Underwear - Money Well Spent?

     Although I spent an afternoon merrily engaged in shopping for undergarments recently I still don’t buy these items as regularly as I feel is necessary.  Years can go buy before I give the matter more than a thought or two so such purchases are clearly not of great concern and I can easily view them as a frivolous waste of money.   Back when I first started earning my living there was no doubt that I saw pink and peach nylon panties and petticoats a misuse of hard earned finances – particularly since I was likely to be the only one who saw them.   It was to be some time before anyone else was allowed to catch a glimpse of these most provocative and private garments.    Quite apart from that I definitely felt the expense involved could be more usefully diverted to Marks & Spencer’s orlon twin sets in the same colour range that everyone could view and be impressed by.   If I cut the labels out there were even some who might believe they were cashmere.   I was of course still a teenager and definitely a naïve one.  

 

   All those years ago my buying was still much influenced by my mother who, along with a great many other women of her age and ilk seemed altogether too concerned with what people might Think should I be knocked down by a bus and unacceptable undergarments revealed to the Hospital Emergency Department.  Investing in something attractive she felt was money well spent.  Strangely my grandmother, whose own underwear would have been decidedly basic and well worn, seemed to share that very same anxiety.   This paired neurosis caused me to eye buses suspiciously before crossing close to them but did not prompt any great desire for lace edged petticoats with which to astound and electrify the medical staff at Gravesend & North Kent Hospital in Bath Street.  As my possible injuries were treated there would be no sharp intakes of breath and admiring comments on the delicacy of the trim.   Apart from all that it seemed a little anomalous that all the alarm was concentrated on road traffic accidents concerning females.  Nobody was too bothered about the state of male underwear and potential consternation caused by threadbare and inelegant y-fronts.  

 

   Nevertheless the unease pertaining to the possible horror I might generate in the local hospital should I have an altercation with a bus in a moment of inattention meant I did spend a certain amount of time on Saturday afternoons browsing the undie aisles in both M&S and BHS.   On those rare occasions when I succumbed and made a purchase after an exacting hour considering the charms of all, I would most likely yield to the latter retail organisation.   The choice was primarily made on a cost basis because M&S was substantially more expensive than their local rival as we all knew.    I never resorted to the Market which my mother favoured no matter how low the cost involved and how hard she entreated me to.  The thought of the very direct interaction with the seller, possibly male and prone to bold and brazen comments was quite horrifying to me at the age of sixteen and was to remain so for some time.

 

   The market was the destination of choice for most of our family buying and my mother only ventured further from its charms if a solid search did not reveal what she required.  Again her choice was largely based on cost and back in those days markets were still the cheapest option for most local shopping.  Over the intervening years the position appears to have altered with some markets becoming alarmingly pricey the previous batch of cheerful cheeky traders giving way to more beautiful sales persons wearing hand-made shoes and jackets that have an air of Bond Street about them presumably to be more in keeping with the cost of the goods on sale.

 

  Back in the 1940s and 50s market underwear leaned firmly towards what were then still known to some as vests and bloomers, the latter being high wasted and elasticated at the knee pastel coloured in nylon for summer and flannelette for winter.  My mother and aunts were united in the fact that they found them to be more than serviceable and Aunt Mag said she was proud to hang them on the line each Monday morning.   Only Aunt Freda said she wouldn’t be seen dead in them and like me went for a more modern design but then she was known to be Flighty and, not surprisingly, eventually gave birth to a child out of wedlock which everyone said would happen sooner or later considering the way she Carried On.  As a family we were unified in the fact that we were most unlikely to go anywhere near the underwear departments of what we saw as more exclusive stores such as Nottons (heaven forbid) or Bonmarche and in fact these were places we rarely entered.

 

   I have no idea where the underclothing of my early childhood was purchased but my most unpleasant memories of that worn next to the skin revolve around this time.  It was invariably uncomfortable and constricting and never to be forgotten is the horror of the Liberty Bodice which I was forced to wear until I was about ten, a strange unwieldy garment which always seemed to have a great many small rubber buttons that were impossible to handle - in fact I still wonder what their function was.    Later on the Roll On seen essential for some of my teenage years was somewhat similar – thick and ugly with a mind of its own and serving only to restrict normal body movements.  Back then females were strangely accepting of the fact that it was absolutely necessary to wear what was known as a Foundation Garment, armour-like constructions that had replaced the Stays that my mother and aunts wore and apparently were an improvement in that there was no need to lace them.  Some time later with a shudder of relief most females who hit their mid teens at the same time as me firmly discarded all such monstrosities and opted for the more aesthetically pleasing suspender belt preferably in scarlet or black.  I was warned that these new-fangled belts would do nothing to keep me warm in winter and I was certain to end up with pneumonia but of course I was no better at listening to such advice than my peers.  Meanwhile throughout all these adjustments in style males of a similar age and background remained happily in their y-fronts tattered and shabby though they might be.

 

   When pantihose burst upon the scene in 1959 the suspender belt itself rapidly became outmoded which caused some consternation in those who admitted to finding it the most alluring underwear development of their lifetime.  Those of us whose underwear ideology was always going to be firmly adhered to the twentieth century were anxious to let it go and explore more contemporary developments such as bikini style, hipsters, thongs, boy-shorts and g-strings.  I was one of those keen to go forward to some extent whilst viewing with suspicion items with the term Spanx in their description because of the immediate connotations with the liberty bodice.

 

  Sadly my overall progress was destined always to be much the same as it was during the great leap forward of the 1960s when we were all advised to burn our bras which was all very well if you did not need a bra in the first place.   This of course might be the real reason for an enduring lack of will to spend money on anything that has a hint of Undergarment about it.  

A Painful Christmas Past ......

It’s not unusual for parents to be blamed for that which defines and shapes their children’s lives for good or for bad.   Mothers were once at the forefront of this trend but now fathers are beginning to be seen as equally culpable.  My brother became strangely apprehensive each year as Christmas drew closer and as he grew old  he told me that he placed that feeling of foreboding squarely at the feet of our father who had so inconveniently chosen to die on December twelfth all those years ago.  Clearly our mother was unlikely to have recovered sufficiently from the shock of the event to make that or as far as he was concerned, any future Yuletides joyous occasions but common sense dictated that she couldn’t really be held responsible.

I only half agreed with him and in any case once I had children of my own I pulled all the stops out to make each Christmas, antipodean though they were, the happiest and most momentous possible.  It was at times exhausting, particularly during unrelentingly hot and humid summer days and nights but I worked at it with dogged determination in order that each should grow up with a store of happy memories.  And although I complained every year of all the work involved, of course I loved doing it!  

