Picnic - Special Memories

This is it, that perfect summer picnic weather is here, and what are we doing? Complaining about the heat and how draining it is to feel constantly clammy. Yes, I’m guilty of moaning, too, but I’m trying to be positive and enjoy the sunshine that we spend more than half the year waiting for. Soon, the schools will break up and there will be a promised trip to the zoo for a certain grandson’s birthday treat and that will include a picnic.

I have fond memories of glorious Sunday afternoons as a child, on picnics with my family and their friends. We were all in the licenced trade and pubs closed on Sundays between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in those days. Most of us lived around the Morecambe and Lancaster area. Heysham was a popular place for us, or Crook ‘o Lune, Littledale, Glasson Dock. We would all meet up, men comparing cars while women set the food out. Sandwiches galore, potted meat, chicken paste, tinned salmon or cheese. Cake, biscuits and what we still call picky bits. Everyone brought something to share, and Nanna’s tablecloth would be used for the food. We sat on tartan car rugs, spread out round the tablecloth. Flasks of tea were poured into cups that were also lids. 

I had a bottle of diluted squash or cordial. Living in a pub, you’d expect me to have the choice of any soft drink, but that isn’t how it worked. I was rarely allowed anything fizzy, just the occasional blackcurrant and lemonade in a Babycham glass, with a cherry. I couldn’t have carried that in the car, not that it would last very long. At this point in my life, younger than seven, I was the only child and I’m sure everyone loved me. I’d share my time and affection between grandparents, and relatives. Aunty Beryl allowed me to explore her gold charm bracelet for hours on end – it would take so long to get round all the tiny charms. I would have books with me, colouring things and probably a couple of dolls. I was well-behaved. I don’t remember ever getting told off. Believe me, I would remember if I’d been in trouble. I was brought up with boundaries, and my mother had a look I wouldn’t want to see.

I don’t remember being bored, either. We lived in different times, but very happy ones. Just one thing, though; the horrible smell of tea or coffee in a flask was enough to put me off. A flask of hot water and sachets of ‘2in1’ Nescafe, these days.

Sometimes, I make a buffet on a summer’s day when the grandchildren are here. They call it ‘picnic tea’ which is an excellent description. They gather whatever they want to eat and take it to wherever they’d like to eat it, inside or outside and keep coming back for more. Children tucking into good food. It’s all this nanna needs.

My Haiku poem of long-gone days,

We knew how to spend
A lovely, sunny Sunday
All together, then.

With food a-plenty,
A family gathering,
Sitting on car rugs.

Salmon sandwiches,
Potted meat or chicken paste?
Sausage roll, pork pie?

Let’s see, who would like
An ice-cream at Glasson Dock?
And a look at boats?

The gang is all here,
Fun and laughter fills the air.
Making memories.

PMW 2026

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Reading - I Love Books

 

This is a favourite poem by Julia Donaldson,

I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

                                           Julia Donaldson

I spent yesterday afternoon reading a book, an actual book with paper pages. I found a quiet corner, made myself comfortable and escaped into a gentle Josephine Cox. She could weave a good yarn and I found this one to be an excellent page turner. I’m often reading, but this was a bit different. I was out of the comforts of home to the clinical, basic décor of a hospital waiting area. My husband was having a procedure and needed a responsible adult to take him home and stay with him afterwards. That’s me, then. In sickness and in health. With him safely delivered to the appropriate department, I wandered off to find some lunch. I’m very familiar with our hospital, but new bits keep being added and I was thrown off course for a few minutes, until I recognised something. I’d gone the wrong way, so about turn, and quickly found where I wanted to be. Soon, fed and watered, I was back in the correct waiting room, ready to read for hours on end, which I did.

A few people came and went, though it seemed to be a quiet department. Patients had a minder to accompany them, sitting in pairs. Conversation was whispered. Occasionally, a phone rang at reception or a mobile phone trilled. I seemed to be the only person reading. Most people had their phone out. A sign of the times, I suppose. I like to do a quick ‘Wordscape’ or remind myself of something I’ve forgotten on Google. Of course, they could be reading on their phones. I have Kindle on mine. It’s not the same as turning real pages. I miss that. I soon stopped people-watching and continued with Josephine’s novel.

Before Covid restrictions put an end to it, waiting rooms everywhere had a pile of well-thumbed magazines spilling off a table. I would fish out the most interesting problem pages in Woman’s Own. It was better than getting called into an appointment mid-way through an absorbing read of a riveting article, disturbed from and never to return.

I’ve always been a bookworm. As soon as I learnt to read, and I was a keen pupil, I was off into wherever stories could take me. I would get into trouble many times for continuing to read in bed after ‘lights out’, sometimes with a torch under the covers, which really angered my mother. She would threaten to take my book away, but she never did.

