IT’S JUST THE WAY THINGS WERE                

Some people who read my meanderings ask me “why did you live with your grandma?”

My answer, it’s just the way things were.  I was born in 1945, at the tail end of the war, it took quite a while before the men came home from the armed forces and, most of them came home to a complete change of attitude in the wives that they had left behind.

Women had to take the role of men during the six years of war and that gave them a new feeling of independence.  While the traditional role of a wife and mother was to stay home with the children while hubby worked, the need for women in the workforce changed all that.

For the first time for most British women, they earned money of their own and they had to learn to budget to pay the rent and other household expenses, instead of having money doled out to them from their spouses.  While I am sure it was a rather grim era I think that many women probably enjoyed going to work in the munitions factories, having a wide range of workmates and being in charge of the home.  This would all change when the men came home and expected to pick up the reigns of head of household and, once again, be in charge.

I am sure that this caused upsets in many homes where women had coped well with their independence and were reluctant to give it up, my family was one of these.  When I was two my parents split up and dad walked out to start his own life, mom was left with two children.  My brother was born in 1938, before the war started so he was now almost nine and able to get himself ready for school while mom went to work.  As a toddler, I was packed off to live with grandma and there I stayed for the next nine years.

There was barely one mile between grandma’s home and where my mother lived but it felt like a different world.  Gran and I would get on the bus every Friday night and spend the weekend with my mom and brother, returning home on Sunday night.  I never thought anything strange about this arrangement it’s just the way things were.  I honestly felt like grandma’s daughter as she was in complete charge of my life and that was alright, I was loved and cared for and brought up like an only child.  I didn‘t miss my brother as the age difference was quite a lot and we had not really ever related well, I don’t think I ever missed my mother as grandma filled the gap.

I am not sure what happened when I was nine as I was suddenly packed off to live with an auntie, in London, for three months.  This auntie had been the black sheep of the family as she had reportedly entertained the U.S. troops during the war and disgraced the family.  I really knew nothing about all this of course but there was always a “to do” whenever auntie Kathleen came for a visit.  She always arrived wearing black fishnet stockings and high heels and lots of make-up.  She was a curly haired blonde and wore gorgeous clothes.  Quite often she would be leaning on the arm on another new “uncle”, some of these were in various shades of brown, which must have been the talk of our small town!  She was loved and welcomed but held at arm’s length by the rest of the family.  I thought she was gorgeous and looked like a film star but this attitude was not appreciated by my family who obviously thought she was a tart, but at my young age, she looked beautiful.

One day grand took me on the bus to the nearby town of Wigan, here we went to the train station and I was put on the train to Euston Station, in London.  Grandma drilled it into me that I was not to talk to anyone and a woman in the carriage told gran that she would keep an eye on me.  I remember the journey being long and the excitement soon wore off, there are not too many exciting things to be seen from a railway carriage window.  Euston was a dead end so I knew it was time to get off and there was  Aunt Kathleen, gorgeous as ever, waving her hanky at me.  From the station we caught a taxi, another unheard of expense, to my aunt’s apartment building.  I had never been in a building like that before, in fact I had never seen a building more than two stories high except for big shops.

Why on earth I was sent to live with this wayward beauty was unknown to me but I thought it was a wonderful adventure.  I had to go to school in London which was a bit scary as I had to walk over a bridge that opened, to allow ships to go up the river Thames.  I was terrified it would open while I was midway so ran like the wind to get to the other side.  I guess the school was in a rather poor part of London as I was the only one in the class who could actually read well.  The teacher must have been delighted with this very polite stranger and she had me stand at the front of the class every afternoon and read a story.  I had been reading before I started school, so couldn’t really understand why it was such a big deal.

Weekends were wonderful we went shopping at Portobello Rd. market which was a huge street market filled with colourful people.  I had never seen African people wearing their traditional brilliant clothing in my little town so it was somewhat jaw dropping to see women in fabulous head dresses and men with gold teeth.  I had also never seen people haggling over prices but it seemed to be the normal thing to do there.  There was also a huge array of foodstuff that I had were completely foreign to me and I shuddered at the sight of my aunt buying and eating jellied eels.  She tried to tempt me to try this gross concoction but I couldn’t force myself to put it on my tongue.  I very happily settled for an ice cream cone instead.

There was usually some form of street entertainment and one week there was a fortune teller.  We I stood watching her tell people different things and my aunt kept saying she was a cheat and didn’t really know how to tell fortunes, but I thought it was wonderful.  The woman then pointed at me.  She then proceeded to tell me my first name, where I lived in Lancashire, my age and several other things, I was dumbfounded.  I know that my aunt had certainly not informed her of any of these things as she thought the woman was a fraud.  However, she had no answer to how all this information was known.

As suddenly as the London experience had started, it came to an end. I was put on the train back to Wigan and told to not talk to anyone.  Gran was there to meet me at the station and just like that, the adventure was over.  I never thought to ask what had happened that I was sent away, it must have been some family emergency but, like I said, I don’t know what.  It is now too late to ask what happened, as nobody is left to answer, so it remains to be “just the way things were”.