Personal Effects - How Little We Need

 

There’s a small box in the attic. It contains the last of the personal effects of my late aunt. Things have reduced over time. She passed away in 1998 and for many years I kept her paperwork. After about twenty years, I shredded most of it, keeping only important, historical or sentimental documents. Items of costume jewellery includes a mink brooch which I remember from my childhood. They were fashionable once, horrible now. I can’t part with the bits and pieces of her Catholic faith, her wall-hanging crucifix and her statue of Christ which was placed on her bedside table. The Jesus statue was a wedding gift from the priest, I believe. I’ve also kept a few old black and white photos that mean nothing to me, but were something to her, so they stay, for now. Anyway, that’s it. The remaining possessions of a life spanning seventy-four years, or thereabouts, neatly placed in a box only slightly bigger than an average shoe-box and stored in the home of her first niece. That could be me, one day. I think I should speak to my niece. There isn’t a box large enough for all my personal effects. Things can shrink, though.

Books, of which I have many, can be stored on a Kindle, or similar. Photos, again lots of them, can live on pen-drives. Music, my collection of vinyl and CDs can be digitalised. Not for me, though. I like real books on shelves, to feel pages and see the different prints and fonts. I don’t care if anyone calls me old-fashioned.

My house is my home. It’s not quite how I like it because I’ve packed away most of the non-essential things, ornaments and pictures, ready for putting the house up for sale. No, it hasn’t happened yet and I’m still going on about it. The sooner, the better, but there are obstacles still in the way. Considering that so much has gone into a storage unit, there is no empty space here to speak of.

Compared to home, we manage with very little on our caravan. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had much use over the summer due to present circumstances. Instead, we managed a mid-week break to a hotel in Cheshire, with all necessary personal effects for both of us, in one, middle-sized suitcase.

My Haiku,

A box in the loft
Auntie’s personal effects,
Left over from life.

Fond mem’ries remain
Which will always stay with me.
I look back and smile.

PMW 2026

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Tapestry - Heavenly Stitches

 

‘Just another stitch in life’s rich tapestry’

I don’t know where the original quote came from but I used to say it a lot. I’ve heard variations of it on television programmes and read it in books but where it started eludes me. My dad heard me say it and loved it so much that he made it his own and drove me mad with it at least once a day. That was long ago. I used to say it at work back in those old days, 1970s, so I probably picked it up from a colleague. More recently I’ve heard ‘a dropped stitch in life’s tapestry’ when something has gone pear-shaped or not according to plan. I might try it out. There’s usually plenty of scope.

Somewhere in the attic, probably buried beneath other unfinished projects and my children’s  old school books, is my three-quarters completed tapestry of The Last Supper. No small starter kit for me. It was straight in for the epic masterpiece. The intention was to gift the finished work to the church I belonged to at the time, Raikes Parade Methodist. The church closed in 2003 and I think I’d already ‘rested’ the tapestry in favour of having a go at cross-stitch.  I’ve had one on the go for years. Not in the attic, well, not yet, anyway. It’s in the foot-stool where I keep needlework projects. Untouched for a while but not given up on. I struggle to see what I’m doing but I was given special magnifiers for Christmas which I hope will solve the problem. It might give me the incentive to dig out The Last Supper which was becoming quite a work of art.

A better work of art was my sister’s tiger, a large, beautiful tapestry that took her hours to do. I remember helping with the intricate embroidery details on the eyes. It’s so long ago that I could still see what I was doing. The finished tapestry was on the landing wall at the top of her stairs and looked stunning. I’ll have to ask her about it.

My young, impressionable music head was – and still is – dominated by The Moody Blues, but there was always a little space for other things. My fondness for female singers has always been limited to my daughter and not many others. One of the ‘not many’ is Carole King and her album which I love as much now as I did in the early ‘70s, Tapestry. I was spellbound by her soulful, almost mournful voice, and captured by her way with words. ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ spoke to me when I was down and troubled, nearly most of the time in those days.

I hope my dad's tapestry continues in Heaven, as I try not to drop too many stitches.

Carole King’s lyrics, poetry to me,

Tapestry

My life has been a tapestry
Of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision
Of the ever-changing view
A wond'rous woven magic
In bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see
Impossible to hold

Once amid the soft silver
Sadness in the sky
There came a man of fortune
A drifter passing by
He wore a torn and tattered cloth
Around his leathered hide
And a coat of many colors
Yellow, green, on either side

He moved with some uncertainty
As if he didn't know
Just what he was there for
Or where he ought to go
Once he reached for something
Golden hanging from a tree
And his hand came down empty

Soon within my tapestry
Along the rutted road
He sat down on a river rock
And turned into a toad
It seemed that he had fallen
Into someone's wicked spell
And I wept to see him suffer
Though I didn't know him well

As I watched in sorrow
There suddenly appeared
A figure gray and ghostly
Beneath a flowing beard
In times of deepest darkness
I've seen him dressed in black
Now my tapestry's unraveling
He's come to take me back
He's come to take me back

by Carole King

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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On A Roll - Minor Misfortune

We’ve been on a roll of minor misfortune.  I think it started with the car breaking down. Luckily for me, I was at home getting regular updates on how quickly Green Flag can attend so I delayed cooking tea and sat down with a brew to watch the news. Modern day cars are like another world under the bonnet. A sealed world.

