Branches - My Tree

 

We are like trees, doing our best to stand firm yet entwining our roots with others to make us stronger, though sometimes it can pull us down. We stretch our branches, reaching out, growing a sheltering canopy of leaves to conceal and protect. The sanctuary of a close family.

Searching my family tree became almost a full-time occupation in the early 2000s when I was coping with illness and recovering from surgery. The task kept me busy and distracted me from pending treatments. As I delved into genealogy websites I was able to piece things together and solve the mysteries inherited from my aunt. A large, dog-eared brown envelope was crammed with old paperwork giving me clues and a starting point. It wasn’t easy and not quick. Days became weeks spent on the trail of a particular surname which I didn’t recognise but understood it to be significant because it cropped up a lot in my aunt’s stuff. The penny dropped with a loud clunk when I eventually discovered where it slotted into my family. A ‘eureka’ moment, indeed, and there have been more, along with frustration but lots of fascination. My mission is far from complete. I still explore and try to keep on the track of whatever branches I’m following, though I admit it is easy to become diverted. With the help of someone, not a family member but connected to me by a marriage which took place more than a hundred years ago, I discovered that the groom turned out to be a scoundrel. For weeks I felt guilty by association, even though the person is not of my blood-line and it all happened long before I was born. I would like to visit the war graves of those I have found to be resting in Belgium and France, fallen at the Somme and Passchendaele.

It isn’t all about ancestry. There are plenty of current, live directions to follow. Sometimes, I feel like my closest branches weigh heavy with the burdens of everyday living and I hope for better times ahead for those concerned. The present situations cannot last forever. “This, too, shall pass.” Said a wise person.

I found this poem online at Poem Hunter. It’s by Pia Andersson.

My Tree

My tree will know it all
The tree of my childhood
With the endless branches
And the many whispers.

My tree remembers
The girl with the wind in her hair
The girl with the crazy laughter
The girl with the fear of living
The girl I used to be
Before.

In my tree
I can see the world
But no one can see me.

My tree remembers me
The girl I used to be,
Before.

                       Pia Andersson

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Circus - Excitement and Anticipation

Piccadilly Circus, 1972. My friend and I felt like we had landed somewhere exciting. We were staying a long weekend with my family in Roehampton. Encouraged to go out and have fun, we took a bus then a tube and eventually emerged from the Underground at Piccadilly Circus. It was the hottest day ever and we went straight to Boot’s the Chemist for deodorant which we liberally applied in the nearby public convenience. My orange loon pants with navy blue pleats and a navy tank-top was my favourite and most fashionable outfit at the time. The trousers were made of stretch towelling – beach clothing, really – too heavy for such a hot day, but I loved them so much. (Except one night when I wore them to go ice-skating and they soaked up gallons of surface water, but that’s another story.) My friend was dressed more sensibly in shorts. We shopped on Carnaby Street, watched a busker, looked around Soho, sat on some grass in the shade and eventually made our way back to Piccadilly Circus and the tube station for the first part of our return journey to Roehampton.

It was fun when I was seventeen, but London like any major city is too busy, too fast moving and loud for me so I’m not a regular visitor. Exceptions have been made to go to see The Moody Blues a few times at the Royal Albert Hall or the O2 Arena. Well, of course I’d go then. There was another time when there was no holding back.

The Prince Edward Theatre, 1978. Evita. Tickets like gold dust, but lucky me. There is only one Che for me and that is David Essex. No one else can sing ‘Oh What a Circus!’ with such passion, giving everything to the exceptional lyrics of Tim Rice who perfectly captured the media circus of the time.

I was a child when my family moved to Blackpool. One of the first places I remember being taken to is the Tower Circus. Mid 1960s and animals were still a big part of the show, horses, elephants and am I imagining sea lions in the water finale? I don’t remember if lions featured. My favourites were always the clowns with Charlie Cairoli.

At around the age of seven, I latched on to books by Enid Blyton. I discovered that I could read something other than ‘the green reader’ or whatever my school reading book was. Still in the infants, I’d moved on from Janet and John and found that I didn’t need to read out loud to understand the text. Book after book came my way, Secret Seven, Famous Five, lots of the Mystery series, fairy stories, and somewhere in the middle, before the boarding school tales from Malory Towers or St. Clare’s, I read the circus stories, Mr Galliano’s Circus, Hurrah for the Circus! and Circus Days Again. They began with the arrival of the circus folk parading through the town and setting up camp. Excitement and anticipation grabbed me in the first paragraph and carried me along the chapter as the author introduced characters, illustrating each one with her vibrant description as she did all her books and I loved it. Circus Days Again is the only one of the trilogy in my possession. All of my Enid Blyton’s are treasured.

On that long weekend in London almost fifty years ago, someone joked about Piccadilly Circus and how wise we were to come home before dark. We didn’t know what they meant and we didn’t ask because we were two worldly, clever, independent seventeen year olds.

I found this poem:

Piccadilly Circus At Night – Street Walkers

When into the night the yellow light is roused like dust above the towns,
Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in the midst of the downs,

Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertain along the street,
Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in expectancy to meet

The luminous mist which the poor things wist was dawn arriving across the sky,
When dawn is far behind the star the dust-lit town has driven so high.

All the birds are folded in a silent ball of sleep,
All the flowers are faded from the asphalt isle in the sea,
Only we hard-faced creatures go round and round, and keep
The shores of this innermost ocean alive and illusory.

Wanton sparrows that twittered when morning looked in at their eyes
And the Cyprian’s pavement-roses are gone, and now it is we
Flowers of illusion who shine in our gauds, make a Paradise
On the shores of this ceaseless ocean, gay birds of the town-dark sea.

