I miss my young life in England. Check out www.thesunnygarden.blogspot.com My life and heritage was hijacked when I was brought here to the US.......
My heart will always be in England. England is my lover, my family, my everything.
My heart will always be in England. England is my lover, my family, my everything.
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My name is Christine and I was born in December, two days before Christmas, in St. Albans, Hertfordshire England. That was just a hop skip and a jump from my Grandparent's home on Beverley Gardens in Stanmore, their names were Edward and Rose Hunt. Stanmore is north west of London, now Greater London, just 11 miles from Charing Cross. Fifty years ago Stanmore was a village, near the golf course, and just a quiet walk down the sidewalks to Belmont Circle, where we caught the bus for Harrow, Watford High Street or to the train station to go to London to shop Selfridges and Marks and Spencers.
I was baptized at St. Peter's Church, Bushy Mill Lane, Harrow N Watford, Herts. I love my name, Christine Anne, thanks Mum! Coincidentally, at the same time, my neighbor, two doors away on Beverley Gardens, was baptized - Anne Christine. My original birth certificate lists my Dad, John, as a 'Railway Clerk', or 'clark' as it would have been pronounced. I found that to be interesting, as I do not believe he ever talked about this job. Recently, however, my Mum, Joan told me more about it.
POST WORLD WAR II
It was post World War II and the most bitterly cold winter ever recorded in British history, and I remind all that we did not have central heating then! India and Pakistan had just been divided into Hindu and Muslim states. Pakistan being designated as a Muslim state and those in India who practiced Islam were moved to Pakistan. I have a connection with India and the Indian people and to this day do not exactly know why I have such a deep affection for them. Winston Churchill was Prime Minister until 1945, Attlee until 1951, and then again Churchill served until 1955. Bomb riddled London was still experiencing rationing at every level. During the war, London experienced the blitz and one continuous bombing that continued for almost 100 days. It ravaged the city. Rationing of food, clothing, petrol and most necessities of life continued through 1954. Residents of London were trying to rebuild and faced the danger of UXB's, unexploded bombs. Children were returning from their safe exile in the British countryside, to be reunited with their parents who had remained in London and in coastal towns to fight Nazis and Fascists.
ROYALTY AND THE WAR
It should be known that the then, Princess Elizabeth, http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp just a youngster at that time, stayed with her sister, Margaret and her family at Windsor Palace during the war. No, she was not sent away to a safe place, but rather she was taught to use a gun, and drive and maintain an army jeep. The Royal family visited the bombed out areas of London and stood loyally by their British subjects. If they had been captured by the Nazis, would surely have all been executed. Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest reigning Monarch in British history and very beloved by the British people of my generation.
My father, John, had enlisted in the royal army at 15, fibbing about his age, I think. He was sent to Italy and to Egypt, where the British army had a big presence. He rode camels past the great Pyramids, and to me seemed, from his photos, so much like a Lawrence of Arabia. He brought back war stories about the beheadings in Persia, and told my Mum of the savagery he had encountered.
IMMIGRATION
Many English people were leaving Britain after the war to become ‘American’. British birds married brash yank soldiers and crossed the Atlantic to new homes and lives in the states. Some soldiers, fresh from the hellish war, still suffering ‘shell-shock’, wanted to get as far away from Europe as they could. The war had been ferocious and long, but had ended right after the U.S. bombing of hiroshima Japan. It was years before my mother could sit through a thunder storm without shaking, all she could think of was the London bombing blitz by the Germans, blackouts, and nights spent in their tiny corrugated tin bomb shelter built by my Grandpop, at the bottom of his garden. Still, my Mum had some fun times dancing with the American soldiers she told me, and she enjoyed her work for the war effort at the De Havilland airplane factory, where they were building the fastest plane at that time, the Comet. She also laughed and told me occasionally girls would be given enemy silk parachutes that were found, and they would keep them and cut them up, turning them into silk blouses and shirts. It was the British stiff upper lip and carry-on club she belonged to!
'CARRY ON, STIFF UPPER LIP' CLUB
I recall this episode of a wartime blackout one night,as recounted to me by my Mum. It was well after tea time, she said, night falling fast, when they turned out all lights, then suddenly heard the sirens whine. Quickly they started to the bomb shelter at the back of the garden. Once there, everyone realized that Nannie was not among them. Suddenly they heard a loud scream and call for help from the garden. "My God, Rose has been hit, she's hit with shrapnel!" my Grandpop called out. They all ran out into the night, stumbling through the garden to discover my Nannie sitting waist deep in the slime of the fish pond. She was holding a bottle above her head. Apparently, she had hung back to find a bottle of red currant wine, then making her way alone through the dark, accidentally fell into the fish pond, still holding the bottle tightly, and above her head, sooner be wet than have her homemade wine shatter and spill. It was time for a stiff upper lip and carry on attitude and that is how the family got through the war, just like every other Brit, life as usual.
I loved that story my Mum told me, and now, in 2015, at 67 years young, I am proud to be a member of the 'Carry-On, Stiff Upper Lip' club. I have managed to survive crossing the Atlantic many times over, moving too many times to count. I survived marriages and the traumatic death of my last, most beloved husband. Now, here, alone in the mountains of Santa Cruz, I survive each day. I am happy to be alive, happy to remember the past, and most of all I am happy with my British 'self', very unique, strong of will, and still loving England deeply.
THE YANKS
After the war America was a charismatic safe haven. The States offered equality. The English had seen the American way of life in films and newsreels and heard about it from the yank soldiers. In the States they scoffed at the class structure of Europe. In America there was no monarchy, no royalty, everyone was equal according to the constitution. All Americans had a crack at success, and my father wanted success badly. His urge was so strong he could taste and smell the air of New York City from his small flat in Watford. So after he married my Mother, Joan Irene, and a couple of years after I was born, he booked passage on the Queen Mary and we immigrated to America. I still miss England, and so I write my story for you to read.
THE RELATIONS
My young world in England was filled with many relations. My Dad's family, the Parkers, were a big group from Watford, and I loved them. The family http://www.watford.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/leisure-and-culture/local-history-and-heritage/ included John my Dad, the youngest, Uncle Sonny, Jean, Auntie Pip, Uncle Joe, Auntie Bubbles, Doreen and Kent, and Auntie Betty, and Aunt Peggy, Uncle Frank, plus my Nannie Parker, and my cousins little Frankie, Nigel, Joy, John, and the baby, whose name I cannot recall, Joey, Tina and Susie, and BoBo. I do recall my Uncle Reese and Florie.
.Nannie Parker, my Dad's Mum, was deaf since her twenties when she fell ill with a childhood disease, I believe. She raised the family on her own, husband gone, she was a tough nut. Apparently, my Grandpop on Dad's side left Nannie alone with the children. Nanny was a fighter though, she did a splendid job raising all those children. She even traveled to the US for her very first and last visit when she was 90 years old, carrying her own bag and asking for a ciggy and glass of wine when she finally arrived and sat herself down at my Mum's house.
Nannie Parker lived with Doreen and Kent, Nigel, Joy and baby above a shop they owned in Watford. The shop sold newspapers, sweets and staples, I believe etc. Nanny was 99 when she died, and had lived a very good life. The family's only regret that she did not make it to 100 years so she could have enjoyed her letter of congratulations from the Queen. The family all say she lived that long because she was deaf and could not hear the fighting and quarrels among the children, thus remaining calm and unperturbed through it all!
THE HUNTs
My Mum's family was Grandpop Eddie, Nannie Rose Hunt, and Bobbie, Mum's sister and Ben, my Uncle, married to Bobbie. That's it really, except for an Uncle Reese and I do not know who he was linked to. I did meet my Great Nannie, my Grandpop Eddie's mother. We visited her at her little country place in Cambridge. The cottage had a thatched roof and hedges and old rose bushes surrounding it. She kept chickens and goats, sheep, cats, and story goes, during the war there were American soldiers billeted across the road from her cottage and Great Nannie Hunt entertained the handsome soldiers with tea in the garden, much to the annoyance of her husband.
Grandpop Edward Hunt was a printer and a photographer, working for the Radio Times, Ben an accountant for the government. There were no cousins for me on the Hunt family tree. I do recall my dearest neighbors there on Beverly Gardens in Stanmore, Christopher Bishop and his Mum, and Anne Christine, my playmate, my age, down the street. Christopher was my very first love, John, my cousin, came in a close second though, as I recall!
I remember much about my Grandpop Eddie, but strangely, though we all lived in the same house, not much about Nanny Rose Hunt. This was cleared up for me recently by my Mother Joan, during a Christmas visit. We talked about Eddie and how talented and doting he was with both his daughters and me, his granddaughter. Then I asked the question, 'Mother, why do I have so few memories of Nanny at the same time?'.
