Open Writing

My father was never as informative about himself as Nell was. Consequently knowledge of his background and childhood is infinitesimal compared with my mother's memories of long-ago and faraway London.

I know he was born in Didcot in 1887 in what was then probably little more than an Oxfordshire Victorian village. The building of the Great Western Railway from London to the West Country sparked the growth of Didcot in the 19th century, and in the early 21st century it is still an important railway junction for North-South East-West rail traffic.

The Skinner family didn't remain there very long after my father was born,first moving on to Stafford and finally to Birmingham, no doubt seeking to make a better living in the fast-growing industrial Midland's capital city.

I know there were ten children in the Skinner family and my father came somewhere in the middle. I can remember some of their names; Florence was the eldest child. My sisters went on holiday visits to her home. From what they told me, I conjured up the picture of a large, garrulous woman.
Eve told me the sad story of little Jim, Florence's young son and only child, who died of blood poisoning because he wore new socks over an infected cut on his heel. My father's younger sisters Julia and Grace were merely names to me, family members to whom nothing note-worthy ever happened, unlike Uncle Arthur, who emigrated as a young man to Canada, long before I was born. He, I was told, prospered and became rich.

Uncle Frank, was the youngest child and the only member of the Skinner family I actually met. I remember him as a gentle, unassuming man. He was slight and smaller than my father. Dad would have made two of Uncle Frank. He had black receding hair and was the husband of Aunt Dora and father of Doreen. My cousin Doreen was bossy but kind and motherly to me. I was seven at the time.

The most interesting member of the Skinner family was Uncle Jack, who owned a public house on the Bull Ring in Birmingham. Joan told me that his wife's name was Emily. She was Irish and, poor woman, had been injured in Dublin during the troubles in 1916. She had to have her leg amputated and had a wooden leg. According to Joan, Emily had connections with the mafia in America. All this I found endlessly fascinating.

However, any knowledge was all passed on to me second-hand. Unlike Eve and Joan I have never visited Birmingham. By the time I was born friendly relations with the Birmingham branch of the Skinner clan were almost a thing of the past. Even the short visit of Uncle Frank and Aunty Dora ended in an acrimonious quarrel. I had no idea why. I sat in the parlour with my hands over my ears, rather than listen to the invective my mother was screeching at the assembled company next door.

Cousin Doreen discovered me doing my Little Orphan Annie impersonation, tears rolling down my cheeks. She rushed me into the living room and told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves for making a little child cry. Courageous Dora, she had the makings of a modern day Boudicca and verbally wiped the floor with the lot of them. Of course they left the next morning, and to the best of my knowledge we never heard from them again. Not surprising really but I still relish the memory of cousin Doreen quieting my mother in a jiffy.

My father was christened William Charles but was always known as Bill. The other family members are totally unknown to me. I know there was a distant cousin, who had been put into Colney Hatch, a famous, no sorry, infamous lunatic asylum, suffering from delirium tremens. I know that because Joan, wanting to upset dad, mentioned it at the table one Sunday lunchtime. Father was so incensed he dropped the gravy boat onto the floor and broke it, all very exciting and great entertainment.