CHAPTER 3 – February 2002
2nd February – Saturday
Today I had an appointment with yet another neurologist, this time it was at Exeter with Dr Gardner-Thorpe. If nothing else, his assurance that he would get to the bottom of my problems was helpful. It's now just a matter of waiting to see what tests he suggests and to see whether I do indeed need further scans.
Throughout life I seem to have been nervous of doctors. Poor health is much easier to deal with than doctors who often find it difficult to communicate with patients. My Dad had enormous problems about doctors and from a very early age we all knew that he was really worried if he allowed Mam to call the doctor out. Between the age of 15 and 59 Dad never saw a doctor. After being kicked by a bullock, resulting in a permanent limp, Mam called the doctor out to him but he hid somewhere and wouldn't see him. Perhaps he would have lived much longer had he seen the doctor about his increasing health problems throughout his fifties. He might have lived much longer and have avoided a major stroke that killed him if he had been more sensible. By the time the doctor was called it was far too late to do anything for him.
Until it was made legal for either parent to sign the consent forms for childhood vaccinations we were not allowed to have them alongside all the other children. Dad had a strange ostrich type mentality where he buried his head in the sand on all issues to do with health.
One time I had fallen over grazing my knee and hand, a normal childhood accident. Several weeks later my hand became increasingly painful and then blew up like a balloon and began to leak. Eventually it became clear that there was no alternative but to get it looked at. My Dad took me on the bus into Selby to see our doctor. I remember sitting in the waiting room and eventually being called in. Of course my Dad came in with me as I would be no more than seven or eight at the time. Dr Lambert took one look at it and said that it must be lanced and dressed. I took off out of the surgery and tried to get out of the big door only to be dragged back screaming. I had visions of my hand being chopped off, and of course I was such a baby. It did indeed hurt but by the time it was bandaged up I felt quite proud and on the way home on the bus I almost showed off the dressing like a trophy. However, I was none to keen to go back to have it redressed the following week. At least I've never behaved in such a fashion since and the memory of it reminds me of the shame of behaving so badly.
3rd February – Sunday
Today we drove up to see the family in Castle Donington and to stay the week with Richard. The pace of life seems so frantic away from the peace of a North Devon winter. Of course we were keen to see Kelly and Amy as they seem to grow up so quickly these days. They were happy to show us all their Christmas presents and we are always stunned by the amount of toys they have. Not only do they have lots of toys but they are quite different to those we had as children.
Kelly had a Karioke machine, something which has only come into fashion over the past ten years or so. What does surprise me is the way in which both Kelly and Amy feel confident in their use of technical gadgetry. Kelly had no problems working her Karioke machine and Amy was very comfortable as she demonstrated her skills on her new computer. As children we didn't have any of these sophisticated toys, there just weren't any invented at that time. We did have a family wireless but we were certainly never allowed to touch it for fear of losing the radio station. I believe there were just the three main BBC radio stations, the Light Programme which was the equivalent of today's Radio 2 and the Home Service that was more or less like the present Radio 4 and the Third Programme which played classical music much as Radio Three now. When I was about ten or so we began to get Radio Luxembourg on 208 medium wave, the first commercial radio station, but I think that was only late in the evening. It would be around this time when we began to have the top ten pop songs on Radio Luxembourg. In between programmes would come an advert from Horace Bachelor at Keynsham spelt K E Y N S H A M who claimed to be able to predict a winning line on the football pools. Whether his claims were true was doubtful but he certainly had the most monotonous and boring voice of anyone ever heard on the wireless.
I suppose that when our own sons were little we retained that sense of care around televisions and expensive equipment. They were certainly not allowed to touch John's cine camera. They were well into their teens before being considered old enough to handle equipment meant for adults. The toys that children have now are far more sophisticated than anything we came across when our own children were small. I wonder whether the human brain evolves to keep pace with modern technology. As new skills are learned I wonder whether old ones are lost. Can children do mathematics without a calculator? Will grammatical knowledge be lost, leaving the computer to rewrite and correct written work? Technology is moving so swiftly that one can't begin to imagine the world which Kelly and Amy will inhabit as they grow into adulthood.
For the moment though our two grandchildren enjoy making jigsaws and playing board games with Gran and Granddad which gives us all a great deal of pleasure.
