Warning! Warning! This post wanders
all over the place and is far too long but, huh, it’s the best I can do. With
luck and a fair wind I'll get better at this blogging thingy. In the meantime, make
yourself comfy and settle down to a nice long read . . . or not.
At the end of my second post I
mentioned that I would be posting my thoughts about charities. Then
I promptly forgot. Now I can't remember what I wanted to say about
charities. That's the frustration of old age; the memory goes on walkabout
leaving us with empty spaces and blank expressions. It is also the beauty
of old age; memory is the gift that keeps on giving because when the memory
returns we get the pleasure of remembering all over again. However, I
recently learned that memory loss has little to do with age, but rather
with the lack of routine and a busy schedule. In other words, the old have the
leisure to meander through time, to trip down memory lane when and if they feel
like it, and, if all older people are like me; they just can’t be bothered
remembering stuff.
It used to upset me tremendously
when I couldn't remember events or forget an appointment, or forget to do a
regular task, like flea treating the dog. I used to have a very good memory and
could recall exact, pertinent details of practically everything and got
distressed when I lost the ability. Now I couldn't care less if I forget stuff
because I realised it doesn't matter not one jot if I remember or not. The sky doesn't fall in if I can’t remember what I did last week or two years ago, the bureaucratic
system doesn't grind to a halt if a bill is seriously late, my friends don’t
care if I forget their birthday and there is no one around to challenge my
recollections of my distant past and, anyway, they are my memories not theirs.
This brings me to the subject of
this post. My eldest grandchild keeps asking me to tell her stories of about my
childhood. So, before I lose or muddle all my memories altogether, I have
decided to use this blog as a way to record stories of my life so my
grandchildren will have a record of what it was like to grow up and live
through some of the most fantastic times, with the greatest inventions and
social changes that have occurred in the modern world. Having never met my own
grandparents, I think it would be nice for my grandchildren to know who I was,
what I believed in, what I did and why I made the decisions I made about my
life.
First, it’s important to know that
I was born in the November of the year that the Second World War ended. There
was a time in my early teens that I thought of myself as a victory baby; that
my parents celebrated the end of the way by conceiving me, as a kind of
passionate hope for the future. But, that was pure fiction on my part because
the war in Europe didn't end until May and, as I was a full-term baby, weighing
in at 7lbs and some ounces, the dates just didn't add up. Perhaps now would be
a good time to mention that I've always had a vivid imagination and a strong
desire to be seen as special. This desire was earlier fuelled, if not caused,
by the birth of Prince Charles, the heir to the throne of England, on the SAME
day as my birthday. For years I thought there was a special bond between the
bonnie prince and me because we shared a birthday.
By the time I was ten years old I
had figured out that there were millions and millions of people who shared the same
birth date of Prince Charles, thus ending my claim of 'specialness'. By the time
I was eighteen I was a fervent, if closet, anti-royalist; I would not have
dared tell my mother that I despised the whole idea of royalty. She would have
had a fit! She identified strongly with the queen who, like her, had four
children and behaved at all times like a gracious lady, something my mother
strived to be at all times too. Even when I became an active and out anti-royalist
I never told my mother. I don’t really know why I didn't tell her. It wasn't to
save her feelings because we argued about so many fundamental things, like our
differing philosophical, political and religious perspectives. I suspect I
never told her because I believe she modelled herself on the Queen and what being
a gracious lady meant to the extent that she would have thought I was saying I didn't like her. Whereas, when we argued about other issues it was always based
on differing ideas and concepts rather than personalities.
The reason my birth at the end of
the war was important was that the Labour party was elected into government and
they introduced the welfare state. Without it my childhood would have been so
much bleaker. Without this political change my childhood would have been one of
hunger, crippling deformities and equally crippling ignorance. To be housed,
fed, schooled and given free access to specialist orthopaedic surgeons
provided me a healthy life with a mother and a home. If the Labour party had
not introduced free welfare for all after the Second World War and because my
father died, my siblings and I would probably have lived our lives in abject
poverty or in an orphanage and/or been sent to the colonies as child
migrants.
In fact, we only escaped being sent
to Australia as child migrants because of the strength of our mother. In 1954
mum was taken to hospital very ill and had to have a hysterectomy. We four
children were farmed out to two families in the catholic parish; two boys
together and two girls together. Eventually we children had to move to another
county and go stay with unknown aunties and uncles and we didn't see mum for
three months. Many years later I asked why she had been away so long and she
told me that during the operation she lost a lot of blood and had to have a
transfusion but was given the wrong blood type and almost died. While she was
convalescing, a social worker (they called them Almoners in those days) came to
visit with forms to be signed. These forms gave permission for us children to
be sent on a boat to Australia with hundreds of other children. This is what
had been decided would happen to us if mum had died. Fortunately for us, mum
refused to sign the forms, although she said she thought about for a little
while. Knowing now the harrowing stories of the children who did not escape
this fate I am forever in my mother's debt.
What made it possible for my mother
to make such a choice was a change of political will and raising the
consciousness of the whole country to the moral, political and financial
necessity of having universal access to basic standards of living, education
and health care. Having access to a widow's pension provided by the
state, a pension that did not depend upon having rich parents, an annuity or a
trust account meant my mother could keep her four children at home and feed,
clothe and educate them. Don't get me wrong, it was NOT easy. The
pension was meagre and without my mother's resourcefulness we would
not have thrived as well as we did. But thrive we did and luckily remained
a family in our little council house on the outskirts of Leeds, Yorkshire, in a
post war Britain that enjoyed universal state benefits. It wasn't paradise but
better than anything a pre-war Britain could have offered. And for that, I am
eternally grateful.
Do
you have a good memory?
In
what kind of political and economic system did you spend your formative years?
Did
you feel special because of something or someone that had nothing to do with
you?
What
secrets did you never divulge to your mother and/or father?
