Bird Whistles

Young Harold was my oldest cousin and he and Young Leslie had often been mistaken for twins when they were small according to my mother. Well she should know because according to her she had all but brought them up when she went to live with her sister Mag after being thrown out of home for fighting with her sister, Maud. She always believed that it was Maud who should by rights have been thrown out because when all was said and done, it had been Maud who started the argument about who had used the last of the Amami Shampoo. But on that particular Saturday evening Old Nan had ordered her Edgar to throw Nellie out of the house without even a coat over her shoulders because she’d had enough and she was fed up with the neighbours complaining that those Constant girls were always fighting. She had to walk every step of the way to Iron Mill Lane, because she didn’t have a penny to her name. But far be it from her to complain and in the end the new living arrangements, because that’s what they turned out to be, benefitted everyone. Mag was now free to take a job at Vickers which she had been champing at the bit to do because Nellie was only too happy to stay home and look after those dear little boys. Returning to the family home to resume working for their father delivering meat and fish was out of the question in any case. To be honest she was only too glad not to because she’d never really got on with Toby the pony. Mag was going to give her a pound a week and that was good enough for her. There was good money to be made down at Vickers and no mistake.

This new arrangement was going to give her more time to give attention to Poor Fred and nobody could say he didn’t deserve attention. She would now be able to visit twice a week if she so desired even if it did mean an inconvenient change of trains. Crayford to Waterloo then a half hour wait for the fast train to Godalming. Just a brisk walk then to the Sanitorium where Fred enjoyed the best rest and fresh air that Surrey could provide. Once he was well again they would re-schedule their wedding date. She would wear Mag’s wedding dress and real orange blossom in her hair and the two of them would get as far away from Crayford and all the in-fighting as was possible – perhaps even to Gravesend. 1930 was going to be the best year of her life.

So that’s how my mother came to be what would now be termed the Prime Carer to Harold and Leslie Linyard, both still under two years old and often dressed alike and as I’ve said, mistaken for twins, although of course in reality there was just over a year between them. In time the rift created by being thrown out of home was healed enough for conversation to take place between the main players which was a good thing. After a shaky start when Young Harold screamed persistently for his mother when she left the house with her hair tied up in a smart red turban telling him she would be back in the shake of a gnat’s whisker, he settled down and accepted Aunt Nell as a substitute.

So it was my mother who pushed the boys all the way up Iron Mill Lane to the High Street shops and bought Harold a magic bird whistle made of bakelite that had to be filled with water. The young assistant was very obliging and went out to the back of the shop and came back with it filled and in working order for him. It was yellow and she told him it was a Canary and showed him how to blow it hard to make it work. Once he worked it out he was delighted and made full use of it although his mother said that the noise drove her barmy. When Leslie got a little older my mother bought him one as well, a red one and said it was a Robin Redbreast. This did not please their mother either. It pleased their Aunt though and when the children began to appeal directly to her to mend their bumps and scrapes rather than Mag, it pleased her even more. And so Aunt Nell became much loved and remained at the house in Iron Mill Lane over a number of years and was still there when baby Margaret was born in 1933 and within a short space of time when Mag decided it was time she returned to Vickers, she duly took over the care of the new baby. She was there when Poor Fred died instead of getting better despite all the rest and fresh air and it was Mag who sat up at night with her when the sleeping pills gave her nightmares, and it was the children who made life bearable during daylight hours.

Mag and Big Harold did the best they could for her state of mind and introduced her to Big Harold’s brother from Wolverhampton, Big Leslie who rode a motor bike and was in the market for a wife. She found his habit of surreptitiously wiping his nose on his shirt sleeve offensive even though he only did it at the end of the working week when the shirt was imminently due to be washed. It would be true to say that there was not much love lost between her and Big Harold who she thought was for a number of reasons, a silly bugger. She disliked him for having a distasteful brother, for insisting on calling her sister Croosh rather than Mag or Maggie, for disciplining poor Young Leslie, a sensitive child, too harshly and for calling him John rather than Leslie. Maud, who had by that time married her George, moved to a house in Mayplace Avenue and given birth to Young Desmond, was wont to point out that my mother could be a mischief maker when she wanted to be. However, it was more important to Mag to have an on the spot carer for her three children than to spend too much time worrying about those who might make mischief, and so my mother remained in the small bedroom.

The children were more than happy with the arrangement although try as she might, my mother was unable to find a bird whistle for Margaret when she grew old enough to want one. Instead she knitted a full set of clothes for the doll called Pola that Margaret had been given for her third birthday. She was rather beginning to feel, however, that she should move away and would have done so already had it not been for Poor Fred’s death. With this in mind perhaps she gave more of an appraisal than she would have ordinarily done to the fellow motor cyclist introduced by Big Leslie one Sunday afternoon – his friend Bern. Bern, brought up in a Chatham orphanage, 30 years old and also on the lookout for a wife.

Not a patch on her Fred of course but then she couldn’t expect that could she? Not a man she was likely to grow to love with all her heart but then where had that got her in the past? Devotion and hope for the future had only tied her to grief and sorrow. He seemed a sober man, a man who did not use bad language, a man who had a library ticket and regularly went to Mass. She could do worse and it would do her no harm at all to go to Mass from time to time and there was nothing wrong with joining a library. She’d always enjoyed reading.

It was Young Harold who missed her most when she left and he kept the bakelite bird whistle for years. She in her turn always had a soft spot for him even when he grew up and worried about doing his National Service because Malaya seemed too foreign and too far away. He promised to bring her back a Love Bird, perhaps even a pair but somehow or other he wasn’t able to. She was always suspicious of that Joan he got engaged to who was a Silly Cow and later threw him over for some reason. More fool her! She was happy when he met Sylvie from Hemel Hempstead and swiftly married her. You had to hand it to Sylvie because she was a very good cook and that suited Harold and she spent ten pounds a week on food. Ten pounds – no exaggeration! The first of their kiddies was little Wayne who looked so much like his Daddy. They had five in the end and went to live over Slade Green way so she didn’t see much of them.

They did come down to Gravesend Market one Saturday afternoon though and it was Young Harold who spotted the bird whistles, made of yellow plastic. My mother bought one for little Wayne and was inordinately pleased when Young Harold told him Aunt Nell had given him one just the same when he was a little lad, and showed him how it worked.