9th February – Saturday
Tonight we all went to Pete's and Claire's to have a family party. Claire has now moved out of her own flat and officially lives with Pete. They have worked hard on their new home and they were very happy to entertain us all.
This week we have been struck by the closeness of our three sons. They all live within close proximity to each other. Richard and Pete work together. Wendy and the girls popped in after school as Richard's house is only a few yards away from Amy's classroom. One evening Andy just called in to use Richard's computer. It was good to be part of this network if only for a week.
For us all to be together tonight was a very special treat indeed. We had lots of party food and Kelly and Amy were in high spirits. Unfortunately Wendy could only stay for a short time as she was to go out with her work colleagues for dinner.
The girls will grow up with quite different childhood memories to those that John and I have. The saying 'a child must be seen but not heard' was taken for granted. I certainly chatted a lot to my Granny and Granddad but would not have dared to dash around and climb on their shoulders or jump on their furniture. Perhaps I had sufficient opportunities to be wild on the farm so that it would never have occurred to me to play physical games indoors. I can't believe I was any better behaved but certainly I did behave differently.
As it was the evening was a great success with both John and I sitting back happily knowing that we weren't responsible for anything. We aren't really very old at 55 and 57 but we certainly felt and acted our generational role as the 'oldies'.
12th February – Tuesday
Last week, in the middle of a game of 'Rummikub' with Kelly and Amy, Kelly suddenly disappeared. She went to the kitchen and reappeared sucking an ice-lolly. As soon as she had finished she disappeared again. Amy said that two 'Fabs' were the usual at any one time for Kelly, and sure enough she reappeared with a second lollipop. It never fails to surprise me that chocolates and what I would consider 'treats' are always accessible for the girls there being no need to ask to have one. This is another generational thing I'm sure.
When I was young our circumstances began to change once Margaret and Gerry had started work and John earned huge amounts of pocket money doing jobs for Granddad. Even so we were only allowed treats sparingly. Each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at about four o'clock, a travelling grocery van used to call at the house with fresh bread and other baked items. When I was about ten I began to have sixpence pocket money each week that I could spend at the grocery van. The name of the grocer was Mr Barton and his van never changed from the same dull green colour. Each Tuesday, at school, I would spend and re-spend the anticipated sixpence. Mr Barton used to have two shallow box shelves of sweets and chocolates on the bottom rack that he would pull out for my inspection. I had two favourites which were 4d and I would buy one of these on a Tuesday leaving me 2d to spend on liquorice and sherbert on the Thursday. For 4d I could get either a Duncan Walnut Whip or a McCowans Chocolate Toffee Bar. The first was delicious but eaten quickly in one go whereas the McCowans Chocolate Toffee Bar could last until Thursday if I managed not to have to share it. The toffee bar had another advantage in that it was in pieces meaning that John and I could negotiate a swap.
Most of the shopping was done from travelling salesmen and Mam could easily be persuaded to buy. In fact she often bought more than she could afford. As well as Mr Barton and Mr Pop the lemonade man there was the butcher who later became a neighbouring farmer. Sometimes I would arrive home from school to find a strange little funny looking man who would be showing Mam various different wools that he carried in an old case. I believe that he had a shop in Goole that he and his mother ran. We only ever knew him as 'Goolie Boy' and never thought of the nickname as being rude. Wetheralls, a department store in Selby, had a travelling salesman called Mr Scafe and I do know that when Mam went into hospital to have Andrew that she left some very large unpaid bills for Dad and Gerry to sort out. The fishmonger's van came round every other week and if we were lucky Mam would buy some kippers but usually it was a plain white fish that was poached and eaten with bread and butter. Mam just loved shopping all her life and if she wasn't being persuaded to buy from the various travelling salesmen she would be buying catalogue goods in instalments. Towards the end of her life she enjoyed watching the shopping channel on the television. She wasn't so interested in buying things for herself but rather had great pleasure in giving presents and could not resist a 'bargain' even if it was something she or anyone else had no use for.
Other than buying books I find shopping very tedious. Perhaps there is always a generational reaction as our sons seem to be as addicted to spending as was their Granny Holman.
15th February – Friday
Talking to Margaret on the telephone last night I learned that Jean is now home following a major stroke just before Christmas. The circumstances are very poor. Squib has bought a special bed with hoist and is employing three nurses so that she has twenty-four hour care. She can do nothing for herself and is being fed by tube. It is so sad to hear of this dire situation with an aunt who always appeared indomitable.
