Open Writing

It was probably a few years after the War ended in 1945. It certainly became a memorable post-War event, anyway, during the time when luxury goods were creeping back into British shops. Dad came home from town one day with a small piece of Gorgonzola cheese in his shopping bag.

He unwrapped it for us to admire. We hadn't seen exotic blue veined cheese before. Nor were we familiar with its, er, rich aroma. English Cheddar was part of our staple diet, as was Kraft cheese which I was quite fond of — until I grew up. But this smelly Italian cheese was a different proposition entirely. My mother flatly refused to allow it to stay inside the house.

It was a warm and friendly English Summer day, of the sort we used to have in childhood years, and the wooden framed sash windows were raised wide open. Dad was obliged to re-wrap his cherished purchase and place it on the window-sill, which put it nominally outside but kept it within reach.

And then the unexpected happened. My little old Grannie came shuffling round the corner, inviting herself to afternoon tea. She was probably wearing her somewhat moth-eaten, secondhand, brown fur coat, regardless of the weather. As she passed the window, she twitched her noble Romany nose, frowned, and called through the open window, in her honest open-hearted way and her rural Lincolnshire accent, "Wot's oop? Are yer drains wrong, then?"

On a much earlier visit, in 1936, it was Grannie who gave me a name. As far as I know, I was to be Michael or Neville, neither of which are family names. But Grannie turned up and asked how Brian was getting on, so that was that. Brian isn't a family name either, so Sparadise only knows where she conjured that one up.

She herself was one of a family of 12 children. Farmers needed large families in the 19th century. One child lived for only a week. Another passed away when he was 14. Yet another son was probably killed in World War I — we don't know the story.

The tradition of large families continued when Grannie had eight children. The tiny, terraced, two-bedroomed house with an outside bathroom that had no hot water must have been awfully crowded. One child died in infancy. One of my uncles was never spoken of. He had worked for our grandfather's banana ripening and fruit wholesale company. Yes, there was once a thriving banana warehouse in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire! Alas, he left his wife and ran off to London with another woman. There's a lot more to that story but this is neither the time nor the place to recount it.

At least four others, had worked for Cafferata's brick and plaster manufacturers — variously a cleaner, a laboratory assistant, a secretary (my mother) and a manager. In later years, another uncle, who had survived the terrors of Dunkirk during WWII, moved to Ireland with his Irish wife.

We never knew our grandfather. He seems to have passed away in the early 1900s. In his place, there was Grandad Dick. We knew hardly anything about him. He was a gruff old chap with bristly whiskers, who spent most of his life in an armchair behind a door in a dark corner, reading his newspaper, or perhaps he was asleep. He rarely spoke. When Grannie died in 1955, he went to live with his sister in a nearby village and disappeared from our lives (not that he was ever there, really).

1955, did I say? Yes, it's 55 years since Lily Horner ex-Wilson née Armstrong left us.

After more than 60 years, when I indulge in the occasional luxury of a small and deliciously smelly wedge of Stilton, Roquefort or Gorgonzola, especially Gorgonzola, I fancy I can see her in that tatty old fur coat and hear an echo of, "Wot's oop? Are yer drains wrong, then?"

© Copyright 2010 Brian Barratt