CHAPTER 10 – September 2002
6th September – Friday
It has been difficult to think of childhood items for the journal this week due to the results from a recent MRI scan being sent to Dr. Cullen, my lovely young G.P. After many, many years of having suffered from a wide variety of symptoms it is becoming clearer what the cause of the problems might be.
The scan showed that de-myelination had taken place in my brain and the most common of conditions related to this is Multiple Sclerosis. This wasn't given as a final diagnosis as there are other conditions associated with the process of de-myelination. I am to be taken through everything when I see the neurologist in Exeter next month.
Since Tuesday evening when I was given the above news I have been fluctuating between relief that at last I will not have to do battle with the medical profession who have given me a very rough ride over the past four years, suggesting that 'it was all in my head', and apprehension as to what the prognosis might be. The good spells have become increasingly rare and never as good as they used to be and I know that I am not as mentally alert as I would like. This worries me as I do hope to be able to work at my Open University studies starting next February.
In spite of the difficulties arising from the above I am determined to try my utmost to retain a positive approach to whatever life may throw our way. Thank goodness that I am fortunate in having a family who knows the value of good humour and who will not allow poor health to bring them down for too long. This might well be something I must live with rather than die from and that must always colour our approach.
It is just one year since Mam died in her eighty-sixth year. I had become concerned that my later life might become more like hers. She always seemed to be poorly and had complained of ill health ever since any of her family can remember. We were always led to believe by her that she wouldn't live to be old. In the end we were beginning to think that she would outlive the rest of us. Her example must remind me the value of protecting others from worrying on my account. These are brave words now but sincerely meant.
11th September – Wednesday
It is one year ago today that terrorists flew two aeroplanes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York destroying the building with the loss of thousands of lives. At the same time an aeroplane was flown into part of The Pentagon in Washington and another hi-jacked but due to the bravery of the passengers crashed before reaching its target.
The last few weeks we have heard much of the warmongering of both President Bush's administration and our Prime Minister Tony Blair who believe that Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, must be attacked before he can threaten the world with nuclear or chemical war. There is little will amongst the general population here for a war of attack without prior provocation. How could such a war be justified? I cannot but feel that both America and ourselves could wage both a nuclear and chemical war so how can we complain when other nations can do the same.
I have come to the conclusion that every generation has, and will have to deal with a world where war is a constant threat. As a child born just after the Second World War I remember the fear I felt when the adults spoke about the likelihood of a nuclear war. By the time that Granny and Grandad got a television we would be shown the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima with the mushrooming cloud and the deformities of those who hadn't actually been killed at the time. The impression I felt was of a whole nation living in desolation. We weren't far enough away from war to believe that something really big and deadly wouldn't happen to all of us. The next war wasn't going to be fought at a distance but whole nations and even the whole world was going to end. It is strange now to consider that in fact the opposite has happened. Until the attack on the Twin Towers last September wars have been fought by soldiers somewhere else, the most recent being that against Iraq when they occupied Kuwait. The ensuing war was named 'Desert Storm' and like the name implies much of it was fought strategically in the desert. Baghdad with its civilian population suffered terribly but we in Europe and in America were left unscathed.
There must be something innately violent in the human race when one considers this perennial problem of 'going to war'. I am so sorry to think that children will continue to be victims as a direct result of our inability to live in peace with our neighbour. Each generation seems to leave a legacy of violence surpassing all that has gone before. I feel personally responsible for not joining those who press for peace. Sadly peace by its very nature is peaceful whereas those that shout the loudest usually carry all before them.
14th September – Saturday
Over the last two weeks recent deaths seem to have been much in mind, but today is the anniversary of the death of my Granddad. I was eleven when this happened and although I must have heard of people dying none seemed to affect me directly or perhaps by eleven one starts to think about what death might mean.
At the age of sixty Grandad was rushed to hospital in York having had a heart-attack. Up until that time he had been a working farmer, a busy little man and one who was much loved. Although he was my Grandad I often called him Father the same as everyone else did. After what seemed to be a long stay in hospital Father came home and for the last five years of his life took life at a very quiet pace. I suppose in that five years we all knew that he might die at any time. I remember playing a silly game that at the time left me feeling very guilty but looking back I recognise that it was all quite normal and that most children go through such a stage. As Dinah and I cycled past the path outside Granny and Grandad's house on the way home from school we would slow down and drag our right foot along the top of the low wall outside the house. Although I can't remember being told off I do remember that it was something I shouldn't do. If I forgot I would get a guilt attack and think that something bad might happen to Grandad and it would be my fault, a bit like not stepping on the lines on the pavement. We all knew that he mustn't be upset as it might trigger another heart-attack from which he wouldn't get better. Along with taking life very easy he had to go into Selby every other week for an injection and took various tablets at different times of the day so his days and weeks were structured around his taking his tablets.