For all these reasons and many more besides I wanted to make Christmas 2019 the best one ever because Himself was totally aware it would be his last; he kept saying so.   I didn’t quite believe it because at that time I was still foolishly hopeful that something, somehow would emerge from the shadows to save him.  But naturally enough, as is invariably the case with terminal illness, that did not happen which I might have realized if I had only stopped to think the situation through and analyse the slim possibility of a last-minute cure.   I’ve never been good at noticing the obvious and my mother often commented observing that there’s none so blind as them that won’t see and looking meaningfully in my direction.  At the time of course I had no idea what she was talking about and in any case I was not the only recipient of this philosophical statement and at one time she said it several times daily.

To get back to around this time last year, it all started well enough.  We three Aucklanders were excited that Sinead was coming to spend the holiday with us because her love for her father has always spilled over joyously and affected each one of us.   We were delighted, excited and I even began to plan menus and wished I had prepared better and that there was time to make a Christmas Pudding that hid tokens, among them, somehow or other by some sorcery a silver threepenny piece.  Time was short though and instead, Sinead brought one with her from Fortnum & Mason.  It didn’t harbour the required coinage but when lit up with brandy did very well indeed for tradition.

The stage was set for a perfect celebration and even when it was suggested that we might in fact have to make room for a last minute totally unexpected guest our enthusiasm could not be wholly dampened.  To my mind it was a scenario most unlikely to eventuate and I based that conclusion on the fact that I had for over a year been attempting to elicit concern and interest in what Himself was going through from the errant family member in question without any success whatsoever, not even as much as a late night text.  Like it or not there lurk among our progeny the occasional one distinctly disinterested in any degree of loving care towards a parent suffering distress.  In the final analysis my thoughts mattered little as befits the position of a mother because Himself has always had a forgiving nature and was overjoyed to welcome he who had seemed lost to him.  My own mother would have nodded approvingly and noted that he was tickled pink and it would do him no end of good!

    I pushed aside the reservations I had nursed as to what might might in effect turn out to be a bad fairy at a christening and it was only later I fervently wished I could have been stronger.  This was because although it appeared that many of our previous parental misdemeanours had been abandoned now on his very Last Christmas, the one that was supposed to be perfect, it was quite unexpectedly revealed that Himself had in fact been a very poor father indeed.   One child had been forced to grow up in an environment of domestic violence and ongoing visits from law enforcement agencies.   That would have been bad enough but not content with that this heartless and neglectful father had exacted upon the unfortunate lad a particularly ritualistic form of sadistic physical punishment.

 There did not seem to be very much that could be said regarding such unanticipated accusations at the time but over the intervening months a lot of reflection and rumination has taken place during those hours when sleep is elusive.   And as Christmas 2020 draws inexorably closer I find that I am all too often lingering a year behind, thoughts whirling about those painful whimsical notions.   If only such fanciful ideas could have been avoided upon the occasion of that important Last Christmas.   They were made even more poignant by the fact that following his death some weeks ago the only photograph to be found in his wallet was that of his accuser, aged five or six half smiling and staring pensively at the camera.  

F i r s t W a k i n g

 

It’s undeniably the hardest time, no question of that, those first befuddled minutes after waking.   Initially always a feeling of normality punctuated only by irritating little question marks queuing up anxiously to unmask the slight unease that begins as just a murmur and rapidly becomes a scream.  That’s how memory works for some of us.  Long ago conversations come to mind - one with the friend from when the children were still young, memories of sitting in Phoebe’s kitchen in her smart new house in Epsom, chosen specifically because it was in the Right School Zone.   She had never spoken of the cot death before but on that day tears coursed down her cheeks unchecked as she described waking up each morning crying and initially wondering what those tears were for, then the unbearable pain of memory.   Back then I could only make what I hoped were the right noises because I had never suffered such a loss and had little understanding of the anguish she described.   Now of course I have a better handle where sorrow is concerned.

 

That time that directly follows waking can become darker than I ever could have imagined and so I make concentrated attempts to navigate a path forward and tell myself that empty aimless hours are entirely of my own making.   I should answer the phone and that is something I am still most unlikely to do unless of course it is someone I really want to speak with and now with ever present Caller ID the favoured few can be whisked to the top shelf of togetherness effortlessly.    Those who deliberately hide their identity are largely ignored even though that is something I do myself from time to time when I can remember the required code.  To be completely honest the landline rings less and less as days go by.  I should abandon it completely and thus save money. 

 

By midday I usually begin to feel a little less despairing and note that it is generally during the mornings when I pace about the place talking to him, berating him for leaving me at a time when I so clearly still needed him.   How could he do that?   And by afternoon I am once more consumed with self-reproach for the wrongs I did him.  Why did I make so much fuss when he piled up cushions around him and never ever returned them to their original positions?    When he ate handfuls of sultanas at midnight and invariably trod half a dozen across the kitchen tiles?   When he held firmly onto the TV remote month after month so that I barely understood its most basic functions?  No need to ask the questions because I know why – that self-absorbed streak of mine has always been there, no doubt about that.   I am at this very moment compiling a list of those things I most regret.  

V e s p e r s

 

Like many children of similar age and ilk to myself I was brought up to say my prayers although overall our household would not have described itself as particularly religious for the times.   It was simply that most of us leaned closer to organized religion in those days and largely we were aware of which spiritual groups our friends and neighbours favoured.    A great many were what we then loosely termed Church of England although my cousin Pat was heard to proclaim on more than one occasion that in fact we were each and every one of us Church of England whether we liked it or not because that’s where we lived and nobody could argue with that.   The fact that our family was firmly Roman Catholic and she and her mother were at least arbitrary Mass attendees made little difference to her logic on this matter.  To be honest Pat was not a particularly cogent thinker.   But to be totally fair to her we were back then a community that felt it necessary to attach itself to more precise views and attitudes than would be deemed necessary today.   For instance we were expected to take definite Sides when it came to events like the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race each Spring and we did so with enthusiasm though none of us had ever witnessed it except glimpses from time to time on Pathe News and had little idea of the complexities of it.  What we did know was that we either supported the Light Blues (Cambridge) or Dark Blues (Oxford) and we stayed that way.  The boys might even organize fights in support of their team.   Considering that none of us were ever likely to have anything to do with either university in retrospect there seems little common sense in all the excitement the race generated.   Little wonder then that our religious affiliations were demonstrated equally ardently.   