My father taught me basic car maintenance, oil, water, tyre pressure and wind-screen washer topping up. Over time, and with a succession of multi-owned vehicles, I learnt the benefits of a liberal spraying of WD40, or similar; how to check points, clean spark plugs and how a distributor fits together – oh my first Vauxhall Viva – it will be a metal cube somewhere now. Or perhaps a washing machine.

We were dealing with the sealed under-bonnet of an automatic Citroen Berlingo. The engine won’t start when there are warning lights on. The warning light stays on until the problem is rectified. The problem can’t be detected until the person with the diagnostic box of tricks plugs in and links to some software. The I.T. skills of the modern mechanic know no bounds. Whatever would my dad think? I bet they still suck air through their teeth while calculating the cost. Just kidding, that was my dad’s sense of humour. Green Flag and both repair garages were very good. We discovered that the gear-box is not automatic, it’s semi-automatic. That snippet of knowledge didn’t help the situation, but it meant relocation to a Citroen specialist.  It’s mended now, wheels roll. £££.

The stair carpet was coming loose on a couple of treads. At last, we got the fitter in to fix it. Straight forward easy job, even easier if there was a small, spare piece. Of course, there’s loads rolled up in the shed. Well, there was until someone sorted stuff out and went to the tip. Thank goodness, a couple of decent sized pieces were within reach, for someone with long arms, without the carpet fitter and myself  having to empty our shed. Funny how I’m often on my own at times like this.

We didn’t discover what set the smoke alarms off. Nothing was burning, no cooking going on, no steam from the shower. It was raining, very heavily, though I can’t imagine it was that. Our smoke alarms are connected to the mains, one goes off, they all go off. Impossible to think straight in that noise, I just wanted it to stop, right now. My husband discovered which one of the three was the culprit and disconnected it. A replacement was needed, something he could do himself and no great expense, just another ‘thing’ going wrong and we still don’t know what triggered it. Whilst checking, I went up to the attic room. It is a loft conversion and used to be a bedroom, but is an attic again since the children moved out and left stuff for storage. There was a small puddle on one of the stair treads, about three steps up. It has become a mystery. Everything up there was bone dry, no sign of the rain breaching the Velux windows or the ceiling and there is nothing to spill. Very odd. Also, the door had been locked for days. Spooky!

What I wanted to do before we ended up on a roll with all these little incidents, was to tidy the garden, get rid of our ‘complimentary’ buddleia, thanks birds, and plant some daffodils bulbs. Maybe tomorrow?

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw an advert for a ‘Garden on a Roll’. That would do nicely.

 

Here's something from G.K.Chesterton,

 

The Rolling English Road

 

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

 

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

 

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

 

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

 

G.K.Chesterton    (1874 – 1936)

 

 

 

 

I'm hoping for no more mishaps for a while. Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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Dolls - Meet Janice

My lovely big doll, Janice lives in the attic. Propped up between an old filing cabinet and boxes of Christmas stuff, she manages to stay upright and fix her blue-eyed gaze through the Velux to the tops of the houses opposite, or the night sky. She is nearly sixty years old, in reasonably good shape and dressed smartly in a pale blue summer dress that used to be my daughter’s. Janice’s original dress of shiny white and royal blue has not survived the test of time.

She was given to me on my fifth birthday and we’ve always been together except for the time a few years ago when I lent her out to take part in a themed window display somewhere in Knott End.

We almost had a tragedy on Sunday. I carefully brought her down to the landing for a photo-shoot during which, our eldest grandson, being inquisitive, came looking for me. Of course, I had to introduce them to each other, grandson not quite sure if Janice, nearly the same height, was real or not, kept a safe distance. Seconds later, we took her downstairs to meet the others. I kept hold of her while our granddaughter and younger grandson looked at her. A few remarks from the so called adults of the family, like,

‘Oh that creepy doll, what’s she doing down here?’ As if she’d escaped the attic on her own.

 ‘That Janice, she’s so bleeping scary!’ There’s absolutely nothing scary about my Janice.

‘You always kept her at the end of my bed. She gave me bleeping nightmares.’ Huh? My daughter didn’t complain at the time and I’d say she comes across as a well-adjusted young mother.