Everyone thought that he wouldn't find it easy to give up work on the farm but as circumstances turned out I believe his last years were happy ones. Andrew, my youngest brother, was born a couple of years following Father's heart-attack and instantly became the joy of his last years. Even before he could walk Andrew was a great favourite but when he found his feet the two of them became inseparable. They would walk over the fields and down the lanes chatting away to each other like two little old men. In a way it's sad to think that Andrew was too young to realise how precious he was to Grandad in the last years of his life.
It must have been a Saturday when Father went missing as I recall being at home as the day unfolded. Although he was always down the lane or in the stackyard he would always return home to have his drinkings at about ten o'clock. He never did anything to upset his 'Annie' as he called my Granny. In turn her life revolved around 'Ernie'. Anyway, that September 14th he didn't return home at ten o'clock and it wasn't too long before Granny started to worry. At first she was a bit annoyed thinking that he must have forgotten the time but after only a short while she became quite agitated. Jock, the dog, who always went with Father, was missing as well. When he didn't arrive back at midday to have his lunch, dinner as we called it, we were all in quite a state and everyone who was at home joined in the search. There was much shouting and much going round in circles. I think even early on in the hunt nobody expected to find him alive. He was too regular in his habits and would never be late in taking his medication. Granny felt she had a premonition of his death when a robin settled just outside her window. If memory serves me right I believe that afterwards that robin continued to visit for a very long time.
Late in the afternoon as Dad walked to the bottom of the lane calling and whistling for Jock the dog began to bark but stayed where he was. Of course he was with Father who had fallen amongst the sugar-beet. Perhaps he had pulled one up to see how far on the crop was and that effort was just enough to bring on a heart-attack. He was only sixty-five but if he could have chosen where to die then I think that probably would have been high on his list. He was born, lived and died a farmer.
The story was on the front page of the local paper with a big picture of Jock and Dad's youngest brother Rowland, otherwise called Pud.
Father Holman was well known in the district and in a small village deaths such as his were talked about until such time as something else occurs to occupy the village tongues.
It's quite difficult know how to behave towards one's first close family death. We were a close-knit family but of course everyone's thoughts turned to making sure Granny would be all right. In the short-term my little brother Andrew must have missed him as much as anyone. It's strange that they hadn't been together on the morning of Father's death. At school on the Monday I was sent into the canteen. I presumed that the headmaster, Mr Wright, was telling the other pupils of what had happened. In fact, he was asking them to bring a donation to buy flowers for the funeral. Nobody actually mentioned the weekend's events to me and I never spoke to anyone else about them either. It seems that the behaviour prompted by someone's death is laid down very early in our childhood.
I was already a sensitive child and nervous about going to bed in the dark. After all the walls and ceiling of our bedroom were covered in cracks which easily became alive in my young imagination. Perhaps it was my fault and I had brought about his death by dragging my foot along his wall. My asthma was bad that autumn and perhaps the whole affair went some way to causing the bout of pneumonia which I went down with at the end of November. For a long while I was convinced that Grandad came to visit me as soon as I went to bed. Leaving the landing light on only made the evolving shapes more distinct. Perhaps if adults were more able to talk about the issues surrounding the death of a close one then they might learn to talk to their children and help them to grow up being unafraid of something which we all have to come to terms with at some time or another.
20th September – Friday
We've had a glorious late summer here in North Devon. Today, though, it is dull which reminds me that the time is drawing close to getting out warmer clothes and my winter black Ecco lace-up shoes which were very expensive but very comfortable.
It wasn't until I moved from the village school, at the age of eleven, that I was bought a new pair of shoes. Up until that time there had always been a bountiful supply of cast-offs, not only handed down from my two sisters but also from my brother John and I remember a pair of red sandals that had come down all the way from Dad's sister Minnie. However, the new pair of black lace-ups, bought especially to start the High School in Selby, were real clod-hoppers and I never stopped feeling conspicuous as long as I wore them.
We weren't unusual in those days in mending our own shoes and boots. Dad had a 'last' which he would bring out from time to time and work on our boots and shoes. We could never claim to ever having been a 'showy' sort of family but throughout my childhood I think it was the footwear of which I was most ashamed. I knew I was ashamed at the time. Dad would fish out, from a shoe-box full of old and odd footwear, a pair of John's boots which were perhaps worn down at the heel. Placing the boot on the last he would nail a piece of new leather onto the heel of the boot and fix it on to the boot with nails. Presumably that is where the term 'hob-nailed boots' originated. He would then roughly cut the leather with a special knife almost removing the overlapping pieces. Eventually I would fit them on and they would be declared perfect. The rough-edged boots together with mismatched laces and the darns in my socks (probably passed down from John too) would be declared 'perfect' and that would be me sorted out for another term.
