Vol. 3 - Chapter 6 - Adoptions

Perhaps it was because she had such a stormy relationship with her own family that my mother adopted various people through the years and we had a succession of strangers who suddenly became “Uncles” and “Aunties”.

When mum adopts someone they become the centre of her life whether they want to or not. Nothing is too much, until they start to resent their lives being taken over. Mum has a way of making people feel manipulated and controlled. Mum doesn’t do things by halves. It is all or nothing. She could be kind and generous and do anything for anyone. She would make them clothes, alter their clothes, bake for them, visit them, cook for them, take them meals, fuss over them and mother them.  In the end they would feel suffocated and back off and become part of that large group of people never to be spoken of again – “The Ungrateful Wretches”.

The first “Uncles” and Aunties” I remember were “Uncle” Alex (Golding) and his wife “Auntie” Sybil (Golding) who lived in the block of flats opposite in 12 Adrian House, Wilcox Road. This was in 1953.

Memories of Alex and Sybil are imprinted in my nostrils. The smell of slightly off cockles, whelks and prawns still reminds me of their flat. Seafood was a cheap meal back in the 50s and Alex and Sybil must have taken full advantage of the man who sold seafood off the back of a horse and cart. (No refrigeration in those days!) I remember using a pin to get the winkles out of their shells and sticking their black foot on my face. Not so much looking like a beauty spot – more a dose of the pox.

Alex liked a drink and was always good to take me along to see him off when he went on a “Beano”.  This was a drinking trip organised by the local pub. On a Sunday morning they would load up a “Charabanc” (a single decker bus) with crates of beer and go off on a jolly up to some seaside town like Southend or Margate. But before they left, they would throw handfuls of coins out of the Charabanc door for us kids to scramble around and pick up.

By early 1957 we moved across the river to 62 Turner Buildings, Millbank, and our next adoptee lived at number 65: a Mrs Isabel Syms, an elderly widowed lady, who was therefore too old to be called “Auntie” and was simply known as “Mrs Syms.”

Mrs Syms was visited daily, had meals cooked for her and was regularly taken out for rides into the country (ie Putney – the nearest green space) in dad’s newly acquired car.

Mum was in her element in Turner Buildings; old Mrs Groom (Ruth) lived next door to us at number 63 and the two spinster sisters, Ada and Dorothy Keanes, lived at number 64. They also would be gathered up and taken for a ride.

Top Row Ruth Groom & my mother.

Bottom Row: Mrs Syms, Ada & Dorothy Keane.

 One of my favourite adoptees was Auntie Gwen (Shepherd). My mum, grandmother and Gwen lived practically in view of each other. As a baby my mother asked my nan to babysit me whilst she went out. Nan said “No”, she was too busy, and so my mum recruited Auntie Gwen. My Nan was horrified. How could my mother leave a young child with a blind woman? That fact that Gwen had raised two children herself didn’t count. 

As a young boy, I would go and stay with Auntie Gwen. Her being blind was more than adequately compensated for by the fact that she had a secret eye in the middle of her forehead (so she told us). This cyclops had an uncanny ability to know exactly what you were doing. One exception was the occasion when she came to stay with us when we lived in Slough (Move number 9) and Irene and I put a loud speaker in the toilet and used the microphone outside to pretend we were in the bathroom with her.  Getting a blind old lady to pee herself is no mean achievement.

Billy and Jim, were another “Auntie & Uncle” (I don’t know why she was called Billy). Billy had quite a serious illness, and mother particularly liked sick people whom she could “mother”.  But like all the others they became mum’s bosom friends until they mysteriously disappeared.  

My sister Diane & Jim

Mum made no lasting friendships during her lifetime. Those she mothered soon felt smothered. Friends became enemies. Her many house moves often coincided with major falling outs with family, friends or neighbours. She’d make a fresh start in a new place to make new friends and the cycle would start all over again.

Even in later years when she was in sheltered housing and the old people were younger than her, she still wanted to organise them, bake cakes for the social gatherings or, better still, take over the social committee, organise Christmas dinners and outings in a way that she thought proper. 

However, she met her match in moves 38 and 39 into sheltered accommodation. An elderly Scotsman used to wander the corridors at night knocking on people’s doors and threatening to burn the building down. Although suffering from dementia, he still maintained a very wide vocabulary of swear words. 

