My Life Story by Elaine Dente (nee Horne)

Hi everyone, my name is Elaine Dente (nee Horne). I was brought up in Kings Heath, went to Kings Heath infant & junior schools. My early memories of my infant school was walking in the gate and all the mums were talking about a fantastic new rock & roll singer called Cliff Richards who had just made a song called Living Doll. I was so excited when my mum took me to see him in the film Summer Holiday. I really enjoyed my three years at the infants school, we mostly did painting and drawing and remember there was a big shell filled with sand in all the classrooms that we spent hours playing in.


I also remember that on Sundays the Salvation Army would go round Kings Heath estate playing their band and singing to collect money for charity, I was only 5 at the time. They would stop on the green opposite my house and when they stopped playing they would ask if anyone would like to sing for them. Well my mum had taught me “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” so I volunteered to sing this in front of a big crowd of onlookers, I sang it all the way through and everyone applauded me and the lady in the S.A. asked me to collect the money, so I went to everyone and they gave me a little basket to put it all in, when I finished I said thank you very much to everyone and started to walk home with it, I thought they had given it to me NOT charity, a lady came running after me, she took it back but gave me sixpence to get some peps.

Kings Heath Junior School about 1963

Later I then joined Kings Heath Junior school and also liked being there apart from when I was talking too much and Miss Ward hit me on the back of the knee with a ruler, she used to get quite a kick out of doing that to the children, needless to say she wasn’t very popular in the school but went on to teach there for many years.

Through my Junior School years my best friend was Denise Thompson (Beckwith now) who is also a NP member and she was the one who suggested me to the group, (I will be fore-ever grateful to you Denise. Denise and I played every evening after school at different games, rounders, hide & seek, throwing tennis balls against the wall, jacks, hop-scotch, and we played outside until our mums called us for our tea.

Kings Heath (I'm on the bike)

We used to go up the firs and pick mushrooms and blackberries with Denise’s dad, and our treat on a Saturday afternoon would be when they invited me to their house to eat a big bowl of winkles, they were fantastic.


As I got a little older I joined Kings Heath Youth Club on the park and always remember the number one hit was Tom Jones, It’s not unusual. We had great times there.


We then went to different Senior Schools, Denise went to St. Georges and I went to Spencer, my idol at the time was Twiggy and every spare minute I got I would draw her or cut her out of magazines, my favourite groups were of course The Beatles and couldn’t wait for my birthday and Christmas to get their album. I was always getting sent out of the class at Spencer especially in the maths lesson as I hated maths and would talk and joke all the way through it, and every time I was standing outside the class who would come walking along but Miss Nash the Headmistress. The biggest shock of all that happened to me at Spencer was when I was about 13 and I was on the bus going back to Kings Heath from school, and a friend of mine didn’t have any money to get home so as there were no mobiles then to call her mum I said I would let her have my school bus pass after I had shown it. Well I was just handing it to her when the conductor saw me and took my details down and reported me to the school. The next day my mother got a phone call from Miss Nash asking her to come to the school, I was there in her office when mum arrived and Miss Nash said that as I was disrupting the class by talking and joking and the incident on the bus, she was going to expel me. My mother gave me a glare and turned to Miss Nash and said you won’t have to expel her because when I have finished with her she will be the best behaved girl in the school, well you can imagine what I was expecting, my mum had never hit me before but I was expecting something and it wasn’t going to be a pat on the back. We left the school and my mum literally chased me from the school in Dallington to Kings Heath with her foot up my backside literally pushing me along to Kings Heath, up the stairs and into bed. Yes she was right my mum, I was one of the best students in the school after that, it certainly taught me a lesson. 

We would always go “up town” on Saturdays and go for a drink at the Desert Inn and then walk round town, up and down Abington Street, sometimes if we had saved our pocket money we would treat ourselves and go to Adnitts for a Knickerbocker Glory or College Street Fish & Chip Shop.


I used to love shopping on the market and it was always completely full on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, you could get everything there. Whenever I had some spare pennies I would buy a Gallones, chocolate nougat wafer was my favourite, I still go there and have a Gallones when visiting the town.

When I was 15 I decided that I didn’t want to stay on at school to do my GCE’s but preferred to go out and earn a living. At the time for the girls who were going to leave, an employment officer would go round the schools to ask what jobs we were interested in, when he got to me I said I wanted to become an actress, he gave a snigger and asked me if my mother would allow me to go to London on my own at 15 to attend drama classes (there were none in N’pton.) I thought about it for a few seconds and said I didn’t think so, he then told me to think of another career. I was so very very disappointed.

