10.30 Coffee Time, A Very Simple Pleasure

When my dad reached his three score years and ten he must have decided that he might not have many years left, and wrote an essay on the things that gave him pleasure in life.  I can’t remember all the details but I do know I wasn’t really surprised by any of his choices.  Family, food, coffee, maths, chess, books, nature, cars, crosswords, and - the word I skimmed past very quickly - sex.  

My dad loved food - any food.  Although my mum tried to keep him under control he could frequently be found in the kitchen eating chunks of cheese on thickly buttered bread (Camembert a particular favourite - the smellier the better) As my mum had no sense of smell it was left to the rest of us to complain loudly as we entered the house and were confronted by a strong cheesy stench.  Eventually, the Camembert was double wrapped in foil and clingfilm and banished to the lean-to. 

As it happened, my dad had another twenty three years to enjoy those simple pleasures, and enjoy them he did. Every night at 9 o’clock my mum and dad would each have a Cornetto.  If I was staying, and refused one, he would tell me how delicious it was.  Boxes of chocolates couldn’t be left out if dad was in the room.  He had been diagnosed as diabetic, but never took it as seriously as he should have.  Biscuits and cakes disappeared mysteriously with nobody knowing a thing about it. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t nagged him when I was there.  I was concerned for his health, but maybe he’d got it right: his enjoyment outweighed any risk. 

Seafood and, in particular, lobsters, became a firm favourite.  He found that Lidl sold them and asked for a constant supply, panicking if he ran out.  I can still see him with a knife and hammer, cracking the shells, his mouth watering at the prospect of the meal ahead.  Although lobsters were a bit of an extravagance, not all his simple pleasures were expensive.  Most cost nothing at all.  Trips to the library were frequent and regular.  He enjoyed a wide range of genres, from whodunnits and biographies to intellectual books on philosophy and religion.  

My dad was a life long learner, who had missed out on a university education due to his family's lack of finances, and his father's desire to have his son join him in his one man optical business.  Dad would have been an ideal university student, but sadly it wasn’t to be.  Instead, he continued to educate himself, enrolling for Open University courses and thriving on discussion and debate. Most subjects interested him, but particularly philosophy, religion (he was an atheist), and maths.  He would sit at the computer for hours, reading and composing emails to his fellow students.  I think this was dad’s way of validating himself.  He would never admit it but I’m sure his lack of university education was a huge regret to him, especially as his best friend, my mum’s brother, John, was sent off to get his degree (my grandma working three jobs to pay for it) and then follow it with lecturing for many years at Kings College London.

Although I am no intellectual, I can relate to many of dad’s simple pleasures.  I love reading, and guess that came from growing up in a houseful of books, with both parents being avid readers. Food goes without saying, and I also love to learn - but not such intensive and deep subjects as those that consumed my dad.  One thing we had in common was a morning coffee.  It’s not just the drinking of it, it’s the whole ritual of boiling the kettle, heating the cafetière, grinding the beans, making the coffee, heating the milk…….It’s a very special pleasure, and one that I still love.  As the smell of the coffee hits me I think of my dad.

The night before Spamhead suddenly died (yes, that was his nickname for obvious food related reasons), my brother phoned to speak to my mum.  In the background dad called out proudly, “I finished the Telegraph crossword by 10 this morning, and I’m just cooking sausages!”  That summed him up in one sentence. It makes me very happy to think he was still enjoying his simple pleasures right up to the end.

10.30 Coffee Time

Scoop beans

Rich and black

With oily sheen

Pour into hopper

Grind fine 

Savour smell

Freshly ground Continental 

Two large spoons full 

Into heated cafetière

Water boiled

Wait a second

Tip kettle

Gently pour 

Into pot

Stare dreamily 

Through rising steam 

Sniff in sniff in 

Full force of brewing coffee

Lid on

Careful, don’t plunge yet

Meanwhile

Choose favourite mug

Just for coffee 

Not for tea

Pour in milk 

Heat thirty seconds 

Dream of treat to come 

Five minutes

Time to plunge!  

