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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Growing Pains - Back to School

Fear gripped me. Mid-dream and half asleep, I slipped out of bed in response to the screaming child in the next room. I tried to hurry, but my heart was pounding out of my chest, I could hardly catch my breath and my legs wouldn’t move properly.

He sat upright, wide eyes staring straight ahead at something scary, mouth open, continuous screaming. He was otherwise quite still.  I wrapped my arms around him, stroked his silky hair, made soothing noises and rocked him gently.  Night terrors, bless him, my little son. They continued for a while and terrified me more than him. I never got used to it happening and never found a proper reason.  He wouldn’t know anything about it, but my night was disturbed and my head filled with indescribable horrors that prevented me getting back to sleep long after he was settled.  He was about three years old, maybe only two and a half.  Perhaps his brain was working overtime, the events of his busy day filling his head with all sorts. Maybe it was a form of growing pains. He soon grew out of it. Later this week he will be thirty.  I am proud of him, and myself for getting something right along the way.

My daughter’s growing pains were physical and very real. Again, it was a night time thing, but she was older and could yell out that her legs were hurting. Double Calpol and lots of rubbing did the trick. She could settle back to sleep. I would be wide awake. I thought ‘growing pains’ was something made up, but our doctor was certain that was her ailment and she would grow out of it. She has.

At last, children have been able to return to school. It’s been too long a break, six months for most infants. I’m confident that schools are as safe as they can possibly be and I’m delighted to see my eldest grandson happy in his reception class where he is in the process of moving to Year 1. He loves school so much, it was awful to have it taken away from him. He understood about the ‘germs’ and needing to protect each other, but he missed everything. I enjoyed playing games, reading to him and doing little lessons to keep him on track with what he had learned so far, but as time went on, he needed the dynamics of his teacher, the surroundings of his inspirational classroom and to socialise with his friends.  He proudly tells me he is in the Giraffe ‘bubble’ and they do everything together. He’s happy. I hope all the children are, especially anyone who has been feeling unhappy in these difficult times.  Lockdown has brought plenty of invisible growing pains.

One of my favourite wordsmiths and fellow Mancunian, Mike Garry,

Signify

I called her Mam once

Sat on the carpet

With arms folded and legs crossed

Fingers on my lips

In that special place

She would eclipse

Where she'd read me poems

Tell me tales

Sing me songs

And like a fish to it's source

I'd be drawn in

I loved the way she'd hold the book

So that I could see the pictures

And the way she'd slowly move it from side to side

So that the naughty kids at the back could see

She told us we were allowed to dream

She got us to act out plays

I remember doing Finnegan's Wake

Told us about Shaw, Shakespeare and Joyce and Yeats

I was eight

But in that classroom her voice was sweet music

Echoing prayer and hymn

Story and songs

She was a living angel

But you'd know if you'd done wrong

She took us on school trips

To castles with moats across oceans with boats

And we would float

Without ever leaving the room

Loved the way she made the simple act of reading of the class register

Sound like the most beautiful song tune

Simply by the way she'd validate childrens names by saying

Katherine

Theresa

Patricia and James

Sometimes she'd get me to close my eyes

Imagine worlds beyond the sky

She told me one

"Michael, It's alright to cry"

And her eyes were seaside blue sunshine

But in that rainy, 1970's black and white Moss Side

Where my messed up life would disappear

The very second she walked into the room

She made my insignificant life

Signify

And she taught me that the more I read the more I see

The more I see the more I know

The more I know that more I grow

The more I grow the more I am

And I would give the world and all its riches

To simply hold that woman's hand one more time

And say thanks

"Thanks"

Mike Garry

Thank for reading, Pam x

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