Vol 3. Chapter 5 - Cold Wars and Ice Ages

September 1999 – my Auntie Eileen’s funeral. We shared a limo with my mother’s cousin, Peggy. “Why isn’t your mother at the funeral?” she asked.

This was another of those numerous occasions when my mother was not talking to her sister.  When it came to grudges, my mother was like a dog with a bone. She would never let go. If my mother wasn’t going to forgive in life, she certainly wasn’t going to forgive in death. I explained the situation. Peggy rolled her eyes.  “It’s the same old story. Your mother’s always been like that! Falling out with people.” 

My mother had developed Cold Wars into a fine art and you always knew when an Ice Age had begun. But there were times when her tongue got the better of her. (it was the longest tongue I’d ever seen. (She could touch her nose with it. Her other party trick was to take her teeth out and do impressions of Popeye.)  I have vivid memories of my mother having shouting matches with various people when I was a boy.

In 1952 whilst playing out on the street, I got into a scrap with a toddler named Perry. (Yes, I still remember his name.) Biting came into it. I must have cried. My mother went ballistic. Not only shouting at the little boy and threatening all sorts of reprisals, but then going to his house and shouting at his mother: this in front of the whole street-gang of toddlers. I felt humiliated. My street cred destroyed. I expect poor Perry is still traumatised too.

In 1956, when we lived at 7 Conrad House. Again, I have vivid memories of my mother shouting and screaming outside the front door of the people who lived in the flat above us. What poor Caroline Banks at number 13 had done to deserve this, I don’t know. I just remember the noise echoing down the stairwell.

Later, in 1957. My school teacher hit me across the knuckles with a ruler because of my disobedience. (A common form of punishment in those days).  I told my mother when I got home and she went into a rage and literally dragged me back to the school.  I can still hear myself pleading with her not to do it. She gave the teacher a verbal knuckle rap. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.  Never again did I tell her about getting knuckles rapped or being given the “slipper”. (A school teacher’s favourite form of sadism – a plimsoll wacked across one’s bottom.)

Although she always threatened her kids with soap in the mouth if ever she heard them swear, she could use some ripe language, herself.  Once when I was a minister of a Baptist Church, she left a message for me on the church office answer phone. She’d forgotten to put the receiver down after leaving her message and could be plainly heard shouting at my dad and calling him a F****** silly S**.  Mum had also forgotten that I had a secretary who picked up phone messages for me.

My mother could rant, rave and argue in any language. She once had a row in sign language with a Spanish deaf and dumb woman, ably describing the woman as a fat pig.

Mum rarely became violent, but I can still remember the beating she gave me when I was 14; repeatedly slapping me about the face. In hindsight, perhaps I

It wasn’t wise to have told her to drop dead.

But on the whole, mum’s tactics were that of a Cold War.  She had mastered the art of Ice Age Frosty Silence.  She suffered from black and white thinking and saw people as either good or bad with nothing in between. She could switch between the two with no rational reason. One moment you could be her best friend, and the next her sworn enemy or vice versa.

When you phoned or visited her, you wondered what would greet you. Sometimes she was the person who doted and spoilt you and at other times she was a petty tyrant whose energy seemed to come from irrational rages.

With mum, the first time you knew that she felt that you had hurt her feelings was when you were being punished.  Often you were tried and condemned in your absence. The first you would know about it was when the Cold War punishment was meted out. There would be a sudden and unexplained change in temperature, frosty looks, glaring eyes and the stiffening of the back.

She used Caller ID a lot. If you were in her bad books, she would recognise your number and simply not pick up. Although she could be caught out if you used someone else’s phone. Then she would pick up and speak with a cheery voice, until she realised it was you!

Punishments came swiftly and out of the blue and often you never knew what you were guilty of or why you were being punished. And if you did ever ask what the problem was, her usual answer was, “Well, if you don’t know…..”

My mother expected you to mind-read - just as she could mind-read. Yes, my mother had these miraculous powers that enabled her to read your mind, know what you were thinking and know what your motives were – and they were all hostile to her. She suffered from paranoia. She manipulated people into feeling guilty and being responsible for her feelings. If you tried to explain yourself, you only made things worse.

My mother knew how to take revenge. She was always jealous of my female friends, no matter how old they were. They were all her rivals for my affection. With mum there was never enough jam to go round. To love others was to love her less. Her great rival and arch enemy was a lady from church. This lady had bought herself some expensive material from Harrods to make herself a dress. My mother offered to make the dress for her. But instead of making a dress for the lady, my mother used the material to make a dress for herself! Imagine the lady’s surprise when she turned up at my wedding to see my mother wearing a dress made out of her material!  Mum thought the colour suited her best – but never offered any compensation.