Inhale smell

Coffee brewed

Pour slowly slowly 

Onto milk in mug

Watch as bubbles rise

Let cool for seconds

Before that first delicious sip...

10.30 Coffee Time 

Thanks for reading.......Jill

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The Smell of the Greasepaint, the Roar of the Crowds

If you’d asked me, when I was a child, who is the person least likely to want to visit a circus, my response would have been instant and unequivocal: my dad. He liked his own company, was the most intelligent, most intellectual man I ever met - and my opinion never wavered until the day he died at the age of 92. Dad was into philosophy, chess, maths, anything that required deep thought and logical thinking, certainly beyond anything I was ever capable of. 

He liked to sit at his chess computer (one of the very first), sucking on his pipe and pondering his moves. Or he could be found, pencil and notebook in hand, working out indecipherable mathematic equations. His hero was Bertrand Russell, and he would try and explain various aspects of philosophy to me, all of which went totally over my head, certainly until more recent years when I began to take an interest. 

 So yes, dad would be my last choice as companion to the travelling circus. However, I was about to learn that there’s nowt so strange as folk. I only recall one visit to the circus as a child - accompanied by my mum and two brothers - where my abiding memory was the awful smell wafting up through the floorboards, the fear in my heart as the trapeze artists swung their precarious way across the big top, and sadness at the sight of the elephants looking resigned and dejected as they plodded their way around the ring. 

Consequently, when I had children of my own I was never very keen to repeat the experience. This is where my dad came, unexpectedly, into his own. ‘I LOVE circuses!’ he declared as I discussed the subject with my mum, who was usually game for anything involving her grandchildren. Mum and I swung round in shock. ‘You?! Circuses?!’ I asked in amazement. ‘Love them,’ replied dad with a big grin. And so it was that dad became unofficial Grandchildren’s Entertainment Monitor for special events. Parks and beaches didn’t interest him but show him a circus, a corny comedian or a fairground and he was in. He was packed off with most of the eight grandchildren, who came back with hilarious tales of granddad being singled out by clowns, animal tamers and even the ringmaster on one notorious occasion. Granddad, himself, returned glowing (once with badly applied clown makeup, which had gone down a treat on the tube), and excitedly discussing his next planned event. 

 I found it strange that my clever, often very serious, dad loved the madness of a fairground ride or the colourful world of the circus. Maybe it was due to the fact that, as far as I know, these things didn’t form part of his childhood. They were certainly a huge contrast to his working life as an optical engineer and self employed optician. Whatever the cause, it was good to see his transformation on these occasions. 

 A couple of years ago the circus came to Blackpool and I took the grandchildren. I thought they would be mesmerised. I probably built it up too much. I soon realised that the main attractions were the hugely overpriced bags of candy floss, the flashing lights on sticks and the toilets which were outside and across a field. Thankfully, the days of the sad elephants were long gone, as were the giant cats that I remembered seeing cowering on plinths, under threat of a long whip. In their place, strangely incongruous, roaring motorbikes criss-crossing the ring, narrowly missing the dancing girls - and each other. All accompanied by flashing lights. 

Amalie, looking quite stunned by the motorbikes at the circus

Maybe the grandchildren are used to more sophisticated entertainment these days, or maybe the circus wasn’t a patch on Blackpool Illuminations and the Pleasure Beach, but despite that, I think we all had a good time. We made a lasting memory, even if it was only the excitement of the outside toilets....

When I was a child I used to love Children’s Favourites on the wireless on a Saturday morning. I once sent in a request but it didn’t get played. However, the Nellie the Elephant song, below, could be heard most weeks. It had a sadness about it that I recognised, even at that young age.   Years later, partly because it was so easy to remember, it became part of my repertoire of songs to inflict on the grandchildren. *

 Nellie the Elephant 

 

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk 

And said goodbye to the circus 

Off she went with a trumpety trump 

Trump, trump, trump 

Nellie the elephant packed her trunk 

And trundled off to the jungle 

Off she went with a trumpety trump 

Trump, trump, trump 

The head of the herd was calling far, far away 

They met one night in silver light on the road to Mandalay. 

*thinks maybe this is why they weren’t that impressed by the circus…. 

