Sidcup - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Bowled Over by Fond Memories of My Grandma

Posted on June 26, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

I really didn’t need six new washing up bowls. I didn’t even need just one. But there was something so appealing about this neat nest of bowls, quite apart from their low price, that made them irresistible.

Of the two of us, I’m usually the stronger one going round Lidl. Whereas my husband cannot exit the shop without another household tool or gadget, I’m happy to leave with just their fruit, vegetables and chocolate.

“It’s only a bargain if you actually need it,” still echoes in my head: sage counselling from my best friend’s mother, probably the most sensible person in the world.

But I pick up these bowls and turn them round in my hands, pondering why I’m so drawn to them. It’s always a mistake to handle something you’re trying to resist buying. It’s known in the trade as “puppy dog selling”: the tactile experience makes you keener to buy than if you’d just looked. (Ironically, my husband once used this technique to convince me to adopt a kitten.)

And then the penny drops. It is a Proustian madeleine moment. For these simple plastic bowls whisk me back to my grandma’s kitchen. Or rather, her scullery, as she always called it. Born in 1900, she had grown up with a smattering of Victorian vocabulary that never left her.

To Grandma, her small terraced house would have seemed modern, being built around 1930, when Sidcup was starting to segue from a Kentish village into a London suburb. For decades, Grandpa walked to the railway station for a civilised 30 minute commute into the City.

The house may have been modern, but it was also compact. The scullery was no more than a narrow galley, with cupboards and appliances down one side and a slim glass-fronted cupboard mounted on the wall opposite. The appliances were few: a rounded, low, old-fashioned fridge; a small gas stove and a wall-mounted gas geyser to heat the water, its pilot light permanently glowing blue until you turned the tap, when with a whoosh! a little row of blue flames came to life to heat the water as we needed it. A slightly intoxicating smell wafted out as the hot water ran, though not as pungent as the paraffin heater in the bathroom.

Beneath the geyser was a big old white sink, and in the sink lived a plastic washing up bowl. Grandma’s preferred colours for the plastic washing up bowl were a deep rose pink and a peach, which, if melded together, would have combined to make her favourite colour: flame. The washing up bowl of the moment provided a welcome splash of colour in an otherwise grey and shady space, matched only by three bright Melamine cups and saucers in the wall cupboard, where they lay in wait for when my brother and sister and me came to tea once a week. My sister’s cup and saucer were rose pink, my brother’s mocha and mine was tangerine.

In this narrow space, Grandma would potter up and down, busy but contented, reminding me of Mrs Tiggywinkle in her pinny and hairnet. Every day while I was at primary school, I came home to Grandma’s for lunch, looking forward to what she’d produce from her scullery. Her considerable culinary skills had enabled her to feed her young family through the rationing of the Second World War and it was simple, healthy, delicious food. Everything in the scullery seemed old and well worn, from the wavy-edged pyrex pudding bowls to the tin pie-dishes that gave her delicious gooseberry tart a tingling metallic after-taste. I loved them all. Years of having to make do and mend meant nothing was wasted; things were only replaced when really necessary.

Like the washing up bowl. Grandma showed me how after so many uses the smooth bowl would start to roughen. Eventually little whitened tags of plastic would stick up as the plastic wore thin. At a certain point – probably every three or four years – she would decide enough was enough, and splash out, so to speak, on another. The purchase of a new one was a significant occasion that made a big impression upon me. I’ve never liked waste ever since – one of the many valuable qualities that I picked up from my dear Grandma.

But now, thanks to the temptations of Lidl, I am the proud possessor of not one but six new plastic washing up bowls. In Grandma’s book, that would count as a wild extravagance. But I think if she knew the reason I succumbed, it’s an extravagance she’d find very easy to forgive.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy this one about Grandma’s economic policy for her retirement: A Two-Sheet Solution or this one about her old piano: Tuning Grandma’s Piano: The Antidote to Chopsticks

Family

Another term, another topic, another school trip…

Posted on March 29, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

These days, it seems a term does not go by without the children being taken on a school trip. This policy is especially valuable in these rural parts, where our children do not have as much opportunity to travel as their city-dwelling peers. I’m quietly envious every time Laura comes home clutching a permission slip for the current term’s trip. I was raised in suburbia and by the age of 12 I was regularly taking the 30 minute train ride into London to visit museums and parks at weekends. Not only did I travel without an adult, I also used to take my much younger cousins – unthinkable these days for reasons you don’t need me to go into here. But we had very few school trips, and none at all in primary school.