Twice in my lifetime, my mother has moved without telling me. The first time was at their Ruby Wedding. My sisters and I had planned a surprise party, even having a special 40^th cake made and iced. She had assumed that we had forgotten and went off in a huff. 4 months later they turned up in Felixstowe (Move 23), having spent several months in a caravan in Dereham (Move 22).

My parents once went to live in Scotland near my sister without telling me or giving me an address or telephone number.  The birthday cards I sent (my sister gave me their address) were torn up and returned. Presents I sent were given away to the charity shop. The bouquet of flowers went unacknowledged. Christmas and birthdays were ignored. Get well cards not responded to. The ultimate punishment, however, came 18 months later when they moved back to live near me! They didn’t warn me. They just turned up and continued as if nothing had ever happened; they had done a runner just to punish my sister in Scotland as they had done to me 18 months previously.

All her life my mother remembered how my father had sent a Valentine’s card to her sister, Eileen, and not to her. Although my father insisted that he had posted the card to “Miss Walters” and Eileen had simply got there first and opened it, Eileen certainly kept the card. Perhaps this was the source of the jealousy and rivalry that my mother felt toward her sister and accounted for the long periods when she wasn’t talking to Eileen.

My mother always believed that Eileen’s son, my cousin Peter, was the apple of Grandmother’s eye, her favourite.  Mum would recount how Nan bought Peter new clothes or a new pram or a new pushchair. Whereas the expectation was that I would have Peter’s hand-me-downs. A sensible idea in austere post-war Britain. Mum, however, took this personally.  As I grew up, I learnt not to mention that I’d received a birthday card, a present or a Christmas card from Auntie Eileen.

My mother had a very rocky relationship with her own mother. There would be long periods when they were not talking.

At the age of 8 I would be given tuppence and told to get on a bus and travel across London to visit my grandmother on my own.

My grandmother was a woman before her time and a pioneer of junk food and take-always.  Whenever I went, she would give me money to go to the fish and chip shop or the pie mash shop. “Afters” would be a Lyons fruit pie and custard or a digestive biscuit and custard.  She was also a pioneer of wide-screen TV.  Her 12” Bush set had a large magnifying glass strapped over the front to give the effect of watching TV through a goldfish bowl – but a large goldfish bowl!

Although living in the heart of London, Nan kept chickens in the back yard. She had no qualms about cutting off their heads and letting us watch them run headless about the yard. She would chop their feet off and let me play with them, pulling the tendons and watching the chicken’s feet curl up

She drank Camp Coffee: a brown liquid which consisted of water, sugar, 4% caffeine-free coffee essence and 26% chicory essence.  It originated in Scotland. Apparently, the Gordon Highlanders found making coffee too complicated, so the Paterson Company of Glasgow came up with a quick and easy alternative. My Nan mixed it up with warm milk and gave it to us to drink.

She used sterilised milk rather than fresh milk because she didn’t have a refrigerator.  Consequently is was always slightly warm, and it never had a nice taste anyway. In the absence of a fridge she had a larder cupboard with mesh doors at the top, with the misguided hope than any breeze would keep food cool. Not that I ever remember her cooking anything.

I can vividly remember her buying eels. The eels would be chopped up whilst they were still alive and wrapped up in newspaper. As a child it seemed quite normal to walk home with a packet of wriggling bits of eel under your arm.

Sometimes I was allowed to stay overnight and share a bed with Nan. There was no bathroom or toilet in the house. The bedrooms had wash stands (a large bowl and a jug of water) and potties under the bed. Nan herself strip-washed in the scullery. Nan’s brother, little John, in particular had quite a trek in the mornings bringing his po down from his attic bedroom, through the kitchen and out to the toilet, which was basically a wooden bench with a hole in it.

I have no memory of my mother being at Nan’s house. Nor have I any memory of Nan coming to our house. Except once when we lived in Slough and she accompanied Uncle Ben and his new wife Dorothy, when they came to visit from Cornwall.

My mother didn’t go to my Uncle Ben’s funeral either. Mum’s estrangement from her brother had something to do with Auntie Eileen. When mum declared war on anyone it was all out war. Anyone who was not for her was against her. Any contact with the enemy was betrayal, treachery, and disloyalty.  She visited her brother on his deathbed; Uncle Ben attempted to be reconciled but mum stood on her “Principles”, which she did quite often. What these “principles” were I never found out, but certainly didn’t include grace, mercy, compassion or forgiveness.