Granny’s at Brinkhill – Chapter Eight

A popular magazine of the time, ‘John Bull’, was passed on via the suitcase when Grandad had finished with it. It was a Liberal-leaning publication – Grandad had been a keen Liberal and a bit of an activist at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. I remember little about the contents except that a famous journalist named Hannen Swaffer wrote a regular article. His unusual name has stuck in my memory, but what I remember most about the magazine is the covers. Each edition featured a picture painted by a British artist and my favourites were the ones which celebrated the four seasons. I still think ‘John Bull cover’ whenever I see the laciness of leafless, winter trees with the light shining through the branches. Spring brought views of gentle rising and falling hills with animals grazing and hedgerows blossoming. Late summer would show harvesting, and autumn the farmers ploughing against a backdrop of the season’s colours. All very like the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds, in fact.

The magazine added little to the weight of the case, of course, but the autumn would see it heavy with fruit from the orchard and a bunch of Grandad’s enormous dahlias which my mother always put in a bucket of water in the back yard as soon as they arrived. This was, “to give them a long drink after being cooped up in that case,” she explained to Auntie Edith, not wanting to seem ungrateful. I don’t think they ever came into the house. “Earwiggy things,” my mother would say as she gave them a good shake.

With the case emptied and the meal eaten, Auntie Edith and I used to go to do her shopping. There was always a treat for me sometime during the afternoon. It was most often a bag of Smith’s crisps with the salt in a curl of blue paper. Sometimes we went to Hutchinson’s book-shop and I could choose a book. It would be thin with paper covers but it was a new story and that was always very welcome.

Back home, it was time for tea and the tucking away of all Auntie Edith’s purchases. To say that I’ve been remarkably forgetful about what she bought is an understatement. I was riveted to watch the way she packed her shopping so carefully but I can’t remember much about what was in those brown or white paper bags.  I know that most of what she bought was edible. I’m not sure how this worked when food was rationed and you had to register with shopkeepers to spend your points on certain foods, but she certainly bought cakes from Wherry’s cake shop in Aswell Street. I think they were a treat for Sunday tea-time. There was a degree of unfaithfulness to Mr Boyden involved in this Saturday shopping. I wonder if it would have been naughty-words time if he’d known!

Soon it was time for the bus back to Brinkhill. Dad reappeared with the newly charged batteries and off he went with Auntie Edith to cram her and her paraphernalia into the bus. I don’t know who would have met her in Brinkhill to help her out. It must surely have been a Brinkhill bus day – nobody could have walked to and from South Ormsby with those heavy batteries, numerous bags and the suitcase. We went through these rituals every Saturday for years, until Auntie Edith’s progressive degenerative muscle wasting condition disabled her. She eventually became bed-ridden. A reminder, if needed, that life can be cruel and very unfair.

My memories of those days will seem very slight to today’s children with their smartphones, laptops and trips to Disneyland, and anyone born after the war ended is likely to have very different recollections of their more expansive childhoods. Yet however inconsequential they seem, my memories give me a sense of belonging; of being wanted, cared about and looked after.

I was lucky, for these were hard times and not just because of the war. My family were not living in those mythical ‘Good Old Days’. The majority of men in rural and industrial occupations worked like donkeys and the women skivvied so that they could. It was the only way to survive. But rounded human beings are rarely, if ever, produced from the poor soil of exhausting labour and sheer drudgery. There must have been times when the utter frustration and impossibility of it all caused bad-tempered outbursts and living in an extended family is never easy – but I was unaware of any of this. I felt valued and I knew that they all wanted the best for me. As a child, I took them all for granted. As an adult, I feel gratitude and not a little admiration. And something else. It’s called love.

FIN

Thanks to Cecile Stevenson and all who’ve so graciously and vividly contributed to ‘Our Days’, and to the readers who continue to enjoy these wonderful stories. You’ve all helped keep some important history alive. If you’ve missed any part of ‘My Days’ or ‘Our Days’, you can find everything HERE. 

* Bus image courtesy of Kirsteen via Flickr CC

* Woodbine image courtesy of Steve via Flickr CC

* John Bull image courtesy of Phil Beard via Flickr CC