My Mother told me that Rose was brought up during the Victorian age, when upper class women had nannies as children, were not close with their parents and were mostly sent away to school. The Victorian children were taught to be 'seen and not heard' and therefore, my Nanny Rose grew up a very, very quiet and reserved woman. She did not put on great displays of affection, but still cared for her children a lot. Grandpop on the other hand was a man, taught to be outgoing and personable. So I think that does clear up a lot for me. Nanny, sadly died young, with a cancer and was sick for some time with it. My Grandpop went on to remarry as late as his 80's to Ruth, my Step Gran. He continued to be healthy, until he died of natural causes in his late 80's.
CROSSING THE POND
My life at that time was back and forth across the Atlantic from the States to England, and usually on the Cunard lines, sometimes a French liner. http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/CunardLine2.html#anchor63145 No one flew at that time and the average trip took 5 days on a sometimes very angry seemingly endless ocean. I sailed on the SS United States, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth II, twice in fact, the Britanic, the Isle De France, the Liberte, and so forth. I read that the United States liner, on its side, was longer than the Empire State Building was tall!
We started our adventure at the train station Waterloo and arrived at Southampton for departure. Those were elegant crossings, and we dressed and felt like celebrities, with my Mum decked out in lovely fitted, handmade wool suits, with straight skirts, furs, and cameos and pearls, beautiful leather shoes and matching bags. We took along huge big black trunks filled with all our possessions. I was always dressed similarly, in little wool coats and matching leggings, white rabbit furs, velvet hats tied under my chin and white, lace up leather boots, that my Mother painstakingly applied shoe whiting to everyday, so that I would look immaculate.
Southampton was a gigantic cold place back in the '50's, where our trunks were piled and tagged for the ship's hold, where we filed through customs in long lines, hugged and cried departing, and then walked and weaved our way up long wood gangplanks to the ship's polished deck and ultimately found our way down to our tiny cabin class stateroom. Our staterooms were small with bunks, small sink and a porthole, if we were lucky. We always had big baskets of fruit throughout the 5-6 day trip. The fruit made the stateroom smell good. That was important if you were seasick. We left the rooms in the morning and only returned to dress for dinner. My Mum would visit the Purser's to cash checks and post letters in the morning, and we luxuriated in the huge dining rooms for meals, sometimes at the Captain's table, because my Mum was pretty.
We lounged in the beautiful libraries, reading and writing postcards. Mid-morning we laid on deck in canvas deck chairs, covered with wool blankets, while white jacketed stewards offered us hot Bovril and crackers and we watched the cold, grey, vast, ocean that touched the horizon in every direction. The ship's crew were elegant in their uniforms and treated us like royalty.
The one event that always left me anxious was the call to deck for emergency procedures training and to be fitted with our orange life preservers and shown where the life rafts were on the boat. I stood quaking, the huge orange life preserver dwarfing my little frame, wondering if we would really have to use them. I looked at the rows of life boats tied to the ship's hull and just couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to suddenly abandon the luxury of the great ship for a life boat to be tossed about helplessly.
On board, I spent hours in toy laden nurseries with children from around the world, many of my ship board friends were French. Needless to say, I could not understand them at that time, but still we managed to play together happily. We sang Alouette, Frere Jacques and I learned a little French, later I took 5 years of it in schools. I attended Punch and Judy puppet shows, pantomimes or pantos as they are called, and watched movies in theaters with plush velvet seats.
Dinners were announced with a discrete series of gongs as the elegant stewards made their way through the ships narrow hallways. Meals were fancy and as with all European dining had many courses laid out on white linen with fine china and silver. We dressed for dinners. Mum always had a lovely suit or dress, and made sure my dress and plaits (or braids as you may call them) were freshly done. I watched with amazement as the little French children sipped from big glasses of red wine. Though I never was offered wine, it is a tradition in European countries to teach children how to drink, and more importantly, that the water is not always good when you travel!
Sometimes our plates and glasses were anchored to the table if the ocean was rough. My Mum always looked impecable and beautifully turned out everyday and attracted much attention, especially with the soldiers who were traveling. Others got sea sick, but she managed to look perfect and elegant and petite, never succumbing to illness while aboard, as others did. The ships were gorgeous, and as exciting as a big glittering city, full of art, and gilding, and beautiful carpets. I loved it. At night the sound of the engines soothed you and the ocean swells rocked you to sleep in your bunk. The nights we docked in harbor in NY, we would hear the engines shut down and we knew we were there! The tugs arrived to tow us into harbor. I loved looking through the porthole and seeing the lights of NY City glittering like jewels, it was the most thrilling moment you could imagine!
BEVERLEY GARDENS, STANMORE MIDDLESEX, HA7
Enjoyable and exciting times on the ocean liners were far overshadowed by my wonderful stays with Grandpop and Nannie Rose at 79 Beverley Gardens, Stanmore, Middlesex . I think my Grandpop enjoyed me, I was always showered with gifts, fur gloves and hats, expensive child size dolls, beautiful doll prams, books, marionettes. I had my own little nursery room at the top of the stairs with a big bed and satin goose down comforter, a set of little steps to climb into bed. Grandpop took me up the stairs at night, saying 'come on ducks, up the apples and pears' translated to 'stairs'. That was cockney rhyming slang which everyone adored. I had lots of story books too. My favorites being the Panda twins, Ping and Pong, two Chinese panda bears, Grimm's fairytales, and my very beloved Rupert the Bear books, featuring a young bear who dressed in plaid pants and had exciting adventures. http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~afm/followers/?http://oldeee.see.ed.ac.uk/~afm/followers But, often, I was scared to stay there in the little room all alone, and insisted I sleep with my Mother, in her room. Hers had a fireplace, a veranda and an even bigger satin down comforter, large clothes wardrobes and a comfy overstuffed chair.
I recall the bathroom down the hall, and cringe. We hated it in winter, cold octagonal white and black tile, colder than the inside of a refrigerator, if they had had a refrigerator! No one really wanted to use the bathroom unless absolutely necessary. We still kept chamber pots in the bedrooms in fact! At night we warmed the big beds with rubber hot water bottles that were filled from a big kettle that was kept on a rolling boil on the coal stove in the kitchen. Children were always bathed in the warmth of the kitchen by the coal stove, since there was no central heating. It was a sponge bath. Hair was shampooed once a week, in between shampoos, it was talced, the talc was combed out and with it the oil and dirt. We didn't have hair dryers at home, so it was impractical to go around with wet hair too often, as you would certainly "catch your death" as they say. A vest was something we were never without, young or old, the morning's first question would be 'did you put your vest on?' A vest equates to an American sleeveless undershirt. I emphasize it was frightfully, bitterly, fridgid, cold there in the winters. These were survival techniques, as well as taking our daily dose of cod liver oil to build our blood and keep us warm.
In my Grandpop's house, each and every room had a door to shut out the cold. Open floor plans were not the scheme. So the lounge was always shut unless we had formal company or it was Christmas, or someone in the family had died. The back rooms of the house were cozy though, and faced the stone terrace and formal garden with fish pond and fountain in the center. The back sitting room had sofa, big chairs, small telly, large oak table for teatime, wool carpets and french doors to the terrace. Each morning my Grandpop flung open the French doors and together we tossed yesterday's stale bread to the beautiful, fat, round red English robins.
There were fireplaces in every room including the bathroom, some were coal, others held an electric radiant heater. The coal fireplace was central in the back sitting room and I had a little cushioned stool kept directly in front of the fire and sat there to watch telly every afternoon, warm my hands, or watch while Grandpop entertained me with magic tricks, drawing, and his ventriloquist dummy, generally after teatime. British telly at that time, was only on the air briefly in the late afternoon and early evening. My favorite shows were Andy Pandy, Muffin the Mule, the Flowerpot Men, and Sooty. http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/ Often during the early evening Grandpop would bring out a gold embossed metal tin full of English toffees, some licorice Allsorts, Wine gums, or Cadbury's chocolates and pass them around, then he would sit with huge pieces of paper and pencils he sharpened with a knife and sketch funny papers for me, or make me paper hats or origami toys. He was a splendid, kind, man.
WHAT'S FOR TEA?
First I have to get this corrected for the Americans! High tea is a tea much like a working class supper, served late in the day, it would be a meat pie, or fish and chips, some bread and cheeses, a pint of ale, and some tea. Afternoon Tea is a cream tea or one at which you consume dainties and scones, etc. Our family teatime was typically a high tea at or after 4pm in the afternoon was a meal, consisting of small sandwiches, crust removed, buttered, then coated with fish or meat paste, and layered with cool cucumber slices or watercress, cut on the angle and piled up on sandwich plates. We also enjoyed meat pies and pasties. There were chilled stalks of celery in cut glass containers, big pickled onions, and a cake, or bisquits. We sometimes had a blancmange, a sort of pudding that I found distasteful, not fully coagulated, or tapioca pudding. Actually Blancmange is a pudding joke in Britain! Then of course, during, teatime, there was a big pot of black tea, served with milk and sugar. Children always had milky tea. I never recall having milk alone, just milky tea.
