Chapter (1) EARLY YEARS

                     Early Years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was growing up in the village I can remember this bridge and the ford over the road. The river is now dry and the bridge has gone.

 

I was born on April the twenty fifth, nineteen fifty two. Although my actual birth took place in Grantham Hospital I was quickly taken home to a small, dark, stone cottage in the small Leicestershire village of Stainby. My father worked on the local farm along with several of his brothers. He'd started looking after the large shire horses when he left school at the age of twelve. My mother had given up a promising career as a concert pianist to marry my father. They met when my father entered a choral competition and my mother was playing piano for the youth orchestra. This was a fact that my three siblings and I learned at my mother's funeral. How and why she kept it a secret from us we cannot understand, and now she is no longer with us we cannot ask her. We have to imagine how it happened because my father will not talk about it, or many of the other things that we children would like to know more about.

My life has been an interesting one, not always easy but certainly interesting. In a way, that is why I'm writing this book. I've made some bad decisions along the way and I've made a few good ones too. I managed to get married, and divorced, twice, and the best parts of my life are my three children.

Since the early fifties the world has changed in so many ways. The technological advancements over that time would have been unimaginable in my father's youth. At the age of 85 he's recently received a tablet as a gift from my brother Nick. He's mastered the use of Facebook and Skype but of course he makes mistakes, like leaving the camera covered and shouting at the tablet. This shouting is a little quirk I've noticed. When we can see each other he talks quite normally and usually sits still. When he can't see me he shouts, not sure why. Maybe he feels that by raising his voice the picture will somehow magically return. It usually takes a couple of minutes for me to get him to listen and uncover the camera, after that he reverts to normal speech.   

Over the last sixty years the world I was born into has all but disappeared. Children no longer play in the streets or explore the natural world around them. They have become dependent on computers for education, amusement and social interaction. The sounds of happiness and joy, of laughter and of crying, as children played in the streets have all but gone from villages and towns alike. As a species we have evolved to pillage the planets resources relentlessly. In the last two hundred and fifty years we have managed to destroy what it took nature several billion years to create. After we have destroyed ourselves and become extinct from this earth, it has been calculated that in just fifty thousand years nothing will exist to show that we were ever here. In a hundred thousand years even aliens from other worlds would have a very difficult time finding any trace of the human species. We know of humanoids that were here a mere ten thousand years ago only because of the very fragmented fossil records. We think of the Pyramids as being old, just seven thousand years and they are crumbling away, in another seven thousand years they will be a pile of rubble in the desert and memories stored on computer discs. A thousand years after that the sands will have covered any trace of the biggest man made monuments on the planet. Who would know?  We are just a speck in the evolution of our planet, worse, we are like a virus that has invaded the world and will eventually destroy it, and ourselves.

The chasing of financial reward has become the all-powerful mantra that governs how we live, worse it governs where we live and even who we live with. It is true we have learned to heal ourselves and we have conquered many illnesses that would have been fatal a few decades ago, unfortunately many of these illnesses are still fatal in parts of the world less able to pay for treatments. We will spend billions of dollars on developing strains of vegetables and grains so they are easier for the machines to harvest. A fraction of that money would be enough to find a cure for the biggest killer we have, cancer.

We have prolonged the lifespan of the human race but we have also been at war with each other somewhere on the planet every day for at least two hundred years. This is supposed to be a time of enlightenment, a time of understanding the world and our part in it.

I cannot begin to understand the mentality of certain groups of people who are prepared to kill, and be killed, for a faith-based ideology. The very word 'faith' denotes that the ideology is based on hearsay and abstract thought and not on any tangible evidence. But I digress.   

At the time of my birth my father was a farm labourer and mum looked after the house, a very typical situation for period in our recent past. My mother also did land work whenever it was available. Potato picking, stone picking, carrot pulling and Onion picking were a few of the jobs done by hand in the years immediately after the war. That was the way things were for most village families and how they survived the post war years. The sense of community was very strong. If someone fell ill there would be no shortage of people willing to help with the children, arranging meals and doing washing and other household tasks. Every adult was a parent to every child.

I don't remember anything very much about my very early years but I do know that we lived with my father's parents in Stainby in the small cottage by the church. We moved to South Witham a little later when my father changed his job and he could afford a council house for us. My Brother Gary was born 3 years later when I was just 5 years old.

The war was not long over and although huge changes were taking place all over the world, in our little village we lived in what would be called today, a time capsule. Our village way of life had hardly been changed at all by the war. Some families were missing sons and husbands but on the whole life had continued much as it always had. The Steam trains still ran, horses and traction engines were still used on many farms and people still foraged for wild herbs, flowers and fruits, which they would then use to make preserves, medicines and wines for the winter months. Poaching was illegal but common practice and Pheasants, Partridge, Hares, Rabbits and Fish all made their way into the cooking pot. Pigeon and even Crows were also taken and the breast meat used in stews and pies. Must say I was never very fond of the gamey taste of Pigeon or Hare. Wild duck was a real treat and one of my favourite meats, even today.

