Open Writing

I was born in Warrington in 1930. When I was in my teens, comedians such as Norman Evans would mention Warrington and get a laugh - and I wondered why. I never found Warrington a funny place to live. It was a friendly, pleasant place, not the sort of town you would make fun of. Somewhere to make your home and earn a living, something that wasn't easy to do in the 1930's. Our family was luckier than many in Warrington. My father was a policeman - he had a regular job, with a wage coming in every week.

The house I was born in was a three up and three down. Three bedrooms - no bathroom. Downstairs there was a 'front room', a living room and a scullery. Off the scullery was the larder, where mum kept tinned food on shelves, my doll's pram, a supply of chopped wood, in a cardboard box to light the range and a large oval zinc bath, which took care of the family's hygiene.

Outside lay the back-yard, where my mother grew mint and marigolds in the two small patches of soil, which she euphemistically called 'the garden'. There was a place to keep the coal, which kept the kitchen range going and a lavatory at the bottom of the yard. This was emptied early every Friday morning by the 'night soil men'. After the war, when water-closets were finally installed we felt that we'd really arrived and were 'civilised.'

A few weeks ago we went to look at the house where I was bom. You hear people saying something is a revelation. This really was, for the little house I used to live in had been improved beyond recognition - and that was merely the exterior. I have the greatest admiration for whoever is responsible for such regeneration. Not only our old house but the whole street was a credit to the people who live in it.

When you are a small child your world is miniscule. People are larger; adult faces distorted by close proximity loom down upon you. Mr. Taylor appeared to have an enormous face and huge teeth. The wheel had come off my pram and he kindly put it back on again. That is my first conscious memory. I was eighteen months old. I know that happened, I was there and I can still remember it.

Joan, my older sister, was ten when I was born. When I was eight she told me about the day my mother returned from seeing Doctor Anderson. She had sat at the kitchen table and cried for over an hour.

Things became even worse after I was born. My mother made Joan's life a misery. Once I was old enough, Joan was expected to look after me. I suppose it wasn't fair or kind and I know that Joan bitterly resented having a toddler constantly in tow. Because I was in Joan's company so much, she became the person who made the greatest impression on me in my formative years.

I had a guilt complex which remained with me well into adult life. I believed because I was born terrible things had happened to both my sisters. When I grew up I realised that my mother must have been suffering from severe post-natal depression for a very long time.

Many years later, Eve, my eldest sister visited us in Germany. Richard, my little son asked her: "What was mummy like when she was a little girl?" and she replied: "Your mother was a red-faced screaming brat." I felt upset at the time but, knowing Eve, she was probably right. I know that if I cried, having fallen or hurt myself in some way for whatever reason, my mother would beat me. Which made me cry even more.
Salvation for the family arrived when Eve enrolled me in the local Library. After that I never cried. I became a book lover instead and lived happily ever afterwards.

Considering the handicap I must have been, Joan was remarkably tolerant. Occasionally she became angry and threw her weight about a bit. Unlike my mother, she never smacked me. I know she made people laugh a lot. That was why she had so many friends. Joan's story telling prowess was phenomenal. If she visited the cinema, the next day I would be entertained like a princess.

There was a particularly prolonged trek that she and her friends took me on. They were going to a far-off water-meadow situated off a wide road called Kingsway. Joan sat me down on a log beside the path, with strict instructions not to move: "You are to sit there, and stay there until we come back. You are not to move. Do you understand?"

These instructions were accompanied by finger-wagging and the rest of the gang nodding and echoing sagely in the background like a Greek chorus. Difficult to comprehend when you are only three!

I sat on the log for a couple of minutes until they were out of sight. Then noticing white Mayflowers growing nearby I set off to pick them. The further I went the wetter I became until I found myself in lovely splashy marshland. When the others returned I was happily up to my knees in water, holding aloft a fistful of blossoms.

They hauled me out and carried me dripping all the way across the Kingsway Road. My clothes were soaking. Then, stripped down to my wet knickers, they sat me shivering on somebody's garden wall. Joan proceeded to flap my dress up and down, in a vain attempt to dry it.

"I could have done without this, thank you very much. What am I going to do, you little horror? Mum will be furious with me."

"Come along now, whatever's the matter?" It was the lady from the house.

Joan explained and she smiled at us. "Oh not to worry, worse things happen at sea. Come along in and we'll sort things out."

I stood in the kitchen sink where she gave me a washdown. Then she ironed my clothes and my socks dry. Sitting around the kitchen table eating slices of bread and home-made damson jam and drinking cocoa, we waited for my shoes to dry on top of the kitchen range. That kind woman even gave them a polish before sending us out to wend our way homewards. Meanwhile I had received strict instructions to say nothing of our adventure.

On our return home Mum took one look at me and said: "Well she's kept remarkably clean for a change," and Joan and I smiled at each other.