If dinner was served in a more sophisticated manner, it was for adults only, after dark, which was more sophisticated, between 8pm and 10pm, well after children had been sent to bed in their nursery. It was drinks to start, either home made wine or a gin fizz, gin and tonic, then a course of fish, then one of meat and veg, perhaps a pudding, finally cheese and fruit, a demitasse of strong coffee, and a digestive biscuit to finish. It was too late for me to indulge in, as I was usually put to bed by that time, and grownups discussed things that did not interest me!
Breakfast for British children was usually a bowl of porridge, drizzled with Lyon's treacle, and maybe some crusty English bread, toasted with butter and gooseberry jam. Occasionally I got a boiled egg in a china egg cup, with marmite soldiers, that was bread cut into strips and dipped into the thick marmite. When time permitted, the adults would have what they call a 'fry up', or 'Full English', with big rashers of bacon, mushrooms, fried tomatoes, kippers (smoked herring) fried eggs, or eggs in dainty egg cups, sometimes baked beans and lots of tea of course! Occasionally my Nannie would do fried bread. Bread was soaked in bacon fat and fried crispy in a heavy pan, then sprinkled liberally with salt. That was my favorite. We had no fridge then, just a pantry, icy cold, with shelves to store eggs, milk that was delivered each day, cheese, breads, the roast or pork for Sunday dinner. Fresh foods were shopped for everyday, or picked out of the allotment garden.
The English breads were wonderful, thick and crusty, not at all like American White Wonder Bread! That would have been disgusting to a British person! Nannie said, 'eat your crusts, Christine, they will give you curly hair'. This was not enough to make my tiny teeth chew through these crispy, sharp, tough crusts. So I devised a plan to pull them off carefully and I placed each piece of tough old crust that I did not eat, on a ledge I discovered underneath the kitchen table. One day, my Nanny, who was cleaning at the time, bumped the table and they all fell from the little ledge to the floor beneath the table! I was watching the telly but could hear her exclaim, 'what on earth! My goodness, Christine, you are a naughty girl.' I promptly ran and hid for a time, knowing exactly what had happened.
THE ALLOTMENT
On Sunday morning Grandpop and I would put on our wellies and trudge out to the allotment at the back of the house for greens. An allotment was an easement of open space behind the back neat garden fences, in which the neighborhood residents grew their vegetables and fruits. http://www.harrowinleaf.org.uk/ There is still an allotment area at the back of Beverley Gardens today!
This property was provided to families during the war and enabled people to have fresh foods, where they may not have had any. Allotment associations were formed, like clubs, neighbors signed up for their opportunity to garden, and people still care for their allotments and belong to allotment societies. Grandpop and I would pick thick red stalks of rhubarb, which turned soft when cooked with enough sugar, rhubarb was a treat we often ate with Bird's Custard! We also harvested runner beans, lima beans, brussel sprouts, and carrots and we dug potatoes for dinner. Nannie roasted the potatoes in the beef fat and they sizzled and popped in the coal oven. She served the roast and vegetables with yorkshire pudding. Our alternate Sunday meal was occasionally spring lamb, with home made mint jelly or a nice crispy brown pork roast, garnished with spiced apples. Sundays the house smelled divine, the kitchen was steamy and warm and everyone was happy.
I should tell you that wonderful, rich food was not always the case, as rationing was in effect. It was a real test of ingenuity for the cook in the household to put a meal on the table. The big rashers of bacon, beef, butter, tea, jam, eggs and sugar were all rationed. Rationing continued until 1954.
BONFIRE NIGHT
Of all the seasons, I enjoyed the brisk English fall weather the best. I looked forward to Christmas and especially November 5th which was Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire night, and a very big day for children. We did not have the American imported holiday of Halloween then. Guy Fawkes was the Italian Catholic who tried to blow up the houses of Parliament, but his plot was stopped and he was executed. Every November 5th the British children make effigies of Guy out of straw and rag clothes, drag him around in a wagon door to door and we would have this little chant, "Remember, remember, the 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason, and plot, We see no reason, why gunpowder treason, should ever be forgot!" and they would ask for a 'penny for the guy' which people, happy to oblige, gave the children. Later in the evening all around the country, large bonfires are built in open areas and back gardens alike, and the straw effigy is tossed on to the fire to burn and fireworks are set off. This gives everyone great delight! Hot sausages and meat pies, sticky cakes are served outside by the bonfire and children hold small sparklers and fireworks were set off too. I looked forward to this holiday, it was the smell of the backyard crackling bonfires and fireworks, and the wonderful food that I adored, as well as being out late at night in the dark. I loved this holiday, and miss it.
SHOPPING
Grandpop often took us to Harrow and Watford and to London, to the high streets for shopping, to Selfridges and Marks and Spencers and to the street vendors. He took me to the parks so I could swing and slide and play, and to Trafalgar Square so I could be photographed feeding the pigeons. We shopped a lot for my school uniforms, jumpers (sweaters), shoes, plimsoles (trainers or tennis shoes) and we stopped in the tea shops, and came home laden with bags and goodies, food, meat pies, sometimes fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, and toffee sweets and treats of all sorts.
CARAVANNING
My fair-haired Grandpop, had stern, grey, brown eyes that could admonish, or embrace you with one quick flash in your direction. He was a man of abundant, but sometimes aggravating talents. He was a constant doodler and cartoonist, watercolorist, storyteller, and a photographer, also a magician, gardener, and master putterer. This last one, putterer, was the great aggravation to Nannie Rose. But, of his numerous, all consuming interests, the one the family agreed they all enjoyed tremendously, was my Grandpop's penchant for caravanning!
I have an old leather album, jam-packed with the black and white photos Grandpop had taken of me and developed in his darkroom. There is one photograph entitled ‘Caravanning’. In this photo I am a tiny 4 year old. I had been posed by my Grandpop in front of big-grilled, 1947, black motor car. Parked next to the car is a large, boxy-looking caravan, or trailer as 'yanks' call them. I know the real subject of the photo was not me, the petite, lovely 4 year old, but rather Grandpop's beloved caravan and car.
THE GYPSIES...(Travellers as some are are now called)
The history of caravanning in England dates to Tudor times when Romany Gypsies or Travelers were first exiled to its shores. Throughout the 19th century they poured into Britain escaping the persecution of Hitler. The Gypsies wandered the emerald countryside with their tents and elaborate wagons. They were given a freedom and the English welcomed them by passing laws that allowed them to make their encampments just about anywhere they wished on British soil. The colorful and sometimes notorious Gypsies bartered and traded, entertained, were palmists, mystics, as well as masters at “old world” skills like carpentry and wagon building. The Caravan Sites Act of 1968 made it statutory for local authorities to provide camp sites for Gypsies or the Travelers as they were also known, and still are. The colorful life of the Gypsies inspired so much folklore. Hardly a fairytale was written for British children, without it’s wonderful “Gypsy” characters. http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/voices/history_intro.shtml The Gypsy legacy instilled a romantic wanderlust into the British people. So, after the WWII, with wanderlust in his heart, and petrol plentiful again, Eddie hitched the caravan to his motor car and took us all off for our grand camping holidays during the warm weather! I adored it, whether it was on a rolling pasture or by the seaside. Those were grand and happy times.
Going back a few paragraphs, I realize my deep bond with the Indian people and love of the Raj, but I also believe I have a tie to the Travelers, the gypsies. Someday I will research this, and someday, I will know why I have these deep feelings about two very special and treasured cultures.
SCHOOL
It was in the British school system I learned to knit and do needlework. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6687549.stm I learned how to write with the silver nib of a pen dipped in an inkwell on my desk. The boy behind me often sprayed my crisp white uniform shirt with blue ink, much to my Mum's dismay when I returned home each day. I took gym in my white cotton pants and white vest, we all just stripped down to our undies, boys and girls, much to my mortification. I wore the precursor to tennis shoes, and they were called plimpsels.
The girls all collected and traded charms as a pastime between classes. I did too, some of mine were tiny decorative buttons raided from my Nan's button basket. I don't know what the boys collected, perhaps marbles, maybe milkbottle tops. The girls often did a ball bounce and sang a little song I still remember after 50 years...
I went to a chinese baker,
I asked for a loaf of bread,
He wrapped it up in chinese paper,
and this is what he said,
'eeny, meany, maca racka, rare eye, domin-acka, chicka, pocka,
lollipopa...om, pom...push!
and at that point we would push off the ball to the next person!
