who was my Grandfather’s mother (he died when I was a baby and have no memories of him) was a child of Victoria. And I remember her vividly. She was called Emily and had about three hundred children, most of whom were boys.
She was, by the time I was born, mostly bed ridden and her bed was by the window which looked onto the high street of a sleepy market town in the Lake District. Her sitting room was really the only room I ever saw, and the rest of the house was never used and sat under years of dust. I used to look at the stairs with a kind of foreboding; I was told I wasn’t allowed ‘up there’ and so imagined all kinds of terrible things above my head…
The kitchen I only ever peeped into once when my mother had gone to fetch something, and I remember it as grey and dusty and funny smelling. Like a death rattle hanging in the air.
The house was quiet punctuated only by the tock of an old clock somewhere. Tock tock tock counting down the seconds til I could leave the house and breathe fresh air again in a world that lived rather than waited.
We probably only ever stayed half an hour but oh it dragged so so painfully on. I would have to sit still all that time, not touching anything, not scuffing my feet, not sighing, huffing or staring at the ceiling, and even for a girl with about as much bounce as a wet tissue it was still painful.
But I could look, and that’s what I did. I looked at all the knick-knacks from a bye-gone era that lined my Great Grandmother’s cabinets. Plates, cups, saucers, ornaments, bowls. Her fireplace was black and probably iron and it was a huge piece of the wall/chimney breast. It had a place for the kettle and little doors down each side for warming plates and placing the iron to heat. She still had the same iron. Solid and black and totally cordless… I’ll never complain about ironing again. Much.
She had her grey hair tied in a tight bun and would tell of tales of how *daring* she was as young girl, and how she had been one of the first in her town to wear a skirt at ankle length. And what consternation it had caused! What names she had earned by being so loose and reckless.
When she laughed, which wasn’t often for she seemed to laugh with dry ironic smiles, it was a quiet moving of the shoulders and nothing more. But her face – oh constantly smelling a bad smell, her mouth, when she was not amused, would draw into a tight line and purse together and then you knew you were in trouble.
I have the same mouth myself, unfortunately. You can’t fight a tidal wave…
When she died we each received some of those knick-knacks – I remember distinctly a ceramic Alsatian and Siamese cat, and occasionally, if I’m thrifting, I see something that takes me right back to my Great Grans – things that I *feel* rather than remember. A guilded plate edge, a mirror’s rim, something totally bizarre brought back as a present from far-flung lands by her Servicemen sons. And I’m four years old again..
Memories. They are a double edged sword. And even though I never really knew my Great Gran in any depth I still cannot go past a painted black front door with brass door handle without thinking of her.
And I wonder if my love of plates and teacups and china has any basis at all in those visits with her. And if so, isn’t it kind of nice that with all these years apart, and without really knowing her all that well, I have still some part of me touched by my Great Gran, a connection that has never been broken.
You are fortunate to have met her, I can only guess at what my great grandmothers were like. The both had reputations of being hard assed tight mouthed scraped back silver bunned type women you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of..but that is just a rep and nothing I can substantiate.
I feel closest to my female ancestors when I am walking a baby in the small hours (most recently with my nephew) or plunging my hands in and out of the soapy waters of a hand wash. I haven’t a clue who they were really, but I know that I have been taught to wash and carry a child by my mother and grandmother, and that they were taught by my grandmothers mother and that she was taught by her grandmother and so on …..
Your love of china will come from your great grandmother….and where did she get it from…that is the wonder.
Me being me I always think, well, what did the china represent…these ‘simple’ domestic items held meanings for the women who came before us, and in keeping this love alive the meaning lives on.
My grandma got a love of books from her mother and I still to this day cannot open any book without washing first. This came from the days when there were only three books in the family. now there are hundreds, but I do not take for granted what we have.
In with the old! Out with the new! That’s what I say š
Loverly post Mrs Q, you are a dab hand at this.
xxxxxx
Subhan’Allah, it’s only now that my children are growing up that I realise how PROFOUNDLY my own Grandma has affected and influenced me. I want to thank her and thank her and thank her for the things I took (and take) for granted.
I didn’t meet my Greats so much. Vague memory of my G.Granddad.
xx
[…] have this thing for cake stands. It might be some subconscious Great Grandmother memory going on, but cake stands really do it for […]