I was trying not to laugh too much as I defended my beautiful doll. I explained that the poor thing has to live right upstairs in the attic room because someone who shall remain anonymous is easily spooked by her. Everyone knows who it is, so there’s much family laughter and witty banter going on when suddenly, as I altered the way I was holding Janice, both her arms dropped off and fell to the floor. What was happy laughter became an uproar, squeals, tears, aching sides and literally rolling on the floor. It was the funniest thing ever, just hilarious. The stuff that linked the arms together looked like perished rubber and it probably was. Luckily, she was soon mended with some elastic from my sewing cupboard and the expertise from ‘he who will not be spooked by a doll while he’s mending it’ who did a first class job and I am very grateful.

If our new neighbours think they’ve moved next door to a madhouse, I hope they know it’s a happy one and they are welcome to join in. Janice is back in the attic, until next time.

I found this poem by William Butler Yeats

The Dolls

A doll in the doll-maker's house
Looks at the cradle and bawls:
'That is an insult to us.’
But the oldest of all the dolls,
Who had seen, being kept for show,
Generations of his sort,
Out-screams the whole shelf: 'Although
There's not a man can report
Evil of this place,
The man and the woman bring
Hither, to our disgrace,
A noisy and filthy thing.’
Hearing him groan and stretch
The doll-maker's wife is aware
Her husband has heard the wretch,
And crouched by the arm of his chair,
She murmurs into his ear,
Head upon shoulder leant:
'My dear, my dear, O dear,
It was an accident.

W.B.Yeats  1865 - 1939

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Tower - Jewel of the North West Coast

My son once told me that he could just about see Blackpool Tower if he stuck he his head out of the rear Velux window in his new loft conversion bedroom.  I was horrified, knowing that he must have climbed on to the wrong side of the banister and be sitting or standing on it with the drop of the stairs behind him. He certainly wasn’t tall enough to stretch from the other side. With visions of his mates coming round to see, and the real possibility of accidents, I locked the window and told him I did not want bits of broken boys on the landing. He was eleven at the time. The threat of being sent back to his old bedroom was enough. These days, it’s the attic again as we find ourselves housing many items for our grown up children who have long since fled the nest into homes of their own, homes lacking in storage space it would seem.

Both son and daughter had their fourth birthdays at the Tower. It was Jungle Jim’s, a ride to the top and the circus. The aquarium had recently moved to the Sea Life Centre when our son was four and the space was taken up with a dinosaur exhibition. A bit scary, for me. The view from the top is incredible. I haven’t ventured on to the outside platforms, so it could be argued that I haven’t actually been to the top, though I have stood on the glass floor known as the ‘walk of faith’ and looked down.

The highest building I have elevated is the Empire State Building many years ago. That was a great view of New York and surrounding areas. I’m not worried by heights but I can’t cope with crowds and it was too busy for me to wait to get an ‘I’m at the top of the Empire State Building’ medal. I think it was still the tallest skyscraper in New York at that time.

There’s something about building towers that fascinates children.  I worked with young children in an infant school and I watch my grandchildren doing the same thing. They nearly always build upwards and have fun knocking it down. Occasionally a child will make a straight line instead.

 

 

 

 

 

One day I might follow in the footsteps of Sir John Bickerstaffe and visit Paris, where a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower would be a must, and maybe I'd share his vision.

My poem was originally written as an exercise, now slightly re-edited.

 

Blackpool Tower       (McGonagal style)

 

 

“I know what we need,” Mr Bickerstaffe said,

Leaning back in his chair with his hands in his head.

He’d been to Paris and seen their tower

So decided to exercise some mayoral power.

“We could have one. Build it here.

There’s space just north of Central Pier.”

 

From his own funds he chucked in two grand

For building to commence on Promenade land,

And in September, 1891

The architects laid the foundation stone.

 

“They’ll come from miles,” Mr Bickerstaffe cried

“When to the very top they can ride!

Here in Blackpool we’ll have the most

Amazing tower on our golden coast!”

 

Girder by girder the tower took shape

As cynics below would stare and gape

And mutter about how long it would be

Before Bickerstaffe’s folly got washed out to sea.

 

“I’ve another idea!” Mr Bickerstaffe exclaimed,

With pride at the thought of being acclaimed.

“We’ll put in a circus with lions and clowns

And be the envy of all other towns.

Sixpence admission, another sixpence to pay

For the circus, and again for the ride; 1/6d for all day!”

 

And then, at last it was complete,

Reaching nearly 519 feet

And to the public, opened its door

On the 14^th May, 1894.

 

 Pamela Winning 2010 (edited 2018)

 

 

(The photo of Blackpool is from Visit Lancashire and is the best I've ever seen of the Tower)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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