Most village people either worked on farms, were employed by the railways or worked at the local ironstone mine. We had what you might call a garage in the center of the village near the school. The garage had a single, hand operated, fuel pump and space for one vehicle in the repair shed. It wasn't a workshop it was just a wooden shed. The owner, Mr Geeson was a kindly old gentleman who loved motorbikes. His daughter was the most beautiful blond little girl you would ever meet. Every boy in the village had been in love with her at some time, myself included. The three local farmers were all brothers. During the harvest they would employ up to a hundred workers. For the most part they were good to their employees and often allowed them access to grain sweepings. This gave many of them the opportunity to keep a few chickens or ducks. After the onion harvest my mum, along with many others, would walk the fields to collect the small discarded onions and shallots for pickling. I had to sit for hours peeling these little tear makers as my mum prepared the boiling, pungent spiced vinegar ready for pickling. Rows of sparkling Kilner jars lined up on the kitchen table ready to receive the preserves.

Many families also kept a pig, in the back garden, if they had the space sometimes two.  There was usually someone slaughtering a pig and they would have extra meat, usually sausages, to sell or barter. This usually took place in the winter months so the meat would stay fresh for longer as not everyone had access to a modern refrigerator or freezer.

Despite the hardships and lack of modern amenities, villagers raised strong tough children. This was due in part to the easy access to fresh milk and eggs. However, we also ate foods that today you wouldn't even look at. Bone Pie, eaten cold, was a favourite. A thick piecrust with thick jelly made from boiling beef bones to release the bone marrow.  Sandwiches made with such fillings as Dandelion leaves, sugar, condensed milk and Pork dripping with lots of salt. Cabbage with boiled pig's feet that you had to suck to get the gelatinous goodness out. Braun made from a boiled pig's head. An old joke was to ask the butcher for a pig's head and tell him “mum says can you leave the eyes in, it has to see us through the week“. That wasn't far from the truth. Most families I knew also kept hutches in the garden and raised rabbits for food and skins for selling. They could swap a skinned rabbit for a dozen eggs or a bag full of vegetables or any number of other items. Bartering had been a way of life here for generations and it was still the main method of getting things you couldn't buy or make.

In the early autumn when the potatoes were ready for digging my father would build a potato clamp. This was a way of storing potatoes through the winter and preventing them from going bad. Layers of potatoes and straw were built up and then covered with straw and finally with a thick covering of soil. This was no simple task, the straw had to be layered in such a way as to stop rainwater getting in. Potatoes and other vegetables such as Carrots, Swedes, Turnips and Parsnips were all preserved in this way.  Onions were tied in ‘strings’ and hung in a dark shed and would stay useable until the springtime. Most evenings and weekends you would see children walking the hedgerows and filling sacks with fresh picked dandelion leaves and Keck, to feed the rabbits. Especially on a Sunday afternoon after Church Sunday school. Keck is also known as Cow Parsley in some regions.

The biggest change to village life was the steady introduction of mechanised farm machinery. It took just a decade to change a way of life that had struggled, endured, and yet succeeded, for centuries. 'Modern Life' had arrived and change happened with ever quickening speed. By the mid fifties most farms had done away with horses altogether and when the large work horses went so did many of the trades that serviced them. The war had introduced modern methods of manufacture, factory produced steel and iron goods soon took over from the local Blacksmiths handmade items. Once every village had its own smithy but with no demand for handmade tools, nails or horseshoes the smithies closed, one after the other. A few wealthy land owners kept sporting horses for fox hunting and for teaching their children to ride. One Blacksmith could now cover much bigger distances and service many horses.

My father had started work at age twelve and he was responsible for preparing the huge shires ready for the days' work. Starting early in the morning and working late into the evening it was an arduous and sometimes dangerous occupation. The local farmer already employed three of my fathers' older brothers.

I can remember seeing my grandfather sitting in his old wooden chair by the black stove. A single candle flickering on the table, my Grandfather didn't like the new electric light. Shiny horse brasses hung down both sides of the fireplace and glinted in the candle light. He smoked a pipe and used an old beer bottle top to fit over the bowl of his pipe. He had a well-worn pocketknife which he used to scrape out the bowl of his pipe and then he would tap the pipe on the stove to remove the scrapings. He used the same knife to cut bread and cold meats too.

I don't really remember much about my Nan, my father's mum, as she died when I was only ten years old. She wasn't that old but she'd had a bad fall and later died from complications. I remember my Nan as a rather plump, cheery lady in a light blue, flowered dress and wearing a floral apron. I know she made the most wonderful Yorkshire puddings and gravy. I think that was the first time I remember seeing my father eat Yorkshire puddings with Sugar. I had my first taste of roast Pheasant at my Nan's' house. I was quite young and it was well hung, not to my liking at all, it still isn't. Whenever we visited Nan's house we would spend some time walking across the meadows collecting large horse mushrooms from the fields. They could be as big as a tea plate and had deep black undersides and smelled wonderful. Breaking them in half you would see the tiny holes in the flesh and stalk made by the tiny fly larvae living there. It's added nutrition my Nan would say and besides once they're cooked you don't taste them. It was true, nothing in the supermarkets today can compare to the amazing taste and aroma of those wild mushrooms. Once, I remember we found a Puff Ball as big as a football. It was solid and creamy white in colour. Nan sliced it and fried it like a steak in homemade butter. You have never tasted food like it.