 

A scant few of our neighbours resolutely described themselves as Chapel and had aunts and uncles with exotic names like Bronwen and Rhys who spoke with funny accents and were disapproved of for some reason by my mother.   A few were involved in The Salvation Army known as The Sallies where the men learned to play musical instruments to amuse us with carol concerts at Christmastime and were wholeheartedly approved of.   Then there were the Baptists and the Methodists who seemed interchangeable at times each running Sunday Schools to which all local children were welcome.   A mere handful of residents identified themselves as followers of Judaism and none of these lived in the streets around York Road, favouring instead the smarter houses in Robinia Avenue or even those in London Road near the Library.  Well who wouldn’t?    My grandmother said that you could always trust the Jews to fall on their feet and rise to the top like double cream.   I had little idea what she meant by that and she wasn’t the kind of grandparent who went in for undue explanations so I didn’t ask.   But I did begin to realise, as we all did, that because Adolf Hitler and his cronies had hated the Jews with a vengeance and we hated him, we were obliged to support them.   At school Billy Elliot who was known for being what my mother called quick on the uptake, announced that it was the Jews who had killed Jesus and looked around to see what effect this had on us.   We were as one quite silent, exchanging apprehensive glances and Mr Clarke said to get back to reading The Golden Fleece and not to be so inane Billy because nobody could be sure of that and anyway nobody thinks you’re clever.    I did think he was clever but I wondered what inane meant.

 

Followers of Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism were generally absent from the ranks of the Northfleet underclasses at the time and years were to pass before I became aware of any.   There was certainly no local building known as a Temple and in any case that term in itself we only associated with New Testament stories about the life of Jesus which we came across on a regular basis when we lined up for Sunday School.    It would have been unheard of back then for anyone to describe themselves as a Pagan or even realise that Paganism had anything to do with spiritual beliefs.  Few admitted to Atheism or Agnosticism primarily because although such beliefs existed they were not something anyone tended to boast about and perhaps just a bit like harbouring divorce or illegitimacy in the family.   We were completely aware that unpleasant family facts were better ignored than discussed.

 

The principal spiritual camps were decidedly Catholic or Anglican both as familiar as Christopher Robin himself to us at least as far as bedtime prayers were concerned.  The two groups were also proudly different and easily identified by their local schools where large groups of students cheerfully despised each other and created offensive couplets and verses with which to incite local hostility.   We had a vague idea that the school adjacent to Northfleet High Street known as The Board School was not affiliated with either church but were ignorant as to how this idea actually worked and had little will to find out.   My friend Molly, from a less devout family than my own said that in her experience there was bound to be a church of some kind lurking behind the Board School no matter how little importance appeared to be placed upon it.

 

By the time I was three years old I had confidently learned The Lord’s Prayer, later observing that my version differed only minimally from that tripping from the tongues of the Anglican children.   Fast on its heels came a firm grasp upon Hail Mary then Matthew, Mark, Luke & John and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.    The only one of these verses unfamiliar to my classmates at St Botolph’s was that pertaining to Mary, Mother of God because Protestant schools did not place as much emphasis upon her place in the Holy Family as we Catholics did.

 

As I became a more confident rote learner our household vespers themselves became more protracted.   Praying was not something that I disliked because I assumed that the ritual of kneeling in prayer before sleeping was simply what everyone did.   In those early days my mother supervised to make sure that my interpretation of wording was correct and I can only assume that surprising as it later seemed to me, her own mother had done the same which would have been quite an undertaking with the many children involved.    It was most important to my mother that there were should be no mondegreens.  I think my only one was the ubiquitous ` blessed art thou amongst women’ which for generations of Roman Catholic five and six years olds was so easily distorted into ` blessed are now the monks swimming’.   I nightly conjured up teams of monks all robed and minus hair and seeming intent upon contesting for an Olympic team.     Later my brother was to deftly turn `Jesus makes us fishers of men’ into `Jesus makes us vicious old men’ which he declined to abandon for some years.   The accompanying images in this case were quite menacing.  

 

Old habits die hard and it was years before I completely discarded bedtime prayers although I neglected to kneel on a regular basis once I reached my teens and failed to teach my own children any of the routines that my mother taught me.    The end of day observance itself I conformed to until at least my mid-twenties.   This was most probably because I was in the habit of tacking on to the end of the ritual particular entreaties to God to look after members of my family and of course to take very good care of me!   Even when a growing doubt as to the actual existence of a Christian deity trickled through my thoughts on the matter I was never able to totally desert the idea.   A basic belief in the hereafter coupled with the presence of a genial creator has always seemed like a harmless enough notion to me though I do find myself wondering how many of today’s children are familiar with evening prayers or have any thoughts at all on the idea of a Divine Being.  As for myself I am still hovering on the fence of debate as to the existence of God – though I definitely don’t Not believe!        

Is It Normal.......?

 

It is now six long weeks since Himself departed this life.   I wish I could say I was becoming accustomed to his absence but I can’t.   I’m still of the opinion that snatching him away before I had actually properly absorbed the fact that he was terminally ill was unreasonable, unwarranted.   I was always hopeful that something, somehow would save him but of course that wasn’t going to happen.  Is it normal to be so naïve?  

 

Sometimes when I walk down the stairs, for a moment or two thinking of something else, just for a milli-second I fancy that I see him sitting in his usual place, hunched over a book and I am stopped in my tracks.   There follows a searing flash of pain because it is just a momentary illusion and I remind myself that the self same whim followed the death of a long ago cat, Heidi, who always sat beneath the Feijoa tree in Kohimarama – and continued to do so in the months that followed her demise.   Is it normal to imagine things?

 

At times I am eclipsed on all sides by well-meaning people, good friends who want to help me and are undeterred by my rudeness and lack of response.   I still resist answering the phone because largely I just wish to be left alone.   I don’t know how to decline kind offers and company.  It seems preferable to simply fail to engage than have to explain.  If and when I recover from the worst of this onslaught of misery some of them might still be there and willing to re-engage.   I know that many will not and am surprised at how little I care.   Is this lack of concern normal?

 

I admit to cherry picking the occasional company of a select few and surprise myself with the choice that seems to defy rhyme or reason.   Though communing with those who demand little is easy and comfortable, whereas others can unexpectedly provoke endless memories of times shared – little pools of tears.  And my reservoir of sorrow grows and extends into a future that seems bleak and black.   Is this lack of hope normal?

 

It is as ever, comforting that in the final months of his life Himself was supported and loved by the presence of two of our three children.  I could not have managed without them.  I now have to wonder if my present level of despair is because that time was not as perfect as it should have been – because he was not loved unreservedly as a good father should be and as he deserved to be.   Are these feelings of bitterness normal?