 Thanks for reading….. Jill

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Christmas..... I Remember..

I can still feel the excitement from Christmases more than sixty years ago when I was a child. I can taste the satsumas from the bowl on the table at my granny’s; hear the crackle of a Quality Street wrapper as the chocolate was revealed - and quickly consumed; smell the cigars distributed to the men by my grandad just once a year. 

As 1950s children we rarely had such feasts as the ones my granny set out on that polished wooden table: dishes full of chocolates and sweets; bowls piled high with oranges and tangerines, grapes and bananas; Turkish Delight in a thin wooden box, icing sugar snowing down on the table as we sneaked out a sweet jelly cube; nuts with a special nutcracker that you had to squeeze as hard as your little hands could manage, before passing it to dad or uncle to do the job properly. If they were very clever they could produce a nut, perfectly whole and unscathed. 

At home, we were never allowed to help ourselves to food, we always had to ask. Here, at granny’s on Christmas Day we were encouraged to dip into the bowls and fill our glasses with fizzy pop (something else that only appeared on special occasions).  It was always a magical day. My cousins had travelled, with my aunt and uncle, the eighty miles from Margate (another world to us kids) and were already at granny’s when we arrived. 

Each year Father Christmas appeared at the back window, heavily bearded and hooded, a big black sack over his shoulder. There was great excitement while one of the adults went outside to let him in. Although we had our suspicions, it took us a few years to actually admit to ourselves and each other that Santa was our dad dressed up for the part. After all, it was strange how dad was never in the room when Father Christmas came in. 

One year the man in red appeared as usual, and knocked on the window to be let in. Sure enough, dad had left the room only minutes before. We children grinned at each other. “It’s only dad,” said my older brother cockily, watching for my younger brother’s reaction. “It’s not!” insisted John, close to tears, while Geoff continued to nod his head and grin. 

Just then, Father Christmas made his entrance and we gathered round the sack. Presents were distributed, and, with a lot of ho ho ho-ing Santa turned to go - just as the door opened and in walked dad. It was sometime later that we discovered my mum had persuaded her brother to call round and act the part. Such was our shock that I think we all had a couple more years of believing after that. 

Each Christmas my brothers and I would ‘do a turn.’ One year I persuaded my little brother to don a headscarf, apron and women’s slippers and act out a monologue (which became a duologue) with me. He told me recently he still remembers the words. The next Christmas it was Charlie Drake’s, ‘I Lost My Mummy,’ with lots of fake crying from the youngest actor, and another year we all mimed to Bernard Cribbins’ ‘Hole in the Ground.’  My older brother’s turn invariably ended with a squirting cigar or something flying through the air at the audience.  I can hear the family’s laughter as clearly as if it were yesterday. 

Sadly, although there will inevitably still be laughter this Christmas, it is one tinged with sadness. It’s the first in sixty six years without my dad (AKA Spamhead), who passed away three weeks ago, and although I’ve not seen him every one of those Christmas Days he’s always been around before or afterwards to receive his presents and accept thanks for the ones bought for us by mum. Over the years we all came to realise that dad didn’t really like presents unless they consisted of food, or vouchers to be exchanged for something edible.  He loved an outing to M&S Food where he would drive mum mad by filling a trolley with Spam (hence his nickname), cheese, ox tongue, prawns and his favourite lobsters.  

I hadn’t got round to buying the voucher before he died, but I had bought extra warm socks for his bad circulation, and an apron to catch the food that always ended up on his jumper. I’m wearing the socks as I type, and my mum tells me he would never have worn the apron: he didn’t believe he spilled a thing. My eldest son tells me he will wear it with pride.

My dad was ninety two, he had a great life, right up to the end, and that makes me happy. He was a lovely dad, granddad and great granddad and he was the best Father Christmas ever. 

I usually write a poem on the week’s theme but today I’d like to pay homage to my lovely dad and post part of the eulogy I read out at his funeral. This was something I wrote for Father’s Day a few years ago, and amended just recently. I’d based it on looking through old photos, which seems even more poignant today. 

