INTRODUCTION
In January 2001, I was struck down yet again with an old problem that confined me to bed for several weeks. Being too poorly even to read many hours were spent thinking about my childhood and how different it was to that of my two granddaughters, Kelly and Amy. I realised that I would like them to know what it was like to be brought up as a farmer's daughter just after the last war. In the summer whilst talking with Kelly, who was six at the time, I explained to her that we only had toys at Christmas and then usually only one. I expected her response to be; 'I don't believe you' but in fact what she did say was; 'I don't understand what you mean Gran.' She was genuinely puzzled at the thought of a childhood not surrounded by toys.
I decided right then to write down some of my childhood experiences so that Kelly and Amy might, at some time in the future, find it interesting to be given an insight into an older, rural world where values weren't based on marketing and acquiring toys and trendy clothes. During their summer holidays with us in North Devon, I continued to take a keener notice of what was important to them and central to their happiness and how different their lives were to what mine had been at their age.
On September 6th of 2001 my mother died aged 86. She had lived a long and full life but had been poorly for a very long time so it was a blessing to think she was finally at peace. Like me she had herself been a farmer's daughter but unlike me she had gone on to be a farmer's wife. Following my father's death in 1977 she had begun to write down her story as a way of working through the loneliness and as a way of giving meaning to her life. Reading about her childhood so many things seemed familiar. Farming didn't really change dramatically until the late 1950s and 60s as technological advances took over from an industry still dependant on manual labour. I could recognise a common cultural thread of farming traditions and a social life underpinned by Methodism and Methodist values.
As my mother wrote on scraps of paper and backs of envelopes the material grew in abundant confusion. I had promised her that at some stage I would type up her 'life' but the thought of tackling the material was onerous. Events were written down as they came to mind with little chronological consistency. Several conflicting ideas could be contained in one sentence. However, I did tackle it and was pleasantly surprised to find how enjoyable the task was and how closer to my mother it made me feel. Her 'Life' was edited and printed up for her eightieth birthday in 1996. She was delighted and proud of her achievement. Many of her family and friends said they would like to have a copy but this was a 'one-off'. Following her death I thought it would be a good idea to make a second edition adding some new material and inserting photographs. This final edition entitled 'A Yorkshire Life' has now been completed and two copies printed for my older sisters, Margaret and Gerry.
The time seemed right to begin writing down something of my own life especially for my two granddaughters. However, I recognised that it was unlikely that any of my family would have the time or inclination to edit anything that I might write. My three sons are, thankfully, busy people with little inclination or time for writing. It was therefore vital that I should find a structure that would allow me the same freedom as my mother had and yet be sufficiently disciplined to avoid boring anyone who might choose to read this in the future.
In November, husband John and I went to stay with Nan, John's mum, and as usual I scanned her shelves for a good book to read. As luck would have it I came across 'A Time to be Earnest – A fragment of autobiography' by P.D. James. I had found an ideal structure within which to write my more modest autobiography. The structure is about the only similarity between P.D. James and me. Having committed herself to one year she wrote a diary that served a dual purpose. As she made an entry into her diary of the present day, memories of her earlier life are evoked and thus we have both the present day context of her life and also a broader context for her autobiography.
Only the idea of structure can I claim to be similar as our lives could not be more different. P.D. James puts aside her seventy-eighth year for the task of writing her autobiography whereas I shall be fifty-five. She has achieved much and even now, at eighty, continues to usefully contribute on a wide stage at national level. I am rarely well, and like my mother earlier, am writing to give meaning and shape to a life that is lived mainly in the private sphere of home and family. P.D. James decided on writing her own life before someone else did and perhaps not to her satisfaction. Already being a best selling author her life will be interesting to the public. It is unlikely that anyone would wish to write of my life and certainly it is written especially for my two granddaughters in mind.
It is to Kelly and Amy that I therefore dedicated the fifty-fifth year of my life in the hope that they may get to know me better and appreciate how different life was as a child growing up on a farm in the middle of the twentieth century to their lives as children at the beginning of a new millennium.
Joan Wilkinson