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Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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 Posted -
17/12/2007
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22:32
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Childhood memories of Doreen Gail Bancroft (nee Maisey)Originally written in spanish 1998.translacion by DoreenGail Bancroft.
BIRTH ANYBODY ELSE BORN IN A PUB?
Edited by - Doreen on 01/01/2008 11:45:22 PM
Dordygail 
always the one to make the best of things.
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Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 28/12/2007 : 21:26
GREEN TOMATOES
It was summer,mother worked pruning things,picking off the exess flower buds, colecting fruit ,and tomatoes,and she took me with her.
for me it was an adventure,the place had a magical air about it.
it was about a mile the other side of town from us,there was what to me would be a palace,Audley End Mansion( Home of a working steam engine) i dont know when it was built but it had the same style as fontanbleau in france,sited on a small mount of grass,there were many very large privit bushes made into forms, birds, chess pieces , cubes.
down the hill there was acharming, tiny ,arched bridge probably made in tudor times.
on the river there were half a dozen swans, and a few ducks of direrent colors.
all the roads therabouts were genorously poblated with chestnut trees, it was the most beutiful sight when they were in flower.
If you went over the bridge at 20miles an hour, your stomach came up to your throat, a strange and exiting fenomenen,never to be missed , we could have got to mums work by the other route , but we couldnt miss the bridge out could we ?.
every time i cross a little bridge the happy memory comes back to me.
On the other side of the bridge was the old mansion, a brick paterned tudor mansion with its small windows,we worked in the huge walled gardens behind.
The boss was mr Andy as he was called a tall thick set man from Holland,he was middle aged , and was of a very pacient caracter.
He had a little girl of my age called Janice, and we made friends.
the gardens were walled , very high walls withe peaches growing up them, so there was little danger for two lttle girls, it was nice to have a girl my age to play with.
the garden was like a wonderland to me,nearly everything that grew there was higher than me,carnacions chrisanthenums.
I had a very fine sense of smell,and used to go from flor to flor drinking in their scent,my favorites were Violets , and the tea roses,i just love the smell of new cut grass.
once inside the gardens it was like a laberinth of trees , flowers walls and glass houses,and mother had to localise me by sounds:
-!Doreen where are you!
...!HERE!
-!Where!
...IN THE PEARS!
!Dont touch them!.
Spaced in between each bit of garden or vegetable patch there was a long greenhouse that leaned too on one of the sunny side of the walls,
inside were the tomatoes ,protected from the cold,and growing up strings.
the tomatoe leaves had a very strange smell, like nothing i had smelt before, i couldnt decide wether i liked their smell or disliked it.
I think that i had never seen a tomatoe before, in later years mother introduced tinned vegetables into the house because of the lodgers, but that was much later on, and now at 80 she still refuses to eat salad.
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things.  |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 28/12/2007 : 22:06
janice ,and i played ,and played .
one moment we were bunny rabbits -Boing _Boing_boing ,
the next we were hiding ,and seeking,and then we played at being mummy with her baby ging shopping ,janice had a bright yellow plastic shopping basket, it was one of those christmaswoven baskets that came full of sweets.
so off we tripped to the shop ( tomatoe green house)where we bought some very bright green tomatoes for lunch to our little house made of wooden fruit packing boxes.
we sat down to table ,and ate the tomatoes, they didnt taste very good.
When mr Andy found us we were almost the same color as the tomatoes, he was very angry when he saw what we had eaten,
they had just been sprayed with sulfate, we were very sick , and Mr andy said that we could have died.
to this day i cant stomache a fresh tomatoe
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 28/12/2007 : 22:40
Janice was no longer allowed out to play with me, her mother had had hystericks blaming it all on me.
without my friend the place wasnt the same, but i made myself busy helping mother ...but whatever i did it was wrong.
mother shouted ,
-!Dont touch anything!
!!!N_O_T_H_I_N_G!!!
I had tried to pick pears by myself ,but they wernt ripe , so ui spoilt them,
I also tried picking the extra buds off the crisanthenums, but i hadnt realised that mummy always left one on, i spoilt them too,all this was very complicated so i gave up gardening, it just wasnt my thing .
I remember that mother had given me a toy cooker for my birthday, it had a frying pan ,and worked on parrafin, similar to the fondu used on the continent, it had a deposit with cotton wool in it under the stove ring, it was very eficient mother used it every day to heat things on or to fry eggs , she only let me play with it once as i had lit it on my own , it was confiscated to her own use i suspect that was its real intencioned destiny.
I was at that time 3, It was a childs toy, meant for children from 8 to 12.
But can you imagine the danger of a toy running on parafin today being found in the chrismas stocking of some child?
