GROWING OLDER
I lived with my grandma from the age of two until I was eleven. It was then time for me to move from primary school to the “Big School”.
In England, when I was growing up, we had what was called the eleven plus, exam. This was taken by all children and the results would decide which stream of education you were to be sent to for the next five years. If you were thought to be “gifted”, you could take this exam at ten years old, which is what I did. The exam was taken in February and results took several months to be announced and the new school, you were to attend, would start in September.
My mom decided that I was now old enough to live at home and get myself dressed and ready for school. As all schools in England had a school uniform, getting dressed did not require much thought, it was the same thing every day:- white, long sleeved shirt, navy, red and white tie and a navy gym slip. The school gym slip was a throw back from way back when. It consisted of a yoke with square neck, attached to the yoke were wide box pleats. The whole thing was shapeless until a braided belt, called a girdle, was added. The girdles were different colours depending which “house” you were in. A house was like a team. The whole school was divided into six houses, named after the royak families of old England. Mine was Tudor and I wore a yellow sash or girdle.
There were points given out for everything done in the school. Sports, social activities, civic duties, studies etc. At the end of the year a plaque would be given to the winning house. This was kept in a big display case, by the office. I guess the idea was to instil team spirit but most of us found it a big yawn and were too lazy to participate in extra curricular activities.
When I got home from school I had an hour before my mom finished work and, to keep me occupied, I would be expected to cook the evening meal. Mom had told me exactly what would need doing and it would be cooked and ready to serve, when she walked in from work.
My brother, who was almost seven years older than me, had got into trouble at 14 years old and had been put in a juvenile detention centre, so it was just me and my mother. My grandma had taught me well and I could keep the house clean and tidy as well as make most simple meals, so things were OK. However, my mom and my grandma were very different people and mother and I didn’t get on. My gran was strict and loving my mother was cold and very rigid, there was only one way of doing things and that was hers.
Grandma still came for every weekend and always cooked the main meals of the day. I longed to go back to gran’s house but my mother wanted me home. After a few months, my brother came back to live with us but he was a terrible bully, I several times went to school with bruises and black eyes. He also beat up my mother on occasion and we were both frightened of him. He was only seventeen but a big man. My mother didn’t like smoking in the house, but he ignored the fact and had a permanent cigarette.
He had been home a few months when he stole a motor bike and crashed it. He was dragged by a bus and had terrible injuries. Both his legs had compound fractures and he was hospitalised for a few months. When he was discharged, he came home and his bed had to be brought down the stairs as he could not manage to go upstairs. From here he ruled the roost. The room was not very large and he could reach us anywhere in the room with his crutch. He would bop me on the head with his crutch and shout “pop”. That was my signal to go bring him a glass of soda pop. If I did not move swiftly, there would be a nasty bang with the crutch. I grew to not only fear him, but to hate him and was really glad when he found a girlfriend. He was a bit nicer when she was around.
When they decided to get married, my mother told them they could take over the rental house and mom and I moved back to grandma’s house. By this time, mother had reconnected with our American relatives and had decided to emigrate, so we stayed with grandma until she was ready to leave.
My brother’s wounds never really healed and he developed ulcers and eventually gangrene. He was twenty one and only married for three weeks when the doctors had to amputate his leg. Within three months he was wearing a prosthetic and was walking unaided. His strong will and determination got him back on his feet and back to work, in record time. I never liked him but had to admire his grit and lack of self pity. I never had much to do with him after that and didn’t know if he was abusive to his wife, as he had been to my mother and myself, but he and his wife stuck together until his death, two years ago.
Ours was a very dysfunctional family, my mother and her siblings were always fighting. There was always one member of the family who was being castigated by the rest. If one of them had a fall out with another, everyone ganged up and nobody spoke to the “one out of favour”. My own family was also a very unhappy unit. My mother, brother and I never liked each other and my father had been out of the picture since I was two. The only constantly sane person was my grandma and I do not know how she could bear it to see all the unhappiness and strife that went on between her children.