.....Only Because of the Lockdown

 

…. It was definitely only on account of the Lockdown and it had certainly been a long time since anyone asked my opinion on the possible consequences of home education.  Under such circumstances as an ex-devotee you want to display that particular concept in its very best light because who wants to be seen as part of an old fashioned outmoded idea?   I was glad Andrea was there as well although she wasn’t strictly in the same category as me because she had always followed an exacting programme dictated by the Church the family were involved with.   There were times when I had envied her.   No wondering what next Monday morning would bring for her – the plan was there laid out in easy to understand language that even Emmanuel the six year old would understand.     Mathematics followed by Creative Writing no matter how much you objected.   I wondered if my more haphazard approach had in fact been responsible for what some might politely describe as a touch of irresponsibility in at least one of my own students.

 

A young woman called Sara asked if we thought that the lack of normal socializing opportunities resulted in some students developing unusual social responses in years to come.  Andrea said she sometimes wondered if her older son’s lack of empathy for those who should be closest to him was a direct consequence of not being part of the normal classroom hurly burly.    He had apparently shown little concern when his sister was knocked off her bike and suffered a fractured skull, at times when he rang home not even asking how she was faring.   There followed at least one gasp of surprise so I decided to opt out of giving either an example or an opinion myself.  

 

Margot who had organized the discussion said in her view empathy or the lack of it had more to do with who you were as an individual and nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not you were required to attend school.   A young woman of her acquaintance had taken three months to contact the family of a cousin she had grown up with, killed in a road traffic accident.   And she, apparently, had attended the very best school in the area and was even deputy Head Girl at one stage.   Andrea said well maybe that was correct, some people were simply totally self-obsessed and then she mentioned Donald Trump.   Judy said well he surely hadn’t been home schooled and Andrea agreed but added that he did appear to be rather more than mildly narcissistic and definitely socially askew.    Just the sort of individual who would fail to ask after the health of an ailing sibling.    We discussed other prominent home schoolers – the Queen and Princess Margaret, Agatha Christie and possibly Greta Thunberg although nobody could quite recall if she attended school or not.    

 

And instead of outlining various home curriculums and the advantages of the more regimented and Christian based as opposed to those that followed the child’s interests, we found ourselves vigorously discussing aspects of mental health.   Was it possible that home education at times triggered undesirable syndromes that may have lain dormant within the more random structures of the local primary school?    The group ended up equally divided with some vocally supporting the necessity for freedom to educate your own children your own way.   Others were convinced that the cosseting, cherishing and sheltering of the home schooled child resulted at times in the kind of human beings who are better avoided. 

 

The underlying problem though seemed to be that it was impossible to predict how any child might develop because it rather depended upon how they coped with the various problems life threw at their feet.   Some seemed unable to deal with quite minor troubles and wanted to blame others because their lives were not perfect becoming ever more inward looking.   But could these traits really be blamed on home schooling?    Something about that conclusion has never sat well with me – but then I was very much a Home Schooling Missionary way back then.  

Time to Bring Back a Reign of Terror

 

Philippa agrees with me as far as attention in hospitals and care homes is concerned – at least I think she does.   She and I have had a considerable and concentrated raft of experience in recent months and for her it’s not over yet.   We both agree that you simply cannot fault the staff because they are absolutely faultless.   Remember how years ago in the bad old days when hospitals still had Matrons and Staff Nurses how those wholesome caregivers turned into fiends and monsters as they climbed the career ladder? - how over time they terrified all in their path as they strode the hospital corridors?   Well it’s most definitely not that way these days because all and sundry – clients and colleagues alike are treated with undiluted sweetness and love.  It's as if the fundamental ideals of the 1960s have at long last crept into every corner of the health services.

Back in the bad old days when patients were not yet described as they would be when visiting their accountant, family members would certainly not dare to ask for something out of the ordinary on their behalf (water rather than orange juice, butter rather than olive oil spread) for fear of withering glances followed by a firm No!    All that has changed and today you can make any request imaginable and it will largely be agreed with.   Not a crushing glance in sight because everyone positively beams goodwill.   Even the timbre of the voices has changed and the tones of assent are reassuringly low and non-threatening.  A great deal of the time the speech is so soft that it’s quite hard to understand what in fact is actually being communicated but at least you can be sure that it is definitely not hostile.  Clearly entire staff bases have undergone more than one training course entitled Be Good & Be Kind or Spread Love Not War.  

The result of this is that becoming a patient is an immediately pleasant experience in the 2020s though all this sweetness and accord comes at a price.   I might be more anxious and frankly neurotic than most of course but it seems to me that one of the more worrying side effects is that it is easier than it once was to become seriously malnourished and at worst simply slip away via hunger if you should be unfortunate enough to remain in a modern hospital ward for more than a week or two.   Nothing wrong with the food because these days you actually get a menu and there are a range of tempting choices.  The problem seems to be that it is often placed just out of the reach of the recipient who is destined to simply remain tantalised by the wafting aroma.   Thirty minutes later it is whisked away by a smiling aide.    Philippa suggests that if this really is the case throughout the system and she’s by no means convinced because she doesn’t jump to conclusions quite as readily as I do, then the trick is to arrange for a family member to visit at meal times.  Someone who can do the job of those 1950s and 1960s nurses and ensure that bowls of soup actually reach their intended target.  Well who can argue with that?    It was disquieting recently to observe that an elderly man no longer able to swallow his Morphine pills was given ham sandwiches for lunch regardless.   After several complaints and days later nourishing looking soups began to arrive ….. and the only problem that remained was that the plastic lids were almost impossible for the hale and hearty to remove.  The seriously ailing had no chance at all!

Very disturbing to note that often those on a regime of intense pain relief like Morphine, which is likely to increase thirst, have mounting difficulty accessing drinks as they become weaker.  Even water poses problems as time after time requests are either not actioned by the smiling helpers or, equally frustratingly, when they do arrive they are once again placed just beyond the sick person’s reach.   More alarming perhaps are the jugs – far too large and unwieldy particularly for the terminally ill to manage.  A family member needs to be on hand most of the time in such cases. 

Most concerning of all as far as I could see were the number of requests both the trivial and the critical that were simply ignored and toppled off the radar.   It would of course be far easier to tackle this problem if people did not smile quite so much and nod assent quite so readily, an alarming degree of passive resistance.   Even when the specialist himself recommended that the tardy Morphine swallower should now receive pain relief via injection it seemed extraordinarily difficult to get this directive actioned by the cheery and genial assistant staff.  

