CHAPTER 5 – April 2002
1st April – Easter Monday/April Fool's Day
Only twice can I remember April Fool's Day as being worth recall. The most recent was a good few years ago now. It was the unexpected nature of the last that made it memorable. The B.B.C. programme, Panorama, has always been considered as serious reporting but in this instance virtually the whole nation was 'taken in' when part of the programme was given over to considering the success of Italian famers who had discovered how to grow spaghetti of a standard length. Pictures of happy farmers admiring their heavily laden spaghetti trees gave credibility to the story. Of course the programmers didn't expect anyone to be duped by such a silly idea but a confession was necessary in the following day's newspapers.
The other instance might not have been so clever but it seemed funny at the time and the total success of it makes it a story worth recounting.
I must have been about eight or nine at the time of this particular April Fool. It was Mam's idea and it was carried off so well with the help of John and me. We rushed round to Granny and Granddad to tell them that Dad had found a cow in the water and he needed a rope and plenty of help to rescue the animal. The circumstances were perfect. We rushed into Granny's house to find her talking with Granddad, Jean and Minnie. Granddad had done no farm work since his stroke the previous year. They all knew that a cow in the pond was a serious matter. The Holman family are never short on words and they all usually know the best thing to be done in every instance. Pandemonium broke out as they all rushed to put on Wellingtons giving orders and voicing concerns at the same time. Supposedly I had been with Dad at the time the cow was discovered so I answered their many questions. How pleased I was with myself and how pleased Mam was that the April Fool completely fooled her sisters and parents-in-law.
When such a practical joke is totally successful it is difficult to know at which point to stop so we didn't. Off everyone went to the bottom of the field to find neither the cow nor my Dad. We did become quite concerned at just how angry they all were. Our fine prank had not been appreciated. Didn't we have any consideration for Granddad's condition? Didn't we know that he was supposed to lead a stress-free life? We were reminded of our thoughtlessness for a very long time but at home we still allowed ourselves to chuckle at our success and to remember it each year on April Fool's Day
4th April – Thursday
Yesterday we travelled up to Castle Donington to stay with Richard before travelling on to Sherburn-in-Elmet today to spend a week with Nan. Fifty years ago the journey would have taken a whole day but yesterday it took us less than four hours.
It was a lovely surprise to find that Richard had cleaned the house especially for our visit and also prepared a chicken curry. First Andy popped in to see us then Peter and Claire came round after Peter had run seven miles as part of his training for the London Marathon on April 14th.
Poor Richard suffers much teasing for his bachelor life-style and it is difficult to find the right way to tell him that the two aerosol bottles with the wicks pulled out would perhaps look better somewhere other than the mantelpiece. Both John and Peter were quick to point out that perhaps he was a bit like Granny who used to hang several sticky brown fly strips immediately over the table. This was one of the things that John remembers from his first visits to Cliffe. Along with these fly strips covered in flies were caterpillars in cabbages and lettuces. Mam always worried at the small amount of food that John seemed to eat but as soon as he left the house he would search frantically for food much like a man starved for a week. Perhaps this was just one of the reasons why I enjoyed school food so much.
7th April – Sunday
Yesterday we drove into Sheffield to the General Assembly of Unitarians' A.G.M. This was the first time that I have managed to attend and felt it was well worth the effort.
Afterwards we popped in to see an old friend, Ken Patton, to pick up some books that Linda had put out for me. Knowing that Linda would have left for a week at Disney World in Orlando, I had emailed Ken earlier in the week to let him know that we would eat before arriving with him at about 7 p.m. Consequently at 6.30 p.m. John and I enjoyed some Chicken McNuggets, chips and a large milk-shake each from a McDonalds just outside Barnsley.
Ken was very pleased to see us but as soon as we stepped into the house the smell of cooking food met us. So we said nothing and tucked into a Shepherd's Pie followed by Bread and Butter Pudding finishing with coffee and chocolate. We could hardly move and know that at some stage Ken will re-read the email and recognise the confusion. He also thought we were staying the night which had never been mentioned. However, we had a lovely evening and left after a few games of Rumikub which Ken won.