As a volunteer at primary school, I’ve enjoyed listening to children read aloud and praising them for an excellent effort. Now, based in the library I’m happy to help them to choose a book and give encouragement to read for themselves. I used to tell my own children that if they can read, they can do anything. Here’s a quote from Ricky Gervais, in his support of keeping public libraries open,

“I had no money growing up. My dad was a labourer and my mum did everything to make ends meet. Men worked hard. Women worked miracles. But education was free. As was the local library. I knew books were my passport to a better life.”

I agree, and Roald Dahl must have thought along the same lines. His ‘Matilda’ is terrific.

By the way, all went well at the hospital. We were there for hours, but those hours of waiting gave me a perfect opportunity to enjoy reading without feeling guilty that the kitchen floor needs mopping.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Witches - The Witchiest Witch

 

‘The Lancashire Witches’

One voice for ten dragged this way once
by superstition, ignorance.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,
daughter of such, of evil faith;
in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone.

Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,
over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.
On the wind’s breath, curse of crow and rook.

From poverty, no poetry
but weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;
sharp pins in the little dolls of death.

At daylight’s gate, the things we fear
darken and form. That tree, that rock,
a slattern’s shape with the devil’s dog.

Something upholds us in its palm-
landscape, history, place and time-
and, above, the same old witness moon

below which Demdike, Chattox, shrieked,
like hags, unloved, an underclass,
badly fed, unwell. Their eyes were red.

But that was then – when difference
made ghouls of neighbours; child beggars,
feral, filthy, threatened in their cowls.

Grim skies, the grey remorse of rain;
sunset’s crimson shame; four seasons,
centuries, turning, in Lancashire,

away from Castle, Jury, Judge,
huge crowd, rough rope, short drop, no grave;
only future tourists who might grieve.

                                                 Carol Ann Duffy

On a pleasant, summer afternoon in 2012, we went to Barrowford, Lancashire, to visit the Pendle Heritage Centre and find out more about the Lancashire Witches. It was the 400th anniversary of their trials that year. Having previously visited Lancaster Castle and the area where some of the witches were executed by hanging, we were starting our explorations at their end and going backwards into their beginnings. I found their story fascinating, disturbing and very sad. Witches? Really? Blind, struggling, penniless old ladies being picked on for how they lived and what they looked like upset me so much and it was too late to stick up for them. I saw them as two families who didn’t get on and tried to out-wit each other. They knew plants, good and bad. They knew the properties of each and how to use them for nourishment, medicine and poison. I don’t believe they murdered anyone. I believe that they were so terrified, that they made false confessions and were consequently found guilty at their trials and executed. That’s my opinion, based on what I felt was real and dismissing what I considered to be fantasy – familiars, in the sense, or rather nonsense of a person taking on the form of an animal or non-human creature.

The stories of the Pendle Witches are well documented, but here are a few snippets from a booklet we picked up on our visit,

“Early 1600s – Two rival peasant families live on the slopes of Pendle Hill. They are led by two old women called Demdike, a.k.a. Elizabeth Southerns and Old Chattox, a.k.a. Anne Whittle. The men of their families are dead, leaving them in poverty to beg and find work where they can. Many local people live in fear of them, believing them to have special powers.”

According to the booklet, things really kick off and reach a peak in the spring of 1612,

“March 18th, 1612 – Alizon Device, grand-daughter of Demdike, is begging on the road to Colne. A pedlar refuses her some pins and she curses him. Suddenly a black dog appears and she orders it to lame the pedlar who collapses, paralysed on the left side.

March 30th, 1612 – Alizon Device is hauled before the Justice Roger Nowell and confesses to witchcraft. Forced to give an account of her family’s activities she tells how Demdike had been asked to heal a sick cow which then died. She also told Nowell that Demdike had cursed Richard Baldwin after which his daughter fell sick and died a year later. Describing her family’s feud with the Chattox family she reports how Chattox turned the ale sour at an inn at Higham and bewitched the landlord’s son to death using a clay image.

April 3rd, 1612 – Nowell sends Demdike, Alizon Device, Chattox and her daughter Ann Redfearn to Lancaster Castle to await trial for witchcraft. Demdike dies in prison before the trial.

August 17th 1612 – The trial opens at Lancaster Castle. The accused are not provided with a defence lawyer. Nowell produces nine year old Jennet Device as a witness and she gives evidence against her own family. Her mother, Elizabeth, is dragged from the court screaming at her daughter and cursing Nowell. Alizon Device faints when confronted with the pedlar she is said to have lamed and when she is revived, confesses her guilt. Chattox weeps as she hears the evidence against her and asks God for forgiveness. She pleads for mercy to be shown to her daughter, Ann. The judge finds them all guilty.

