Mind Your Language - Wash Your Mouth Out!

That soap. I can still remember the taste and the smell.  Green Palmolive rubbed hard in my mouth by my very angry mother. All I said was ‘bugger or buggery’ and obviously that was all it took for my mum to drop whatever she was doing, shout at me and drag me, literally kicking and screaming to our black and white tiled bathroom. The memory is so clear, perhaps I was traumatised by such a severe punishment to be inflicted on me at four years old. Anyway, it was Nanna’s fault.

Both my grandmothers were decent, lady-like women, but Nanna, my maternal grandmother, ran pubs like we did and she was, perhaps a bit more worldly wise. Nanna often said ‘is it buggery’ or ‘does it buggery’ in answer to questions, not to me, but I heard it often enough. In her world were many buggers, too, in fact everyone was a daft bugger, silly bugger, dirty bugger, lazy bugger, etc, and being in the pub trade, lots of drunken buggers. I spent lots of time with her so I suppose it wasn’t really shocking that I should say it myself. After the mouth washing, I sobbed to my mum that I only said what Nanna says. I don’t know if she took it up with her.

I worked with four and five year olds in an infant school for quite a while – the best years of my working life and I wish I’d stayed, but that’s another story. Young children soak up education like sponges and everything else as well. They love to tell their own stories, no holds barred, so I found myself knowing all sorts about everyone’s parents, siblings and home life. I am the keeper of many family secrets and my lips are strongly sealed. There are people out there who might be horrified if they knew what their child had said at school. Sometimes, there was inappropriate language and staff were advised to be tactful and simply ask a child to say it again as we hadn’t heard properly. There were not many swear words around that age group. If necessary, I would say that I didn’t know that word, and let’s just use words we understand.

Sometimes I have to check myself, or remind my husband that something isn’t ‘bloody’ it’s only a table, or whatever the item might be. It’s a hard habit to break, but we have our grandchildren round a lot and what big ears they have. They are aged five, four, three and nearly two. I’ve already had a gentle chat with the five year old about ‘some words are only for grown-ups and not nice for children to say’. How times have changed. My mother would have scooped him up to the bathroom and he would still be vomiting soap suds after his exclamation of ‘f--king hell’ when he dropped something under the table.

We had a small, metal plant pot on the draining board. I know it was in the way, I just needed to decide where to store it, so I take full responsibility. One day when my husband was doing something at the sink and our grandchildren were playing nicely, the planter fell to the floor with a loud clang. My husband, exasperated, called out ‘That bloody tin!’, which met with three of the four children bursting into laughter and shouting ‘Bloody tin!’ We were all hysterical, adults and children alike. It was the funniest thing ever. The ghost of my mum would have run in with the soap. The small planter, or ‘bloody tin’ which it is now referred to, is safely stored.

As for having my mouth washed out as a child, the deterrent is not lifelong, by the way. Mummy might be cross, but I swear sometimes. And worse words than ‘bugger’.

My poem is a reflection of working with the general public where not everyone is pleasant. Suffering pain and Covid rules bring out the best and the worst in people.

 

So, you scream ‘eff off’ at me

From the safety of your phone.

I’ll kill your call, line now free

And you can leave me alone.

 

Lately, I’ve been chucking back

The very same words you use.

I’m not taking any flak,

I’ve developed a short fuse.

 

I know you’ll understand me

Using your language, self-taught.

Unacceptable? I see,

You’re taken aback and fraught.

 

Say ‘bugger’ then, I don’t care.

Just be yourself, you are crass.

I’m not bothered if you swear,

Sticks and stones, and all that jazz.

 

PMW 2020

Thanks for reading, take care and keep well. Pam x

 

 

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Petrichor - The Lost Fragrance of Rain

Yesterday I walked home from my hospital appointment. It felt so good to be out in the fresh air of tree-lined East Park Drive. I had reached the zoo before I dared to remove my face mask and take deep breaths. This was only my second outside venture on foot since I began to emerge from lockdown and my self-isolating. I was enjoying the freedom.

Being inside the hospital made me feel anxious and uncomfortable, and present circumstances of pandemic meant I had to go it alone. It began on Thursday night when a recurring eye problem, which had troubled me for a few days, took a turn for the worst, completely out of my control and I had no choice but to seek proper help. The 111 helpline referred me to A&E. I was scared, it was the last place I wanted to be. I was in pain from my eye. I felt sick, unsure if it was the pain or anxiety of where I was and not being able to see properly. Blood tests showed my blood sugar was all over the place, my potassium level too low and I was a bit dehydrated. Well, it was after midnight, I was scared, tired, should have been in bed, so I’m not surprised.  I wasn’t offered a drink of water or a banana, but I was looked after very well and as always, I have lots of praise for our NHS. They gave me medication and wanted me back the next morning, Friday, in the eye clinic. On Friday they nodded approval, changed the meds and wanted me back in clinic on Monday afternoon, yesterday. Now they’ve got me, they won’t let me go. I’m on follow-up now for August.