My maxi dress age 17

Has luck had it my cousin knew the Personnel Manager at Express Lifts and they needed an office junior so I applied for the job and got it, I started off do filing etc. and then the company sent me twice a week to the Northampton. Technical College in St. Georges Avenue to do a secretarial course. I passed my exams in typing, then shorthand and I worked my way up to Secretary in the Personnel Department. I remember when I was about 17, hot pants were the new fashion and me and my friends started to wear them for work. One day I had to take some documents into the Drawing Room where there were about 200 drafts-men working, when I walked in the whole place just stopped working and were whistling, I remember I literally went the colour of a tomato and put the papers I had in my hand in front of my face and I walked into a desk!! I have never been so embarrassed in all my life. If it happened now it wouldn't be an embarrassment it would be a bloody miracle!

taken at Express Lifts

After 5 years I left Express and went to work for Avon Cosmetics as Secretary in the Personnel Department. While working there the Managing Director of the World Headquarters in New York visited and I met him and told him I would be visiting my relatives in New York in 3 weeks from then so he arranged for me to be met and shown around their brand new building in Manhattan, it was a lovely experience and Avon Northampton put a photograph of me on their newspaper saying I was the first employee from the U.K. to visit their new H.Q. in New York, which was a great honour at 19 years old.

Lings Forum 1977.

I then saw a very good job come up for a personal Secretary to the Transport Manager of the Northampton Transport down St. James and I worked there a year before applying for another job on the council as “Girl Friday” for the Leisure & Recreation Department, this was such a fantastic job as I got to work in the Tourist Information Office, Teaching babies to swim in the mother & tots group at the Mounts Swimming Baths, Hostessing at any concerts in the town looking after the celebrities and V.I.P.’s and Hostessing at the Northampton Town Show in Abington Park. I really loved my job. Then the Lings Forum was being built and I felt I would like a change so I applied for the Secretary’s job and was accepted, this was another great job organising sporting events, wedding shows, health & beauty evenings, professional wrestling nights and music concerts, after 5 years I wanted a change so applied to Diversey in Weston Favell as Executive Secretary and got the job.


The first time I went to a disco was at the Gaye Way at the top of Abington Street, then I started to go to all the different discos in the town: The Salon, the 66 club in Giles Street, the Drill Hall, Two Much Club, Fantasia, Cock Hotel, Blisworth, Nags Head, Sywell, Billing Acquadrome, Shades, The Plough Hotel, The Angel, The Grand, Cinderellas, Circles, The Windmill (where I met my husband), my favourite pub was The Abington Park Hotel. I really loved the 70’s in Northampton, they were the best years of my life.

When I met Pope John Paul 1981.

During my last year at Lings Forum I met my boyfriend who is now my husband and after a year of “courting” he decided he wanted to return to live in Italy (he was born there but emigrated when he was 8 to the U.K.) so we split up and I decided to also leave the town and get a job as a Nanny in Rome. I rang him to say I was also going to live in Rome, so we decided to go back together. I worked for Roman Aristocrats and they had a n enormous house in the centre of Rome. It was a dream job and we went to their villa on an island between Sicily and Africa for the summer and to their wonderful chalet in the dolomites in the Winter. Every weekend we would go to their 200 room castle in Rocca Sinibalda near Rieti just an hour away from Rome, which was like living in a dream. I had a really wonderful time living with this family and I also got to meet Pope John Paul while working for them as they had a private invitation to a church he was visiting and I met him, he spoke to me in English and blessed me which was very emotional for me.

rocca sinibalda

After 18 months with the family I returned to Northampton to organise my wedding (as my boyfriend popped the question at the Trevi Fountain and gave me an engagement ring (very romantic), We got married at the Cathedral in the Barrack Road and then had our first night’s honeymoon at the Saxon Inn. We then drove the next day to the Cotswolds for a few days and then said goodbye to our families and drove to Rome and we have been here ever since. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary on 5th June this year (married in 1982). And to celebrate in style we are going on a 20 day cruise to Asia on 5th October this year.

jubilee day

I have settled down well on the coast of Rome between Ostia and Anzio and made a lot of friends both English and Italian. 21 years ago I founded an ex-pats club of ladies from the U.K. America, South Africa, Australia etc. and there are nearly 50 of us. I organise “girls nights out” every two months and we go for a meal, (it’s usually at the local Chinese as we eat Italian and English at home). I am a housewife in the mornings and I teach English to students in the afternoons, it’s surprising how many Italian children are walking around with a Northamptonian accent, me duck!.

Ex pats club

My husband Jim is a Carabiniere (Policeman) and I have two wonderful children, Riccardo who is 29 and Cristina who is 26 and a lovely 15 year old Cavalier Kings Charles Spaniel Nicki who we brought over from the U.K. My hobbies are chatting to friends on Northampton Past page, reading, taking photos, cooking, making cupcakes and venturing out with my husband and friends on Saturday nights for a meal and Sundays on their scooters travelling around the region of Rome (Lazio) We also love cruises and will be celebrating our 30th wedding with a cruise to Asia on 5th October, although our anniversary date is on 5th June.

I must say I have had a wonderful life, and it is made it even more pleasurable to be able to chat to so many Northamptonians on the NP page and feel right at home again and I don’t feel I’ve been away. Thanks to Frank Baverstock for starting up the page and to all him and his Admin. Team for all their hard work.

Elaine Dente (nee Horne)