Call me old fashioned but I cannot help thinking that life for both patients and their extended families was a great deal easier and more straightforward in the bad old days of the wicked Ward Sister’s Reign of Terror. 

LOOKING AT LIFE EVENTS

 

A death in the family stops most of us in our tracks and compels us to examine our values – especially the death of a life partner, and much more especially perhaps the death of a child.  That’s what Georgina and I were discussing yesterday when we met at long last in our usual Eastridge Mall café.  Yes indeed I am now most definitely making real attempts to ensure that normal life resumes.

However, none of us should be surprised to find that the more significant of life’s events have a habit of forcing us to stop in our tracks to scrutinise what is actually important to us.    Remember how the birth of a first baby suddenly made aspects of our parents’ nurturing skills seem almost comprehensible, their old-fashioned ideas strangely more acceptable?    That’s not to say we were not going to be much better parents than they were – of course we were!   Not always as easy as we thought it might be though.

It's only as our children grow into adults that we fully realise how effective or not our particular blend of rearing skills has been.   Have they developed into appreciative, loving human beings, capable of taking on adult responsibilities, making sensible decisions and facing up to the various slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?    Some need more time than others to cope with problems and will not be adequately armed against misfortune until they hit middle age. Others remain so inward looking and self-obsessed they are never able to make the transition needed - so concerned with themselves that it unquestionably takes your breath away - so unlike their siblings in every aspect that you are forced to stop and wonder where they came from.

Not so very long ago the poorly educated in the community blamed the moon for such offspring as these because the moon could be held responsible for all manner of ills - or the more fanciful might decide that somewhere along the way the child had been whisked away and replaced with a changeling.   My Grandmother was strangely and unexpectedly pragmatic and said she was inclined to blame what she termed the new-fangled idea of going into hospitals and nursing homes to have babies because you could never be quite certain that you would come home with the right one.    There is of course something to be said for this.

On the way home I found my thoughts straying to changelings and inadvertent birthing ward baby swaps.   The advent of DNA would of course provide a cast-iron resolution for the latter – the former dilemma would perhaps be not as simple to solve. 

Grief

 

It is not possible to adequately prepare for the loss of a life partner, not feasible to plan ahead for the distress of the first days and weeks, how best those early morning moments of searing anguish should be coped with.  It is impractical to devise strategies for dealing with the little islands of regret where bare selfishness and self-absorption is laid out for all to witness. The only tangible comfort comes from those who have recently suffered similarly.

I find myself reaching out across the ether to Molly my warmly recalled very first friend and her responses fill the little holes that grief is making.  And a call from Alison, one of the first people I met in this strange new country of nearly fifty years ago brings something almost like a moment of bliss simply because her recent widowhood means she recognises the shock and pain.

Almost as bad as the loss of Himself who was so wholeheartedly loved are the well-meaning offers of help that cause me to frequently decline to answer either landline or mobile.   Sometimes, caught by surprise, I attempt to explain but my anxiously hovering helpers clearly feel such clarification doesn’t apply to them – persistent offers of meals out, beach walks, coffee meetings tumble from their tongues.  Much worse, however, are those determined to `drop by’, `pop in’, to see me and I then whilst fighting rising irritation I search for words that decline these perturbing suggestions but don’t sound too rude, too dismissive.   I shudder at the idea of visitors, of making civil conversation together with cups of tea, of half smiling and wondering just how long they are going to stay, when I will be rid of them, when I will simply be able to return to the security of wallowing in misery.  

   Philippa, currently fighting her own battles with a beloved husband’s serious accident and illness, points out how strangely comforting are those messages of support that state there is no need to respond – just know we are here if you need us, and thinking of you!   How right she is – no need to turn down walks and talks and tea and picnicking, no necessity to couch refusals in a way that will not offend, no need for exasperation with the one or two who feel especially special and simply cannot accept that they too are being kicked to the kerb.

    I have been more satisfied than was necessary that the Virus made it difficult for family to return for a funeral – so none took place, simply a cremation and the ashes returned to me.  I have not had to gather the courage required to face all those intent upon telling me the extent of their sorrow to know of my loss. 

    I am content to simply consider my own wretchedness, to listen to Menuhin and Huberman and early recordings of La Traviata, to contemplate the poetry to Dylan Thomas and Wilfred Owen, to talk on the telephone to Sinead, drink endless cups of coffee with Patrick – and from time to time talk to Himself via his ashes.  And I wonder if somewhere, somehow, some way he actually hears me.  

The Wisdom of Challenging Wokeness

    Carmella is firmly of the opinion that the time has come for us to be more vocal should we find ourselves objecting to something a more Woke friend might have to say about an issue. Judith said it's all very well saying something like that but as far as she was concerned it would depend very much upon the issue under discussion and she for one wasn't going to voice an opinion about tearing down slave trader statues in Bristol.   After a second or two she added `or any statue in Bristol for that matter.'  Marilyn said nothing at all and simply sipped on her gin and tonic.  I think I said something about not all statues in Bristol being likely to be associated with the slave trade but not all that loudly either and in any case they weren't really listening.

    Carmella can always be relied upon to be what used to be called Feisty and is now probably called something else.  As Judith pointed out in an email conversation later that evening, she successfully managed to get herself arrested during that peaceful march in 1979.  Neither of us could remember what we had been marching about and later Marilyn said she couldn't recall marching at all. It was Judith's firmly held opinion that it simply didn't do these days to be too outspoken where some topics were concerned because people got upset and if they got really upset you might find yourself having to defend a point of view that should never have been expressed in the first place.   `Better by far that some opinions are kept to yourself,' she said and added,  `like it used to be years ago when we didn't talk about politics or religion'.  

    All of us could clearly remember being told way back in the time when it was perfectly acceptable to hold an opinion that differed perhaps from the majority that even so certain subjects were definitely taboo, not for general examination, to be kept to ourselves.   By and large it saved a great deal of the angst that went alongside picking over and discussing such matters.  I couldn't help forcefully reiterating that even so it was still acceptable back in those halcyon days to hold views that Society did not approve of - you didn't actually get persecuted for it did you?   

    It was Carmella who ventured that the age we now lived in was not dissimilar to that faced by the unfortunate accused Witches of the sixteenth century.  Once suspected it was a bloody nightmare to extricate yourself from the allegation and if you were our age, lived alone, grew your own vegetables and owned a black cat you might as well give up all hope of anyone believing in your innocence.  

    We decided upon a second round of liquid sustenance and it was Carmella's turn to buy.  Whilst she was in the throes of ordering we largely agreed that her ideas were not always entirely sensible.   I think it was Judith who added that Wokeness itself was bound to pass - eventually.  Witch trials did in the end!  