D H Lawrence (1916)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Retirement - Just Go With The Flow

Retirement.  That’s the time to wind down, take up a stress free hobby, go for gentle walks, watch daytime TV and meet friends for long lunches, right? Wrong. Certainly in my case.  

I’ve always been busy.  Babysitting came first.  In the sixties, parents, unbelievably, trusted an unknown 12 year old to look after their offspring.  I had three families on the go, one of them with four very lively children, all of whom drove me to distraction.  Once they were finally in bed I used to eat my way through the cupboards and spend hours on the phone to my best friend who was babysitting just across the road.  

At 13 I got my first ‘proper’ job, working in a mini market on a Saturday morning (10/- for four hours - that’s 12.5p per hour in today’s money) and then, in addition, at 15 I took on working in a dentists on a Sunday (I can’t remember the pay now, but I know I hated the whole thing).  One of the fathers from the babysitting job was a dentist. He was Jewish, hence the Sunday opening.  His practice was in Stamford Hill which was a fair way from where I lived in Southgate, and meant that I had to travel with him in his car.  I was a very shy teen and he was a grumpy, monosyllabic, old (to me) man, who probably had no more desire to take me with him than I had to be there, squashed up against him in his noisy Fiat 500.  Thankfully, that job came to an abrupt end when I persuaded my dad to phone Mr Cardash and tell him I was so busy revising for my GCEs that I wouldn’t be able to work for him any more.  In fact, most Sundays, I was lying in bed till lunchtime then spending about two hours on clothes, hair and make up, and meeting my best friend to talk about boys.

At about the same time I answered an advert in a shop window for somebody to look after a little boy and do some light cleaning.  I was hopeless at cleaning but I loved children, and the lady who took me on seemed pretty desperate so the job was mine.  It turned out that Myra Schneider was a writer and spent most of the time in her study whilst I looked after Benji and half heartedly wiped a cloth around the house.  Interestingly, I’m still in touch with Myra*, who is now in her 80s and continues to write, having had several books of poetry published over the past 50 years.  I’d like to think I played a small part in her success.  

To prevent this turning into a four page blog post (and, after all, it’s supposed to be about retirement - we’ll never get there) suffice to say my CV is long. In addition to the above, in no particular order: barmaid, shop worker, novelty cake maker, graphic designer, typographer, market stall holder, craft teacher, cafe worker, caterer, school dinner lady, deli assistant, factory worker (shoes; catalogues), teacher and GP admin assistant. 

And then came retirement. With hindsight, I was lucky that a new Head came to the school that I’d happily worked in for 15 years.  Without her appointment, the subsequent two year dispute and the final decent payout I would never have taken early retirement.  As it was, it coincided with the birth of my first grandchild, and the need for a childminder several days a week.  The decision was made, and at 55, I gave up half my teachers’ pension to relax and enjoy life.  Oh and look after a lively baby.  That’s one thing I’ve never regretted.  Fifteen years later, the relationship with my first grandchild is testament to the time we spent together.

Once my childminding duties had been cut down to just a few days a week (with three more grandchildren added to the mix) I felt the need to get busy again, and secured a part time job at a GP surgery.  I was taken on to cover for three months for someone who was off sick.  Six years later, I reluctantly gave in my notice, as my interest in photography became more intense.  

My life has never had a grand plan.  Things have happened to me by chance, and I’ve always been happy to go with the flow.  Retirement has been no different.  Fate brought me into contact with Claire Walmsley Griffiths and the original altBlackpool online magazine, where I could make use of two of my favourite activities: writing and photography.  I met more local creatives and seemed to be accepted into their midst, despite being at least twenty years older than most of them.  My photography took off and went from strength to strength. I began to feel that my life had gone full circle, from Art College in the early ‘70s to the Blackpool art scene 50 years later.  

Oh, and I wrote a book

Finally, in retirement, I found my ideal job. 

This week’s poem is not one of my own, but one I’ve loved for a very long time.  I think it was written for me….

Warning by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Thanks for reading……..Jill

And thanks to everybody who has snapped me taking photos.

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Never do with one hand, what you can put off till Thursday.

As humans we can be very interesting things. As sheep and badgers we are just doggers taking part in some very filthy sex stuff. But as humans, being humans we are very interesting.

We have the capacity for great kindness, and devastating cruelty. We can create and build thing to improve the lives of all around us, and build devices to tear asunder all that has been placed before us. We can think of the simplest solutions to the most complex of problems, and we can mess everything up by not think at all.

Never do with one hand, what you can put off till Thursday.

Stop, take a moment. Is using one hand the only solution? Does this need to be solved right now? Will taking a little bit of time be a better job?

When writing the temptation is always there to rush, to 'use one hand' instead of climbing down the ladder, moving it across and climbing up it again to use both hands without you falling off and looking like a twat.

Being able to multitask, work with one hand, spin many plates with the other, doesn't mean you actually have to. One of the biggest things I hear when talking about writing is "I don't have the time" or "I have to write in-between other things."

My point, and I do have one hidden in here somewhere, is that in are busy lives we have more time than we think. If we just sit back a little and stopped stressing about it we can get things done. Not everything has to be decided immediately.

We live in a world where we demand too much, and as a consequence we can not give enough attention to the things that are important to us.

Slow down a very small amount, stop trying to do things with one hand and give it the attention it deserves. Plan ahead and don't let other people push in on that plan.

You can achieve so much more with a deep breath and cup of tea than you ever can leaning across trying to tighten that last screw when off balance.

Writing is a discipline, it requires planning, it deserves time. So don't just go chucking in 5 minuets here and there everyday with no thought, one handed scribbling that you will hate. Plan to give yourself 40 minutes quality two handed writing on a Thursday.

Because your work is worth it.

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