Charm - In Search of Charm

‘In Search of Charm’ by Mary Young. This book should have been returned to Palatine Secondary School library in 1970. Oops, my mistake, but now that I’ve dug it out from one of my many bookcases, I think I’ll read it again and see how the world has changed fifty odd years on. At school, we were encouraged to walk properly upright, shoulders back, no slouching. Deportment included doing this carrying a book on our heads. This was the sort of thing covered in the book. I remember learning the correct way to open and close a door when entering or exiting a room. I also remember that it was considered acceptable to smoke on a train, but not on a bus, and certainly not outside on the street. This was all aimed at girls becoming ladies. I’ve no idea what the boys did, if anything. They continued to charge about like apes.

I was an impressionable fifteen year old in 1970. I idolised Twiggy, though all I had in common with her was incredibly skinny legs and an eye for fashion. I didn’t have her gorgeous face, still don’t. I was a young lady, behaving mostly in a lady-like manner. I loved my trips to stay with family in London which would always include a visit to Carnaby Street where I would look for something delicate and floaty to wear. And beads, they were my signature accessory.

It’s obvious to me now, as a mature, hopefully lady-like woman, that I grew up in a time when girls were being trained, if that’s the right description, to become good wives. My aunt told me that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. I get by, but I’m not the Cordon Bleu that she once was. Luckily, I married a man who is an excellent cook and perfectly capable of making a delicious meal. Presenting ourselves as easy on the eye by looking nicely groomed was important, too. Um, for self-esteem, first.

A friend of my mother’s had a fascinating charm bracelet that gave me such joy to look at. It was gold and stuffed with many charms. Something had a folded ten-shilling note inside, something else a pound note. I’d never remember it all, but I loved looking at it and finding things I’d previously missed. It must have been worth a small fortune and it must have been really heavy. Just something that has stuck in my memory.

I expect that re-reading ‘In Search of Charm’ will fill me with horror. Women are equal. We can come out of the kitchen. I had my own mortgage when I was single.

I chose this poem because I liked it.  

The Charm

Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair,
Then thrice three times tie up this true love’s knot,
And murmur soft ‘She will, or she will not.’
Go burn these pois’nous weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl’s feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man’s grave,
That all my fears and cares an end may have.
Then come, you fairies! Dance with me a round;
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound.
In vain are all the charms I can devise:
She hath an art to break them with her eyes.

Thomas Campion (1567 – 1620)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

Flowers - Bloomin' Lovely

The garden is looking sorry for itself. Chopped down for winter, the three intertwined buddleia are naked sticks protruding from the soil, shorter than the fence. They look dead, but I’m sure I haven’t killed them. I can’t say the same for the annoying bindweed that was wrapped tightly around more branches than I realised. It has disappeared for now. Springtime will see it re-emerge, ready to attack, and once again I’ll be fighting the losing battle of trying to keep it away. I’m considering training it on to some trellis somewhere at the side. It is an attractive plant, just damages other things. We’ll see. The buddleia didn’t flower very well and I didn’t see a single butterfly, though I was away for most of the summer.

I'm not a good gardener, home or away, but I make an effort and do my best. Bulbs are planted for spring. I look forward to daffodils, tulips, irises, grape hyacinths and something I’ve never heard of that looked very pretty on the box. I do this every autumn, full of enthusiasm, expecting to grow the best spring garden ever and the wonderful flowers will compensate for every ache and pain. Something is always lacking – green fingers – so, in all seasons I try to plant things that will flower nicely and look after themselves. A favourite is the Totally Tangerine geum. They come back stronger each year. There are two, in different flower beds. In bloom, one is more stunning than the other. The slightly weaker one was bought when I was feeling cross about someone connected to football and I think it shows, but it doesn’t matter now.

I love to have flowers in the house. Last week I was overwhelmed and delighted to be given beautiful roses including yellow ones for friendship from a lovely friend of many years. She didn’t know this, but things have been tough for me lately. The flowers, with their special significance, really helped to cheer me up.

I always have daffodils in remembrance of my father. When he passed away, his garden path was lines with an abundance of shades of yellow, cream and orange created by an amazing display of various daffodils. It’s nice to see them appear in my garden.

I hope I have success with poppies next year. They always look lovely, but can be so delicate that they don’t last very long.

I’ve chosen two poems,

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae 1872-1918

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

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

Read More

Smells - From Childhood Memories

I lost my sense of smell some years ago but I’ll always have the fragrant memories on instant recall.

We were on an overnight stay at one of the pubs I’d lived in as a child, The Peels Arms in Padfield near Glossop. Any changes have been for the better and it still has the ‘olde worlde’ charm and warmth that my late father adored in the only proper country pub to be included in his long list of establishments.  He had two favourites, this one and any pub on Blackpool promenade. Once inside, the familiar smells were with me, furniture polish, Brasso and the sticky-sweet mingle of lemon and cherries at the bar. Upstairs, the smell of green Palmolive soap filled the bathroom along the corridor and also our en suite, exactly as I knew it should. Whenever I think of The Peels Arms, the fragrance of Palmolive comes to me. A less welcome odour from those childhood days was the silage pit on farm land at the top of the lane. It was an amazing adventure playground for children, even though it was out of bounds and the farmer always chased everyone away. I only went there once and I remember the great fun my eight year old self had, jumping from the stone wall into the soft, springy, stinky wet grass and getting all green and messy. And what a hiding I got, not only for playing in the silage but for denying I’d been there.

I wear perfume and I like to indulge myself with lovely bath and shower crèmes, but the scent is non-existent, just in my head. I like delicate fragrances, Dioressence, Miss Dior, Rive Gauche and nostalgically, Faberge’s Kiku.

Having no sense of smell has benefits sometimes. I don’t notice anything unpleasant and while others are wrinkling their noses and reaching for some air freshener, the reason is lost on me.

I met someone recently who had been through the same treatment regime as me, chemo, radiotherapy and medication. We discovered we shared the same side effects, including the loss of sense of smell.  This was the first confirmation to me that chemo or radiotherapy or a combination of everything could be responsible.  Maybe in time it will return.

When I was a young child, I enjoyed spending some of the school holidays with my paternal grand-parents. They didn't have a pub, they had a bungalow which fascinated me and my Nanna Hetty was either sewing at a treadle machine or busy in the kitchen.

My own poem,

 

Hetty’s yellow kitchen in the sunshine,

Smells of scrambled eggs and baking

The most delicious Parkin loaf

And currant buns for the taking.

Carrots and peas and Bisto gravy for

Yorkshire puddings and Sunday roast,

And she made my favourite breakfast,

Peanut butter on perfect toast.

I loved to have a dot of Pond’s Cold Cream

From the top of Hetty’s night-stand

And sniff the flowery fragrance

Rubbed in on the back of my hand.

My Nanna Hetty, how I adored her

And loved her looking after me.

She passed away when I was eight

Leaving me love and memories.

 

 

 

Thank for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

Read More