Personal Effects - How Little We Need

 

There’s a small box in the attic. It contains the last of the personal effects of my late aunt. Things have reduced over time. She passed away in 1998 and for many years I kept her paperwork. After about twenty years, I shredded most of it, keeping only important, historical or sentimental documents. Items of costume jewellery includes a mink brooch which I remember from my childhood. They were fashionable once, horrible now. I can’t part with the bits and pieces of her Catholic faith, her wall-hanging crucifix and her statue of Christ which was placed on her bedside table. The Jesus statue was a wedding gift from the priest, I believe. I’ve also kept a few old black and white photos that mean nothing to me, but were something to her, so they stay, for now. Anyway, that’s it. The remaining possessions of a life spanning seventy-four years, or thereabouts, neatly placed in a box only slightly bigger than an average shoe-box and stored in the home of her first niece. That could be me, one day. I think I should speak to my niece. There isn’t a box large enough for all my personal effects. Things can shrink, though.

Books, of which I have many, can be stored on a Kindle, or similar. Photos, again lots of them, can live on pen-drives. Music, my collection of vinyl and CDs can be digitalised. Not for me, though. I like real books on shelves, to feel pages and see the different prints and fonts. I don’t care if anyone calls me old-fashioned.

My house is my home. It’s not quite how I like it because I’ve packed away most of the non-essential things, ornaments and pictures, ready for putting the house up for sale. No, it hasn’t happened yet and I’m still going on about it. The sooner, the better, but there are obstacles still in the way. Considering that so much has gone into a storage unit, there is no empty space here to speak of.

Compared to home, we manage with very little on our caravan. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had much use over the summer due to present circumstances. Instead, we managed a mid-week break to a hotel in Cheshire, with all necessary personal effects for both of us, in one, middle-sized suitcase.

My Haiku,

A box in the loft
Auntie’s personal effects,
Left over from life.

Fond mem’ries remain
Which will always stay with me.
I look back and smile.

PMW 2026

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Laughter - The Best Medicine

 

“Laughter is the best medicine” is a well-known saying and it is true. We feel better after a good laugh and depending on the reason for the laughter, that good feeling can last. There’s a long list of benefits. This is just a few. Laughter protects the heart, boosts the immune system, triggers the release of endorphins and relaxes the whole body. It even burns calories, apparently.

We need something to laugh at and that is down to personal preference. What might be hilarious to some might be totally unfunny to others. Something happened when I was fourteen. I was on my own watching Steptoe and Son on television. I don’t remember the episode or anything about it, except really enjoying it and loudly laughing my head off when my father’s new wife came into the room. I think she said, “That’s so funny,” or something along those lines, but I’d shut up. I don’t know if I was embarrassed, self-conscious, or just a typical fourteen year old girl bereft of her mother and trying to adjust to changes. It was a turning point, an experience that’s stayed with me.

The first time I saw Billy Connolly in concert – Preston Guild Hall c.1974/5 – I laughed so much and for so long that I had to stop listening to him until I could breathe again. I missed the even funnier end to some stories because of the state I was in. I’ve seen him on stage a few times and he’s always had the same effect. Luckily, I have DVDs to fill in those important gaps. It’s my love for Scotland that goes beyond The Broons and Oor Wullie of my childhood, Billy Connolly for the last fifty years and Still Game more recently. There must be something Scottish in my DNA. Peter Kay gets to me, too. I haven’t seen him on stage, just television and DVDs of concerts. I’m also a survivor of a very long, very late and very funny midnight matinee with Ken Dodd. What a master of mirth.

Put me in a room with my niece and we will both be helpless with laughter in minutes. Add her mother, my sister into the mix and that laughter will only take seconds. If we’re at my house, I’ll be running squealing into the handy downstairs loo. If we happen to be out, they’ll sit me close to the ‘Ladies’. How thoughtful they both are. It’s just how we interact and what starts it often comes from nowhere, unless we’re reliving a previous event that had us in stitches on the ‘Do you remember when…’ memory lane.

Laughter has been in short supply lately. Life is a rollercoaster ride and there are too many dips at the moment. Things will improve. For now I think I need Billy Connolly at his best, some episodes of Steptoe and Son to remind me how far I’ve come and my niece and sister who share my craziness.

A poem from Muhammad Ali,

He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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On the Doorstep - Stretford 1958

Stretford, 1958, me, my mum, my nanna and my great grandmother, Nanna Polly grouped together for a family photograph on the doorstep of Nanna Polly’s house. I can remember being shuffled about to place everyone exactly right, and wearing my beautiful dress made by my other nanna. Our four generations, never to happen again, which makes the photograph all the more special.  Nanna Polly passed away the following year then ten years later my mum died which broke the links in the chain.

It has been a year of everything being placed on our doorstep, quite literally.  On a personal level, Covid 19 changed the way we live and the way we shop. We’ve done grocery shopping online for years. This has increased to the, butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, or that’s how it sometimes seems.

The first lockdown brought me fear and worry as we stayed at home, shielding from the outside world. One day, there was a wonderful surprise that started with a message from our niece.

“I bet you a million pounds there’s a shoebox outside your front door.”

What? Of course, I went to look. On the doorstep was a shoebox, with a note wishing us well and hoping we enjoy the contents. It was jam packed – including jam – with all the tasty goodies to put together an afternoon tea with lots of extra treats.

I was overwhelmed. Our niece, a busy NHS frontline worker, adored by us all, had gone to such trouble to make us this fantastic gift which was very welcome. I didn’t see her or hear her drive away. What a special lady, our angel. I think she made one for her mum, too. If you’re reading this, Jo, we salute you.

Good old Amazon, I couldn’t have managed Christmas without you. Day after day, another parcel delivered and placed on the doorstep as I organised gifts for the family and planned some sort of socially distanced Christmas Dinner at our house.

I’m the only survivor of my four generations.  I’m in awe of the strength of character my nanna and great grandmother must have had to endure two world wars and all the hardship and heart break that life threw at them. Both of them lost children in infancy. My great grandmother was only twenty-seven when she was widowed and lost her five year old daughter all within a fortnight.  I’m proud to be standing on that doorstep, surrounded by their love. I hope they’ve passed some of their northern grit down to me.

I found this poem by Thomas Hardy,

On the Doorstep
The rain imprinted the step’s wet shine
With target-circles that quivered and crossed
As I was leaving this porch of mine;
When from within there swelled and paused
A song’s sweet note;
And back I turned, and thought,
“Here I’ll abide.”

The step shines wet beneath the rain,
Which prints its circles as heretofore;
I watch them from the porch again,
But no song-notes within the door
Now call to me
To shun the dripping lea
And forth I stride.

Thomas Hardy, written in January, 1914 – and I wanted to add, ‘Yep, out you go!’

(If you remember the photo, apologies for using it again, though it was ages ago.)

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

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