WHAT ON EARTH WAS I THINKING ...... ?

 You would have thought that at my great age and considering the vast and varied experience of life I have stumbled in and out of that I would have had more sense than to enter into a social media spat with someone - well wouldn't you?   But clearly I have learned nothing over the years and am incapable of taking advice.  My family would say they've been pointing that out for years but predictably I've never been able to absorb any part of their combined wisdom.   

No - I still know best!   With hindsight I have just the sneakiest feeling that she who challenged me, and `challenge' is not really the most apt word, had a great deal more experience of social media combat than me.  She proceeded to tear me apart with admirable precision, pursuing me relentlessly over hours.  I spent a great deal of time looking up definitions of the terms she was using as she repeatedly accused me of `Gaslighting' her and advised me that this wasn't my `first rodeo'.  Despite Googling through the small hours I'm still uncertain what it was I was actually doing to her because I rather thought that she was the perpetrator but there you go!

How often have I advised others to simply ignore verbal insults because sticks and stones break bones but words can't hurt?   Well I won't be saying anything like that again for a while.  Insults and abuse from behind a keyboard, coming from an unknown adversary are indeed strangely hurtful and I am at a loss to understand why. Little wonder that teenagers exposed to the same cyber vitriol find themselves completely unable to cope with it.   I can only repeat - what on earth was I thinking to get involved in the argument in the first place?  I should have listened to those who Know Better.  

The New Blogger Isn't Easy .......

Try as I might I am finding the new version of Blogger almost impossible to navigate - this might be because I am a slow learner of course which at my age isn't all that surprising.  But how the hell do you add a paragraph break?

It should be simpler than it is.....

Daphne & The Winklepickers

I’ve been thinking about winklepickers for weeks now and wondering when it was I first developed that longing for them that became all consuming. If I had only known that yearning would decades into the future lead to the painful problem I now have with my left foot would I have opted for more sensible footwear? I think not to be honest. Looking back I blame Daphne Davis though of course she was quite unaware of her culpability. I first noticed those shoes of hers on the London-bound platform of Gravesend station in the mid 1950s. She wore them whilst waiting for the 9.05 train. I was of course late that morning because my train had traditionally always been the 8.10. They were the most extreme and shiny black winklepickers that I had yet witnessed on a foot – rather than in a magazine! Well she definitely didn’t come by them in Gravesend. Worn with her black duffel coat and armed with her copy of Bonjour Tristesse she looked sensational. To be totally honest I had for some years admired Daphne Davis rather more than she deserved and that all began when we both entered a speech competition at Wombwell Hall which she won with Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt. Elizabeth Johnstone came second and I’ve now quite forgotten her piece just as I’ve forgotten most other things about her except that she had dancing lessons in Northfleet High Street and was described as Fine Boned & Delicate by her mother to mine in the queue at Ripleys one morning. I came third and my poem was The Song of the Little Hunter by Rudyard Kipling. Well it’s better than not being placed at all I suppose but oh how I hated that piece and re-reading it just a few minutes ago I’m still not overly keen. I’m not sure if we made the choices ourselves or if they were suggested by Miss K Smith but I cannot honestly believe she whose saintliness at the time was great would suggest that particularly ghastly piece for me. I would have done much, much better with Leigh Hunt – better than Daphne I’m not afraid to state but I won’t labour that point further. Suffice to say she won and I didn’t and from what I remember she didn’t even have any ambition to go on the stage whilst I of course did. In fact at that point in time I was at the very zenith of stage-struckness. It was all most frustrating especially when I considered that the only theatre I had ever set foot in was The Chatham Empire to see the annual pantomime some years previously. I think it was Mother Goose. Anyway none of that matters very much because the point of all this is not the outcome of the Wombwell Hall speech competition and whether or not Miss K Smith made an error of judgement in the choices, but the winklepicker shoes. Despite the quite natural animosity I still held for Daphne I felt compelled to compliment her on them. Well, after all, I very much wanted to know where she’d bought them. She seemed slightly alarmed rather than hostile and said she had found them in a shop in Kings Road, Chelsea near where she now worked because now she had a simply fantastic job and she wasn’t required to start until ten am each day. She waxed lyrical about her new boss who was young and good looking and told her that he admired her style. It was quite difficult to bring her attention back to shoe shops but when I managed to she said it had sold theatrical footwear and her cousin had told her about it. It was a bit like that famous dance shop in Covent Garden. Her cousin had been considering buying some but she was after all saving up to get married and thought they were too expensive. Daphne was lucky because she waited for the sale. Later I thought she must be referring to Anello & Davide founded as a theatrical footwear company in the 1920s and whose storefront in Drury Lane I stopped by regularly. I only found the place when I was doing one of my usual walk-pasts of London theatres and it was directly opposite the Theatre Royal. When you don’t have the opportunity to visit theatres all that frequently and they are after all going to be your future workplaces, you can at least walk past them. How on earth did Daphne Davis though, come by a cousin who frequented glamorous shoe shops? And was it possible that Anello & Davide had a branch in Chelsea which wasn’t a place I went to very often, mostly because there was no convenient tube stop. Second to my obsession with theatres that I did not venture into on a regular basis was my obsession with the London underground network which I did. Daphne wanted to talk more about her new job but I asked how her sister was and she seemed to think it was an odd question. It wasn’t that odd as far as I was concerned and if Daphne had not won the speech competition I wouldn’t even be giving the sister whose name I’ve forgotten, a thought. The fact was that the sister and I had shared a boyfriend a year or so previously. His name was Donald and I cannot say that I was all that taken with him apart from the fact that he was quite posh in that he’d been to some minor public school in Sussex. He was to be honest just a bit dim but he had a sensationally good looking brother called John who I was hoping to attract at some stage. During our Sunday afternoon dates over a 1950s style cappuccino in the then very popular coffee bar in Harmer Street Donald rather unwisely confessed the details of his double life with Daphne’s sister. It was she he took to The Majestic on Saturday afternoons, never in the evening because he had to be home by ten. The other Davis Girl was the reason why he was never able to meet with me on Saturdays! To say I felt affronted is an understatement and even after all these years I still feel just a tinsy bit injured considering the facts of the situation. I mean – how could he? Daphne’s success via Leigh Hunt meant that I quite naturally harboured a fair amount of resentment towards the entire Davis family – well you’re bound to aren’t you? However it is with some horror I now recall insisting that docile Donald make a choice between us and what’s more choose me. As he was extremely biddable he did so, even tolerating me standing over him whilst he told the poor girl that he was not going to turn up for their next date at The Majestic because he much preferred me. I felt I needed to be by his side just in case he told her some story about me being the daughter of his father’s bank manager whom he was compelled to entertain because of a loan to pay off family gambling debts. That’s what I would have done myself had I been Donald, but of course I wasn’t. She looked startled, quite confused and annoyingly quite a lot like her sister. She’d probably also be a speech competition winner given half a chance. Nevertheless I often wondered what she actually made of it all though of course under the circumstances I was doing her a favour – who would want a boyfriend like Donald? But to get back to Daphne that particular day as we waited together for the 9.05. When my mind drifted back to her she was talking about her black duffel coat yet another Kings Road, Chelsea purchase she told me. I said she looked terrific and asked if the book came from the Kings Road too but she said no, she’d bought it in Foyles in Charing Cross Road. I wanted to ask if she’d actually read it but thought that might be impolite so I didn’t.