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/12/2007 : 01:16
Daisy
Mum had aquired a very old run down car of the scrap heap, i dont know how much it cost her , but i think its possible that they almost would have paid her to take it away that is if the scrap merchant had,nt known his trade.
She was called Daisy, from some time in the thirties, perhaps a humber,she was absolutely matt , and red, she had running boards down the sides, arrows that flew out at the sides as indicators, the solid body work was in aparently good condicion, but the back of the car hardly had any floor, on my side there was none, i used to be drawn into the hole hypnotized as the road wizzed under my feet, this was greatly ejoyed by my brother who used to watch me, waiting untill the split second that i was just falling into it ,to slap his arm across my chest to stop me actually going through the hole, so mother covered it up with a chess board when she found out what was going on in the back,( a bit to late for me , i had nightmares about the hole for 20 years).
Some times when we went over a bump in the road the chess board would jump up fold itself in half and disapear through the hole, and trundle down the street a bit some body would pick it up ,and wave it shouting!!!! hey!!!! misis you lost this,or we would pick it up on the return journey , much to my brothers delight .He was later tested ,and had an I Q of 130, but that didnt mean he was nice,that just meant he could do nasty things with more precision.
Daisy,s doors had long since fell out with the door handles , and the front doors were tied together with a skipping rope.
going round corners mum would shout !winker! so that we would thump the wall where the indicator was ,and it would fly out the brakes consisted largely in two blocks of triangular wood, sometimes mum had to get in while it was moving depending on wether she had parked on a hill or not.
There was also a mangle that fitted in a hole below the fender at the front to start the engine, and a choke button that you pulled out and then pushed in when she was warm.
We were to far out of civilizacion not to have a vehicle, and daisy was mechanicly sound enough to last us a few years yet.
Edited by - Doreen on 30/12/2007 11:50:42 AM
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 30/12/2007 : 06:34
Most people won't realise that the 'mangle' you talk about was the starting handle..... Nobody under 50 years old knows what they were for.......
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/12/2007 : 09:58
Daisy nowadays would be some collecioners dream. but in those days she was just an old car, we loved her for all her faults.
Daddy had at that time an old car too , but it was a diferent kettle of fish, it was shiny dark green, the wheels were spoked like a bycicle,and had wings in the middle of them in stead of hub caps, i think it was an Austin.
It was a sports model, it had a soft top that folded back,and a seat at the back that wasnt a proper seat.
I remember when i was small before the divorce that daddy took us lands end , john o groats to see the northern lights, it must have been summer because the top was pulled back ,i remember seeing the lights in the sky, but i think i slept most of the journey.
That was the last time my parents spoke to each other ,and it was all about the divorce, i didnt understand but my brother would have , him being 3 years older than me.
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/12/2007 : 11:21
SELF SUFFICIENT
when the cold weather came mum started work in Woolworths, as window dresser ,and also general back storeroom keeper,
I sayed with auntie violet but one week she was not there,a s one of her family had given birth ,and she was there atending mother ,and baby.
Peter was then six ,and was at school.
Mother prepared my breakfast giving me strict instrucciones to not touch the belling coke stove ,and hid the handle that opened the glass door,it was lit because of the cold ,and for that same reason i was not outside with uncle jack while he worked in his allotment.
mum turned on the two tone grey bush radio that ran on batterys,
and left for work.
I was alone, and sang along with the radio my favorite at that time was hang down your head Tom Dulley, i knew all the words as it was constantly played by request of listeners, a slow song easy to catch on to.
I looked at the small line of books on the book shelf,with a crayon in my hand, there was i knew a picture of a rag doll in one of the books , it was a needlework book with paterns in it, idid my best to color the doll but that was the first time i had a crayon in my hand,and i wasnt allowed to touch them as they were my brothers, so i didnt make a very good job of it, i went on to the next book, this was very heavy,
i turned through the pages but couldnt find anything that needed coloring , it was full of biblical pictures of bright colors embellished with gold.so miraclessly my fathers family bible had escaped from my artistic mark, a beutifull book binded in red leather ,the insideof the tops decorated withsomething that looked like peacock feathers, on the first page there were the names of generacions of the Maisey family the date of their birth.
Mother had kept it out of spite.
My attencion then turned to my dolls, i saw mothers dressmaking shears left unatended they were sturdy heavy , about a foot long .
I had decided to make dolls clothes, so with the giant shears in my handi went round the house looking for siutable materials with little luck, untill i found the eiderdown on Mums bed.
that was just what i wanted ,satin,it was dificult to cut but i used both hands and was able to cut a nice big piece out,made holes in it for the arms, and that was that satisfied , another good job, jobbed.