My Grandfather stayed in that same little cottage, in Stainby, until his death a few years ago. He was 94 years old when he passed away.

 

He'd been retired for just two years. We all said if he'd been allowed to carry on working he would have made it to the hundred. My Grandfather had out-lived his youngest son by twenty years.         

My earliest memories are from about the time I was five years old.  By that time we were living in South Witham in a council house at the end of a small street. Every house had a good-sized garden and we had lawns front and back to play on. About the same time my father had started working at the local Ironstone mines.  The village had a small railway station where it was possible to take a steam train to the east coast or to one of the larger towns such as Nottingham, Peterborough or even Birmingham. The line was used extensively to transport the ironstone to the smelting centres further north but it was also a lifeline for local populations and it was possible to send parcels and livestock to other villages along the line. Often huge wooden wagons would arrive to be filled with live farm animals. It was noisy and quite smelly. Strange how simple things like the smell of a steam engine, hissing steam and puffing smoke, can stay in the mind. In a few places along the rail track wild strawberries grew. These small sweet fruits, about the size of a marble, were the treasure in nature's free larder. We all had our own secret locations and didn't tell anyone where they were.

I can better remember a late summer, I think I was about 7 years old, my mum put my baby brother in his big-wheeled pram and the three of us set out to walk the five miles to visit my Grandfathers' house at Stainby. On this occasion my father was not with us. My father had an old motorbike and when he came with us he would take me about a mile further down the road and drop me off. Then return to fetch my brother. I can still see him coming towards us with my mother on the pillion holding onto the handle of the enormous pram, with my little sister tucked up inside, the huge wheels turning faster than they were ever designed for.

When walking we would make regular stops to collect blackberries from the hedgerows and in the springtime collect as many cowslips as we could manage.  The best and biggest berries were always just out of reach.  On one memorable journey I remember trying to get to some particularly large and juicy Blackberries and I fell down into the dyke. It was full of brambles and nettles and I was covered in scratches and stings. My mum had little sympathy, it wasn't the village way. We collected a load of Burdock leaves and using saliva mum rubbed and bruised the leaves then rubbed them on as many of the stings as she could. It's a country remedy and it did ease the itching for a while, but I had to wait until we reached my grandfather's house before I got any real treatment. I was made to stand naked in an old galvanised tin bath in front of the old black fire grate and I was coated in calamine lotion from head to foot. I never made the mistake of overreaching again, despite often seeing very tempting bunches of Blackberries trying to lure me in. Fresh picked wild Blackberries and Brambleberries are to this day one of my favourite summer fruits.

Reviews

[Kathy Van Kurin]

"chapter(1)FEARLY YEARS"
MAD ENGLISHMAN,
Starting with the photograph and its note; I was intrigued, the river and bridge both now gone. Your story of family and memories is priceless in this writing. My parents were raised in Northern Minnisota here in the US. Mining was a very important livelihood for so many there as is your mention of the ironstone mining. I loved the mention of mushrooms, berries, and herbs, much desired and sought after, I totally get that! Your father's making his way with the big draft horses intrigued and delighted me as well. These things were some of the things my parents have told me about as well. My father worked fields with big horses and you know I cannot say I have experienced anything like that. My mom has told me stories of how protected and treasured that strawberry patches were too!
Golly, your whole story was wonderful! I was able to experience just a taste of your wonderful upbringing and I am so glad you shared so genersously, your story.
Blessings to you and I wish you a wonderful Christmas and holiday season, 2017!
Kathy

[MAD ENGLISHMAN]

Thank you so much. I'm always happy when another person can see and feel the memories I've tried to convey. I think both our parents lived an era we will never see the like of again. It is only now when I'm in my 60's that I realise just how fortunate I was to be born at that time.
I send you my best wishes for a wonderful Christmas season and hope you have a prosperous and healthy New Year.

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Oh my gosh, I said 2017....how about let's say..;. 2017-2018? There, that's better. Thanks for your message. You are so right. Sometimes in listening to my folks stories; it is amazing what they share.Just like your situation, although your youth was way more picturesque than mine as your stories tell. Bye for now.

[Paul Bell]

Great write. In a way i feel sorry kids today.
No going outdoors, no exploring. Stuck on a computer all day. I don't think i saw my house when i was young It was a place to rush into eat and drink, before going out again. Though strangely enough. When my mother was dragging me to the shops. She always spat into a hankie and wiped my face. Sure that's a criminal offence now.

[MAD ENGLISHMAN]

Ha ha ha it sounds like your childhood was like mine.