridge. Unfortunately he wasn’t a good business man and got tired of it and
sold it at a loss. He then got a job in
London with Smiths Aircraft Instruments and was a lot happier as it was
connected to aircraft. He was lucky
enough to meet some famous aviation people of the day like Amy Johnson, Jean
Batten and Jim Mollison. To be closer to work we moved to Feltham where we
lived in a modern house on a new estate, then after a short time moved to a bigger ,older house on “The Green “which
was near a nice green(Small park) with a pond in the middle of it. Every year
there was a big Fair on the Green and gypsies used to come around selling pegs.
Because I would let them have fresh water they chalked a sign on the gate to
say that we should not be bothered. I
always found them quite friendly as they were not treated very well usually.
The children were usually dressed in bright clothes and had huge dark eyes.
Sometimes I would give them apples from my apple trees in the back garden. Sheila,
John and Joan all attended the local school there. Tony and Ray were both in
the Hampton Court Palace choir which was nice. Ted was working in London.
From Feltham we moved yet
again to Number 83 Curzon Avenue, Stanmore. It must have been King George’s
Jubilee year which was 1936 because the children came home from school (John,
Joan and Sheila) with tea spoons with the Jubilee crest on them. Dad then started up an Air Navigation School
which was based in Arundel Gardens, Notting Hill, London. It was a four story
house including the basement and as it had living quarters upstairs we moved
there from Stanmore. By this time Michael had been born in Stanmore and had
been delivered by Nanny Richardson who was a mid-wife. The other younger children
had gone to boarding school in Wimbledon for a while but the school wasn’t very
satisfactory so we took them away. John, you went to another boarding school named
Muncaster at Ashford and the girls went to a convent school St Hilary’s. After
about 18 months we moved once again down to Worthing in Sussex to a large
modern house. Bill had transferred his
Navigation School to Shoreham, Sussex but it didn’t turn out to be a big
success.
Bill got a job at Prestwick
Airport, Ayrshire in Scotland as a Navigation Instructor so we moved up to 18
Midton Road ,Ayr to this big three story
Victorian Bluestone house. Shortly after
we arrived there war was declared in September 1939. Bill was called up into the Royal Air Force
and stationed at Prestwick. At this time Ray and Ted were also in the RAF and Tony
was going to Ayr Academy before going on to Glasgow University. John, Joan and Sheila attended Ayr Grammar
School which was just down the road. One
day an Army Officer came to the house and said how many rooms are in this house
and how many people live here. As a
result of that we had five Commandos billeted on us. He said that they were the roughest of the
rough and don’t mind the language but we hardly heard a swear word. In the
middle of winter which in Scotland was cold they went out on exercises and had
to land in the sea so came home sopping wet and used to sit around in our warm
kitchen covered by blankets whilst their clothes dried. We later found out that they were training
for the raid on Norvik, Norway. Quite often they would come home with a rabbit
or two chickens that they had ‘found” Very welcome as the meat ration was only
two ounces of meat per person. Shortly
after they left us to go on their raid the Army sent a very young Lieutenant
and his wife. Imagine my surprise when I
saw their wedding photograph in the society social pages of the Illustrated
London News some months after they came to us. Very much in love and so naive.
The wife came down one day and said “What do I do for a boil on his chest” So I
told her to heat up some Kaolin and then place it on his chest. She went ahead and heated up the Kaolin and
went through to their rooms. Next thing
we heard was an anguished scream followed by rude words. Apparently she applied
this very hot Kaolin poultice to his chest directly and had not firstly put it
in a cloth. They were a lovely young couple but she had no idea how to cook
anything so used to come to me every day before she attempted to cook a meal
for him.
In 1943 Bill was transferred
to Heaton Park, Manchester to help out with aircrew selection. There were not
only British forces but Australian and Canadian. Joan and Sheila were at boarding school at St
Margaret’s Convent, Edinburgh. Ted, Ray and Tony were also in the Royal Air
Force at that time. John was at Openshaw Technical College until August 1944
when he joined the Royal Airforce as an Apprentice Aircraft Fitter. That made
five members of my family in the RAF which could have been a record. Late in 1944 we moved to Bournemouth where
Bill was involved the Royal Australian Air Force for aircrew selection and they used to come to our home in their dark
blue uniforms and strange accents. Just before we moved into our house in
Bournemouth we lived in a very old cottage with wooden beams at Spettisbury
where a very noisy stream ran past the bottom of the garden. In the grounds
there was an old coach house and John found an old horse pistol under some
rubbish.
In 1949 Bill, Sheila,Mike and
I moved to South Africa as Bill thought that it would help his chronic
bronchitis and asthma. As Bill had had
some hotel experience he had written to a brewery in South Africa and was given
a job managing the Grand Hotel, Grahamstown where we stayed for some 18 months.
The management of the hotel had decided to sell the hotel for a supermarket
site se we had to move on. Bill wanted
to own a guest house so we moved to the Derwent Hotel, Capetown where we
settled in for another 18 months. My life seemed to be a succession of moves.
It was fairly hard work ensuring that the coloured staff kept working and did
all of their jobs. I found the coloured staff responded to how you treated
them. I liked South Africa and Capetown very much and we made a lot of friends
there. Every weekend we used to go for long drives out in the countryside and
the vineyards at Paarl and Stellenbosh. John was stationed at Heany just
outside Bulawayo and used to come down on his leave at Christmas time plus
usually a couple of friends. By this time Sheila was going out with Ped
(Percival Pedlingham) and he gave glowing accounts of life in Australia and
opportunities there. As a result, we sailed to Sydney in March 1952. We stayed
at a hotel in Sydney for a while until we moved out to Blacktown which was on
the outskirts of Sydney. Bill and I had
obtained jobs in the Royal Australian Navy Dockyards in the administration area
until I fell sick and had a major operation.
Bill’s mother Emily, had died
and left him some money so of course he had to buy another business although he
wasn’t a good business man. He finished up buying a general store at Doonside
which was even further away from Sydney and was really just a few houses and a
railway station. The store had a grocery section, newspapers and magazines,
petrol and poultry food. Ray and Mac (Margaret) joined Dad in the business for
a while then Ray left as he didn’t really like the job. John and his family
came out to Australia early in 1955 and John took over Ray’s job. Bill sold the
business late in 1955 and moved to 49 Holroyd Road where I lived for quite a
few years before coming to this Nursing Home. I still miss my home.
Like all family history
devotees I should have been aware that I should have asked a lot more questions
whenever I was able to get down to Sydney to see my mother. Black and white
photographs do not tell you the colour of my grandmothers eyes, colour of her
hair, disposition etc. It is important to collect at least a few photographs of
your parents when they were younger as we tend to remember them after being
affected by the ravages of time. Very soon, there will not be too many people
who are able to talk to their children or grandchildren about the Second world-
war or how people managed to have a good life before smart phones, TV, mobiles
etc
John Martin
Family Archivist
8th July 2013
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