Even though both Jean and Minnie married I don't think they ever thought of themselves as other than a 'Holman'. They always made a big thing of 'blood being thicker than water', and in the past John has always noticed how he was made to feel an outsider.
Jean was my Dad's younger sister by four years yet she didn't marry until 1949. Her husband, Cyril Leppington, worked for Granddad. He was always known as Squib and throughout his life has always liked pretty girls and women. Shortly before Mam died she told me that Dad had been upset at not being asked to the wedding so neither he nor Mam went although Margaret and Gerry were bridesmaids along with their cousin Heather. Judging from the photo of Jean and me taken on Granny's side lawn, I too had been dressed up especially for the occasion. The wedding must have been in late spring or early summer considering the number of daisies on the lawn and spring flowers out on the rockery.
Minnie also married a local man, Ken Tune and again he was always known by his nickname of Sut. Everyone thought that it was the sheer persistence of Sut that eventually won Minnie over as she was without doubt the prettiest of Dad's sisters. The wedding photograph taken outside the chapel at Cliffe shows a happy Granny and Grandad, Sut's father and younger brother, Junior, and the four bridesmaids. The wedding must have been in the summer of 1954 before Mam went into hospital to have Andrew. I would be seven at the time of the wedding and was a bridesmaid alongside Sut's niece, Pat Mollinson, who was just a few months younger than me, and two younger cousins, Pauline and Linda Pearl.
Linda Pearl was the only child of Dad's sister, Pam, and was always made much of and in someway seemed to be less robust than our family. She was certainly cleaner and always made to look pretty. At times I was sent to stay with Pam, Mike and Linda Pearl. They lived in a semi-detached house, with carpets, even on the stairs, in the Yorkshire village of East Ardsley near Wakefield. At the end of the garden, which was always neat and tidy, Linda Pearl had a proper wooden play-house. I remember feeling that I had always to be on my best behaviour and that I suffered from home-sickness. Other than the worry of using the lav down the yard at home, I can't remember anyone worrying about whether I had been or not. At Pam's I was asked each morning and evening whether I had been to the toilet that day and if not I was given a goodly dose of Milk of Magnesia. Linda seemed to have a dose quite regularly. What I did find difficult was the lack of freedom and constant checking as to whether I was all right. Linda Pearl was truly cosseted and a nice enough cousin but she had no conception of the freedom that I was allowed at home. Pam didn't seem to relate to children in the easy way which Minnie and Jean did with us on the farm.
Some things don't change. The thing that Richard, Andy and Pete remember about their visits to Warp Farm to stay with their cousins Neil and Stuart, was Margaret's insistence on keeping them 'regular' with doses of Milk of Magnesia when necessary.
17th February – Sunday
Last evening we went to an 'Italian Evening' at the Village Hall in Mortehoe. The hall was full to capacity and we all enjoyed the Italian food. When I was younger I can't remember anyone going out for meals whereas these days many people rely on 'take-aways', pre-cooked food and eating out, as their staple diet.
However we always knew how to enjoy the treats we did get. I think that I probably enjoyed ice-cream even more than Duncan's Walnut Whips and McCowans Chocolate covered Toffee Bars.
Each Sunday around teatime Doubtfires, the local ice-cream van, stopped in the lane which ran along the end of our front garden. This local ice-cream maker was based in the next village of Hemingborough, where my mother had lived as a child. It was a very small operation with only the one cream coloured van at that time. I can't really remember the Sunday routine until I was about nine or ten. By this time Granny and Granddad had moved across the road to Yew Tree Farm, Minnie had married Sut and lived at the other end of our farmhouse. It was also about this time that we began to afford real treats. My two older sisters, Margaret and Gerry had not been as lucky as me.
Sut, who died just one week after my mother died last September, was a keen cricketer in the village team. Running along the side of the road outside the farmhouse was a wide piece of lawn. It was here that Sut and I would spend half an hour or so throwing and catching a hard rubber ball waiting for 'Doubties' to arrive.
