Birthdays

Yesterday was my birthday - my seventy fourth, if you want to know.  And it set me thinking about my birthdays sixty to seventy years ago.

These days it often seems as though time flies and a decade passes in the time it took to get through a year all that time ago.  Birthdays were very special events, eagerly anticipated, excitedly prepared for. 

At infants' school there was a birthday cake.  It wasn’t edible, just a round tin covered in a white substance (plaster?) and decorated with candles to be blown out by the birthday boy or girl as the rest of the class sang, “Happy Birthday”. 

I would have a birthday party and special tea to which I could invite six friends.  Mother would buy a packet of six invitations which was a cunning way  of making sure only six friends could be invited.  My parties were usually all girls who would arrive in best party frocks with pretty ribbons in their hair.  She would bake a special cake, not the character cakes of today but a cake decorated with the appropriate number of candles and maybe "hundreds and thousands" or Smarties.

There would also be sandwiches which were cut on the diagonal as a special treat.  I have no idea why diagonally cut sandwiches tasted better but Mother had me convinced that it was so!  Sausage rolls were also mandatory as was either a trifle or jelly and blancmange. 

Then games.  Musical chairs, pass the parcel, blind man’s buff.  When Father came home from work he would come and play with us too.  At the end of the party each child would go home with a single gift, maybe a pencil or a packet of sweets, not the party bags of today.  Oh, and everyone took a slice of cake wrapped in a paper napkin.

And I would go up to bed, probably planning next year’s birthday. 

The Tree

This tree stands in my front garden and I can see it from my chair.  I planted it in memory of my Father, my Mother and my only sister.  My nephew helped me choose it several years ago and I paid for it using garden vouchers which he had given me for Christmas.  I think of it as my family tree.

Last year was a little disappointing because it flowered during a spell of windy weather and lost its petals in just a couple of days but this year it has flowered better than ever.  

Today I have taken a service at Nettleton, a village less than two miles from home.  It was a very special church for me to go for Mothering Sunday for it is the village where my Mother was brought up during her primary school years.

As is fairly common in churches these days I was given a bunch of flowers for Mothering Sunday and I have brought them home and again I can see them from my chair.  Most years I have provided the flowers myself as an acknowledgement of all the kindness I receive from the congregations where I have the privilege to minister but this year it felt right to be on the receiving end.  Thank you, Nettleton Church.

And thank you to parents everywhere for all the love and self-sacrifice you give to your children  I salute you.  

Connecting with my Family History

Out into the Lincolnshire countryside today, this time to lead worship at St Mary's Church, Thoresway. 

The 2011 census reckoned that 198 people live at Thoresway but that figure also includes Kirmond-le-Mire which has St Martin's Church, and Stanton-le-Vale which is served by St Andrew's Church so that's three Anglican churches serving less than two hundred people!  

So I went to Thoresway and joined ten people for the morning service.  Everyone sat in the choir and it was lovely.

Uncle Palmer.  The dates refer to his incumbency at Walesby

Actually I had a smile at even the thought of going to Thoresway because I remember my Mother talking about going with my Father on their bicycles to visit his Uncle Palmer (who was Rector of Thoresway) for marriage preparation.  My Mother's family lived about five miles from Thoresway and Uncle Palmer came to their village to conduct their wedding.

So I feel that Thoresway is part of my story too.

I hope Uncle Palmer would have approved of the service this morning.

Christmas memories 5. Making presents

No child was ever allowed to think that the Christmas present thing was just about getting: it was about giving too.  

I had a lovely Grandad.  He was quite authoritarian and his word was law but he loved his grandchildren and he was dearly loved by us.  In early December Grandad always gave each of us half a crown (2/6) worth 12.5 pence in today's money so that, with a few pence saved from pocket money, we could buy our parents a small gift.  I can't remember anything I bought but I do remember the excitement of that special visit to Woolworth's.  

My suspicion is that the presents we made at school were much more appreciated.  One amazing construction I remember was a vase made out of a jam jar.  The jar was covered with many layers of small pieces of newspaper then painted and varnished.  I made four bumps on mine and those bumps became four children dancing around the pot.  

My first ever school make for my Mother was a simple green felt purse. She used to keep it in her evening bag and whenever she went out she would put a few coins for the cloakroom in that purse and I was always so proud that I had made it.  It was only after she died that I discovered that not just coins had gone out in that purse.  For over fifty years she had kept in it the note that a five year old me had written,  "I love you Mummy."

Yesterday was the anniversary of her death, today is the anniversary of my Father's death.  I'll extend that note just a little.  I love you Mummy and Daddy.

One hundred years and one week ago

My Mum was born on the 25th January 1917 so last week she would have been a hundred years old.

My parents on their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1990

She was the second child and elder daughter of a Lincolnshire farmer and she lived all her life in this county.  She married a friend of her brother and together my Mother and Father had my sister and me.  They were married over fifty five years but the last eleven years of her life she was a widow,

She lived with me for the last two years of her life as she became wheelchair bound and she died in my arms in 2006.

That's just the bare bones of a life well lived.  Thank you, Mummy

Families

It seems a long time since I wrote about my family but during this last week I've been to the baptism of a cousin's grandchild and the funeral of another cousin's wife so my family has been in my thoughts quite a bit lately.

I've written very little about my Father's family and I know far less about them than I do about my Mother's people.  Oh I know names, dates of birth, spouses and all that, but that's not what knowing people is about.  I know so little of what they dreamed, what they were proud of, how they saw life.  I have no aunts or uncles left from that family so I shall never really know.

Father was the eldest of eight , born just over a year after his parents married.  Three more siblings appeared within four years and then Grandma took a little more time over having the other four!  My grandfather was an electrician on the local steelworks which would have brought in a steady wage rather than a large one, but  I think Grandma must have been a good manager as the family seems to have been secure and happy.  This is the only photograph that I have of all eight children with their parents.

I was one of twenty grandchildren in that side of my family!  Only thirteen of us still remain. I must talk to the other twelve about their hopes and dreams.  I've started to organise a family picnic for next year.  Watch this space!

75 years ago today

I know that many people will be remembering the start of the Blitz today and I too will be thinking about that.

But I shall also be thinking about another event which happened seventy five years ago.  On 7th September 1940 my parents were married.  

They were married just a few miles from where I live now, and the wedding breakfast was at my grandparents farm. My great uncle officiated (he was rector of a nearby parish) and it was by all accounts, a wonderful celebration.  He was obviously a modern sort of vicar as he wouldn't allow my mum to promise to obey her husband which was just as well!

My parents met when my mother gave my father a boiled sweet at the end of a football match in which her brother was on the same team.  He always had a bag of boiled sweets with him when I was a child but I didn't know the reason until after he died.  

Their marriage was truly "till death do us part" which sadly came just over 55 years later when my father died in 1995.