Silly wasn't it? But fun to kids I suppose!
I remember that my British school days were confusing, not knowing if I should say "God Save the Queen', or sing the US anthem. I did not understand England's very rich and complex history. The US was a youngster in comparison, and I had only 100 years of that to remember.
I learned always to carry a hanky to school. You absolutely had to have a fresh hanky stuffed into the cuff of your shirt descretely and you had to have a fresh one with you each day! The teacher would walk the isle up and down and ask you to turn your hands over to see if they were clean, examining your nails and then checking your cuff carefully for the ever present hanky. I do recall the short pants all the boys were required to wear, well into their teenage years, they wore them in the summer, and in the bitter biting cold of the English winters. Their little, knobbly, knees would turn bright red as they kicked their soccer balls down the street, or across the fields. Wearing short pants was to make them hardy and tough I was told. I liked my uniform, and the thick wooly knee socks, the crisp white shirt and jumpers. We did not wear pants once in school, as the Americans did, we seemed to always have bare legs at school no matter what season or weather. Babies toddling or in their prams were permitted leggings though. It was wonderful to see the hardy, plump rosy cheeked, English babies bundled up in their gorgeous shiny prams being walked through the parks and down the sidewalks even in the cold or rainy weather.
One winter I had started a knitting project for my school work and I would work on it in the evening on my little stool by the fire. Grandpop, sitting opposite in his arm chair reading the Times, would tease me constantly by saying, 'Christine you've droppd a stitch', at which I would always stop, put down my needles and wool and start to search around on the floor for the dropped stitch. I was very upset that year, when I was told we had to go home to America and I cried and said I could not, as I had not finished my knitting project for school and my teacher would be mad. This is how important woolies and knitting were in England. My mother won awards for her knitting and sewing when she was a girl in school. She was very impressed when my Auntie Bobbie, her sister, told her that she had purchased a mechanized knitting machine. After that we got the strangest knitted Christmas gifts, some jumpers that were very hideous and ill fitting, some with very wide stripes and knitted slippers that fell off your feet and tripped you up as you walked. But Auntie Bobbie was proud of her work and the knitting machine, so we said nothing.
CHUMS
I had a little friend two houses away on Beverly Gardens, her name was Anne Christine. This struck me funny, as mine was Christine Anne. I always wondered exactly how this had happened. Anne and I were chums and pals and did everything together and Grandpop often took her along if we caravanned or went to the sea shore. He would spend hours carving out boats and castles in the sand to please us. But our favorite pastime was picnicing and we would make apple sandwiches as our treat. These are thick apple slices on buttered bread, sprinkled with sugar. We packed them in waxpaper and would march up the grassy hill near the house, lie down and eat them as we watched the clouds roll by. Later walking home, the boys on the street would see us and throw chestnuts at us. We were always easy prey for the boys. Chestnuts, however were a great treat, popped on the hot coals in the fire in the winter, and were sweet and warm and nutty inside. You could buy them on any corner of the high street in winter to warm you up.
My immediate next door neighbor was my first crush. I was totally smitten with him and in love even at age 4 and 5, and as I grew older. His name was Christopher Bishop, a beautiful and handsome looking, very slim, young man, dark hair, big brown eyes and so well brought up and well behaved and so elegant. He treated me like a little fairy princess. Christopher lived alone with his Mother next door and they had a darling, scruffy Jack Russell terrier. It was a bit scrappy, but cute. They also had a large toroise that wandered the garden and the small paddling pond. One summer he and his mother had a shallow paddling pool dug in their garden and I was invited over to wade in it. I wore a little white pinafore dress, trimmed in red, ruffled over my bare shoulders, criss-cross straps in the back, skirt swingy and short above my knees. I felt like a gorgeous celebrity child and I posed in the pool dabbling my toes, and Christopher set my heart fluttering when he came out from the house in his bathing suit, his body lean, hips narrow, long slender legs, dark eyes and eyelashes he looked like a young starlet himself. He outstretched his arm to me and offered me his hand to help me walk out of the pool and I reached out for it, clinging, was pulled gently toward him, and suddenly I was just bowled over in love with him. After that I would go to tea at his house, he showed me their family tortoise and I fed him lettuce leaves and I played often with the Bishop's Jack Russell. I have the photos of Christopher and cherish them, he died in his teens of diabetes I was told later, I think.
BIG RED DOUBLE DECKER BUSES AND TRAINS
When we lived in England for months at a time, my Mum and I took buses and trains everywhere. It was exciting. I just thrilled at getting dressed up, walking down the sidewalk and waiting at the bus stop with my Mum. To see the big red, double decker Routemaster bus pull up was a thrill, and I always begged to sit on the upper level. We took the bus to Watford, coming back at night, watching the lights of the town come on as we traveled. When we got off at our stop, it was cold, you could smell the wonderful smell of fires burning. We never had a worry about walking the sidewalks at night in those days. I loved riding the trains too, standing on the platform in Stanmore full of anticipation, then seeing the huge steam engines slowly pull up and hearing a conductor announce, allllll aboard!. I felt the rhythm of the engine on the tracks and so enjoyed sitting at the window watching the countryside go by. We rode the bus back in the States too, but nothing compared with the doubledeckers, nor the trains in England!
I never saw many black people in London at that time in the '50's, though now the faces of London have changed and there is a large community of both blacks and asians welcomed into British life. I did have a great curiosity as a child about blacks, which were referred to as darkies or coloreds. My favorite story book was called 'Little Black Samba' about a little black boy that was chased around a palm tree by a tiger. The tiger went round and round and finally melted into butter and the little black boy was spared being eaten. Black children, Chinese or East Indian children, Gypsies, were exciting and romantic characters in my picture books. British children adored them and respected them as exotic and interesting people with knowlege of far, far away places that we could only read and dream about. The black Golly was a big favorite of children in England in that era. The Golliwog was and is an endearing and treasured, loved, trademark of the English preserves company, James Robertson & Sons. He is a black doll and most English children had one in their nursery. I do recall so vividly being on a bus one day with my Mother and spotting a lovely black lady and her son. My eyes got very wide and I said loudly, to my Mum as I pointed at them, 'Mummy, why do those people have dirt on their faces and hands?' My mother was mortified and happy we got off at the next stop. I saw the black people in my story books, but these were the first real ones I had ever seen in public!
TOYS
Some fond childhood memories are tied to the nursery toys I had. One special toy I played with was a doll's tea set. It was a blue willow design and the story of blue willow ware intrigued me and I became an avid collector throughout my life because of that little dolls tea set.
The story is told in picture form on the china. It goes...Long ago, in the days when China was ruled by emperors, a Chinese manderin, Tso Ling, lived in the magnificent pagoda under the branches of the apple tree on the right of the bridge, over which droops the famous willow tree, and in front of which is seen the graceful lines of the fence. Tso Ling was the father of a beautiful girl, Kwang-se, who was the promised bride of an old but wealthy merchant. The girl, however, fell in love with Chang, her father’s clerk. The lovers eloped across the sea to the cottage on the island. The mandarin pursued and caught the lovers and was about to have them killed when the gods transformed them into a pair of turtle doves. These are seen gazing into each other’s eyes at the top of the design. And so the fable goes. I have a photo of myself, sipping imaginary tea from a blue willow cup in the garden at Grandpop's house. I am dressed in a homemade nurses outfit, a piece of sheet with a red cross painted on the front was tied around my hair, and I was wearing a white pinafore apron. I think I must have been about 6 years old. Being a nurse was something to aspire to, especially since the war was still so lingering in our heads.
I suppose at this point, after talk about toys and tea and buses and caravanning, I should say where and what was going on with my Dad back in the States. Our travels to England did not include my Dad. I believe he remained for work reasons, and early on was a Fuller Brush salesman going door to door in Philadelphia. That was quite a good job at the time and door to door salemen were typical. He later became a portable tool salesman with Mall Tool and we traveled with him on his route frequently, around the east coast. Later he went to Porter Cable selling and demonstrating power tools and really excelling at that to become Salesman of the year. My Mom worked infrequently, but when she did, it was as a seamstress typically. Women just did not work so much in those years, but remained at home to keep house and mind the children.
It was in 1951 that Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth and then in an elaborate and traditional coronation ceremony. I was privileged to watch that on the telly, not to fully grasp what was happening, but still to be awed. Later I received a gold coach with horses, the coronation coach as a souvenir. I really wish I still had that little coach and can still see it in my mind's eye.
more...
It is now 2015, I have not returned to my beloved England. My dear, most beautiful younger sister, Wendy and my beautiful Mother and 'dashing' Father are all passed now. My Sister and Mother most recently in the last year or two. I still yearn for England, I had a big family there, and being alone, a senior and a widow, I am reluctant to travel on my own, otherwise, with the financial security I have, I would certainly 'sell up' and relocate to England.