Often Mam would send me out to wait with a large basin for the ice-cream. She felt that if we bought it in quantity it would work out cheaper. The choice was very limited between 3d and 6d cornets and sandwich wafers and 6d tubs with a small wooden spoon. I would ask for 2/-d of ice-cream and a packet of wafers. 2/-d is the equivalent of 10p in present money although that takes no account of inflation. I would rush in with the basin and help make up the ice-creams although Dad and Mam seemed to enjoy theirs with a bit of jelly which I considered to be a waste. I always tried to make mine last the longest although I can't think why as John would gobble his up quickly and then pester me for a lick of mine. Things don't change a great deal as nowadays it is husband John rather than brother John who won't leave me in peace to enjoy a favourite treat.
On rare occasions Mam would take me to visit her mum in Hemingborough. They didn't seem like real grandparents. Whether that was because we didn't visit often or whether it was due to Mam being only half-sister to her brothers and sisters I could never really decide. Granny Smith was a large and dominant woman who spent most of her time sat in a big chair like a throne handing out instruction to others and pontificating on the state of the world. On these occasions I would sometimes be given sixpence to go and buy an ice-cream direct from the ice-cream makers. It wasn't a shop neither was it a factory. It was rather like a large, cold dairy, spotlessly clean of course but not always working. It was a disappointment to arrive on a day when they weren't making any ice-cream. I was fascinated by the simplicity of it all. There has never been ice-cream in my life which has matched that of Doubtfires.
Margaret, my sister who lives at Warp Farm, Newsholme, a hamlet just down the road from Hemingborough, still buys ice-cream each Sunday as the van delivers to the farm. She is now the grand 'matriarch' of a growing family who all live close by and who all enjoy 'Doubties' ice-cream. It seems that many things have changed over the last fifty years but thankfully my favourite ice-cream continues to be enjoyed by my nephews and their children.
21st February – Thursday
Last Saturday Andy was connected up to the internet since which time Kelly and Amy have sent several messages. Last evening I chatted to Margaret on the telephone going over a few details for the journal.
It's amazing just how much easier communications have been made over the last fifty years. As a child we had no telephone and there was no 'virtual' communication by email. Even though we might live many miles from our sons there is never any need to be out of touch. We certainly talk to each other more than I used to talk to my Granny and Granddad Smith who lived only a couple of miles away in the next village.
Margaret is eight and a half years older than me and it is interesting to learn how things were already rapidly changing when she was a young child not yet ten. At this time of the year when there was no frost the potato pie, always called the 'tatie pie' would be opened so that the tatie riddling could be done.
I remember the long pie that ran along the side of our back lane. It was well covered with soil and straw the process being known as 'happing up the pie'. Throughout winter we would receive orders that meant going into the pie and sorting out the best grade potatoes for the buyer. Several of us would stand at the tatie riddle picking out the 'chaps' otherwise known as pig taties being fit only for pig feed, and small good potatoes which would be used as seed potatoes for the following year. The good potatoes continued to the end of the riddle where they fell into an attached sack. This was a bitterly cold job and I remember the chapped hands that were later given a good rubbing in 'Snowfire' a bit like Vaseline.
Until Granddad died we worked 28 acres of warp land through the village and towards the river. To get into the warp fields there were two bridges only just big enough to get a tractor and trailer into the fields. Margaret remembers taking the drinkings down to the warp with Granny where the taties from a long pie were being riddled. The wide lorry, which the buyer had sent to collect the sacks of taties, could not go over the bridges into the fields safely so Dad had laid a wooden plank across the banks of the dyke and carried each sack across this makeshift bridge and onto the awaiting lorry. Margaret remembers the concern of everybody that Dad might fall into the ditch. As children we all thought of Dad as a superman. He carried heavy sacks, forked heavy bales and no work seemed too hard for him. When the order was met the tatie pie would be happed up again until the next order.
I remember many times leaving the fields riding on a trailer being pulled by the tractor and being scared that we would fall into the dyke as the wheels ran right along the very edge of the bridge at both sides. I believe there were accidents but luckily none in which I was involved.
It was interesting to learn from Margaret that Granny had driven her in the pony and trap to take the drinkings. Sadly this is just outside my memory but does explain why the brick shed at the left hand entrance to the stackyard was called 'Toby's Stable' after the pony that pulled the trap. I do remember the trap though as it was turned upside down and left on the woodpile just outside the barn. John and I used to climb on it and play Cowboys and Indians whilst the hens took it over as a place to sleep and lay their eggs. Before it was thrown on the woodpile Margaret and Granny took the lights off the trap and covered them with silver paper. In time they were thrown away like many other objects that would no doubt be very valuable now. A whole way of life has been thoughtlessly cast aside whilst good money has been spent on trifles and bargains. I wonder what value, sentimental or material, the cheap colourful plastic of the last forty years will be worth in fifty years time?
