Another year - 2

Thought you might like to share these photos. I had a lovely day.

 

Some of my flowers and cake with flaming candles that would not blow out!!!!!!

 

Nathan really made things extra special. He is now ten weeks old.

 

The proud grandparents.

 

Another Year!

Yes, it is that time again.  Today finds me another year older.  Where does the time go?!! Ninth day of the ninth month. When I met Mike he was living at no. 9 and we got engaged on the 9th and Mike's birthday is on the 9th - in December. We have always looked on it as our number although we have not noticed it being particularly lucky.

I have mixed feelings today. I have often thought that when you get to a certain age, Birthdays should no longer be celebrated.  I mean Birthdays are really like Christmas and much better enjoyed by children.  Every birthday now finds me comparing myself with the last one and noticing how many more aches and pains I have developed since the previous year!!! It is also a very sobering thought that I know or knew far more people that have passed away than I know now.  That comes with the passing of the years.

However, this year is more special because we have little Nathan.  My first Grandmother's card!! I have been writing so much lately about my own Grandmother that I find it hard to believe that I am now in her shoes. Whilst I was writing those memories I felt like a little girl again.  Now, here I am, a Grandmother in my own right and in the Autumn of my life.  A strange feeling, a little scary.  When you are young, a day can seem an eternity.  As you get older the days seem to fly by.  So, mixed feelings today, a little sad, quite happy.  Had some wonderful cards, a cousin has at last come up with long promised photos for my family tree, I was even surprised by internet cards that I did not expect!!!!!!! Even better, for a change on my Birthday, the sun is shining brightly and the birds are singing.

So dear friends, I am putting aside my aches and pains and my worries for today.  I am going to enjoy it to the best of my ability. Had some lovely flowers from Mike, a helium birthday balloon and a book I cannot wait to read. Another present was supposed to be here but has not turned up soit looks like my Birthday will stretch to two days or maybe  more!!  The family will be over later and I hope to have lots of laughs and happiness bathed in the warmth of their love.  I thank God for another year and pray that the year ahead will see improved health.  I thank God for my family and my friends and for all the little kindnesses received from other people. I thank God for all the wonderful people I have come to know through the computer.

Oh, I will not tell you exactly how old I am.  Let me just say that if  I had a cake and if  we put the correct number of candles on and if we lit them - the heat would drive us from the room!!!!!!

On that thought I will leave you now and enjoy my Birthday. God bless all of you.

Local Photographs

Mike was so delighted when , the day before yesterday, something that he had done actually got onto my journal!!  He was so pleased that people liked the photographs.  So I have decided to make his day again today and add some more.

This is our Parish Church.  Actually we fall between two Parishes so we can use either church.  This building dates from around 1300.  It is very unusual in that it has a wooden steeple.  The porch was rebuilt in 1884.  At the eastern end of the churchyard is the final resting place of one William Burton. Burton murdered his wife, a washer woman, in a drunken rage and hid the body.  He might have escaped detection had not a small boy called out to him that his wife's body had been found.  He completely lost his nerve and hung himself in a nearby granary.  Although, of course, he was never tried and therefore the case was not proved, as a likely murderer and  a definite suicide, the Minister could not allow him to be buried in consecrated ground.  He was therefore interred just outside the Churchyard - in the hedge!

By the west door there is an area that has never been used for burials and has no memorial stones.  Tradition says that this is the site of a mass burial for the victims of the Great Plague of 1665.  Unfortunately, Mike could not photograph any of the interior.  Sadly, many churches in this area are now kept locked apart from when services are held, due to vandalism and theft.

This is our local pub, just up the road from us. The pub faces the village green.  We are lucky in that this is one of the few places in this locality that still has a village green.  A fair is held there every year.   The date of the pub is actually not known for sure but there has undoubtedly been an inn on this site for centuries.  This was an agricultural community (still many farms around here).  Hours were very long, the work back-breaking and the men took their ease and leisure in the local inn.  Alcohol was cheap and was considered the "scourge" of farming labourers.  Communal cooking was done in a vast iron boiler at the inn.  A bullock or sheep's head could be purchased at very little cost and thrown into the pot along with vegetables to simmer all day.  Financial transactions were carried out here and the wages paid out to the local workers.