Laura’s school outings are always carefully planned to enhance the term’s topic, and the destination is not always obvious. I wondered where on earth would they go to study the Second World War. It emerged that for visiting schools, the Steam Museum at Swindon will recreate an “evacuee experience”. I had a lump in my throat as I packed her off to school that day. She had to wear a 1930s frock and take a teddy, wear a gas mask box over her shoulder and have a luggage label bearing her name pinned to her cardigan. However did my grandparents cope with those farewells? (I’m thankful that they did: it was my father’s evacuation to the Cotswolds and his consequent love affair with the area that made me realise at a very young age that I wanted to live here too.)

Demonstration of Roman army shield formations — Taking health and safety precautions a little too far on the Roman topic school trip

I thought I’d guessed the destination for Laura’s “Ruthless Romans” topic trip. Surely it had to be either Cirencester, Chedworth Roman Villa or the Roman Baths at Bath? But no, they headed off to foreign parts – across the border into Wales for a fabulous day at Caerleon Roman Remains. The photos of the children dressed as legionnaires made it look as though they’d travelled back in time. It was a trip they will remember for the rest of their lives.

Where, then, would they go for this term’s topic? It’s “The Awesome Outdoors”, and not, as one child first reported, “Automatic Doors”. (Her mother thought this unusual theme would lead to some interesting science and technology lessons. It was several days before she realised her daughter’s mistake.)

I love the alliterative titles teachers give to their topics. It’s great psychology for generating excitement. I wondered where would their “awesome” destination be. I thought about my own travels when I was Laura’s age. I was lucky enough to spend my ninth year in the USA, where my father was working. We saw Yellowstone Park’s geysers, the Badlands, the Grand Canyon, the Great Lakes – all pretty awesome to a child who till then had thought Sidcup was the centre of the world.

Laura produced the note from her bookbag with a flourish.

Spring blossom at Westonbirt Arboretum — Westonbirt Arboretum - just 5 miles away

“We’re going to Westonbirt Arboretum!” she cried excitedly. A pause.“Where’s that again?”

Of course! Where else? The environment on our doorstep is hard to beat in terms of awesomeness. The Arboretum’s education department is second to none, so I know her class will have a fabulous, memorable time and come back filled with wonder.

To children, any trip is far from school if it requires a coach to get them there – and there should just about be time for a sing-song on the way. There’ll be plenty of opportunities for globe-trotting when she grows up.

(This post was originally written for the Tetbury Advertiser, April 2012)

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read about another of Laura’s outings in The Ring of Truth

Family

Tuning Grandma’s Piano (The Antidote To Chopsticks)

Posted on January 31, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

The only thing worse than hearing chopsticks played repeatedly on the piano is hearing chopsticks played repeatedly on a piano that is badly out of tune.

At the turn of the year, my daughter acquires this party trick from a school friend who has learned it from her cousin over Christmas. Chopsticks spreads like a virus among children. There can be few who are naturally immune. Roll on the day when the MMR vaccine gives way to the MMRC – Mumps, Measles, Rubella and Chopsticks.

But as this vaccination has yet to be invented, I decide the most effective remedy for my household is to get my piano tuned. My previous tuner in Bristol having retired, I scour the internet in hope of finding a new one closer to home. To my amazement, I discover there’s one in Didmarton – virtually on my doorstep. A phone call later he’s literally on my doorstep, toolbag in hand.

Clearing the photos and other debris from the top of the piano, I explain to him the history of my particular instrument. As I do, I realise why I’ve been so tardy in getting it tuned: I’m worried that it’s now beyond redemption and will have to be written off. A humble “cottage upright”, it’s not a valuable instrument, but it is precious to me.

Exactly a hundred years old, it belonged to my beloved grandmother, who was born in 1900. Her stepfather bought it for her when she was about eight – the age my daughter is now. In her twenties, she took it to her new marital home in Sidcup. (I can still picture the piano in the corner of her dining room, family photos and trinkets on the top, and I often dream that I’m back in that room having tea.)

Grandma and baby Sarah — Grandma and my more musical cousin

Her husband, my grandfather, was a gifted musician, too poor to afford a musical career, but music was always his passion, passed down the family line. Unfortunately his musical genes passed me by, but I did eventually gain the piano. It went first to my more talented cousin, whose skills soon outgrew the instrument’s powers. A trained opera singer, she played this piano at my wedding reception.