I think it had rained during the morning. I couldn’t really remember. I was concerned about returning to clinic, being there on my own, but I had things to do before two of my grandchildren arrived. Busy Monday, but everything fell into place. My husband dropped me at Outpatients, kids in tow, and returned home to await my call.

I was so glad to be out, reasonably unscathed, and the outside air was very welcoming. I phoned to say I would walk. I only live about twenty minutes brisk walk, or half an hour stroll away. Apart from the noisy traffic, it is an enjoyable path, even more so when you can see where you’re going properly. I’d been administered eye drops and was still under the influence of them. My only problem was overhanging plants along the side of the golf course which I mainly managed to dodge, but didn’t see some of the thin stalks until it was too late. No harm done.

 Everywhere was green and lush. I tried to remember or imagine what it all smelt like. I decided it was fresh and clean, earthy with a hint of pine. I don’t know if my sense of smell will ever return. We’ll see. That’s chemo for you. If it does come back, I hope I will experience petrichor and recognise it.

My poem is a memory of the rain-soaked garden at a relative's home.

I remember when life had fragrance,

Everything from a distinctive scent

To a subtle hint of a substance,

Breathing through, delicate, transient.

The warm sweetness after summer rain

Drenched the rose garden and swamped the lawn.

Leaves and petals floated to the drain,

Sweet peas, bedraggled, soggy, forlorn.

Drips from the sycamore and the beech

Splashing puddles on the patio.

Drooping honeysuckle, out of reach.

Sodden wisteria hanging low.

I remember the heady perfume

Of old-fashioned roses in full bloom.

The smell of rain I knew before,

But not the proper name, petrichor.

Pamela Winning 2020

Thanks for reading, keep safe, Pam x

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Growing Pains - Our Back Bedroom

 On Saturday morning I was upstairs in the spare back bedroom doing some ironing. Whoever is in charge of programme scheduling on BBC Radio 2 has shifted Sounds of the ‘60s to the ridiculous time slot of 6 a.m. until 8 a.m., so I’ve missed it. Instead of singing along to the Hollies, Marmalade, Love Affair and others who provided the comforting music of my younger days, I enjoyed the peace and quiet, alone with my thoughts.

I thought about the many make-overs the room had under gone with various occupants over the years. It was our room once. Magnolia emulsion on woodchip, Artex textured ceiling and I think it was a stripey carpet. We moved into the newly decorated front bedroom and, as children were our regular guests, we furnished this back room with bunk beds and made it a home for some of my teddy bears.

A nephew, about six years old, kept waking up with a headache one night. I sat with him, bucket at the ready for the inevitable sickness, and hoped his distress wouldn’t disturb his younger sister, our niece, who slept peacefully in the next room.

Our son arrived. He had the tiny boxroom at first. He had night terrors when he was a toddler until he was about four. It gave me terrors of my own when disturbed by his screaming. I would dash into his room to find him sitting up staring at something only he could see. He soon calmed down with a reassuring cuddle. Before he started school, we moved him into the back bedroom, now decorated in bright colours, mainly yellow and with a theme of cartoon style zoo animals. A few years later, while he was away at Cub Camp, we re-vamped his room with a Manchester United theme as a surprise to come home to. He loved it and was even more delighted, as we all were when Manchester United won the treble that season.

Our daughter arrived and the boxroom was suitably freshened up. When she was a little girl she suffered dreadful leg cramps. The pain made her cry and sometimes disturbed her sleep. By the time she was about eight, our son had moved into another room and she was resident in the back bedroom, now Barbie themed with bright pink curtains and sparkly pink painted walls. I would sit on her bed in this pink paradise, massaging ‘magic cream’ moisturiser into the offending leg hoping to relive the pain as we waited for the double dose of Calpol Junior to take effect. Growing pains, the doctor said.

Growing pains, whatever form they take, are the hardest pains of all. It’s the adolescent boundary pushing, teenage angst, tearful tantrums that is all part of growing up and discovering who we are and who we want to be, or think we want to be that I found the most challenging; both as a parent and with memories of my own teens.

In more recent years, our daughter and her boyfriend shared this room until they moved to their own place. Our son and his girlfriend made it home for a while and re-decorated it beautifully in brown and taupe, painting over the graffiti that I’d accepted was someone’s freedom of expression. This time last year they also found their own place.

This lovely, large back bedroom that holds so many memories is a spare room again. And there’s a cot now as our grandchildren are overnight guests. Our adult children are raising their own families and experiencing the next generation of growing pains.

I put the iron down for a moment and glanced through the window. I noticed the gentleman across the back was sitting out in the sun, newspaper and morning coffee to hand. Good idea.

This poem always reminds me of our son’s night terrors.

 

A Child Half-Asleep by Tony Connor

 

Stealthily parting the small-hours silence,
A hardly-embodied figment of his brain
Comes down to sit with me
As I work late.

Flat-footed, as though his legs and feet

Were still asleep.

He sits on a stool,

Staring into the fire,
His dummy dangling.

Fire ignites the small coals of his eyes.

It stares back through the holes
Into his head, into the darkness.

I ask what woke him?

‘A wolf dreamed me’ he says.

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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