23rd February – Saturday
As I sit here in bed, recovering from a sore throat and laryngitis, John is out playing in a golf competition. The wind is blowing, at times up to gale-force 8, and some nasty squalls keep coming in from off the sea. Normally I would find it hard to think of John playing whilst I was unable to be with him, but today is not a good day for golf and so I can enjoy sitting up in bed writing my journal whilst being snug and warm with Henry cat happily sleeping next to me.
Speaking to Margaret on the telephone earlier this week I was reminded of the ongoing work that Minnie, Jean and Dad had to do with the cattle throughout the winter. Tithe Farm as my brother Andrew farms it now is totally different to the Tithe Farm of fifty years ago. Instead of the fields immediately behind the house being laid down to grass to accommodate the cattle, the fields are now taken up with stack after stack of straw right down to the end of the lane. A few crops are grown but Andrew is less of a farmer and more of a haulier and straw contractor. The fold next to the house no longer houses stock but is a covered concrete area for parking cars and other machinery.
Fifty years ago there were more cattle than could be comfortably housed in the fold and adjoining shed with open access to the grass field at the back of the house. In summer the milking cows would be taken to the field in the village down Station Lane. This field served also as the school playing field and village cricket pitch. In winter though, the stock would have little room to move about when the weather was bad and they were forced to stay under cover at home. This meant that 'mucking-out' was an ongoing job from October through to April. Barrow loads of manure would be wheeled to an open area with big double doors opening out onto the lane through which the horse and trailer would go in to be loaded up. The manure would then be taken to a field and spread before the ploughing started at the end of March.
When I was very small, before the Fergusson (Fergie) tractor with rubber wheels was bought, the large tractor with spade-lugged wheels would be used to take the manure to fields down the lane. This tractor though was unable to go on the road so Bluebell, the Shire horse, would be used for the fields down the Middle Lane and up the Common.
The ongoing need for bedding straw and chaff dictated the number of times the threshing machine would be required. I was always pleased to see the threshing machine as it meant a new stack in the barn. As the stack got lower, our swinging and jumping from the grinding stage, became harder.
The small door into the fold from the backyard was only a few feet away from our kitchen door. The big double doors from the lane into the fold were only a few feet away from our kitchen window. I feel convinced that today the Health and Safety Commission would have something to say about such a sanitary situation and yet I don't remember sickness being a trouble in the family. However, the smell was awful and yet somehow comfortably familiar. Only on the news recently there was an item that pointed out the dangers that modern children face because they are too clean and not exposed to enough dirt to build up immunity to common infection. At that level it should mean that along with my brothers and sisters I should have a long and healthy life!
27th February – Wednesday
The past few days have been spent keeping warm in bed whilst nursing a bad cold accompanied by a nasty cough. The weather has been so wild that it hasn't been much of a nuisance besides which it gave me the chance to listen, uninterrupted, to a tape of Alan Bennett reading some of his own writing. Two of the tapes were about The Lady in the Van, who eventually moved into his garden accompanied by the said van, and then lived out of her van for the following fifteen years.
Nowadays it seems that eccentricity isn't accepted in the same way as it used to be fifty years or so ago when it seemed quite normal for villages to have their own local tramps or eccentrics. They were mostly supported by a network of informal supporters but only as much as they wished. God forbid if anyone intruded too far into their strange ways of living that was mostly of their choice and not of necessity. Dad always said he would have been able to enjoy life as a tramp.
Directly across the road from Tithe Farm lived Agnes Wright in a solid, detached house which in its earlier days must have been quite an impressive dwelling but by the time I came on the scene it was fast decaying never having had a lick of paint or a sweeping brush along its path for many years. Although the windows were fairly large we could never see in and I think that it was possibly without electricity has we never saw a light on. Neither did we see Aggie, as she was known to us, come through the big green solid gates to the front of the house. Very occasionally we would catch a glimpse of her as she came to the big gate to see Doctor Hiley who called at the house each Friday. It was never said that he called on 'doctor's' business but rather he was calling to pick up some vegetables, fruit and eggs.