That I have chosen the right piano tuner to revive this family heirloom soon becomes clear. He reveals that his mother was also born in 1900. When I tell him my daughter’s name is Laura, he immediately begins to play the eponymous tune, which I’ve never come across before, declaring it to be his favourite. When she comes home from school, Laura will be thrilled.

Lovingly he coaxes the piano back into good order. He suppresses the squeaks that had lately haunted the pedals. He handcrafts new wooden shafts that give new voice to keys that had turned dumb. In turn, little by little, he brings each note back to just where it should be in the scale.

And then comes the grand finale: that fabulous moment when he shows off his handiwork by playing pieces that test every note on the keyboard. It’s the piano tuner’s equivalent to the typist’s quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.

Even if there is no cure for chopsticks, this is a most effective antidote. Thank you, Mr Felton – and may there be many encores.

This post was originally written for the Tetbury Advertiser, a great place to find a piano tuner and many other friendly local service providers!

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If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in another post about how my lovely Grandma, contemporary of the Suffragette Movement, taught me to value my right to vote:

I Wear My Vote on My Sleeve

and this one about how one of her old ornaments inspired my new business venture:

The Reading Man

Family, Travel

The Centre of the World

Posted on October 1, 2010July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

“Why isn’t our village mentioned on television more often?” asks my small daughter, Laura, as we’re watching the weather forecast. “They mention Bristol all the time.”

The swooping BBC weather map has just reached the city where her grandparents live. Our airspace, as ever, they have passed over without a mention.

For Laura, rural Gloucestershireis the centre of the world. Now and again she seeks my reassurance that we will live here forever. She worries that I may sell the house. When I gently suggest that she may one day want to move away to university, or in pursuit of a career or a husband, she gives me an old-fashioned look.

I understand. I still feel a gravitational pull towards my own roots in London suburbia. I was born not far from the Greenwich Meridian, by which the whole world set its clocks – proof, to my childish mind, that I lived at the centre of the world. Any mention on the telly of Sidcup still makes me feel proprietorial, even though it’s likely to be in the context of a comedy show. “Porridge” and “Rab C Nesbitt” both used Sidcup to raise an easy laugh.

In my subconscious there lies a world map. A large pin marks Sidcup as the focal point. Radiating out, in pastel colours, are the territories I’ve explored, while large tracts of uncharted land remain dark. Even today I take pleasure in visiting places I’ve never been, so that I can mentally colour them in. My map looks pretty colourful these days, but Sidcup’s central pin remains in place.

Few people feel no pull towards their roots. We are all like tethered goats, though some have longer ropes. My Scottish husband, an economic migrant to England at the age of 20, has lived and worked in many English towns and travelled as far India for holidays, but every summer he heads north, as compelled as a homing swallow, to conquer another few Munros (Scottish mountains over 3,000 feet high). Avidly he records his conquests on a vast mountain map that fills our kitchen table. If Laura had been a boy, he’d have insisted on naming her Munro. Both she and I are very glad she is a girl.

About the time I was busy being born in Sidcup, a Tetbury-born friend of mine left home for university. His career took him all over the country before he eventually settled in Norfolk – about as far east of his roots as he could get without leaving England. Yet in retirement, what should be at the centre of his thoughts but the area in which he was raised? He’s now penning a series of whimsical stories¹ based on the tiny territory of his boyhood, meticulously remembering every hill, every field and every lane.

Laura’s personal map is already of conquistadorial proportions: not many seven year olds have travelled as widely. Before she was four, she’d been to Albania: her first kiss, at the age of three, was from a small Greek boy in Athens. This summer she added the Outer Hebrides to her empire. She’s now set her sights on Mexico.

“How many countries are there in the world, Mummy?” she asked the other day, wondering how many she has yet to visit.

“194,” advised the internet.

“And which one is the most popular?”

For a moment I’m stumped, till I consider a democratic approach.

“If you asked everyone in the world, the most votes would probably go to China,” I suggest.

She frowned disapproval, patting her “Team England” t-shirt to indicate where she’d cast hers. (Later, doing the laundry, I check where her t-shirt was made. No prizes for guessing its country of origin. I decide I’d better not tell her.)

But no matter how far Laura travels, I’m sure her rural Gloucestershire home will always be her favourite destination. And now, as the autumn nights start to draw in, we are both very happy to be here.

(This post originally appeared in the Tetbury Advertiser, October 2010.)