Our village green. It is bigger than it looks.  It is sad that we have lost so much of our countryside now to development as we are on the main commuter line to London.  However, we do treasure what we have left.

This cottage is just yards away from us and one of the oldest properties left in the area, dating from the 1500's. You probably cannot get a true idea of just how small it is.  It is dwarfed by the buildings around it.  Originally probably set in deep countryside it now fronts the main road and has traffic thundering past all day and all night but there has never been a time when it has not been occupied.

This cottage was probably originally a farm house. Date unknown but undoubtedly many centuries old.  Mike could not get what he wanted to show, that the whole property is on a tilt but if you look at the bulge in the roof and the windows that are out of line, you can see that the property has "twisted".  In the upstairs rooms the owners will have to walk uphill and downhill!

Our local woods.  Comprised of many individual little woods that once had differing names but now all brought together under one and called Bull Woods.  It is a place of beauty and tranquility.  However, at weekends it is full of people and their dogs, horse-riders and ramblers. Many different varieties of birds are found here and squirrels abound.  The only little problem is that  the summer brings out the ants - large red ants which were imported from Spain many years ago to keep the black ant population under control.  These red ants bite!!!! Quite painful, so it is advisable not to site on the ground.

I hope you enjoy these pictures. Mike enjoyed taking them for you.  I shall be showing more of our local area another time.

 

Upon the Grave Of A Child

Another poem that came from a visit to the cemetery.  I always try to avoid the area that holds the graves of children, I find it too distressing, but this particular day something caught my eye.  It was the grave of a very young child.  It was festooned with flowers, balloons, little bears, china ornaments, lanterns - just a mass of colour. Then I noticed Birthday cards had been placed there.  Although the little one had been buried a couple of years previously it was obvious to me that the passing of time had done nothing to assuage the grief of his poor parents.  It broke my heart.  I wrote the following poem when I returned home.

In view of the dreadful events in Beslan, Russia and the harrowing scenes we have watched on our television screens of so many people burying their children, I wanted to share this with you today.

UPON THE GRAVE OF A CHILD

Under the spreading branches
Hard by the boundary wall
In a patch of gloomy shadow
Lies the saddest grave of all.
A tiny babe lies sleeping
Beneath the cold, hard earth
Torn from his Mother's keeping
So shortly after birth.
Where was the bounteous God above
Who would not let sparrows fall?
Why did He not reach out to save
When death spread his dark shawl?
In graven words the heartbreak shows
Cut deep in marble stone,
A Mother's grief, A Father's woe,
Who knew him as their own.
Thoughts that the mind cannot contain
That freeze the soul and numb the brain.
This tiny space now cradles all their dreams
All that was assumed to be
The shining carrier of their genes -
Their immortality.
An angel kissed them for a while
And then, in tears, was gone,
Extinguished now the little light
That once so brightly shone.
So stranger, should you happen by
And feel a chilling shudder
Then thank your God that grief so fierce
Is carried by another.

                                                                Copyright 2000

 

May we all pray that peace will someday come to our sad world.

 

P.S. I am sorry friends.  I do not know what has gone wrong with this entry or why there is such a huge gap after I finished.   I tried to put it right from this end with no luck.  I did not fancy deleting all and starting again.  Hopefully it will not happen again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Grandmother's House - Finale

 

I think that although the Parlour was the least used room it was always my favourite because of the memories of those wonderful parties and because I am sure the spirit of my Grandfather made contact with me there as regular readers will know from a prior entry.  I loved this room with a passion.

As you entered the room, on the right hand wall was a huge oak dresser, ceiling high, with ornate carved pillars and a huge central mirror flanked by little shelves that held all sorts of ornaments and photographs, again backed by smaller mirrors.  Pride of place on the dresser went to Grand-dad's "Marley Horses".  He had two huge ones and two smaller ones that had been presented to him I think for his running many years earlier.  I am now the owner of the two smaller ones.  On either side of the dresser were two  paintings both of The Monarch Of The Glen".  They were genuine oil paintings and must have been done by a skilled artist because he had done "a pair" otherwise there would have been two identical paintings.  They were surrounded by heavily decorated gilt frames.  Nan loved these so much and used to talk about them to me and about her love of her Scottish homeland.  They were very dirty from years and years of coal fires, household cooking and general dirt but would have been stunning if they had been professionally cleaned. Where they came from I have no idea, maybe they were brought from Scotland when the family uprooted.  These were promised to me, Nan wanted me to have them.