My name is Christine and I was born in December, two days before Christmas, in St. Albans, Hertfordshire England. That was just a hop skip and a jump from my Grandparent's home on Beverley Gardens in Stanmore, their names were Edward and Rose Hunt. Stanmore is north west of London, now Greater London, just 11 miles from Charing Cross. Fifty years ago Stanmore was a village, near the golf course, and just a quiet walk down the sidewalks to Belmont Circle, where we caught the bus for Harrow, Watford High Street or to the train station to go to London to shop Selfridges and Marks and Spencers.
I was baptized at St. Peter's Church, Bushy Mill Lane, Harrow N Watford, Herts. I love my name, Christine Anne, thanks Mum! Coincidentally, at the same time, my neighbor, two doors away on Beverley Gardens, was baptized - Anne Christine. My original birth certificate lists my Dad, John, as a 'Railway Clerk', or 'clark' as it would have been pronounced. I found that to be interesting, as I do not believe he ever talked about this job. Recently, however, my Mum, Joan told me more about it.
POST WORLD WAR II
It was post World War II and the most bitterly cold winter ever recorded in British history, and I remind all that we did not have central heating then! India and Pakistan had just been divided into Hindu and Muslim states. Pakistan being designated as a Muslim state and those in India who practiced Islam were moved to Pakistan. I have a connection with India and the Indian people and to this day do not exactly know why I have such a deep affection for them. Winston Churchill was Prime Minister until 1945, Attlee until 1951, and then again Churchill served until 1955. Bomb riddled London was still experiencing rationing at every level. During the war, London experienced the blitz and one continuous bombing that continued for almost 100 days. It ravaged the city. Rationing of food, clothing, petrol and most necessities of life continued through 1954. Residents of London were trying to rebuild and faced the danger of UXB's, unexploded bombs. Children were returning from their safe exile in the British countryside, to be reunited with their parents who had remained in London and in coastal towns to fight Nazis and Fascists.
ROYALTY AND THE WAR
It should be known that the then, Princess Elizabeth, http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp just a youngster at that time, stayed with her sister, Margaret and her family at Windsor Palace during the war. No, she was not sent away to a safe place, but rather she was taught to use a gun, and drive and maintain an army jeep. The Royal family visited the bombed out areas of London and stood loyally by their British subjects. If they had been captured by the Nazis, would surely have all been executed. Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest reigning Monarch in British history and very beloved by the British people of my generation.
My father, John, had enlisted in the royal army at 15, fibbing about his age, I think. He was sent to Italy and to Egypt, where the British army had a big presence. He rode camels past the great Pyramids, and to me seemed, from his photos, so much like a Lawrence of Arabia. He brought back war stories about the beheadings in Persia, and told my Mum of the savagery he had encountered.
IMMIGRATION
Many English people were leaving Britain after the war to become ‘American’. British birds married brash yank soldiers and crossed the Atlantic to new homes and lives in the states. Some soldiers, fresh from the hellish war, still suffering ‘shell-shock’, wanted to get as far away from Europe as they could. The war had been ferocious and long, but had ended right after the U.S. bombing of hiroshima Japan. It was years before my mother could sit through a thunder storm without shaking, all she could think of was the London bombing blitz by the Germans, blackouts, and nights spent in their tiny corrugated tin bomb shelter built by my Grandpop, at the bottom of his garden. Still, my Mum had some fun times dancing with the American soldiers she told me, and she enjoyed her work for the war effort at the De Havilland airplane factory, where they were building the fastest plane at that time, the Comet. She also laughed and told me occasionally girls would be given enemy silk parachutes that were found, and they would keep them and cut them up, turning them into silk blouses and shirts. It was the British stiff upper lip and carry-on club she belonged to!
'CARRY ON, STIFF UPPER LIP' CLUB
I recall this episode of a wartime blackout one night,as recounted to me by my Mum. It was well after tea time, she said, night falling fast, when they turned out all lights, then suddenly heard the sirens whine. Quickly they started to the bomb shelter at the back of the garden. Once there, everyone realized that Nannie was not among them. Suddenly they heard a loud scream and call for help from the garden. "My God, Rose has been hit, she's hit with shrapnel!" my Grandpop called out. They all ran out into the night, stumbling through the garden to discover my Nannie sitting waist deep in the slime of the fish pond. She was holding a bottle above her head. Apparently, she had hung back to find a bottle of red currant wine, then making her way alone through the dark, accidentally fell into the fish pond, still holding the bottle tightly, and above her head, sooner be wet than have her homemade wine shatter and spill. It was time for a stiff upper lip and carry on attitude and that is how the family got through the war, just like every other Brit, life as usual.
I loved that story my Mum told me, and now, in 2015, at 67 years young, I am proud to be a member of the 'Carry-On, Stiff Upper Lip' club. I have managed to survive crossing the Atlantic many times over, moving too many times to count. I survived marriages and the traumatic death of my last, most beloved husband. Now, here, alone in the mountains of Santa Cruz, I survive each day. I am happy to be alive, happy to remember the past, and most of all I am happy with my British 'self', very unique, strong of will, and still loving England deeply.
THE YANKS
After the war America was a charismatic safe haven. The States offered equality. The English had seen the American way of life in films and newsreels and heard about it from the yank soldiers. In the States they scoffed at the class structure of Europe. In America there was no monarchy, no royalty, everyone was equal according to the constitution. All Americans had a crack at success, and my father wanted success badly. His urge was so strong he could taste and smell the air of New York City from his small flat in Watford. So after he married my Mother, Joan Irene, and a couple of years after I was born, he booked passage on the Queen Mary and we immigrated to America. I still miss England, and so I write my story for you to read.
THE RELATIONS
My young world in England was filled with many relations. My Dad's family, the Parkers, were a big group from Watford, and I loved them. The family http://www.watford.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/leisure-and-culture/local-history-and-heritage/ included John my Dad, the youngest, Uncle Sonny, Jean, Auntie Pip, Uncle Joe, Auntie Bubbles, Doreen and Kent, and Auntie Betty, and Aunt Peggy, Uncle Frank, plus my Nannie Parker, and my cousins little Frankie, Nigel, Joy, John, and the baby, whose name I cannot recall, Joey, Tina and Susie, and BoBo. I do recall my Uncle Reese and Florie.
.Nannie Parker, my Dad's Mum, was deaf since her twenties when she fell ill with a childhood disease, I believe. She raised the family on her own, husband gone, she was a tough nut. Apparently, my Grandpop on Dad's side left Nannie alone with the children. Nanny was a fighter though, she did a splendid job raising all those children. She even traveled to the US for her very first and last visit when she was 90 years old, carrying her own bag and asking for a ciggy and glass of wine when she finally arrived and sat herself down at my Mum's house.
Nannie Parker lived with Doreen and Kent, Nigel, Joy and baby above a shop they owned in Watford. The shop sold newspapers, sweets and staples, I believe etc. Nanny was 99 when she died, and had lived a very good life. The family's only regret that she did not make it to 100 years so she could have enjoyed her letter of congratulations from the Queen. The family all say she lived that long because she was deaf and could not hear the fighting and quarrels among the children, thus remaining calm and unperturbed through it all!
THE HUNTs
My Mum's family was Grandpop Eddie, Nannie Rose Hunt, and Bobbie, Mum's sister and Ben, my Uncle, married to Bobbie. That's it really, except for an Uncle Reese and I do not know who he was linked to. I did meet my Great Nannie, my Grandpop Eddie's mother. We visited her at her little country place in Cambridge. The cottage had a thatched roof and hedges and old rose bushes surrounding it. She kept chickens and goats, sheep, cats, and story goes, during the war there were American soldiers billeted across the road from her cottage and Great Nannie Hunt entertained the handsome soldiers with tea in the garden, much to the annoyance of her husband.
Grandpop Edward Hunt was a printer and a photographer, working for the Radio Times, Ben an accountant for the government. There were no cousins for me on the Hunt family tree. I do recall my dearest neighbors there on Beverly Gardens in Stanmore, Christopher Bishop and his Mum, and Anne Christine, my playmate, my age, down the street. Christopher was my very first love, John, my cousin, came in a close second though, as I recall!
I remember much about my Grandpop Eddie, but strangely, though we all lived in the same house, not much about Nanny Rose Hunt. This was cleared up for me recently by my Mother Joan, during a Christmas visit. We talked about Eddie and how talented and doting he was with both his daughters and me, his granddaughter. Then I asked the question, 'Mother, why do I have so few memories of Nanny at the same time?'.