When I was seventeen I met my future husband. He had a wonderful loving family, who took me in as their own child. There I found the warmth and love that is supposed to surround all families. Two years later, we were engaged and I found myself pregnant. No harsh words were exchanged but we were rushed down the aisle so fast, that I nearly got dizzy. As I was only nineteen, I had to get permission from my mother. She gave written permission but refused to speak to me or attend the wedding. One of my aunties, who had been a real tramp when she was younger, took the moral high ground, and also refused to attend, what short memories people have.
However, there was my gran, front and centre, in her new blue hat, the one stable aspect of my younger life. How different would my life have been if not for gran. She would give me a smack for the least misdeed but I never felt unloved. She wasn’t demonstrative, didn’t hug or cuddle me, unless I was hurt, but I knew she was always there for me.
There was a time, about fifteen years ago, when two of my daughters were not speaking to each other. Christmas was approaching and I made my disapproval of their behaviour known by refusing to go and have Christmas dinner with them. I could not sit down at a table with three of my daughters and know that a fourth one was less than ten minutes away, and not joining us. How had my grandma tolerated her children always fighting, it must have broken her heart.
I have tried hard to be a good mom to my four girls and keep my criticisms to myself. They are very close in age as we had our first two daughters just one year apart, followed two years later by twin daughters. Having four of them under three and a half was certainly a challenge, but I coped. Grandma had taught me to cope. She always told me that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle and I believed her, I still do.
Dave and I started with nothing but through hard work we made a good life for ourselves and our four girls. Like most young wives I learned how to make a pound of ground beef last through several meals and do wonderful things with left over mashed potatoes and cheese. I never thought of buying anything pre-made. I learned how to sew little dresses and I could knit from a very early age (thanks again to grandma). I got so confident about my knitting and sewing that a friend and I both worked at making clothing and had a stall on our local farmers market, selling children’s clothing.
My friend and I were neighbours and both of us were expecting together. We were both trying to make do with very little money and we would go to the local cotton mill and buy remnants of towels and woven bedcovers, these we would hem and dye to pretty colours and sell them on our weekly stall.
She and I would get our housework done then bundle up our children, in all weathers, put a picnic in the prams, which all English babies have, and walk for miles. We would have our picnic in a field and let our little ones play in the grass until they were exhausted, then walk them back home in time to make the evening meal.
I honestly don’t believe that our children realized we were poor. Once in a while, they would complain that we never had proper cookies, we always had home made. However, our home was a very popular after school drop-in place as most other kids thought home made cookies and pies were wonderful.
As our kids grew older, school holidays were spent on bike rides on the local dike. I would take wieners and we would build a fire to roast them over. We also took the bus to the beach and I would take either sandwiches or a thermos with hot dogs in boiling water, also buns and ketchup, so we got the fun of meals out but didn’t cost anything. Sometimes we would take the bus to Horsehoe Bay, ride the ferry, as walk on passengers, and just do a return trip. The kids loved the ferry, it cost very little and it felt like we had actually been somewhere. We would also ride the bus from our home in Port Coquitlam to downtown Vancouver, cross over on the Seabus and eat our sandwiches at Lonsdale quay market.
Family holidays were an old tent trailer. The four girls in the tent and Dave and I, plus a big Labrador, in the station wagon. We would take the ferry to Vancouver Island, drive to Sooke and the first stop was the thrift store where we all bought books and I always picked up a stuffed toy for the dog.
Everyone loved the holidays. A different beach each day, with our picnic hamper and blankets. We all read and swam until we were worn out then back to the tent trailer, where the girls would swim in the campground pool, while I made supper. Great family holidays that cost less than a hundred dollars for ten days, plus the ferry fare..
Grandma taught me how to be resourceful and have a good time without money. What a great asset it is to really love your life and think you have had everything you ever wanted. The past few years Dave and I have been able to afford to travel and we feel like millionaires. However, we are still working and enjoying doing this together. I feel so lucky to have the life I live and I owe everything I am to my grandma.