Appreciating the Medway Cottage Homes

Although there is no record of the actual level of interest in education my paternal grandparents might have had, in the long run it mattered little because my father was fortunate enough to have been received into the Chatham Workhouse at a tender age along with his baby sister. This wasn’t nearly as bad as it might sound and in fact it was not by any means his first experience of the place. Strictly speaking the term Workhouse had for several years been replaced by Poor Law Institution and although those entering had previously been known as Paupers they were now referred to by the more up to date and cutting edge term Poor Persons. None of this of course was of much interest to my four year old father.

His mother Kate displayed an enduring level of neglect that totally eclipsed the worst excesses of Old Nan Constant, her mothering being liberally peppered with police charges, prison sentences and accusations of prostitution. Her husband Charles had abandoned her because the two youngest of their eight children having been conceived whilst he was away at sea were unlikely to be his. The rest of his family, all living in the Medway area were supportive of this stance. By the time Kate came before the Stipendiary Magistrate at Chatham Police Court in November 1913 her mistreatment of the two children remaining in her care was described as the worst case of neglect the NSPCC had seen in a very long time. So shocking were the details they were widely reported in local newspapers and the children swiftly removed to the safety of what all the locals still called The Workhouse. Their mother was sentenced to six months hard labour. This turned out to be a very good outcome for Bernard Joseph who ended up in the long term care of the Medway Cottage Homes and was not to see his mother again for more than thirty years. Unfortunately all contact with his baby sister, Elizabeth Mary was also severed and it is not known what became of her although she may well have been adopted. Although when she learned of his history my mother was appalled by the fact that he had ended up in institutional care my father always considered it had been a stabilising influence in his life and very quickly came to believe that from an educational viewpoint Nellie and her sisters had been dealt a much worse hand overall.

The Cottage Homes in Pattens Lane, Chatham had been purpose built in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a small self-contained village in which seriously disadvantaged children lived in groups of ten to twenty each with a house mother, boys separately from girls. They had their own school on site together with a chapel, sports facilities and training workshops for metalwork and carpentry. All pupils learned to swim, there was opportunity to learn to play musical instruments and from time to time there were outings to Broadstairs and Southend funded by local church groups. It is unlikely that any of these opportunities would have ever been forthcoming under the chaotic maternal care of Kate Hendy.

Warm clothing and sturdy boots were provided along with an adequate supply of food which was generally plain except at Christmas. As they grew older obliging and hungry lads like Bernard Joseph Hendy volunteered as scullery assistants which meant that from time to time an extra bread and jam or pudding ration might be purloined. Any kitchen related duties would invariably afford the young worker such perks as sole charge of stale bread discarded from the Friday bread pudding making. This task came with instructions to break it into suitably sized pieces to be managed by the four, five and six year olds who were to distribute it to the evening gathering of squabbling pigeons. Not all of the bread reached the birds of course and the untidy assembly grew more raucous and clamorous by the minute as it disappeared into the mouths of the youngest boys. Bernard Joseph enjoyed the shiver of munificence as walked among them ensuring that each child had a portion of stale bread for dissemination. This was his quasi-family, these small children pseudo-siblings. He enjoyed his role as a virtual big brother and he quite liked his house mother.

Discipline at the Cottage Homes was definitely firm but if you kept your head down, as all sensible lads resolved to do, its worst excesses could be avoided. It was not wise to allow yourself to become a bed wetter or to draw undue attention with smart remarks that made other boys laugh because then you surely would find life could be unpleasant. It was also a good idea to pay attention to school work and offer to tidy classrooms. A helpful attitude meant you were invariably one of those allowed first choice of reading books and might even result in your name coming to the top of the list for visits to museums or to the Pantomime. Quite apart from that good behaviour earned you much coveted proper swimming lessons and meant that the small but regular fortnightly pocket money allowance was never reduced by fines that so plagued the miscreants. Life was by no means unpleasant for a boy who kept his wits about him and had learned to get by without a surfeit of parental love and affection in his life.

In fact the austere and disciplined learning environment with its over-abundance of books by Charles Dickens and classroom walls covered with maps of the world suited my father admirably. He never tired of examining those fortunate areas of the known world operating within the confines of the Great British Empire and he vowed that in the mysterious future he would travel widely. Over the years within the relative comfort of these predictable environs he learned rapidly and with ease, was always top in Mental Arithmetic, rarely made spelling mistakes and usually had his socks pulled up to his knees and his boots polished to perfection. For just over a decade he did not rub shoulders much with outside children, those described as Ordinary with mothers and fathers and real siblings neither did he appear to have any memory whatsoever of any of his birth family. For him they were good years.

He had got on as a Cottage Homes boy very well overall but nonetheless something happened to rupture this equanimity when he was thirteen or fourteen years old because it was then he damaged his unblemished record of excellent behaviour and ran away vowing never to return. Unfortunately he chose not to share the details of this most exciting story with me and if he did so with my mother she chose likewise. He set off apparently after lights out with a bread roll wrapped in a handkerchief and two shillings of laboriously saved pocket money. This was revealed to me by my brother after a great deal of genealogical research in more recent years and may or may not have been completely accurate. His aim had been to reach London and find a job, preferably as a motor cycle mechanic which was something he knew little about but was exceedingly keen to learn. How he made his way to the outer reaches of North London to a modest mock Tudor estate is not known but somehow or other he did. An over excited ten year old boy called Stephen Woodman, the only child and son of a ledger clerk, hid him in the garden shed at 29 Methuan Road, Edgware just beyond the neat rows of climbing beans for almost a week. He supplied him with food stolen from his unknowingly generous mother’s pantry and desperately wanted to join him on the next part of the adventure, promising to steal him a map of the area with perhaps clear indication of the way to Wales. It was whilst searching through his father’s possessions in near darkness late at night for such a map that he was discovered and unable to control his excitement any longer blurted out to his startled parents that there was a runaway boy in the shed.