My Mother told me that Rose was brought up during the Victorian age, when upper class women had nannies as children, were not close with their parents and were mostly sent away to school. The Victorian children were taught to be 'seen and not heard' and therefore, my Nanny Rose grew up a very, very quiet and reserved woman. She did not put on great displays of affection, but still cared for her children a lot. Grandpop on the other hand was a man, taught to be outgoing and personable. So I think that does clear up a lot for me. Nanny, sadly died young, with a cancer and was sick for some time with it. My Grandpop went on to remarry as late as his 80's to Ruth, my Step Gran. He continued to be healthy, until he died of natural causes in his late 80's.
CROSSING THE POND
My life at that time was back and forth across the Atlantic from the States to England, and usually on the Cunard lines, sometimes a French liner. http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/CunardLine2.html#anchor63145 No one flew at that time and the average trip took 5 days on a sometimes very angry seemingly endless ocean. I sailed on the SS United States, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth II, twice in fact, the Britanic, the Isle De France, the Liberte, and so forth. I read that the United States liner, on its side, was longer than the Empire State Building was tall!
We started our adventure at the train station Waterloo and arrived at Southampton for departure. Those were elegant crossings, and we dressed and felt like celebrities, with my Mum decked out in lovely fitted, handmade wool suits, with straight skirts, furs, and cameos and pearls, beautiful leather shoes and matching bags. We took along huge big black trunks filled with all our possessions. I was always dressed similarly, in little wool coats and matching leggings, white rabbit furs, velvet hats tied under my chin and white, lace up leather boots, that my Mother painstakingly applied shoe whiting to everyday, so that I would look immaculate.
Southampton was a gigantic cold place back in the '50's, where our trunks were piled and tagged for the ship's hold, where we filed through customs in long lines, hugged and cried departing, and then walked and weaved our way up long wood gangplanks to the ship's polished deck and ultimately found our way down to our tiny cabin class stateroom. Our staterooms were small with bunks, small sink and a porthole, if we were lucky. We always had big baskets of fruit throughout the 5-6 day trip. The fruit made the stateroom smell good. That was important if you were seasick. We left the rooms in the morning and only returned to dress for dinner. My Mum would visit the Purser's to cash checks and post letters in the morning, and we luxuriated in the huge dining rooms for meals, sometimes at the Captain's table, because my Mum was pretty.
We lounged in the beautiful libraries, reading and writing postcards. Mid-morning we laid on deck in canvas deck chairs, covered with wool blankets, while white jacketed stewards offered us hot Bovril and crackers and we watched the cold, grey, vast, ocean that touched the horizon in every direction. The ship's crew were elegant in their uniforms and treated us like royalty.
The one event that always left me anxious was the call to deck for emergency procedures training and to be fitted with our orange life preservers and shown where the life rafts were on the boat. I stood quaking, the huge orange life preserver dwarfing my little frame, wondering if we would really have to use them. I looked at the rows of life boats tied to the ship's hull and just couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to suddenly abandon the luxury of the great ship for a life boat to be tossed about helplessly.
On board, I spent hours in toy laden nurseries with children from around the world, many of my ship board friends were French. Needless to say, I could not understand them at that time, but still we managed to play together happily. We sang Alouette, Frere Jacques and I learned a little French, later I took 5 years of it in schools. I attended Punch and Judy puppet shows, pantomimes or pantos as they are called, and watched movies in theaters with plush velvet seats.
Dinners were announced with a discrete series of gongs as the elegant stewards made their way through the ships narrow hallways. Meals were fancy and as with all European dining had many courses laid out on white linen with fine china and silver. We dressed for dinners. Mum always had a lovely suit or dress, and made sure my dress and plaits (or braids as you may call them) were freshly done. I watched with amazement as the little French children sipped from big glasses of red wine. Though I never was offered wine, it is a tradition in European countries to teach children how to drink, and more importantly, that the water is not always good when you travel!
Sometimes our plates and glasses were anchored to the table if the ocean was rough. My Mum always looked impecable and beautifully turned out everyday and attracted much attention, especially with the soldiers who were traveling. Others got sea sick, but she managed to look perfect and elegant and petite, never succumbing to illness while aboard, as others did. The ships were gorgeous, and as exciting as a big glittering city, full of art, and gilding, and beautiful carpets. I loved it. At night the sound of the engines soothed you and the ocean swells rocked you to sleep in your bunk. The nights we docked in harbor in NY, we would hear the engines shut down and we knew we were there! The tugs arrived to tow us into harbor. I loved looking through the porthole and seeing the lights of NY City glittering like jewels, it was the most thrilling moment you could imagine!
BEVERLEY GARDENS, STANMORE MIDDLESEX, HA7
Enjoyable and exciting times on the ocean liners were far overshadowed by my wonderful stays with Grandpop and Nannie Rose at 79 Beverley Gardens, Stanmore, Middlesex . I think my Grandpop enjoyed me, I was always showered with gifts, fur gloves and hats, expensive child size dolls, beautiful doll prams, books, marionettes. I had my own little nursery room at the top of the stairs with a big bed and satin goose down comforter, a set of little steps to climb into bed. Grandpop took me up the stairs at night, saying 'come on ducks, up the apples and pears' translated to 'stairs'. That was cockney rhyming slang which everyone adored. I had lots of story books too. My favorites being the Panda twins, Ping and Pong, two Chinese panda bears, Grimm's fairytales, and my very beloved Rupert the Bear books, featuring a young bear who dressed in plaid pants and had exciting adventures. http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~afm/followers/?http://oldeee.see.ed.ac.uk/~afm/followers But, often, I was scared to stay there in the little room all alone, and insisted I sleep with my Mother, in her room. Hers had a fireplace, a veranda and an even bigger satin down comforter, large clothes wardrobes and a comfy overstuffed chair.
I recall the bathroom down the hall, and cringe. We hated it in winter, cold octagonal white and black tile, colder than the inside of a refrigerator, if they had had a refrigerator! No one really wanted to use the bathroom unless absolutely necessary. We still kept chamber pots in the bedrooms in fact! At night we warmed the big beds with rubber hot water bottles that were filled from a big kettle that was kept on a rolling boil on the coal stove in the kitchen. Children were always bathed in the warmth of the kitchen by the coal stove, since there was no central heating. It was a sponge bath. Hair was shampooed once a week, in between shampoos, it was talced, the talc was combed out and with it the oil and dirt. We didn't have hair dryers at home, so it was impractical to go around with wet hair too often, as you would certainly "catch your death" as they say. A vest was something we were never without, young or old, the morning's first question would be 'did you put your vest on?' A vest equates to an American sleeveless undershirt. I emphasize it was frightfully, bitterly, fridgid, cold there in the winters. These were survival techniques, as well as taking our daily dose of cod liver oil to build our blood and keep us warm.
In my Grandpop's house, each and every room had a door to shut out the cold. Open floor plans were not the scheme. So the lounge was always shut unless we had formal company or it was Christmas, or someone in the family had died. The back rooms of the house were cozy though, and faced the stone terrace and formal garden with fish pond and fountain in the center. The back sitting room had sofa, big chairs, small telly, large oak table for teatime, wool carpets and french doors to the terrace. Each morning my Grandpop flung open the French doors and together we tossed yesterday's stale bread to the beautiful, fat, round red English robins.
There were fireplaces in every room including the bathroom, some were coal, others held an electric radiant heater. The coal fireplace was central in the back sitting room and I had a little cushioned stool kept directly in front of the fire and sat there to watch telly every afternoon, warm my hands, or watch while Grandpop entertained me with magic tricks, drawing, and his ventriloquist dummy, generally after teatime. British telly at that time, was only on the air briefly in the late afternoon and early evening. My favorite shows were Andy Pandy, Muffin the Mule, the Flowerpot Men, and Sooty. http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/ Often during the early evening Grandpop would bring out a gold embossed metal tin full of English toffees, some licorice Allsorts, Wine gums, or Cadbury's chocolates and pass them around, then he would sit with huge pieces of paper and pencils he sharpened with a knife and sketch funny papers for me, or make me paper hats or origami toys. He was a splendid, kind, man.
WHAT'S FOR TEA?
First I have to get this corrected for the Americans! High tea is a tea much like a working class supper, served late in the day, it would be a meat pie, or fish and chips, some bread and cheeses, a pint of ale, and some tea. Afternoon Tea is a cream tea or one at which you consume dainties and scones, etc. Our family teatime was typically a high tea at or after 4pm in the afternoon was a meal, consisting of small sandwiches, crust removed, buttered, then coated with fish or meat paste, and layered with cool cucumber slices or watercress, cut on the angle and piled up on sandwich plates. We also enjoyed meat pies and pasties. There were chilled stalks of celery in cut glass containers, big pickled onions, and a cake, or bisquits. We sometimes had a blancmange, a sort of pudding that I found distasteful, not fully coagulated, or tapioca pudding. Actually Blancmange is a pudding joke in Britain! Then of course, during, teatime, there was a big pot of black tea, served with milk and sugar. Children always had milky tea. I never recall having milk alone, just milky tea.
