Threads - A Stitch In Time

 

My paternal grandmother was a professional tailoress. She objected to being referred to as a dressmaker as she made clothes for everyone. Most of my childhood clothes were made by her and also, a beautiful, pink satin eiderdown for my first ‘big girl’ bed. It was beautiful and I wish I still had it. My mum and I had summer dresses in matching fabric. My dad and granddad always had smart trousers. It is sad that Nanna Hetty passed away when I was only eight years old, but from being about four or five, she’d taught me a few skills. I could thread a needle, sew a neat running stitch and sew buttons on to a piece of spare fabric. These small things sowed the seed for my future sewing abilities. At secondary school, I excelled in needlework. Over the years I’ve made clothes for myself and my daughter and made items of soft furnishings. As my eyesight worsened, it became a difficult task and these days I just sew buttons back on, mend things and sew name labels on school uniforms. From Nanna Hetty’s background, I learnt about a different type of thread than anything she had on her bobbins. It was family and the invisible thread that fastens us together, which I came to appreciate more when I started to research my family tree.

When our maternal aunt died, my sister and I, as next of kin, were tasked with dealing with everything. Amongst her belongings was a large envelope with my name on. It wasn’t private, it was open and over-filled, containing old family papers, certificates and important letters, directed to me because of my interest in family history.  Eventually, I got round to going through the contents, being very careful with delicate items. Most was self-explanatory but there was the running thread of a surname that was unfamiliar to me. Clearly, this name belonged in the family, somewhere. I needed to discover more and solve the mystery. Looking into my ancestry gave me the answers.

This year marks twenty years since I began to search online, piecing my family tree together. I have followed my paternal line to Southern Cemetery in Manchester, where upon finding a clerical error in their data input, I was able to help them to correct it and find the grave I wanted. I knew that my Nanna Hetty was orphaned as a baby as she’d told me, but I don’t know if she knew anything about her parents, in particular that her father was employed as a tailor’s assistant. That thread was definitely in her bloodline. The unfamiliar name in my maternal family turned out to be my great-grandmother’s maiden name. I’m grateful to Cheshire Births, Marriages and Deaths website for that discovery, long before I started on Ancestry.co.uk. My family tree, even now, is a work in progress. Now and again I pick up a known thread, which is often more than one person and see where it leads. These are the threads of life in my family, which will weave on into future generations.

I found this poem,

 

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford   1914 – 1993

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Branching Out - The Ties That Bind Us

The other day, I found myself having a gentle fight with a buddleia. It is actually three buddleia bushes intertwined and in spite of my best efforts to keep them under control, they are branching out as they wish. The tallest has the deepest purple blooms I’ve ever seen on a buddleia, next to it is a white one which flowers later with huge, fat blooms loved by bees and butterflies. Originally planted in front of them is a pink one, supposed to be miniature but isn’t. They are all beautiful and though it pains me to remove lower branches, I have to make sure my well-established and cherished ‘Totally Tangerine’ geum has enough space and sunshine. Seemingly from nowhere, something else appeared, which is hard to believe because I’m always checking the garden and usually know off the top of my head how many buds are waiting in the wings on the nasturtiums and how many sweet pea stalks have gripped the trellis. This ‘something else’ took me back to my first school days when the walk included a lane where the hedgerow was filled with large, white flowers. It’s something I’ve always remembered, and here it was growing in my own garden, lucky me. It was like ivy on a vine and I loved the nostalgia – until I looked it up and discovered what it really was. Bindweed. It had to go, hence the careful fight with the buddleia where it had wound itself along a few branches. Not many, thankfully, and no damage done, but I believe it is hard to get rid of completely and I’ll have to keep watch. It isn’t just the bindweed keeping me busy.

 I’m also branching out on my family tree following an email from a distant relative. We’ve been in contact before but never met and don’t share a bloodline, but we are linked together by the marriage of our respective great grandparents which puts us on the same branch in our ancestry and we can help each other out with information. Stepping out of my direct bloodline has sent me on a fascinating journey – one of those that starts on Ancestry.co.uk at about nine o’clock p.m. for an hour, but carries on beyond midnight. It’s never ending.

My poem,

Branches of my family tree

Stretching out of my bloodline,

Yet belonging to what is me,

What I consider mine.

I’m gripped by who has gone before,

How they lived and why they died

And how they make me yearn for more,

Despite the many tears I’ve cried

For people I have never known.

Those who lived before my birth,

My kindred spirits having flown

Beyond the confines of this earth,

I will embrace you in Heaven.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, keep safe, Pam x

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Bees - Something Special

Manchester Bee, beautiful, symbolic and instantly recognisable.  My ancestry is firmly rooted in the city, Moss Side, Openshaw, Chorlton-On-Medlock, Ancoats, Stretford, Northenden and more recently Wythenshawe. They rest in Southern Cemetery, some known to me, many others long before my time, my people, my bloodline, my family. Some, my mother’s side, lived in Sale. It was in Cheshire then, affluent, even posh. I’m proud to have been born there and I’m happy that it is part of Greater Manchester now (not everyone is, sorry) because it unites all my family under the same umbrella and I like that. The Manchester Bee is for us all.

The first insect sting I ever had happened in Wythenshawe Park. I was about six I think. Nanna Hetty had taken me out to play and we were sitting on a bench to eat our ice cream. I remember her sitting down first and wafting a bee out of the way for me to sit beside her. The bee must have gone under the wooden slats of the seat to come out again as I sat.  I cried out with pain on my upper leg and there was the bee-sting, sticking out of my skin. Nanna knew what to do and looked after me. I sobbed and sobbed as she got the barb out, taking care not to squeeze. I was brave. Back at her house, the sting area dabbed with vinegar, I soon recovered. Sixty years later, the memory and associated trauma is still strong. Up to now, I haven’t had any more bee stings, but I give them their own space and plenty of respect.

My garden, such as it is – largely concrete ground with planting areas and tubs – has plants attractive to butterflies and bees including buddleia, sunflowers and a geum, beautiful and orangey called Totally Tangerine which I just had to have when we first planted this new garden. It comes back bigger and more bountiful every year, of course.

Reading up about bees, I have learnt that ‘in the old days’ news of a bee-keeper’s death would be passed on to them and their hives would be shrouded in black cloth. This was to reassure bees that they were to stay and carry on.  American poet, John Greenleaf Whittier mentions this in his poem, Telling the Bees.

Last week, a special little ‘Bee’ died. Nine year old Jordan Banks, who played football for Clifton Rangers Bees under 9s, passed away after being struck by lightning.  My heart broke for this beautiful little boy and his family, not known to me, but part of our neighbourhood as he attended our local primary school.  I gave my daughter some flowers to lay at the junior school gate when she took my grandson to school. Yesterday, my son went to see all the flowers and tributes when he took my granddaughter to school. Jordan, doing what he loved, kicking a football about in the fresh air, a selfless young man who did so much for others in his short life.  He was something special.

Tempted as I was to choose Arthur Askey’s ‘The Bee Song’, I opted for Emily Dickinson instead:

The Bee

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry

Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.

His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.

His labour is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!

                             Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

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