Directly in front of you was a square bay window. I am sure you know the type - one central window and two on either side.  In front of them stood an Aspidistra on a tall dark wood table. They call these the "Cast Iron" plants and this particular specimen must have been because I never saw or remember it being watered and the soil was always like concrete and yet the plant thrived.  The far wall had the fireplace which was also made of cast iron with a little mantleshelf again filled with  small trinkets.  On one side of the fireplace was a china cabinet filled with treasures, mostly brought back by Bill from his voyages.  Paper thin plates with beautiful designs, blown glass ornaments and the crowning glory was a punch bowl made of amber translucent glass heavily decorated with grapes and vine leaves with matching cups.  My Mother was to have this to be passed down to me. On the back wall, behind the entrace door was the piano, an old upright inlaid with Acanthus leaves in gold with two intricate iron candleholders.  This held more family photographs. The keys were yellow with age and use and I used to spend hours tinkling when I was very young hoping I would be able to play as well as Aunt Ada.  In the very centre of the room was a huge circular table supported by just one very large central column which splayed out into four ornate feet.  I used to believe this was King Arthur's table that had somehow come from Camelot.

 

After Grand-dad died, this beautiful room was never used much again except for very special occasions.  Then Nan spent her declining years in there when she could no longer wander down the road to sit on the bench outside the Town Hall and watch the world go by.  She kept active for a long time but the writing was on the wall when she had to be told that her beloved Bill had died.  She could not accept that her son had been taken during her life-time.  She would spend many hours after that talking about her Will and her Bill and saying how she wanted to be with them.  So, her bed was brought into the parlour and placed in front of the window where she could still see her friends and neighbours passing by and having chats through its opening when the weather permitted.  Her eyesight got worse and worse but she still had an active brain.  When Mike and I returned from holiday engaged, I took him to meet Nan.  We sat and chatted for a while and then she asked me to leave the room.  Mike told me afterwards that she had taken his hands and asked him some questions.  Then she called me back and told me that I had found a good man and not to let him go.  I think her old psychic ability was still at work.  She lived just long enough to know that she had a great-grandaughter, our daughter - Rebecca.  All her other great-grandchildren had been boys so my Mother rang Aunt Bet immediately and told her that I had given her the much wanted great-grandaughter.  Bet said that her face beamed like the sun.  It was not long afterwards that she passed away.  Alas, I was unable to attend her funeral because it was too soon after quite a difficult childbirth but I had my own little memorial service.  I am only sorry that my daughter never had the chance to know her.  She has missed out on a great deal.

I have written so much about Grandmother's house and yet I do not possess one single photograph of it. Nobody ever thought to take one.  I know it was built in the 1890's.  I know it was black from London soot.  I know it withstood two World Wars and was shaken to its foundation during the Second when the East End sustained such heavy bombing.  One wall was braced with a vast crosspiece of iron to support it.

Would I go back?  No!  I have learned you cannot go back in this life.  The Bible is right when it says there is a time and a season for everything.  It will all have changed by now.  I know the road which used to be so quiet that us children could play in it all day now hums with traffic as road systems have been put in place to ease the congestion from the High Street. The dark green front door with the heavy knocker (rarely used) is probably gone.  Anyway, I do not need to go back physically.  I can go back any time of the night or day, whenever I wish in my mind and in my recollections.

 

I have other memories of my Nan, sitting  with her in her local park and watching the flowers and the birds, her taking me to the cinema on a few occcasions, her stays at our house where she loved to sit in our garden, but it is her house I will always remember with such deep and abiding affection.  Her house and the people that lived in it and passed through it. People the like of which you do not find nowadays.  Characters, all of them.

The house was never theirs. Maybe I omitted to tell you that.  Always rented.  I think they might have had the option to purchase but never did.  After Nan left us Bet and Alan continued on together there.  When Bet passed, Alan continued alone until his death three years ago at which time the key was handed back to the Landlord.  There will be new people living there now.  Only rented and yet my family lived within those four walls for almost one hundred years.

