Measles and love

At the end of my second year at school, I got measles and couldn't see my teacher (who I absolutely adored and worshipped). I was so upset, and the more I begged to go to school, the more angry Ma got. I felt my life was going to end right there and then if I couldn't say goodbye to her.
Maybe that's one of the hidden reasons why I have always loved teaching this age group, and hate saying good bye to them on the last day of the year.

Final Words

In the last week of her life, Ma asked me to come and see her, and she seemed agitated and disconcerted. She spent the next 36 hours talking to me as I sat on the edge of her bed, her - hooked to the oxygen tank gasping for fresh air, me - wanting to get out into the fresh air.
She proclaimed over and over that she had always been very proud of me, and my achievements, and that she did really love me.

What a pity it was too late, too hard for me to forgive her or even to believe her!

First catastrophe/birthday

It's the 4th February 1949 and my first birthday. I am held up standing on a chair to reach the candle and urged to blow it out. I bend forward, draw in a deep breath and -ouch- burn the end of my nose. Lots of screaming and shouting ensues, and that signals the end of the birthday and the beginning of the first catastrophe.

Cigarette cards

Dad and Ma smoked very heavily, three packets a day (60). Of course in those days there wasn't the sort of advertising we have today, so it was never even thought of as being a medical urgency. Dad started as soon as he became an usher at the local bio and these fags eventually killed him. In those days you would collect cigarette cards with each packet and this he did, carefully sorting and filing them away in boxes, and very proud of them he was too. We have these cards to this very day.

Lucky Dip

I love the story of how Ma and Dad eventually got together. Dad used to visit her step-brothers and he once told her he was going to marry her some day. She just sneeered at him because he was a lowly usher in a lowly bioscope, with low wages and even less prospects. His eldest brother, Jack, had paid for him to do a plumbing apprenticeship, but he was lazy and unmotivated and never completed it-thus ending up at the local bio. She was a bookkeeper by then and highly efficient, earning well with high ambitions. Ma was dating Karl, a mature man of 35, (she was in her mid-twenties), but supposedly not 'in love' with him. She was a very big woman and already on the 'shelf', so probably saw Karl as her 'last chance'. One evening they both arrived with engagement rings, asking her to marry them. She was in two minds and weighing them both up, money and security versus youth and excitement (and maybe even love?) They sat in her kitchen and glared at each other till 4 am until Karl got up and wearily trudged off home. Accordingly, she accepted Harry (and later told us that his ring was the nicer one anyway.) I think he just had more patience...or maybe more 'love'?

Bulldog Emergency

Ma had a stroke just before my 16th birthday, and I was left to take over the house, trying to stop Dad crying every day, cooking, and being 'ma' to everyone. To make matters worse, Sheba, our bulldog had four puppies. Bulldogs are known to be useless mothers, not knowing what to do with the cord, or how to feed them. So every day I woiuld get back from College to find that she had smothered a pup. It was heartbreaking and the worst of all was that I couldn't say anything to ma .Every time she asked after her beloved dogs, I had to lie. Sure taught me to lie well.

The Gravedigger

Ernest worked for my parents as their 'houseboy' for many years, and to me he seemed like part of the family. Sheba had her puppies and smothered one each day. Due to her ignorance and our lack of knowledge about this we coudn't prevent the inevitable. So we had to bury them. Ernest was given the unenviable task of digging the little graves in the back garden, laying the teeny tiny bodies inside, then covering them over as unobtrusively as possible so that Ma wouldb't know where they were buried when she came out of hospital.What an awful time for us all, and I often lay awake in bed at night worrying that I could've saved them. If only......

Ma's stroke

Two days before my 16th birthday, ma had a stroke. She was a heavy smoker and had always suffered from severe migraines. She lost all memories of her job ( bookkeeper) and , although she could still talk, her syntax amd vocaublary was all over the place. For some reason or other, I seemed to be the only one who could understand what she was saying. Although we didn't get on at all, I felt mortally sorry for this powerful woman, stripped of her intelligence and dignity, struggling to make herself understood. I worked really hard to help her to feel more comfortable and in some way, it helped me too. I felt that she needed me -perhaps for the first time ever, and that we were connecting in some way at last. A difficult time, but a very good one too.

The Six- day War

In my second year at College, the Six-day War broke out in Israel. A lot of the rabid Zionistic students went off to help ( dreaming of carrying a gun and going into battle, but in reality they were left behind to pick oranges). Of course, wherever there was a fuss and some excitement, I was always keen to be involved in it, so wanted to go too. This meant getting permission from my parents as I was under 21 and also would've meant me having to come back and start my studies right from the beginning again as they wouldn't give me any priveleges for dropping out halfway (of course no one knew it was only going to last 6 days). My parents of course flatly refused, and rightly so, as money was scarce in our home and I was halfway through my diploma course already. Ma always used to say 'you never finish anything you start!'They had to fight that war without me, as I had my own private wars to deal with.

College protests

Of course, all students have to protest about anything and everything, and we all did just that. Whenever we saw a horde of students gathering round in the street outside our Residence Hall, my friends and I used to hurry out and join the procession, no matter what it was for or where it ended up. As we went along, we always encouraged others to join our 'fight for justice'. When I was asked what we were protesting against, I never knew, but it was always jolly good fun.

The first bite is the deepest

My best friend in Greenside, Anne, had an Alsatian called Karl. He was a cute puppy, but he grew into a vicious animal. Before I went to see her, I'd phone first and she'd lock him away. One day, as I arrived and rang the doorbell, he came bounding round the back of her house barking ferociously. I went into panic overload and started yelling for Anne. He immediately headed straight for me and clamped his gigantic jaws onto my delicious meaty thigh. I thought I would faint from the pain and fear. She was right behind, dragged him off me, then pulled me inside and plied me with sweet tea and biscuits. How our friendship survived that day, I'll never know!

Spike the puppy

I must confess, I don't actually remember when Spike joined our family. I know till then we had only Spotty, a sort of Jack Russell and terrier mixture, white with some black patches, a tall long thin body and a very long tail that used to thump hard on the parquet floors whenever he saw us. Then we got Spike, and soon after, Sheba, as his mate. We had never had bulldogs before and they were a revelation. They snorted, drooled, farted and snored loudly. They were large, lumpy, bumpy, rolly, flabby creatures with pooled pleading eyes and flat squashed noses and it was love at first sight. What I will never forget about them was Ma's absolutley undying, unbending adoration of these new arrivals. I had never before seen her so warm and tender, her absorbed slavish behaviour threw me and I often wished she felt like me the way she felt about them. Her love for bulldogs has been passed down to me as I adore them too, and would get one tomorrow if I could.