Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Jan 20, 2005
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Living History
I was listening to a radio programme recently and the subject was living history. The idea was that the younger ones in the family talk to the older ones and get them to tell them all about the family's history. This could cover all the characters and memories that your Grandparents could tell you about. For example I can remember when we used to drive down South every winter to visit all our family. The reason this trip was undertaken in the winter was the fact that my parents ran a café and shop business in the town where we lived in the north of Scotland.
The trip itself was an achievement as the roads in those days were nothing like the motorways we have today. To make it even more interesting my father took us all down on his motor bike and side car. When I saw all, I mean just my sister and my mother. My sister and I would take it in turns to sit on the back of my Dad's back on the bike, while the other one remained in the back of the side car. We would be tied onto my Dad in case we fell asleep and fell off. This routine became even more necessary as we got older as the back seat of the side car was very small. The weather, as you can imagine, in winter time was always cold and we wrapped up in anything that would keep us warm. Hence the funny looks we got from all the truck drivers when we stopped for something to eat. The truck stops were the only place in those days where you could pull in for a break and a meal.
It was the mid fifties at the time of all this happening and the roads were nothing like the congestion that we see today. In fact, the trip could take up to two days to complete and I can still remember the welcome our Grandparents gave us upon our arrival. We always stopped at my Mother's parent's house first; it was in Weatherden, a small village near Ipswich. They were country folk and I can still remember the smell that we got when we entered their house. It always smelt of fruit and pipe tobacco smoke, as they kept all their crop of apples in the front vestibule of the house. The toilet was outside and consisted of a wooden seat over a pail, which my Granddad emptied once a week in the pit at the bottom of the garden, right beside the chicken run.
As soon as we arrived my Gran would lift me out of the side car, strip me off, stand me in the deep kitchen sink and proceed to scrub me from head to toe. I can recall grabbing hold of the net curtain string as she scrubbed me until my skin was red. As soon as she had finished with me, she would grab my sister and do the same procedure while I was stood in front of the black coal fire range to dry off wrapped in a large towel. They had this massive round table which filled the living room-come-kitchen area. We had to make our way round it to get where you were going. My uncle, who lived with them, had seven of these large wall clocks which you hear ticking all the time. This was fine during the day, but made sleep almost impossible for me later on at night when I was lying on the leather horsehair-filled chaise longue.
The room was just painted in a light green colour on top of the flaking plaster. Behind the door in a small alcove hung the large tin bath, which was taken down in order for everyone to bathe in front of the range. The floor was flagstone apart from the hand-made rugs which were placed all around the area we walked on. The range, itself, was strange to us as it had this large hinged hook which my Gran would hang a large black kettle on then swing it over the fire to boil. This water was never wasted as it had to be brought in from the cast iron hand pump just outside the back door. So what water was not used for bathing would be poured into the selection of thermos flasks my Gran had and used for making tea later on. Looking back on it now, I think that was what made the tea taste better to us. A curtain would be put up around the tin bath so everyone could bathe in private. On completion of bathing, my Grandfather and Uncle would drag the bath out the back door and empty it in the yard.
Once everyone was fed and cleaned up, I was laid out on the chaise longue and would fall asleep quickly while the adults used to talk for ages before going to bed. Every few moments I would hear a car coming from far away in the still night air and then, as it drew closer, I would see the lights reflect in the room as it roared passed. The road outside the house was the main trunk road heading south but, as I mentioned earlier, the traffic in those days was a lot less than today. There was a nice cosy feeling in the mornings when I woke up, as my Gran would have been up very early to light the fire in the range to get the water boiling again. They did have a television installed in 1961 at the same time as the house was wired up for electric power, but my Gran only watched for half an hour every week to watch Sale of the Century. They had an indoor bathroom installed the following year, but my Gran used the bath to store more of her apple crop.
No sooner had we arrived and started to recover from our long journey down, we would be off early the next day to start our annual trip round all the family. First stop would be Ipswich, where my father's mother stayed with her second husband, the first one dying in the WW1. Now they were not country folk, so we had to behave and not run riot through their house. They also had what they called, in those days, a front room; this was a rather special room which was only used on special occasions. I think that was the reason why my sister and I were only in it for a short time, before being sent out to play. Now this Gran was my father's mother as I mentioned earlier and their house was far grander with all mod cons including inside plumbing, power and even central heating.
It turns out that my father actually met my mother when he returned home on leave from the RAF during the war and met my mother while she was a waitress in a café run and owned by his mother. This caused friction as my Gran thought that my father was marrying, as she said, below his status. It was proved, over the years, that she was wrong as they went on to own their own business and, indeed, stayed together until their deaths.
After our visit there, we would head off round all the other relatives who lived in nearby towns and villages. No matter where we went I always got picked up and squeezed to the extent that I could not breathe, then my hair would be rubbed and I would be told how big I had grown since they last saw me. At this point, just when I wanted to reply, a gob stopper would be rammed into my mouth which kept me quiet for the next hour while I struggled to suck it down to a more manageable size.
We would spend all the rest of that day driving round before heading back to my Grans in the evening. I was always really tired at this time and would be laid out on the chaise longue while the older folk talked all evening. My sister slept in a room upstairs next to our parents and I would remain on the chaise longue. I can remember waking up sometimes during the night to the smell of pipe tobacco which both my Uncle and Grandfather smoked, mixed with smell of apples. I would lay there and stare into the red glow of what fire was left in the range.
On the odd year when we did our visit earlier during the good weather, I used to watch my Gran preparing the Sunday lunch for us all and she would send us out to the garden to pick the potatoes and cabbage that we were going to have. I don't think I have ever tasted such sweet potatoes ever since. Everything was fresh, even the chicken that my Gran had killed earlier in the morning. I remember her asking me to help her catch it as we chased it then, when she chopped off its head, I was so shocked, but she told me that it was a fact of life and that I would get used to it.
As we got older my parents bought a car, an old Austin A70 which made the journey rather less exciting than it was in our younger days. My sister and I were a lot older by that time as well and far too big to fit into that small side car we used to sit in. As the years went by our visits seemed to lose the charm and excitement that we once had, maybe it was just us growing older. One thing was for sure; as the years went by there were less relations to visit and with us living way up in Scotland we lost touch with them all.
These days I have lost contact with my last two remaining relatives; my sister and one of my uncles. They did not take kindly to my divorce, so they broke all contact. Still I have the memories. Maybe the day will come when one of my daughters wants to know more about her forebears - at least she will have this to read.