If dinner was served in a more sophisticated manner, it was for adults only, after dark, which was more sophisticated, between 8pm and 10pm, well after children had been sent to bed in their nursery. It was drinks to start, either home made wine or a gin fizz, gin and tonic, then a course of fish, then one of meat and veg, perhaps a pudding, finally cheese and fruit, a demitasse of strong coffee, and a digestive biscuit to finish. It was too late for me to indulge in, as I was usually put to bed by that time, and grownups discussed things that did not interest me!
Breakfast for British children was usually a bowl of porridge, drizzled with Lyon's treacle, and maybe some crusty English bread, toasted with butter and gooseberry jam. Occasionally I got a boiled egg in a china egg cup, with marmite soldiers, that was bread cut into strips and dipped into the thick marmite. When time permitted, the adults would have what they call a 'fry up', or 'Full English', with big rashers of bacon, mushrooms, fried tomatoes, kippers (smoked herring) fried eggs, or eggs in dainty egg cups, sometimes baked beans and lots of tea of course! Occasionally my Nannie would do fried bread. Bread was soaked in bacon fat and fried crispy in a heavy pan, then sprinkled liberally with salt. That was my favorite. We had no fridge then, just a pantry, icy cold, with shelves to store eggs, milk that was delivered each day, cheese, breads, the roast or pork for Sunday dinner. Fresh foods were shopped for everyday, or picked out of the allotment garden.
The English breads were wonderful, thick and crusty, not at all like American White Wonder Bread! That would have been disgusting to a British person! Nannie said, 'eat your crusts, Christine, they will give you curly hair'. This was not enough to make my tiny teeth chew through these crispy, sharp, tough crusts. So I devised a plan to pull them off carefully and I placed each piece of tough old crust that I did not eat, on a ledge I discovered underneath the kitchen table. One day, my Nanny, who was cleaning at the time, bumped the table and they all fell from the little ledge to the floor beneath the table! I was watching the telly but could hear her exclaim, 'what on earth! My goodness, Christine, you are a naughty girl.' I promptly ran and hid for a time, knowing exactly what had happened.
THE ALLOTMENT
On Sunday morning Grandpop and I would put on our wellies and trudge out to the allotment at the back of the house for greens. An allotment was an easement of open space behind the back neat garden fences, in which the neighborhood residents grew their vegetables and fruits. http://www.harrowinleaf.org.uk/ There is still an allotment area at the back of Beverley Gardens today!
This property was provided to families during the war and enabled people to have fresh foods, where they may not have had any. Allotment associations were formed, like clubs, neighbors signed up for their opportunity to garden, and people still care for their allotments and belong to allotment societies. Grandpop and I would pick thick red stalks of rhubarb, which turned soft when cooked with enough sugar, rhubarb was a treat we often ate with Bird's Custard! We also harvested runner beans, lima beans, brussel sprouts, and carrots and we dug potatoes for dinner. Nannie roasted the potatoes in the beef fat and they sizzled and popped in the coal oven. She served the roast and vegetables with yorkshire pudding. Our alternate Sunday meal was occasionally spring lamb, with home made mint jelly or a nice crispy brown pork roast, garnished with spiced apples. Sundays the house smelled divine, the kitchen was steamy and warm and everyone was happy.
I should tell you that wonderful, rich food was not always the case, as rationing was in effect. It was a real test of ingenuity for the cook in the household to put a meal on the table. The big rashers of bacon, beef, butter, tea, jam, eggs and sugar were all rationed. Rationing continued until 1954.
BONFIRE NIGHT
Of all the seasons, I enjoyed the brisk English fall weather the best. I looked forward to Christmas and especially November 5th which was Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire night, and a very big day for children. We did not have the American imported holiday of Halloween then. Guy Fawkes was the Italian Catholic who tried to blow up the houses of Parliament, but his plot was stopped and he was executed. Every November 5th the British children make effigies of Guy out of straw and rag clothes, drag him around in a wagon door to door and we would have this little chant, "Remember, remember, the 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason, and plot, We see no reason, why gunpowder treason, should ever be forgot!" and they would ask for a 'penny for the guy' which people, happy to oblige, gave the children. Later in the evening all around the country, large bonfires are built in open areas and back gardens alike, and the straw effigy is tossed on to the fire to burn and fireworks are set off. This gives everyone great delight! Hot sausages and meat pies, sticky cakes are served outside by the bonfire and children hold small sparklers and fireworks were set off too. I looked forward to this holiday, it was the smell of the backyard crackling bonfires and fireworks, and the wonderful food that I adored, as well as being out late at night in the dark. I loved this holiday, and miss it.
SHOPPING
Grandpop often took us to Harrow and Watford and to London, to the high streets for shopping, to Selfridges and Marks and Spencers and to the street vendors. He took me to the parks so I could swing and slide and play, and to Trafalgar Square so I could be photographed feeding the pigeons. We shopped a lot for my school uniforms, jumpers (sweaters), shoes, plimsoles (trainers or tennis shoes) and we stopped in the tea shops, and came home laden with bags and goodies, food, meat pies, sometimes fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, and toffee sweets and treats of all sorts.
CARAVANNING
My fair-haired Grandpop, had stern, grey, brown eyes that could admonish, or embrace you with one quick flash in your direction. He was a man of abundant, but sometimes aggravating talents. He was a constant doodler and cartoonist, watercolorist, storyteller, and a photographer, also a magician, gardener, and master putterer. This last one, putterer, was the great aggravation to Nannie Rose. But, of his numerous, all consuming interests, the one the family agreed they all enjoyed tremendously, was my Grandpop's penchant for caravanning!
I have an old leather album, jam-packed with the black and white photos Grandpop had taken of me and developed in his darkroom. There is one photograph entitled ‘Caravanning’. In this photo I am a tiny 4 year old. I had been posed by my Grandpop in front of big-grilled, 1947, black motor car. Parked next to the car is a large, boxy-looking caravan, or trailer as 'yanks' call them. I know the real subject of the photo was not me, the petite, lovely 4 year old, but rather Grandpop's beloved caravan and car.
THE GYPSIES...(Travellers as some are are now called)
The history of caravanning in England dates to Tudor times when Romany Gypsies or Travelers were first exiled to its shores. Throughout the 19th century they poured into Britain escaping the persecution of Hitler. The Gypsies wandered the emerald countryside with their tents and elaborate wagons. They were given a freedom and the English welcomed them by passing laws that allowed them to make their encampments just about anywhere they wished on British soil. The colorful and sometimes notorious Gypsies bartered and traded, entertained, were palmists, mystics, as well as masters at “old world” skills like carpentry and wagon building. The Caravan Sites Act of 1968 made it statutory for local authorities to provide camp sites for Gypsies or the Travelers as they were also known, and still are. The colorful life of the Gypsies inspired so much folklore. Hardly a fairytale was written for British children, without it’s wonderful “Gypsy” characters. http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/voices/history_intro.shtml The Gypsy legacy instilled a romantic wanderlust into the British people. So, after the WWII, with wanderlust in his heart, and petrol plentiful again, Eddie hitched the caravan to his motor car and took us all off for our grand camping holidays during the warm weather! I adored it, whether it was on a rolling pasture or by the seaside. Those were grand and happy times.
Going back a few paragraphs, I realize my deep bond with the Indian people and love of the Raj, but I also believe I have a tie to the Travelers, the gypsies. Someday I will research this, and someday, I will know why I have these deep feelings about two very special and treasured cultures.
SCHOOL
It was in the British school system I learned to knit and do needlework. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6687549.stm I learned how to write with the silver nib of a pen dipped in an inkwell on my desk. The boy behind me often sprayed my crisp white uniform shirt with blue ink, much to my Mum's dismay when I returned home each day. I took gym in my white cotton pants and white vest, we all just stripped down to our undies, boys and girls, much to my mortification. I wore the precursor to tennis shoes, and they were called plimpsels.
The girls all collected and traded charms as a pastime between classes. I did too, some of mine were tiny decorative buttons raided from my Nan's button basket. I don't know what the boys collected, perhaps marbles, maybe milkbottle tops. The girls often did a ball bounce and sang a little song I still remember after 50 years...
I went to a chinese baker,
I asked for a loaf of bread,
He wrapped it up in chinese paper,
and this is what he said,
'eeny, meany, maca racka, rare eye, domin-acka, chicka, pocka,
lollipopa...om, pom...push!
and at that point we would push off the ball to the next person!
Silly wasn't it? But fun to kids I suppose!