And so it was that my father was returned to Chatham quite quickly to the disappointment of both boys. Young Stephen, greatly impressed by Bernard Joseph’s resolution and mettle stayed in touch with him for years afterwards, sending regular letters to the Cottage Homes and was eventually to be known to me and my brother as Uncle Steve. It wasn’t until after the death of my father that he revealed the story of how their relationship began.

When Bernard Joseph reached the obligatory age for leaving the care of the Homes a job was found for him at the cement works in Northfleet together with a relative to lodge with, traced apparently without undue problem. The first two weeks of his Board was to be financed by one of the funds established for the purpose. His older brother Walter Francis Hendy now married and living at 119 Waterdales was deemed a suitable landlord and my father moved in without delay sharing a room with several teenage nephews. It was then that he began to save for a motorbike and reclaim his heritage by embracing Catholicism.
The details of his progress through life over the next thirteen or fourteen years are unknown but on a Saturday evening in early 1939 he was taken by a group of motor cycle enthusiasts to The Jolly Farmers in Crayford where he met my mother and two of her sisters. By that time he was the proud owner of an Ariel Red Hunter cycle that boasted only one previous very careful owner. He was also a regular Sunday Mass attendee at St John the Evangelist Church in Gravesend. He was undeniably anxious at the age of twenty nine to settle down and create a family of his own. Nellie Constant, unmarried, demure and associated with the Right Church seemed ideal and in any case it was about time he was getting on with it.

Urged on by her sisters who all agreed marriage would be good for her and she was lucky to be asked at the great age of thirty-one my mother did not hesitate for long although she did have doubts. The main obstacle as far as she was concerned was that he wasn’t a patch on her Fred but Mag said she was bound to think that but she shouldn’t let it stand in the way of good sense. Her Fred would have wanted her to find somebody else after all these years and it could even be that he was looking down and had directed Bern her way. Nellie didn’t entirely agree with this considering it a fanciful notion but she didn’t argue too much either because when all was said and done he did seem a nice enough chap and nobody could accuse him of being a drinker for instance. A single pint once a week or perhaps two if really pushed was quite enough for him, nothing like Mag’s Harold or Maud’s George who both drank like fish. He didn’t use bad language either and if you only heard the language used by some that she didn’t care to name it would make your hair curl, it really would. So to be fair she could do a lot worse.

So her brother Edgar booked an available space with the priest at St Mary of the Crays for Monday 7th August at 11am, he and two Constant sisters agreeing to be witnesses. The fourth witness was a cousin from the Hendy side called Arthur May. My mother wore a cream satin dress and carried a spray of orange blossom and everybody said she looked a picture. Four of her sisters were bridesmaids in pale blue satin, Rose, Phyllis, Violet and Freda. She hadn’t really wanted to have Freda if the truth be known but Old Nan was adamant and Mag said don’t upset the apple cart, it never pays. Mag’s little Margaret was the flower girl and Maud’s Desmond was the page boy, both in cream with blue sashes and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt. To be fair little Margaret was always a well behaved child but Maud spoilt her kids rotten and Desmond could be a real tartar at times and if he was hers he would get what he deserved and that was a fact. That day, however, he was as good as gold. She had to admit it, she’d definitely enjoyed the ceremony and the fuss involved in the taking of photos and the wedding breakfast in the hall had been a real treat, everybody said so. It had been a most agreeable day though not the happiest in her life because that had been the day she and Poor Fred got engaged but nevertheless a good day. Everything had gone well all things considered and it was only the future that really concerned her.

At some stage in those early days of marriage she took courage and discussed with her new husband topics that perhaps she should have raised earlier. The most significant by far were her grave reservations regarding some aspects of Catholicism and she took pains to emphasise that she thought the teaching nuns to be particularly cruel and that she would be reluctant to release any future children into their care. A Roman Catholic wedding was one thing and was over and done with before you could say Jack Robinson and as Mag quite rightly pointed out, upsetting the apple cart would be foolish. On the other hand year after year in a religious school was quite a different matter. If that could be avoided by setting the cat among the pigeons then that was the way it had to be, apple cart or no apple cart.

How much heed my father actually paid to the revelations is completely lost but what is evident is that a great many altercations took place over the following years with regard to the Holy Catholic Church and exactly how my brother and I should be taking part in it. There would have undoubtedly been a great many more disagreements had the Second World War not intervened and deftly removed him from our lives for a number of years.

Our baptisms were problematical and the precise details of my own are a total mystery. The only aspect recalled by those present and now still living such as my cousin Margaret is that there was a last minute complete change of name announced by Nellie in unusually firm tones that brooked no argument, startling whoever was officiating and greatly embarrassing my father. My brother inexplicably was baptised at St Mark’s Anglican Church in Rosherville in an obvious act of complete defiance and again there was a name change, though this time less significant. As far as the schools we were to attend were concerned there of course eventuated even more disharmony. I was deftly enrolled in St Botolph’s before my father was demobbed from the army. Naturally enough he was later to retaliate and my brother was registered into St Joseph’s in Springhead Road when he was still only four years old. My mother, enraged and aghast was heard to complain to the aunts that he had done so Behind Her Back whilst she was gossiping with Grace Bennett one Friday afternoon. The only good thing about it was that it was on our doorstep and she was able to view what was going on in the playground from the garden gate. The moment one of those nuns laid a finger on her son she would be over there like greased lightning to clean them rotten.

Regular Church attendance heralded even more problems and once he returned to us my father bought me a Missal for Roman Catholic children and took me to Sunday Mass himself each week which I did not altogether enjoy. My mother sent me to the Methodist Chapel Sunday School in the afternoons which I quite liked because there were stories and orange juice and ginger biscuits and sometimes transfers to adorn hands and arms with. It would be fair to say I grew up under a surfeit of differing beliefs and learned always to be wary when discussing them. Those childhood Sundays of memory were never completely agreeable days. Even now Sunday is my least liked day of the week, the day where unpleasant pieces of the past live. Some of us have most liked days on the other hand, days that are far easier to pick from recall and examine. For my father they were probably those when he walked as a kind of older brother among his pseudo siblings supervising the casting of stale bread to gatherings of pigeons. They were good days and when in future years his new in-laws spoke in whispers about his mother, pitying him and saying he must have been a Poor Little Soul he could only wonder at their ignorance.