I've often wondered whether Margaret, being the eldest and John being the only boy, had newly bought clothes. By the time Andrew came along it's likely that there was nothing to pass on so perhaps he too was lucky.
We were supposed to have gym-shoes for P.E. and especially for sports day and netball matches. The headmaster could have been gentler with me but he seemed to delight in picking me out for ridicule. I was often told that if I continued to 'forget' to bring my gym-shoes that I wouldn't be able to play in the netball team. I would search through our box of odd shoes and boots over and over again in an attempt to find two gym-shoes which might match and had the fewest holes. In the end I always decided that my scruffy sandals would be the best option.
Mam had a talent for knitting up old wool and using odd buttons resulting in jumpers that rarely fit and, even more, rarely matched. It was the same with one particular pair of passed-down sandals which I had. To make them 'look like new' she either painted or dyed a beige pair into a bright red pair. It was so obvious that they had been dyed. The worst of it was that they had been worn so long ago that they were stiff to wear and a bit too big. That was never considered to be a problem, something would be stuffed into the toe until I grew into them.
It's not only my own memories that I draw on but a lifelong teasing from Margaret and Gerry who remember me as accident prone and liable to spill anything which could be spilt. Each September term I would have a new gymslip, well new to me at least. By the time it got to me it would usually be fairly shiny. Not far into the term the front would be even shinier and harder as the remains of dinner were rubbed off, a mixture of gravy and mashed potato and probably a bit of pudding for good measure. On anything other than navy the effect would have been very colourful. The brown gravy would shade off into the custardy yellow which was contrasted with the blue ink which was always difficult to get from the pot to the page. By the end of the year it was unwearable never having been cleaned, after all it was navy or black, a colour considered by Mam to be serviceable as it didn't show the dirt. What never occurred to her was that I could feel the dirt as the gymslip became more and more shiny and stiff. Everyone presumed I didn't care that I looked so awful and that after all I was a tom-boy. How wrong they were, I was always ashamed of my dirtiness. I'm not really sure whether it was the shoes or the gymslips that caused me most pain.
The garment that caused most embarrassment, when I left the village school, was the 'liberty-bodice'. I can't imagine why it was called that as there was no liberty about the garment at all. There were few who wore one at the village school and nobody else at the High School. It was a garment worn over the vest and under a blouse. Mine was always a tight and constricted fit having rubber buttons at the front. It got washed rarely, after all who was going to see it. It seemed that the reason I had to wear it longer than anyone else was because of my asthma and the ease with which I picked up every cold going the rounds. I sometimes thought that I must have been born wearing a 'liberty-bodice' and the only liberty was when I finally stopped wearing one.
Although I hated being scruffy and dirty there were advantages at times. I never had to take care not to dirty my clothes as they were always in a permanent state of needing a good wash. There was never a worry as to what clothes to wear or what might match. There was one set of school clothes which included two blouses, two pair of knickers, two socks and one of everything else, one set of clothes to play and work in, and one set of clothes for Sunday School, although I do remember times when I had to wear a gymslip on a Sunday.
Perhaps the reason that I was so aware of 'standing out in a crowd', was that just once Mam got someone to make up a new skirt with straps on. The fabric was a lovely soft grey and the blouse was so white and pretty. I would be five at the time and it was originally made for a Sunday School Anniversary. My fair curly hair was shown off by a pretty ribbon that was tied in a bow on the top. I was so pleased at how nice I looked. After looking so good in this outfit I could never again feel satisfied with cast-offs.
Kelly and Amy will find all this difficult to believe but the photographs of the time are good evidence that my account is not exaggerated. It must be remembered too that it was usual to look ones very best for the photographer.
30th September – Monday
Today is a 'recovery' day following a splendid weekend spent at Great Hucklow in Derbyshire where I attended the annual National Unitarian Fellowship weekend meeting at 'The Nightingale Centre'.
Yesterday the group joined local villagers in celebrating their Harvest Festival at the small Unitarian Chapel which has been adopted by the locals as their place of worship following the closure of their local church. It was difficult not to be taken back to the Harvest Festivals of my childhood. In spite of the changes in the way we eat, now that we are able to obtain most foods throughout the year, as the world has become a sort of global market, the village celebrations evoked memories of the importance of country life. Whether this seems particularly important this year with the increased noises coming from threatened rural communities I'm not sure.