Every house in that street, every house in every street has a story to tell.  This has been my story of Grandmother's house. I hope you have enjoyed strolling down memory lane with me and enjoyed reading the stories just as much as I have loved writing them down and sharing them with you.

Thus I finish the tale.  A small terraced house in a street of terraced houses with hundreds, no thousands of identical properties throughout the area and indeed, throughout London, throughout England. A house that helped to shape my life, taught me so much about people and the world, made me laugh, made me cry. I miss it. I will always miss it.

We never knew what became of Grandmother's things. My Mother never got the punchbowl and I never got my beloved "Monarch" paintings. We were sad about it.  But, my friends, I do not need those paintings.  You see, I have much much more.  I have what nobody can take away.  I have that room, those paintings, the house and above all the people, those wonderful people. I have them painted rich and vibrant on the canvas of my mind.

Her name was Mary, Mary

Plain as any name can be

But with propriety, society

Some will say Marie

But it was Mary, Mary

Long before the fashion came

For there is something there

That sounds so rare

It's a grand old name.

                                  old song.

 

P.S. When I began writing these memories I had no idea it would run to seven entries! I have now decided to expand on them, naming names, describing places and put it into book form in my spare moments.  It is doubtful I would find a publisher but I have decided to do it for our baby Grandson to pass in turn to his children. See what being a journaller does to you!!!!!!!!!!!!

finis

Old Photo

 

I thought I would share this with you today before I continue writing.  It shows three generations of the family I have been writing about, Nan and Grand-dad, Grand-dad's parents and my Mother and Bill. Bill and Mum are the two children in the front row on the extreme right. The bride and groom are my Great-Uncle James (Grand-dad's brother) and his beloved, Ethel.

I find this photo charming and love the wonderful hats.  I am sorry the quality is not good but I only have a photo-copy and not the original. I had lots of trouble re-sizing it and trying to keep the proportions.  Oh, the picture was taken in 1914.

 

Grandmother's House - 6

 

The parlour is the last room we come to. As mentioned previously this room was only used on special occasions such as Christmas or family parties.  Oh, how I remember those parties when the house rang with song and laughter. Even as a tiny child I remember my cousins and I "hiding" under the large round table and watching the antics of the adults. Ballons were hung, at Christmas a tiny tree, no lights, they did not have them but it looked as festive as they could make it.  The dresser groaning under the weight of jellies, blancmange, cake and fruit.

Grand-dad would start off the proceedings.  His favourite song was Danny Boy and he would reduce everyone to tears when he sang it. He did not have a brilliant voice but it was the emotion and passion that he put into it, he sang from the heart and even Bill had a tear in his eye.  Grand-dad was originally a watchmaker but when he married he changed his employment and became a tea salesman for a well known tea company at first going round making sales with a horse and cart and then progressing to a van. He had been born into a huge family in a very poor and  deeply deprived area close to where Jack The Ripper committed his crimes. It is still hard to believe that when Jack was stalking the East End my Grandfather was twelve and would have known all about it.  Oh, how I wish he had lived longer, there were so many questions I would liked to have asked him. He worked for the tea company all his life except when he was called up in the First World War where he experienced some of the very worst fighting.  He was badly gassed and invalided home but he lost many friends and like most of the men who went to war, he did not like talking about it.

He would also sing to my Nan, he would hold her hands and serenade her with Annie Laurie or Bonnie Mary of Argyle and her cheeks would redden and her eyes would glow. I know it meant so much to her because it reminded her of her home in Scotland.

We all had to do a "turn". With us little ones it was usually reciting a nursery rhyme or a little poem as we got older.  My Mother would always be asked to do the Charleston at which she was anexpert.  She was absolutely brilliant at it and indeed she could dance any dance, the tango being her favourite. She had wanted to be a professional dancer or an actress but the family forbade it. Uncle Bill usually came out with a monologue (often quite risque looking back). Others would tell jokes or do impressions of the famous of the day.   It was hilarious. My Father was always excused. He was a very quiet and I suppose shy man who much preferred to sit in a corner with a drink and hold a deep conversation with someone usually Uncle Alan who did not like doing "turns" either.  The family were in awe of my Dad and always called him "The Toff" because of his smartness and his very good job in the City.  I think they were very worried when Mum got engaged to Dad after a very brief acquaintance - they had the feeling that he would look down on them. It was just the opposite.  My father's family might have had more money and been better educated but his home was lacking in the most important thing - love.  Nan and Grand-dad had love in abundance and Dad adored them all,  He did not even mind being called "The Toff".  Mind you, when Grand-dad eventually got a car (yes although they were poor he did get a car as he was able to buy one through his firm and pay years of monthly payments) my Dad dreaded going out on trips because the damned car broke down more than it ran and Dad was always the one who had to push it!  Grand-dad must have been some sight because I have been told that when he drove he wore a leather helmet, goggles and long gauntlets.