It seemed strange to watch Ken cooking and serving the meal although Linda had left very careful instructions for heating up the various courses. The last fifty years has seen huge changes in the way that men will now happily take on the cooking and various other tasks that historically have been in the domain of women. Dad would never have considered cooking or even pouring his own cup of tea and adding the sugar. Mam did everything in the house, even when she was in hospital having Andrew the cooking was taken over by Gerry during the week and Margaret at the weekends on top of which Granny had us round for various meals.
Before we left Ken's yesterday he presented us with the many books and videos that Linda had gathered together after finishing the 'Approaching Literature' with the Open University, the course I am hoping to do next year. As we put them in a large plastic bag it reminded me just how much we rely on plastic bags. We have so many in our study at home that they are spilling out all over the floor. When Tesco delivers the groceries we find it hard to throw them away. I suppose this is the result of being brought up on brown paper carrier bags that had to be paid for with a few pence. The first carrier bags that I remember were made of fairly substantial brown paper with extra strong brown paper handles. Of course these would break very quickly and one would finish up struggling to carry great amounts of grocery in a bag without handles. Then we moved on to brown paper carrier bags with string handles. These were better but the thin string would cut through my fingers and I would finish up having to change hands every few steps. The worst accident that happened often would be when the string handles parted company with the bag or when the bottom of the bag burst open scattering the groceries along the pavement or at worst in the middle of the road.
Sometimes Mam would take me shopping with her into Selby. Monday was market day and there would be a bus which would pass our house which we called the 'bus to the door'. It would drop us near the park as the normal bus stops used the market place which was taken up with lots of stalls on a Monday. Mam loved the market and loved to search out 'bargains'. She never seemed to learn that something is only a bargain if it is something wanted. We would also walk along Finkle Street and into Wide Street where there was yet another market.
Along Finkle Street was the Co-operative Grocery Store where Mam did much of her shopping, saving up the dividend (divvy) that would buy extras for Christmas - I was fascinated with this shop. The man behind the counter would take Mam's money, wrap it up, put it in a tin-like container hanging on a pulley, then pull a lever. The brass coloured tin containing the money would go somewhere upstairs to the accounts department. After a little while it would return with a receipt and some change. Off we would stagger with our purchases to the next grocery shop at the corner of Finkle Street and the main road through the town. John Wetherells was a quality food shop and sold the best cold meats and cheese to be found anywhere in the area. There was always a queue spilling out of the shop on to the pavement.
We always had to walk through the market and Mam was always tempted into buying some bargain or other, adding yet more weight to be put into the brown paper carriers. If John went with us we would each end up holding one handle each to spread the load. Overlooking the market place was the imposing Abbey surrounded by iron railings on top of a high kerb. I loved holding the bars and walking along the raised kerb but it must have been a real drag on Mam as the carrier bag handles would regularly break at this point, scattering groceries everywhere as John and I would be busy blaming each other.
If we were lucky in finishing early we would rush to the swings in the park whilst Mam sat on a seat in the gardens. On our way back we would pass by the bowling green and be told to be quiet if there was a game on. It was fascinating to see all the men in white coats and difficult not to bowl back the woods which finished up in the trench around the bowling-green.
We had to be careful when getting on the bus as there would be two identical dark blue buses with East Yorkshire boldly written on the side. One would be going the usual route which turned right at the Village Institute in Cliffe and on to Hemingborough and Howden and ours would turn left, passing our house before going through Cliffe Common and on to South Duffield. There were times when we got on the wrong bus and had to get off outside Mrs Burns's and walk the mile home through the village. This was a real drag carrying all that shopping! Mostly though we would get the right one and we always tried to see how close we could get the bus to stop near our house. We would need to get out of our seats at Mary Sayner's and ring the bell just before Heb Ward's.
Thank goodness that we can now drive up to the store, load the groceries into plastic bags that we can wheel to the car in a supermarket trolley. Arriving home the groceries are easily carried from car boot to kitchen. However, doing the shopping isn't half the adventure that it used to be.
