My father’s job meant that we moved house a lot in my
younger days. Sometimes, to me, it seemed like we had just got settled and we
were off again. This transient lifestyle took us from pub to pub, or pub /
restaurant or residential hotel and on one rare occasion to our own private
house when he worked for Scottish & Newcastle looking after several
premises. I can’t remember the layout of our living accommodation everywhere, I
only remember the adventures of exploring our new home and whether or not I had
to share a bedroom with my younger sister. Some places were vast, others were
pokey and hotels usually meant no kitchen to call our own and bedrooms down a
faraway corridor with views out on to a scruffy yard or a brick wall. Sometimes
we didn’t need our own furniture and kitchen things. It would all be stored
away in a spare room, ready packed for the next move. More than always being ‘the
new girl’ at school, making new friends and meeting new staff, my ever lasting
memory is the upheaval of relocating.
In later years, I loved the independence of buying my own house, just mine. It was compact, tiny, even, and not perhaps in a favoured area, but it was my home and I loved it. How I managed to collect so many belongings and squeeze them in to my two-up-two-down, I can’t imagine now, but when my husband and I were planning our wedding and starting to move my things into our house, what an upheaval that was. I declared then that I was never going to move again, ever. Up to now, we haven’t, but if someone handed us the keys to a delightful bungalow in Kirkcudbright, I would cope.
Recently, my father-in-law moved into permanent residential care. Our family have been busy emptying his house of a lifetime of stuff which he doesn’t need anymore. In a way it seems wrong to be sorting out his belongings and making decisions on his behalf, but it’s the way it has to be and it’s a job which is certainly better to be done by his family rather than a house-clearance firm.
Again, it’s an upheaval but it will soon be done and in all the sorting out, there was family treasure to be found. An anthology of children’s poetry which includes a poem by his late grandson, David, aged eleven.
In later years, I loved the independence of buying my own house, just mine. It was compact, tiny, even, and not perhaps in a favoured area, but it was my home and I loved it. How I managed to collect so many belongings and squeeze them in to my two-up-two-down, I can’t imagine now, but when my husband and I were planning our wedding and starting to move my things into our house, what an upheaval that was. I declared then that I was never going to move again, ever. Up to now, we haven’t, but if someone handed us the keys to a delightful bungalow in Kirkcudbright, I would cope.
Recently, my father-in-law moved into permanent residential care. Our family have been busy emptying his house of a lifetime of stuff which he doesn’t need anymore. In a way it seems wrong to be sorting out his belongings and making decisions on his behalf, but it’s the way it has to be and it’s a job which is certainly better to be done by his family rather than a house-clearance firm.
Again, it’s an upheaval but it will soon be done and in all the sorting out, there was family treasure to be found. An anthology of children’s poetry which includes a poem by his late grandson, David, aged eleven.
Eyes large with colours of the
town.
Looking up, looking down.
Arm trying to grab a drink.
Fist ready to punch, angry.
Body in purple.
Body in orange.
Split personality.
Red city, yellow lights.
In the blackness of the sky.
Confusion like the litter.
The world is drunk inside.
I drink some more.
I have a fag and drop to the
floor.
David Winning (1982 – 2009)
Thanks for reading, Pam x