Dear Dad,

You are the slim young man with the thick wavy hair, caught forever in the 1940s, strolling with mum along the prom at Margate; you are the proud father of one, two and – whoops – three babies, reluctantly posing against the1950s décor; you are the stressed looking thirty-something, sprung to life in a fading Polaroid, with three grinning teens in ‘60s shades; you are the pale, gaunt figure, with empty eyes, in the grip of a deep depression – knife poised above the Silver Wedding cake; you are the handsome dad, smiling self-consciously at your sons’ weddings, beaming at the congregation as you walk me proudly down the aisle;  you are the relaxed and happy grey-haired man in 70s sweater, gazing fondly at the first of eight grandchildren; you are the proud husband at the end of the century, fifty years married, squinting as the sun makes a sudden break through the clouds, and your family laughs around you; you are the octogenarian magician, mesmerising great-grandchildren; you are the slightly stooping, white haired man, serenading mum on your Diamond Wedding Anniversary, as I wipe away tears; you are the grinning 90 year old, looking down adoringly as you and mum cradle the long awaited twins, nearly but not quite, the last of your nine great grandchildren……

You were my 92 year old dad. I loved you dearly and I always will.  Your favourite daughter, JK xxx

Thanks for reading,  Jill

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Turn of Events - Changing the Course of a Life

My Dad at about the time he became a Bevin Boy

I've written before about how I believe in fate - or chance - whatever you want to call it, so this week's blog was right up my street.  There have been numerous times in my life when one event has set off a chain of others.  I love the way this can happen.  As in the film, Sliding Doors, I'm always aware that one decision can send things flying in a different direction. In my case, there has usually been a happy ending. 

This morning, pondering on what to write for this post, I spoke to my dad about an incident he'd told me about in his earlier life.  I was thinking I might include it in the post.  As we talked, I was impressed with his memory of events, the details that had obviously stuck in his mind.  In passing, he told me he'd once written it all down and if he could find it he'd send it to me. 

Half an hour later (after a few blips and phone calls) an email appeared in my inbox. My intention was to include some of the story in my post, but having read it, and been transported back to the 1940s, I took the unprecedented decision to include the piece in its entirety.  It was written in 2011, and the only amendments are that he has now been married sixty eight years and has eight great grandchildren, and two step great grandchildren. 

So here, without further ado is dad's account of a Turn of Events that began in 1943. (With apologies for quality and different sizes - they were sent as PNG files and try as I might, I can't get the images of the pages the same size)

The Reason I am Here by Jill Reidy 

Who would have thought

That a loose shoe lace 

Could have caused such a turn of events?

The serendipity of a random digit 

The lace undone

That decision

To stop and tie 

While others overtook 

And sealed their own inevitable fate 

Is the reason I am here 

Once a pacifist

That eager boy 

Dreaming of the fight

To save his country

Initial disappointment 

A small price to pay 

For seventy more years

A wife and family

And a life well lived

Scarred knees 

The only reminders 

Of a lace untied 

The decision

The lucky pause

That changed the course 

Of a young man's life 

And the reason I am here

Thanks for reading      Jill

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Things My Father Told Me

To be honest, my father never really told me very much at all.  When I was growing up my dad worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. The seventh day was spent recuperating and recharging his batteries for the next onslaught.  So, there really wasn't a lot of time for talking.

Anything I ever gleaned from my dad was more by a process of osmosis than any other means.  He is a stickler for keeping promises and never letting people down, something that held a lot of sway as I was growing up. If dad said he was going to do something, then come rain, hail or shine, he did it.  I don't remember him ever putting it into words but it must have rubbed off on me, as I pride myself on my reliability to this day.

Although my dad never offered much advice to me there was something he was supposed to tell my elder brother when he was about eleven: the facts of life. My mum had already discussed the female side of things with me, their only daughter, leaving me slightly stunned and horrified but strangely smug to be part of that elite club in the early sixties, 'Girls in the Know.'

