Breakfast

My mother would have been 92 today. I just wanted to mention a few things that were never mentioned at her funeral.

She was 13 when the second world war broke out and served first as a Land Girl and then in the Royal Observer Corps. The highlight of the week was the dance in Bury St Edmunds on a Saturday night to which she and her sisters would cycle. Suffolk was populated by RAF airbases at the time. There was no shortage of dancing partners. It was at one such dance in 1945 when she met Dad. He was stationed at Shepherd’s Grove.

Her father called her ‘Wig’ because she had such a wonderful head of curly hair. I never knew her grow it long, although photos show her with long hair. She and her sisters had to go out looking for rainwater in order to have a hair wash.

I don’t know about Bridge Farm in Ixworth where she grew up but her Mum’s place in Mildenhall where we sometimes went in summer did not have flushing water. We had to go outside to a privy.

Mum remembered her father catching rats in the farmyard. He always warned about cornering rats. They could fly at your throat.

My Uncle David remembered that on the afternoon of Mum and Dad’s wedding, everyone played games on the lawn outside Bridge Farm. He would only have been around 6 or 7 at the time.

Mum and Dad moved into the house in Strood which my paternal grandfather had used as a fish and chip shop. At first they rented, but fell behind with the rent. Dad always used to fear coming home and finding Mum and me sitting out on the step with all the belongings. He had a stroke of luck and won something on the Pools which enabled him to pay off debts and get a mortgage.

Slowly, painstakingly, he set about improving the property. He replaced the coal shed and the outside loo with a bathroom that had interior access from the kitchen. I could tell Mum hated the housework but she had to do it. The copper in the corner of the old kitchen that she had to heat up each Monday to do the washing. The smell of the polish on the furniture, down on her hands and knees to clean the grate for the next coal fire. Mr Rose coming with his horse and cart to deliver sacks of coal.

As my brother and I got older, there were Saturday night visits to the social club in Rochester. We’d walk there and back. Given the choice between a piano and a TV, we chose the TV. A mistake. Mum never spoke much. My father was a controlling sort of person.

When I got older and Mum and I used to go to Oxford Street in London to shop at C&A, she would always worry that she would never be at home in time to give Dad his dinner.

I really don’t know how she felt about my going abroad after university but she came with me to put me on the Southampton bound train from Waterloo. We both cried. She always wrote letters.

As time wore on, I was able to invite both Mum and Dad to fly out to join us for holiday. Thus they came to Botswana where I took them on the Bulawayo bound train from where we went to see Victoria Falls. We were all impressed with the flaming blossom on the tree outside the Victoria Falls Hotel.

I took them out in the bush for picnics and then we all flew to Durban for a short holiday. Dad chatted up the tall Zulu in full regalia outside the hotel. Mum went along with it all.

They came to Sri Lanka, where Mum finally managed to wean Rosie off me. She’d tell me to go away at meal times. We stayed in an old plantation house on the coast at Bentota, and travelled to Kandy.

They visited twice while we were in Oman but then they wouldn’t come again. Dad said there was nothing to do there. And because I was working and couldn’t afford much time off, that was probably true.

After an abortive trip to visit Mum’s sister and her husband in Florida, Dad refused to put up with his sister in law’s assertiveness and moved to a hotel. But they did meet other people and would fly there every year where they could enjoy drinking in the afternoons in the sun. Mary Lee became a firm favourite. I’m not sure what Mum thought about her.

Before all that, Dad had met a jovial Frenchman in Paris who invited both Mum and Dad to come and stay for convivial meals and drinking. I remember seeing Mum off on her first solo trip to Paris dragging her suitcase down the hill and looking gleeful.

Mum took a course in sewing early in her marriage and made clothes for my brother and me. She my blouses and skirts for my grammar school uniform. Auntie Annie paid for my blazer, hats and satchel.

Mum put these skills to good use by taking in sewing to supplement income. Shortening dresses, skirts, trousers, curtains, letting out waists, she could do it. Naturally, she also knitted our jumpers and sweaters until someone complained that they didn’t fit. She stopped.

For 25 years, she put goods out on the steps in front of the shop that she and Dad re-opened as a minor electrical store, taking them in again in the evening. She learnt about wiring plugs and listening to people. Vicky was a particular favourite.

Then there was Bluebell and Simon across the road, Indians in a predominantly white working class neighbourhood who were so pleased to make friends. They invited Mum and Dad across frequently to share in meals.

Throughout all this, I have realised that Mum virtually never opened up about herself and her family. I think, eventually, she just got fed up with the business of having to make an effort to do things.