Now terminated my time as dress desighner,i turned my attencion to
another field.
The pirate ship, this was a coffee table made from one of the pub tables where i was born,the legs had been sawn down to make it shorter, it was shiny and black the top was covered in some pre formica material very durable very shiny.
This turned upside down could be converted into almost anything a childs mind could imagine, acrusell for dolls , a car , a pirate ship, a sledge, it slid perfectly over the carpet if you backed it up to the wall, held on to the legs, and pushed yourself from the wall with one foot would slide several yards.
later i tried my hand at hair dressing, i cut all my dolls hair a 0.
some days after Mother told me that the hair would never grow again , and i was very upset,and didnt want to play with scisors for some time , anyway it was absolutly prohibited by mother after my efforts as a dressmaker.
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/12/2007 : 11:44
THE DOLLS
As time went by , and the hair didnt grow, it hurt me because it was as if they had lied to me , they were no longer human, they wouldnt talk to me, and i had lost faith in them.
A veil of infancy had fallen, they had been converted into simple plastic dolls, they had fooled me,but my inocence lost with their hair.
W e didnt play like we used to, i knew that any fantasy or game fell on deaf ears, the telepathic messages no longer flowed from their mouths, they had died, they had abandoned me.
The lifeless dolls were left to their fate, it was no longer so important when my brother pulled their limbs off, or threw their heads into the stinging nettles, little by little the bits ended up in the rubbish,or i my brothers bedroom mutilated, with pointed objects cutting into them ,
and themelted red wax off edam cheese running from their wounds.
I saved their nice clothes for some yaers , and then gave them to another little girl.
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/12/2007 : 16:44
IF YOU GO BACK TO PAGE 1 AND 2, YOU WILL SEE THAT I HAVE ADDED SOME PHOTOS
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 31/12/2007 : 08:16
Love the pics Doreen.... you were a cheeky little bugger even then! I can see it in your eyes.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 01/01/2008 : 18:50
SNOW
It was near to christmas,there was less and less light,that week it had snowed severall times,but on the last day before the holiday, a real storm let loose.
mother had returned home before the worst of it,my brother who was six at the time would come home on the school bus.to be left at the end of the lane, about half a mile from our house, and from there he always walked the rest of the way home,
as it was only a mud lane and went under a raiway bridge that didnt have much head room for a bus.
When my brother didnt arrive home at the acostomed time mum got a bit nervouse, and time passed , to much time ,finally she dressed us up in our welly boots and coats, then heated up the keyhole on the car to unfreez it ,and be able to open the door,
we set off down the lane to find my brother pete.
At the end of the lane Daisy got stuck in a drift , mother made me get out of the car to try and wade through the drift , it was very cold , i was too small , the drift very high, i remember the snow coming over my waist , in those days no girls wore trousers,and the skirts were mini length , so the snow just filled my knickers up, and my boots untill i couldnt move ,.Peter was not there,
so mother came back to where i was stuck, a bit angry with me, then she left me in the car whilst she made her way mostly on her belly because of the driftsto the nearest phone, it was in an Acrow,s factory about a mile on the way to town.
First she called the school, the school said that all the children had got on the bus, and that s all they knew.
so Mum called the police , they said that they would do what they could, not a lot because the roads were by then under a meter and a half of snow.
Meanwhile she returned to the car for me ,and took me back home, and put me to bed, she returned to spend the night in the factory beside the telephone waiting for news of my brother.
The next morning the Snow plough machines had come to our area , and had opened the road , and my brother apeared quite safe at school, and fullof it,he had had a wonderfull adventure.
I must suppose that his guardian angel must have been doing overtime that day.
The unthinking bus driver had set him down at the end of the lane in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, in a snow storm with two yards of visibility, the drifts were so high there was nothing recognizable , as the bus pulled of so did the light.
Six years old lost in the dark in the middle of a snow storm, disorientated, crying but with the luck of the devil, the last , and only car to pass that road saw him ,and took him in, and using the tracks of the bus got to the next village.
The driver of the car was a school teacher from another school who lived in that village, he fed ,and bedded my brother down with his own children for the night.
He was unable to contact anyone because the telephone lines were down.
that night the temperatures had gone down to 15 below freezing
,and this was to be the worst night my mother ever spent in her whole life.
Edited by - Doreen on 01/01/2008 6:54:13 PM
Edited by - Doreen on 13/01/2008 12:46:40 PM
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 01/01/2008 : 21:22
He was a lucky lad. I once nearly froze to death at Queensbury, within yards of dwellings. If a young lass going for her father's evening paper hadn't tripped over me I would have died young.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 01/01/2008 : 23:22
CHRISTMAS
When Christmas came we went to stay with Grandpa in London,
It was yhe first Christmas without Grandma, i only remember having seen her twice on very short visits, i had refused to kiss her as she was a stranger to me,and kisses were not the usual thing in our houshold, i remember her in old lace , and she was always very thin very frail looking.