For some reason, presumably to soften the blow, dad was dispatched to a newly built hotel in the Lakes (where he and mum had previously enjoyed a rare childless weekend - I'm not sure whether this was significant) with an unsuspecting and very excited eleven year old boy.  I, of course, had no idea of this cunning plan, and probably did a lot of whining about missing out on what sounded like a fun trip. It was years later that my brother confessed they had spent a wonderful weekend, eating posh food, going for long walks and rowing on the lake, and as they neared our house on their return, dad patted Geoff on the shoulder and muttered, much to my brother's bemusement, 'Anything you want to know, son, just ask.'

The whole episode was to be repeated a few years later with my younger brother, only this time our next door neighbour (who subsequently turned out to be quite a 'ladies man') inexplicably decided he would accompany them.  John had a whale of a time and the threesome returned home without the birds and the bees ever having been mentioned.  My father might not have told them but they didn't do so badly finding out for themselves.

One thing I do remember my dad telling me about was space, the planets and natural elements.  Even at a young age I realised how interested and knowledgeable he was. He had a big book, full of brightly coloured photos, that absolutely fascinated me.  I don’t know whether it was the colours or the drama of the images but I do know I would sit, long before I could read, flicking over the pages and marvelling at the vastness of a desert or the vibrant orange hues of a dramatic sunset.

In fact, my dad was knowledgeable about a lot of things (a source of many an argument when I was in my teens).  He was an expert in mathematics and spent hours reading books and pondering on mathematical problems.  All of which should have been a great asset when I needed to catch up on two years of Advanced Maths before the ‘O’ level exam.  What I had omitted to tell him was that I had absolutely no understanding of any of it and had spent most lessons in a state of terrified petrification, desperately trying to copy the answers from the boy next to me.  The planned extra lessons with dad lasted a total of approximately forty five minutes, most of which was taken up with dad nearly exploding with frustration and me in tears.  When the exam came I wrote my name at the top of the paper, then sat for two hours, staring at the rows of bent backs in front of me.

Driving lessons followed a similar path.  In dad’s defence, I have to admit I was a worrying combination of nervous and temperamental.  In my defence, dad never did have a lot of patience.  With hindsight, a recipe for disaster.  It started off quite amiably, with my mum taking each of us to one side before we left, and offering helpful advice.  We had a mission this day.  We were taking my brother to the tube station.  I wasn’t too happy about having a second passenger but settled myself into the driving seat.  Dad said, with a false calmness, “All right, when you’re ready.”  Apprehensively I switched on the engine, put my foot on the gas and took off the handbrake.  The car lurched forward, Geoff nearly shot out of his seat, dad’s head missed the windscreen by about half an inch, and I burst into tears.  I threw the door open and marched back to the house, passengers’ laughter ringing in my ears.  Dad drove Geoff to the tube and I never had another lesson.

My dad’s ninety now, still doing the Telegraph crossword every day, still pondering maths and philosophical problems and, above all, probably mightily relieved that he doesn’t have to deliver the facts of life to eleven year old boys or teach a stroppy teenager to drive.

My dad, who made me half of what I am

I wrote this a while ago for a Fathers' Day competition in the Guardian.  It was composed following an emotional afternoon going through old photos, with the last line added for my dad's ninetieth birthday celebrations, earlier this year.

Dear Dad,

 You are the slim young man with the thick wavy hair, caught forever in the 1940s, strolling with mum along the prom at Margate 

You are the proud father of one, two and – whoops – three babies, reluctantly posing against the1950s décor 

You are the stressed looking thirty-something, sprung to life in a fading Polaroid, with three grinning teens in ‘60s shades

 You are the pale, gaunt figure, with empty eyes, in the grip of a nervous breakdown - knife poised purposefully above the Silver Wedding cake

You are the handsome dad, smiling self-consciously at your sons’ weddings, then beaming at the congregation as you walk me proudly down the aisle  

You are the relaxed and happy grey-haired man in 70s sweater, gazing fondly at the first of eight grandchildren 

You are the proud husband at the end of the century, fifty years married, squinting as the sun makes a sudden break through the clouds, and your family laughs around you 

You are the octogenarian magician, mesmerising great-grandchildren. 

You are the slightly stooping, white haired man, serenading mum on your Diamond Wedding Anniversary, as I wipe away tears

You are my 90 year old dad and I love you. 

Thanks for reading        Jill

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