12th April – Friday
Yesterday we travelled back from Yorkshire accompanied by Nan (my mother-in-law). Just outside Sherburn-in-Elmet were some farmers planting potatoes (tatie setting). What immediately struck me was how mechanised it had become. A bright red tatie setter was being pulled by a tractor but there was just a tractor driver and nobody on the tatie setter. Having talked to Minnie, earlier in the week, I realised just how great had been the advance in the last fifty years. She showed me photographs of herself and Jean, planting by hand, no tractor and no machinery whatsoever. It was clear that in my very first years the job was boring and back-breaking.
However, in just a few years after the Second World War, a little, grey Fergusson tractor (Fergie) was purchased and a grey tatie setter bought especially for planting seed potatoes. As children we were always encouraged, or even made, to do those jobs that we were able to do. Tatie setting was one of those jobs that I thoroughly enjoyed. Two people sat at either side of the machine on two very large metal seats full of holes that left marks on the bottom after a full day working. 
The grey setter was a big bin into which the seed potatoes were poured. These would trickle out of an opening at the bottom into a trough. The setters, carefully keeping to a regular rhythm, would drop one potato at a time into a tube down which it travelled to the earth where it was covered by soil as the plough shares made those very recognisable potato rows. At the end of each row the machine would be lifted up as we turned round to do the next row. When we had finished for the day we would be lifted up again and driven home still sitting on those big metal seats. If we had been planting down the Oxen Lane or on the Warp fields I would feel very grown up as we drove past people in the village.
Although I did enjoy this particular job I remember being very upset when one year we were planting either at the very beginning or very end of a school term. It was decided that I must stay off school to help as nothing was ever done on the first or last day of school. Admittedly this was probably when I was at school in Selby as I remember being upset that I would be missing my first day of a new term when all the new instructions were given out regarding the time-table and important dates. I remember being driven to tears and a tantrum that Mam, Dad and John could think my school-life of so little importance.
22nd April – Monday
The past few weeks have flown by - first our visit to Nan's followed by Nan's visit to us, a short break in Falmouth and then a few days to recover.
There were two highlights on our Cornish travels. We had never visited The Lizard and were lucky enough to see it in bright sunshine even though we are still in April. On our journey home we went to The Eden Project. I marvelled at the vision, imagination and sheer hard work that had gone in to making it the best project for the millennium.
We never seemed to venture very far in those years just after the war. Sunday School trips to Bridlington, Scarborough, Hornsea or Filey were the extent of our travels until I was about nine and we went to Abergwele in Wales.
However, I can't remember being too bothered as life was good during the Spring and Summer months. School was exciting as we practiced for the various sport's days. I also looked forward to Mondays when the children from nine years upwards went to the swimming baths in Selby.
We did very little schoolwork before we went to catch the bus that stopped at the Village Institute. Mr Wright, the headmaster, would lead the crocodile out of the school playground, over the railway lines where sometimes the gates would be across forcing us to wait as the steam train puffed its way through the station, past the New Inn, the one pub in the village, past Chadwick's, the village shop and finally across the main Leeds to Hull road. The bus would arrive at 10.45 a.m. and we would be dropped off outside the swimming baths in Selby quarter of an hour later. It was only a few yards through the park before we climbed the steps to the baths. Everyone tried to get an individual cubicle, one of many that opened straight out onto the slippery tiles surrounding the water - most of the time though, I would have to change in the communal girls' changing area. I hated this as I was ashamed of my underwear and small, thin holy towel. In those days I wore a liberty-bodice with rubber buttons and pants which were made out of stiff shiny material, probably cut down from an old dress or blouse.
Mrs Landers, the swimming instructor would take the learners down to the shallow, 3 ft end where we would gingerly go down the steps until we thankfully grasped the surrounding bar. I had to be strongly persuaded to let go of the bar and it still amazes me that I become a very strong swimmer and life-saver after such tentative beginnings. It wasn't long though before I managed to get the red badge for a width, green badge for a length and finally a blue badge for a length each of breast-stroke, crawl and back-stroke all of which were presented during school assembly.