This was the first time we slept in Granpa,s house since i was born,
my brother ,and i had to behave ourselves so that Grandpa would not be sad, but at three years old i didnt know what death was or missed a grandmother that i hardly knew.
Grandpa said you must be good ,and go to sleep right away, as he tucked me in gave me a kiss , and left..
the room was strange to me , it was very large , it had its own shower , and toilet behind a glass separation.
I was not alone , my brother was in the other bed, but i could not get off to sleep.i was used to having a night candle by the bed so the door was left just a little open, so that a small chink of light came in from the landing light but it did not replace the soft light of a candle swaying with my breath untill iwas hypnotized , and fell asleep.
I missed my bed too, that was much smaller, and had a heavy bed cover mother made of patchwork,the pieces of material re cycled from a book of upholstery samples were colorfull, and heavy,
i missed their protective weight.
I knew i should be sleeping , because father christmas would come , and if i wasnt asleep he wouldnt leave ma any presents.
a long time passed ,and i was nearly asleep when i heard rustling on the landing, and whispering i shut my eyes pretending to be asleep, but through my lashes i could see mum ,and Grandpa moving about, they put pillowcases full of things at the foot of our beds,then finally grandpa came in again ,and put something on my bed.
when they had gone i touched the thing on the bed it was so soft so silky it had luxurios feel, not quite satin , pale angelical blue,
it had a warmth without being heavy,it made me feel protected ,and i slept instantly.
This is how i discovered the farce of father christmas, not that it worried me, it was only days before that i was told he existed,so i didnt have time to be brainwashed into to it.
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 03/01/2008 : 01:23
THE BATHS
In the town there was a public swimming pool,it was small by any modern standards, but quite big enough for all the kids to learn to swim in, nobody in the town escaped , Mr Smithers was the instructor he was very popular , he was such a nice man, and very good at his job, a tubby man near on retirement when i reached the age of the obligatory swimming lessons from school.
upstairs there were the girls changin lockers on a long verandah down one side and at one end a wide landing where the spectators could sit to watch on benchesand the other side a narrow veranda for boys changing with a tarpaulin curtain tied to the wooden verandah, and benches behind , that doubled up as spectator seating on gala days.
Behind the big spectator s landing ( to sit about 15) there were three bathrooms, these were the public baths,in my pre school days we spent many sunday afternoons there in the warm wet building with the echoing voices of the children downstairs enjoying the water, but not to go swimming in the pool,
We were there for other reasons, Mother spent nine pennies on a hot bath, as we were very poor she had to spin it out, the hot warer was rationed a man came up from the ticket window in the entrance with a mesuring stick that haad the inches marked on it to measure the hot water in the bath , when it got to two inches it was turned off somehow from downstairs. so mother bathed in as hot water as she could bare, then she bathed me , then my brother as quickly as possible so that the water didnot get too cold to then put in soap powder , in those days the water had to be hot to melt the soap powder properly,
she then proceeded to wash the weeks washing, first the whites then colors , then the dark thingss, the water would by that time be very mucky, but cold water for rinsing was no problem it was not rationed like the hot water , so the clothes were vvery well rinsed, and cme out very clean.
it would be taken home to dry in a smaller zinc bath so as not to flood
everything down the stairs ,and into the boot of the car, and home to be hung up to dry, in winter there would be lots of icicles hanging from the clothes ,and sometimes they would be thick and hairy with frost .
if you beat the frost off with the carpet beater the clothes would dry all the quicker.
Whilst my mother did the weks washing , i used to sit on the spectators bench ,and watch the children playing in the water,laughing ,shouting ,running ,jumping, splashing each other,
jumping off the trampolin up high,to me this was a wonderfull place,and i had few years to waait for my chance to join in the fun.
But when i did i made the best use of it ,on one water sports gala day i won a medal for my team in the under water diving competticion whitch consisted in under water swimming to find things that were thrown in on the bottom normally heavy school dinner plates, and you had to collect as many as you could without coming up for air.
I also volunteered to train and take a junior life savers certificate,
and passed with flying colors,i enjoyedthe water very much.
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 03/01/2008 : 01:31
quote:
Stanley wrote:
He was a lucky lad. I once nearly froze to death at Queensbury, within yards of dwellings. If a young lass going for her father's evening paper hadn't tripped over me I would have died young.
What were you doing out in the snow?
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
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BIRTH, any body else born in a pub?