At the back of Aggie's house was a large orchard and field that her two brothers and niece worked as a market gardening business. George did little work but arrived each day in his car at a time when few people could boast such a luxury. He must have had his own money from somewhere as he lived in a big house in the next village and liked to impress people of his own importance. Billy Wright lived in a house at the other side of the dyke that ran along our lane. Billie's wife had the exotic name of Ivy Ophelia. Until coming to write down the name today it had always seemed to be one name and not two, as the whole title was always used by our family when they were laughing at her rather prim and precise ways. She wasn't too old when she died of cancer leaving her husband and daughter, Betty, who lived together for many years until Billy died well into his nineties and still able to ride his bike each evening up to The New Inn. Betty still lives in the pretty little cottage but she finds living alone very difficult as she herself is now getting old. Until recently Betty would regularly cycle to see her friend Myrtle Precious a wonderful sounding name. Toby was the Wright's dog but not one who was let out from his garden that was very large with fruit trees and vegetables. John and I used to regularly go scrumping in Aggie's or Billy's orchard.
Aggie had one sister called Bertha who lived in Leeds until a few years before Aggie died. I feel that Aggie must have been the eldest sister in the family and inherited the family house. Bertha had married well and lived in Leeds. She certainly had a conscience about the way in which Aggie lived and as time went on she would come over weekly to see that her sister was fit and well. Before she returned she would ask Mam to keep an eye on Aggie and get a few things in for her during the week. Like the rest of the family, Bertha was well spoken and well educated. Eventually she moved to Cliffe in order to look after her sister but couldn't cope with the thought of living in such squalor so lived in a caravan in the field at the back of Aggie's house.
One day when I was about nine or ten I was tagging along after John and his friend, Keith Hague. We were playing in the buildings next to the fold at Yew Tree Farm just across the road where, by this time, Granny and Granddad lived. These buildings backed straight on to Aggie's yard and back door. We climbed up to the highest bit of the building and spent ages looking out of a window. I can't remember which of the boys suggested it but we all hunted for eggs that we took up to our hiding spot and waited for Aggie to come out of the house. Sure enough, out she came to feed her hens dressed in a ragged old man's coat with frayed sleeves and an old dirty headscarf tied round her head. It was the first time that we had been able to see her clearly. She wasn't the threatening witch that we had always thought but just an old woman going about her business quietly. When she got quite close John said 'throw' and we all threw our eggs at her. Immediately she was transformed into a witch as she waved her arms about and said that she 'would get us just wait and see if she didn't'. We didn't wait around but ran home. We felt pretty confident that we would 'get away with it' as Aggie never spoke to anyone. Well, we didn't get away with it.
The following day when we got home from school we were really in for it. George had been to see Mam and Dad to tell them that we had frightened his sister. There was only one thing that we could do and that was to go through the big green gates, knock at the door and tell Aggie that we were very sorry and nothing like that would ever happen again. This was punishment enough as we had never been to her back door but after looking from that high window much of our fear had disappeared. Over we went and knocked at the door. We heard movement inside and eventually Aggie opened the door very slightly so that we couldn't see inside. Of course we were penitent and really did feel sorry when she talked softly and gently to us. Best of all she gave us a threepenny piece each for 'owning up'. I can't remember the reasons for visiting her after that but I certainly did and even stepped just inside her door on the odd occasion. It certainly was a very smelly house as I think not only did her dog and cat share it with her but I suspect her chickens wandered in from time to time too. No doubt today she wouldn't be allowed
to live in such squalor but I can't think why not as she never did any harm to anyone or anything and there was a certain dignity about her stand to live as she wished and to continue to speak in her soft educated voice devoid of the harsh Yorkshire accent of the rest of the village.
There is now no sign of Aggie or her house. The farmer who bought Yew Tree Farm from Granny and Granddad bought the house and land a few years ago, flattened all the buildings and erected a fine bungalow surrounded by large lawns and gardens. Just before Mam died she would say how nice it was to have got rid of 'that eyesore' but for me it is the passing of just one more piece of a history made up of individual characters who made small village communities such interesting places to live. There was no need to have social policies such as 'Care in the Community'. Village life was organic and automatically included what today would be termed 'missfits'. I sometimes thought that towards the end of Mam's life she modelled her life somewhat on that of Aggie.