I remember that my British school days were confusing, not knowing if I should say "God Save the Queen', or sing the US anthem. I did not understand England's very rich and complex history. The US was a youngster in comparison, and I had only 100 years of that to remember.
I learned always to carry a hanky to school. You absolutely had to have a fresh hanky stuffed into the cuff of your shirt descretely and you had to have a fresh one with you each day! The teacher would walk the isle up and down and ask you to turn your hands over to see if they were clean, examining your nails and then checking your cuff carefully for the ever present hanky. I do recall the short pants all the boys were required to wear, well into their teenage years, they wore them in the summer, and in the bitter biting cold of the English winters. Their little, knobbly, knees would turn bright red as they kicked their soccer balls down the street, or across the fields. Wearing short pants was to make them hardy and tough I was told. I liked my uniform, and the thick wooly knee socks, the crisp white shirt and jumpers. We did not wear pants once in school, as the Americans did, we seemed to always have bare legs at school no matter what season or weather. Babies toddling or in their prams were permitted leggings though. It was wonderful to see the hardy, plump rosy cheeked, English babies bundled up in their gorgeous shiny prams being walked through the parks and down the sidewalks even in the cold or rainy weather.
One winter I had started a knitting project for my school work and I would work on it in the evening on my little stool by the fire. Grandpop, sitting opposite in his arm chair reading the Times, would tease me constantly by saying, 'Christine you've droppd a stitch', at which I would always stop, put down my needles and wool and start to search around on the floor for the dropped stitch. I was very upset that year, when I was told we had to go home to America and I cried and said I could not, as I had not finished my knitting project for school and my teacher would be mad. This is how important woolies and knitting were in England. My mother won awards for her knitting and sewing when she was a girl in school. She was very impressed when my Auntie Bobbie, her sister, told her that she had purchased a mechanized knitting machine. After that we got the strangest knitted Christmas gifts, some jumpers that were very hideous and ill fitting, some with very wide stripes and knitted slippers that fell off your feet and tripped you up as you walked. But Auntie Bobbie was proud of her work and the knitting machine, so we said nothing.
CHUMS
I had a little friend two houses away on Beverly Gardens, her name was Anne Christine. This struck me funny, as mine was Christine Anne. I always wondered exactly how this had happened. Anne and I were chums and pals and did everything together and Grandpop often took her along if we caravanned or went to the sea shore. He would spend hours carving out boats and castles in the sand to please us. But our favorite pastime was picnicing and we would make apple sandwiches as our treat. These are thick apple slices on buttered bread, sprinkled with sugar. We packed them in waxpaper and would march up the grassy hill near the house, lie down and eat them as we watched the clouds roll by. Later walking home, the boys on the street would see us and throw chestnuts at us. We were always easy prey for the boys. Chestnuts, however were a great treat, popped on the hot coals in the fire in the winter, and were sweet and warm and nutty inside. You could buy them on any corner of the high street in winter to warm you up.
My immediate next door neighbor was my first crush. I was totally smitten with him and in love even at age 4 and 5, and as I grew older. His name was Christopher Bishop, a beautiful and handsome looking, very slim, young man, dark hair, big brown eyes and so well brought up and well behaved and so elegant. He treated me like a little fairy princess. Christopher lived alone with his Mother next door and they had a darling, scruffy Jack Russell terrier. It was a bit scrappy, but cute. They also had a large toroise that wandered the garden and the small paddling pond. One summer he and his mother had a shallow paddling pool dug in their garden and I was invited over to wade in it. I wore a little white pinafore dress, trimmed in red, ruffled over my bare shoulders, criss-cross straps in the back, skirt swingy and short above my knees. I felt like a gorgeous celebrity child and I posed in the pool dabbling my toes, and Christopher set my heart fluttering when he came out from the house in his bathing suit, his body lean, hips narrow, long slender legs, dark eyes and eyelashes he looked like a young starlet himself. He outstretched his arm to me and offered me his hand to help me walk out of the pool and I reached out for it, clinging, was pulled gently toward him, and suddenly I was just bowled over in love with him. After that I would go to tea at his house, he showed me their family tortoise and I fed him lettuce leaves and I played often with the Bishop's Jack Russell. I have the photos of Christopher and cherish them, he died in his teens of diabetes I was told later, I think.
BIG RED DOUBLE DECKER BUSES AND TRAINS
When we lived in England for months at a time, my Mum and I took buses and trains everywhere. It was exciting. I just thrilled at getting dressed up, walking down the sidewalk and waiting at the bus stop with my Mum. To see the big red, double decker Routemaster bus pull up was a thrill, and I always begged to sit on the upper level. We took the bus to Watford, coming back at night, watching the lights of the town come on as we traveled. When we got off at our stop, it was cold, you could smell the wonderful smell of fires burning. We never had a worry about walking the sidewalks at night in those days. I loved riding the trains too, standing on the platform in Stanmore full of anticipation, then seeing the huge steam engines slowly pull up and hearing a conductor announce, allllll aboard!. I felt the rhythm of the engine on the tracks and so enjoyed sitting at the window watching the countryside go by. We rode the bus back in the States too, but nothing compared with the doubledeckers, nor the trains in England!
I never saw many black people in London at that time in the '50's, though now the faces of London have changed and there is a large community of both blacks and asians welcomed into British life. I did have a great curiosity as a child about blacks, which were referred to as darkies or coloreds. My favorite story book was called 'Little Black Samba' about a little black boy that was chased around a palm tree by a tiger. The tiger went round and round and finally melted into butter and the little black boy was spared being eaten. Black children, Chinese or East Indian children, Gypsies, were exciting and romantic characters in my picture books. British children adored them and respected them as exotic and interesting people with knowlege of far, far away places that we could only read and dream about. The black Golly was a big favorite of children in England in that era. The Golliwog was and is an endearing and treasured, loved, trademark of the English preserves company, James Robertson & Sons. He is a black doll and most English children had one in their nursery. I do recall so vividly being on a bus one day with my Mother and spotting a lovely black lady and her son. My eyes got very wide and I said loudly, to my Mum as I pointed at them, 'Mummy, why do those people have dirt on their faces and hands?' My mother was mortified and happy we got off at the next stop. I saw the black people in my story books, but these were the first real ones I had ever seen in public!
TOYS
Some fond childhood memories are tied to the nursery toys I had. One special toy I played with was a doll's tea set. It was a blue willow design and the story of blue willow ware intrigued me and I became an avid collector throughout my life because of that little dolls tea set.
The story is told in picture form on the china. It goes...Long ago, in the days when China was ruled by emperors, a Chinese manderin, Tso Ling, lived in the magnificent pagoda under the branches of the apple tree on the right of the bridge, over which droops the famous willow tree, and in front of which is seen the graceful lines of the fence. Tso Ling was the father of a beautiful girl, Kwang-se, who was the promised bride of an old but wealthy merchant. The girl, however, fell in love with Chang, her father’s clerk. The lovers eloped across the sea to the cottage on the island. The mandarin pursued and caught the lovers and was about to have them killed when the gods transformed them into a pair of turtle doves. These are seen gazing into each other’s eyes at the top of the design. And so the fable goes. I have a photo of myself, sipping imaginary tea from a blue willow cup in the garden at Grandpop's house. I am dressed in a homemade nurses outfit, a piece of sheet with a red cross painted on the front was tied around my hair, and I was wearing a white pinafore apron. I think I must have been about 6 years old. Being a nurse was something to aspire to, especially since the war was still so lingering in our heads.
I suppose at this point, after talk about toys and tea and buses and caravanning, I should say where and what was going on with my Dad back in the States. Our travels to England did not include my Dad. I believe he remained for work reasons, and early on was a Fuller Brush salesman going door to door in Philadelphia. That was quite a good job at the time and door to door salemen were typical. He later became a portable tool salesman with Mall Tool and we traveled with him on his route frequently, around the east coast. Later he went to Porter Cable selling and demonstrating power tools and really excelling at that to become Salesman of the year. My Mom worked infrequently, but when she did, it was as a seamstress typically. Women just did not work so much in those years, but remained at home to keep house and mind the children.
It was in 1951 that Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth and then in an elaborate and traditional coronation ceremony. I was privileged to watch that on the telly, not to fully grasp what was happening, but still to be awed. Later I received a gold coach with horses, the coronation coach as a souvenir. I really wish I still had that little coach and can still see it in my mind's eye.
more...
It is now 2015, I have not returned to my beloved England. My dear, most beautiful younger sister, Wendy and my beautiful Mother and 'dashing' Father are all passed now. My Sister and Mother most recently in the last year or two. I still yearn for England, I had a big family there, and being alone, a senior and a widow, I am reluctant to travel on my own, otherwise, with the financial security I have, I would certainly 'sell up' and relocate to England.