Then came Aunt Ada  - she was one of Grand-dad's sisters. Ada was a true eccentric.  All her life she wore ankle-length dresses with a cameo brooch at the neck and strings of jet beads.  Even when she was ninety she was still dyeing her hair a bright henna red. She moved farther out of London into the market town of Romford.  We used to visit her often as we went to the market a great deal, that was in the days when live sheep and pigs were still taken there to be sold.  Her house was wonderful to me.  Full of antiques and her garden was a paradise.  Like a secret garden with lots of little nooks and crannies, half-hidden statues, mirrors, coloured mosaics dotted all around. It was wonderland for a child.  Sadly, Ada lost her only child, her beloved son at the age of threeto polio. 

Before I describe what she did at the parties I must mention Ada's dog.  She had a little Pomeranian called Sylvia.  Sylvia had a party piece.  She would sit on the turntable of the wind-up gramaphone, Ada would wind it up and the dog would go around and around gradually getting slower and slower then she would bark a signal and Ada had to wind it up again and off  Sylvia would spin at a fast rate.  The dog would spend hours like this and Ada never got tired of it.  Ada was known to all the stall-holders in the market and because of her ladylike appearance including a fox fur stole (oh how I hated those awful things - how any woman could wear an animal with dangling legs, head and tail around their neck I could not imagine) so they nicknamed her "The Duchess" and treated her as such. She was still going to the market at the age of 100 where she proudly showed off her telegram from the Queen.  She lived to the age of 102 equalling the age at death of her sister, Harriet.

Anyway, when it came to Ada's turn it was face pulling time. Ada always played the piano at all the family parties.  She fancied herself a great singer so she would launch into some old song like Come Into The Garden, Maud.  The trouble was that Ada had a very high pitched voice so she trilled more than sang and she was also very off-key.  Teeth were clenched, eyes screwed up, nerves jangled and us children were nudged by the adults to stop us giggling.  It seemed to go on forever but when the last note finally screeched around the room, nobody could be unkind. "Lovely Ada dear" came a chorus of voices.  Of course this only spurred her on to further efforts.  Bill would usually come to the rescue, grabbing her by the hand he would say "Come on old gel, gis a dance" and before she could protest, Grand-dad had wound up the gramaphone and Bill would whirl Ada around in the confined space.  Ada would go coy like a teenage girl and say "Oh, Bill, you are a caution"!!  Grand-dad would watch with great amusement, leaning on the mantlepiece and smoking his pipe.

As more and more drink was put away by each person it got more and more riotious.  Then it would be "Knees Up, Mother Brown" with Nan kicking her chubby legs as high as she could and showing her long pink bloomers whilst Aunt Ada demurely kicked her feet from side to side, not wishing to show any part of her anatomy at all.  Then it was usually the conga with all of us yelling it out at the top of our voices whilst we snaked through the other rooms, out into the back yard and back again.  The finale was always the can-can where even most of the men rolled up their trousers legs and joined in. After that everyone would collapse in an exhausted heap, perspiring heavily and laughing fit to bust. I have never heard laughter as loud and long as I did in those far off days. They were the real pleasures, people entertaining themselves and each other in the days before television became the norm. The days when people mixed and did not shut themselves away behind their front doors not caring whether they knew their neighbours or not.  It is a world now sadly gone.

Parties went on until everyone was spent and too tired to stand or dance. Often us children would fall asleep under the table whilst the adults continued to sit and talk until daybreak.

On my next entry I shall be telling you what else I remember about that room and completing the story of my Grandmother's house.