Almost as good as the swimming was the time we had to wait for the bus. We rushed as quickly as possible to get to the park where the swings, slides, roundabouts etc were. Most of us liked the big 'bumper' swing. This consisted of a long, sturdy plank of wood onto which we all squeezed, holding onto each other and if we were lucky onto a square iron hand piece. In order to make the thing swing two pairs had to stand at the end. The harder they worked the higher it went. I remember clearly one day when I was the one at the end. We worked the swing higher and higher when suddenly my hands slipped of the metal and I fell with a hard bump onto the concrete beneath. Blood gushed out of my mouth where my teeth had bit into my tongue and lip. It was the first real accident that had ever happened to me. I have always had a strong sense of self-preservation so it came as a shock. What followed though was a much bigger shock and lives vividly in my mind still. Mr Wright ran to me shouting at me to get up. Why had I been so stupid to 'jump' off when we were going so high? He wouldn't listen when I said that I had slipped and that I wouldn't have been so stupid as to jump.
When we got back to school he sent me straight home. Not once had he shown any concern for the hurt I had sustained. That evening and the next day I felt very poorly which along with an asthma attack caused me to be off school the following day. My parents always refused to write a sick note for us as they felt that the teachers should take our word for the reasons why we had been away. Even when I returned to school my face was much swollen but Mr Wright's anger continued unabated. At morning assembly he called me out to the front to 'make an example of me' - because I had foolishly jumped from the 'bumpers' he had no choice but to stop our visits to the park after swimming. Also he wanted to know why I had not brought a sick note. When I told him that I had been unwell after the fall and then had a bad cold he smacked me hard saying that I had stayed away because I was worried about the punishment which I would get following my stupid act. A cold could not have disappeared so quickly. I knew he was a bully then and to this day retain that same belief. I had more smacks on the hand and back from Mr Wright than from anyone else ever. Only once in my life did Dad smack me and even then I knew it was justified, but Mr Wright should never have been a schoolteacher.
Thank-goodness that we now know our grandchildren will not be so abused. It just would not be allowed to happen in schools today.
27th April – Saturday
April this year has been the driest on record although today is wet and windy. After visiting the south coast of Cornwall with its little sandy coves tucked away and easily accessible from the car I have been thinking more and more about how much I miss swimming. I don't anchor to swim at the swimming baths or battle with the waves of the north coast of Devon but dream about swimming in the calm water of a Cornish cove or the silky water of a lake or even a large pond.
Once I had learned how to swim I was allowed to go with John to swim in the 'wash-dykes' in Skipwith Common. I must have been about nine when I first went a time before I had got a bike. John would give me a 'croggie' on his crossbar or let me sit on the seat whilst he pedalled free. We would call on Dinah as we passed her house and off we would go, up the Common, across Cliffe Common Station, past Cliffe Woods on the left, over the main cross-roads and on to Skwipwith Common. This was like it must have been for the 'Famous Five' when they set out on their adventures. Before reaching Skipwith village we took a left turning onto a lane which threaded its way through dense woodland. A little further and another left turn and there we were at the 'wash-dykes'. We would be already wearing our swimming costumes under our clothes and would race to be the first into the water. I suppose it was no more than a pond really but to us it was heaven. In we would slip over the mud and into the smooth, silky water. It seemed as if it was our own private pool and if the day was hot we would dry ourselves off by chasing round the pool or lying on the grass then we would have no need no take our costumes of but could just slip our clothes over our damp swimwear.
After that first year it was unusual for John to swim with us as he would be with his friends or working on the farm. However, Dinah and I continued to cycle to the 'wash-dykes' and even introduced the occasional friend to join us. We didn't want too many people to know about this special place. Until I had a bike of my own I would pester Margaret or Minnie to lend me theirs which they usually did. Cycling was a bit tough though as I couldn't sit on the seat and reach the pedals so had to cycle standing up. Eventually I did get a bike but it was a bike of parts, parts from various broken down bikes. This was the bike which eventually was run-over and carried home by Gerry and me.
I can't think that I would have been quite so happy to let our sons go off regularly to swim in a pool miles from anywhere, a pool that was too deep for us to feel the bottom other than at the edges. But of course we didn't come to any harm and we did have many hours of enjoyment on our trips to the 'wash-dykes'.