August 20th 1612 – Chattox, Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth, James and Alizon Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock and her son John are hanged in Lancaster in front of huge crowds.

Were they malevolent people possessed by supernatural powers, or the innocent victims of a time obsessed with the pursuit and punishment of witchcraft?”

There is much more to learn about the Lancashire witches, that was just an outline of events.

I’ve convinced my grandchildren that I have special powers and I’m not even a witch! Well, I am sometimes, usually at Hallowe’en when I transform into The Witchiest Witch and give chocolate to all the children who come to my door. These are children who know me and recognise me from school or the neighbourhood. They are often disguised beyond my best efforts to recognise them as monsters, vampires, ghosts and miniature witches.

My own poem,

The Love Potion

She visited after midnight
And I listened to what she said.
Her voice was quiet and distant
For she was seven decades dead.
Her threadbare clothes were shades of black,
Her knitted shawl, faded to grey.
Old eyes, soft in her wizened face
Still had a kind and gentle way.

I adored my great-great grandma,
Her ghostly presence brought no fear.
She always knew what I needed
And I loved to sense her so near.
She said, “I believe I can help.
I know of a very old spell.
Come sit a-while beside me
And write it all down as I tell.

“Get some milk thistle and nettle,
Buttercup, daisy and clover.
Leave it to rest in rose water
Until the petals turn over.
Slowly stir in bramble honey,
A splash of dandelion wine
And sprinkle the seeds of the poppy
While you sing ‘Oh Let Him Be Mine’.”

“You want him so much,” she whispered.
“This potion will bring him along.
He will love you as you love him
And together you will belong.
Follow instructions exactly.
Choose every item with great care
And take your time, do not hurry.
Be of glad mind as you prepare.”

Her cold, hard fingers touched my face
And I felt the warmth of her love.
The vision drifted out of sight
Carried floating somewhere above.
She’d died long before I was born,
Yet she was always there for me.
I am blessed to share the blood-line
Of a free spirit such as she.

Pamela M Winning 2012

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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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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Expectation - Uncertain Times

 

It is not quite Epiphany but the Christmas tree, cards and all the trimmings have been taken down and packed away. There was an element of sadness. I didn’t feel ready to remove everything. I was being practical and fitting in other plans. Also, I was missing my little helpers who had made the task a joyful one last year and the year before. Just the other day my eldest grandson asked if he could help to put the tree away. I told him he could if he was here when the time came, but he was at school yesterday when I was unwinding the strings of beads, trying to prevent them getting tangled. I felt a bit guilty. I’d given him the expectation of being involved. Now, if the subject arises, I’ll be using ‘lockdown’ as an excuse. He’ll already be gutted at his beloved school taken from him again.

I began last year, 2020, with lots of expectations and, same as everyone, not a clue of what was coming to take it all away from me. There would be our regular visits to Dumfries and Galloway with trips to family in Troon. We looked forward to going to the Channel Islands for our 30^th wedding anniversary. I was retiring from work. There would be more travelling and lots of time to spend with our four grandchildren. Covid 19 changed all our lives and continues to do so.

I feel safe at home and it’s where I like to be. One thing I enjoy is watching all Blackpool F.C. matches on the big TV on the back room wall, from the comfort of the squashy sofa. It’s great to settle down with a hot coffee and the anticipation and expectation of a thrilling match ending in a great result. When that happens I hope our neighbours don’t mind the cheering and applause. I miss the atmosphere of the football ground, I miss the company of the fans who sit around us, the chats and catch-ups. They will be like us, watching from home. And, sitting in comfort in the warmth, I wonder how on earth I’d cope in the stadium on a freezing match day. I’ve gone soft. I have no expectation of getting back into the ground this season, but if we can, I’ll be there.

This year I have no New Year resolutions, except to write more of my own poetry but I haven't set off on that yet. Expectation is to receive the Covid vaccine when my turn comes up and retire from work at some point. If I keep my expectations realistic, there will be less disappointment.

Here's a Thomas Hardy poem,

Expectation and Experience

“I had a holiday once,” said the woman –
Her name I did not know –
“And I thought that where I’d like to go,
Of all the places for being jolly,
And getting rid of melancholy,
Would be a good, big fair:
And I went. And it rained in torrents, drenching
Every horse, and sheep, and yeoman,
And my shoulders, face and hair;
And I found that I was the single woman
In the field – and looked quite odd there!
Everything was spirit-quenching:
I crept and stood in the lew of a wall
To think, and could not tell at all
What on earth made me plod there!”

Thomas Hardy  (1840 – 1928)

 Pam

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