Mum could do nothing to stop his nocturnal visits.  When I visited, I stayed in the guestroom, which was next to his flat. True to form, he came out in the middle of the night swearing and threatening to burn the place down. I looked through the spy hole in the door and waited for him to reach my door. At the right moment, I jumped out and said, “Boo” causing the old man to fall over backwards in shock.  I was able to drag him back to his flat, kicking and screaming, with him threatening to call the police for assault.  I then pulled the emergency cord to get assistance from central control. By the next morning, he had been taken into care. Peace reigned in the corridors, but not, unfortunately, in the dining room.  All the old women still staunchly refused to allow mum to organise their social lives.

Foreigners had a particular focus for my mother’s care

When we lived at 62 Turner Buildings (move number 5), she adopted the oriental family of Liou Noan who lived upstairs at number 84.  Non-Europeans were still a rarity in those days and mum liked to indulge her taste for foreign food by visiting them for regular tasting sessions. (My father would never have “Foreign muck” in the house.)  Christmas morning 1957, mum went up upstairs to make sure these foreigners where celebrating Christmas properly. They were. She entered whole-heartedly into the spirit of Christmas and staggered back down to our flat, drunk. This was the Christmas our chimney caught fire. It is no mean feat for the Fire Brigade to put out a chimney fire in the ground floor flat of a 6 story block.

In Bracknell (move number 11) it was a deaf Spanish woman, Luth, who became the object of mum’s attentions. Luth had the added advantage of being both being foreign and having a disability – she was deaf and dumb. As per usual, the friendship came to an explosive end with mum and Luth having a blazing row in sign language. Mum’s rendition of “You fat pig” was worthy of any mime artiste.

When my parents moved to Ashford (move number 14), they bought a bungalow from an elderly Polish man. However, having sold the house he was reluctant to move out, so my mother adopted him and allowed him to stay on and live in the garden shed.  Mum cooked his meals and he continued to have full access to the facilities until his daughter took charge and packed him back off to Poland.

Shortly afterwards, mum discovered an elderly widow living in the bungalow opposite. She had a son and his family who visited her at weekends. She was reasonably fit and used to walk to the small parade of shops, about 5 minutes away, most weekdays to do a bit of shopping or have her hair done. Mum decided to save her the bother of going out by doing her shopping for her and going to her bungalow to give her a shampoo & set once a week. The result was that now this lady had no social contact other than my mother. But this was not enough; mum decided the lady’s living room needed decorating and volunteered dad to do it. (How dad fitted that in alongside his daytime job plus using his car as a taxi in the evenings and as a wedding car on Saturdays is a mystery.)

After my parents moved to Tintagel from Ashford (move number 15), we went to spend Christmas with them only to discover that this lady was also spending the Christmas there. Why she wasn’t spending Christmas with her own family we never found out.  The last anyone ever saw of her was being driven off in the back of my sister, Irene’s car.

Children also needed my mother’s special attention – until they were old enough to answer back.

As a small boy, I have memories of “Fat Rosy” who seemed to be around quite a lot and who had been drafted in to look after my baby sister, Irene.

Mum once took in a particularly obnoxious little boy with whom I had to share a room at Basil House (move number 4). I don’t know who he was or why he came to live with us but he did unspeakable things, the least of which was wiping snot and bogies on the bedroom wall. He didn’t last long either.

Millie, however was a sweet little coloured girl who came to live with us at Haversham Drive (move number 11). Where she came from and where she went remains a mystery. She spent many months with us, including Christmas.

My sisters Pauline & Diane

Spanish children & Millie

 However, the ideal object of mum’s affection were those she rescued from charity shops – Dolls! She could wash them, do their hair and make their clothes, and they never answered back. But more about that in another chapter.

There were times in my early childhood when I was "adopted" by various "aunts and uncles."

John & Mabel lived in Sittingbourne and I went to live with them for a while. It was first taste of fresh air! They were complete strangers to me.  Also in 1956 I went to live with my mother's sister, Auntie Eileen. I even had to change schools on this occasion. This was the time my father was hospitalised because if a slipped disc. The may also be the time my mother was hospitalised with a nervous breakdown. Her medical records show that she had once been admitted to a mental hospital. (A secret she once let slip to her daughter in law.)