However, as I sat in the Chapel looking at the local home grown vegetables plus the traditional sheaf of corn symbolising the bread of life, the biblical figs and pomegranate and the lump of coal, on the surface it seemed that little had changed in fifty years. Scrape the surface though and we have to acknowledge that we now live in a changed world. No longer are we a self-sufficient people, if we ever were, but also our lives are not linked to the natural rhythms of the seasonal year. Do we really get the same joy in tasting the first new potatoes of the season freshly dug from the garden eaten with no more than butter and peas freshly podded? Do we really appreciate the 'fruits of the harvest' as people enjoyed them fifty years or more ago? I think not.
As a child the Chapel Harvest Festival rated alongside the Sunday School Anniversary in terms of important celebrations of our lives at that time. It was a genuine thanksgiving with the usual harvest hymns sung with much gusto but also an opportunity to raise money for the village chapel. The older villagers didn't go away then into Nursing or Residential Homes so the produce and other gifts couldn't be sent round to one specific place but would be bought for Uncle Tom or old Mrs Driffield and others who were house-bound and depended on family and neighbours. The 'old' people of the village were respected individuals rather than lumped together. Admittedly there were various charitable trusts from which those in specific need benefited. If memory serves me correctly, at one time our family rented some fields which were known as the 'charity fields', presumably the rents being shared out to the needy in our local community. This I think is still the case.
The days running up to the Harvest Festival were spent in preparing our harvest baskets. There was great competition between Sunday School scholars as to who could decorate the best basket. It wasn't so much about what fruit and food could be included but about how well we could present the basket. Country scenes and gardens with ponds, brooks and trees were the best, peopled with miniature gardeners, anglers or people working in the fields. It goes without saying that I wasn't good at this sort of thing but Mam and Dad always managed to cobble something together and of course my artistic sister Gerry I'm sure was a genius in this department.
On the Saturday Granny would take those of us who wanted to help, up to the Chapel where, along with other helpers, we would lay out the various vegetable, fruit, eggs and other tinned food on the wooden table tops which the men had earlier erected in front of the pulpit and resting on the wooden alter rails. Enough space would be left in hope that all the Sunday School scholars would make up their baskets. When I was a child there were lots of decorated baskets but as I moved into adolescence the custom was already hanging on by a very thin thread.
As soon as Sunday dinner was out of the way we would all put on our best clothes and walk up the village in good time for the service. Because it was a special service there would be no Sunday School. We would stand just inside the main doors waiting for the first hymn to start and then we would process through the congregation to present our baskets to Granny who would place them appropriately in the spaces left amongst the produce laid out the day before. There was a good smell about it all and the singing was loud and joyous to my young ears. In fact it was probably a bit of a din but it was certainly a good celebration.
The next evening the produce would be auctioned off. All the children wanted a pomegranate. There were usually two so whoever managed to bid the highest would share it round. Granny would give us sixpence to go with the sixpence we had already been given by Mam and Dad. If we couldn't manage to get the pomegranate then little else mattered and no doubt we often bought something which we had given in the first place. When we got home we would be laughed at for being so daft. It was all good fun and everyone would be pleased with the money raised which would be used for the Sunday School Christmas party or for other Chapel needs.
The next day after school we would have to take something to one of the old people in the village. They would usually be expecting us so that not only did we pass over our gift but also received something in return, sweets perhaps or a threepenny bit.
This time of the year is remembered for the harvest safely gathered in, the smell of picked apples and the feel of shiny greeny-brown hazel nuts collected to store and ripen in time for Christmas. It never seemed fair that all the good apples were laid in trays and stored under Mam and Dad's bed waiting for Christmas and the New Year. We had to eat the fallen ones being careful to leave the bits that had been eaten by bugs. From late September onwards we seemed to live on apple pies. As Christmas drew nearer Mam and Dad's bedroom took on a stronger and stronger smell of over-ripe apples. From time to time the over-ripe apples would be removed from the trays and used for baking. We take the ready availability of fruit for granted now but there was a long spell running up to September, before the apples, pears and plums ripened, when we sorely missed our apples. However, I remember well the raspberries and gooseberries which Granny and Grandad grew and eating the loganberries straight from Mrs. Jacques's garden. These nicely filled the gap leading up to the fruit season proper.
As I grew older local hazel-nuts, which grew down the village lanes, were already becoming a rarity and by the time I was about ten there were no more to be found. But by then it was easy to buy a variety of nuts from the shops. Already the transition to a modern, non-seasonal world of food was well under way so that my children were never to experience a world where apples and any other foodstuffs couldn't be readily bought. Their children have moved on even further to the point where every need can be instantly satisfied.
