Christmas

Christmas came and went:  five rare and precious days with my beloved, funny, clever and complex firstborn. Don't let it go to your head Tom, but when you came into my life everything changed. I toned down my Bohemian lifestyle and worked hard to become a respectable, responsible parent.   I would like to say I stopped driving as fast - but really that is just wishful thinking.

Much of that serious parenting time was spent in Northumberland, as  a teacher. I am back here today in the December rain, drinking my breakfast coffee and reflecting on my two-day visit to the very special friends who have kept in touch and will be my friends now for life. But my thoughts keep drifting across the Atlantic Ocean where hearts are  heavy.

 I keep thinking of my Canadian friend Beth, my sister Barbara's teenage penfriend.  Her beautiful 89 year-old mother Sylvia died at 3am on Christmas Day in hospital in Ottawa.  Today Beth is travelling from Toronto to say her goodbyes and with her brother to make arrangements to celebrate the life of a strong and remarkable woman whom I had the privilege to meet. And I am thinking of Sylvia's lovely older sister Do who will now be alone, with a great emptiness in her life.

Birthday Girl

Occasionally a girl has just to put on her party dress and her best smile and be told she's pretty.  A first birthday must be a confusing event - lots of pretty coloured paper and visitors, all those enticing plates of pretty  squidgy things on the table. And then someone produces a cake with fire on.  Our little girl is one year old already.  This year has flown so fast and keeps flying on.  The birthday is nearly two months gone by now, but not forgotten.  I travel over weekly for Granny time. Each time I can see a change and yet she is the same.  My bonny lass.  Our little Lizzy Pickle.  Love.

A boy's schooldays in Wales

I wanted to try and piece together snippets of information and understand more about my Dad's school days in Swansea. Originally I thought he must have gone to the elite Swansea Grammar but then I came upon this photo and a reference on his CV to two years spent at Glanmore Grammar. According to the internet this had been a girls school.  I had to read through the school log book to fully understand what a unique and character building experience it must have been to have been a pupil here.  The headmaster's entry captured the excitement and above all the weather:  snow on the opening day in January 1920 and thereafter much torrential rain. The school buildings were not the grand institution on the hill but the WW1 army huts that had been transported from Salisbury Plain as temporary accommodation for an experimental school for "bright children" set up on the site of a farm. Admission was dependent on passing an entrance exam and even then fees were payable unless a scholarship could be won..  One of the main preoccupations for the head master was trying to improve facilities for drying out the soaking wet clothes of the boys as there was only a small boiler room. The other was the battle to stop the boys' daredevil bike rides down the steep hills, sometimes with pillion passengers aboard. The log book refers to a stream of visiting educationalists coming to observe art, science and maths. Pupils had the opportunity to stay until they applied for university although  many left to take up a place at technical college or to go to sea.  After the second world war it became a girls school and amazingly the army huts were still in use after the school closed fifty years years later.  My Dad left after just two years when the family moved back to Lambeth. What memories of that city by the sparkling sea he must have taken with him. 



Times changing

Once the Mumbles Train and later the Tram would have chugged to a halt at the pier head.  On one occasion over a thousand people travelled on a single train.  A picture shows them sitting on the top and hanging on the sides,  even the ladies with their long frocks and parasols.  For a sense of accomplishment they would wander up the road and climb the hill at Mumbles Head and gaze out over to Devon.  One hopes there was a tea shop on this side of the water. The pretty little station built in 1926 for the trams is now an amusement arcade, colourful, noisy and packed.  A fish and chip parlour adds tone with glass, brass and chandeliers.  The pier itself is being renovated so is locked off leaving a large mechanical red dragon looking forlorn and lonely on the board walk.

And what about those determined Edwardian daytrippers picking their way up and over Mumbles Head? A hundred years later their pathway leads into a car park with a tomato shaped burger bar and a lot less grass.  At the top, a line of railings with a "danger" sign beside a sheer drop makes a gesture to health and safety. But even today the sense of adventure is still real and much more exciting than the arcade.

Out along the bay

On Sunday afternoon I decided I would walk to the Mumbles, those enticing bumps at the very far end of the bay.  I could have taken the car but my idea of a holiday is to lock the car and leave it alone.  Not all  my family agree with me.  I wonder why?    I walked past the Guildhall, a park, a cricket ground and Swansea University but after an hour those lumpy bits were still very far away.

Just as in the best stories, a friendly train chugged into view and I paid my £2 fare and jumped on board.  We were soon rocking rolling riding out along the bay with all the little and big boys and girls snug inside as the rain came down.  When the sun came out and dried up all the rain, the smiling, waving people appeared again. We  were overtaken by two boys on skateboards and bicyles sped by. 

Small wonder the Mumbles Train

was so popular over a century ago.  The first horse drawn trains used the track laid for the coal and limestone railway.  Experiments with sails and steam followed until electrification brought the famous trams into play.  In 1960 the trams were scrapped in favour of a "good bus service".  The rails were lifted and the road was widened to make way for more cars.

But luckily for me the magic Mumbles train chugs on.

Constitution HIll

My great grandfather, Tom George, was coming to Swansea to visit his sister Teresa from 1908 to 1911, sending postcards back home to his wife Millie who was holding the fort  at the Coach and Horses pub in Lambeth. Teresa lived in a little end of terrace house at 137 Rhondda Street, two thirds of the way up Constitution Hill, one of the steepest residential streets in Britain.

The street railway is long gone. Houses have been modernised, pebble dashed and extended and the trees have grown but the hill is definitely still there along with cobbles and old style lamp posts now powered by electricity rather than gas. This street surely must have featured in many a period drama. 

In 1922 Cissie and her family were living at 38 Walter Road, the  main street that runs along the bottom of the hill.  Her aunt and uncle were still living at the top. 

Steadily, well trained on Sheffield hills, I made the climb in one go.  I found the Rhondda Street house, now extended at the back and advertising student bedsits.

At the top I paused to listen for voices from the past. I wondered how many times Cissie had dragged her children up that hill, and how many times my Dad had stopped to gaze out over the sea before racing down the steep slope home.

My grandmother's church

On Sunday I went to church.  I went St James' Church where my Uncle Tom was baptised in 1921. It is probable that the family were regular members of the congregation as this was a period when churches were well attended and Sunday schools were full.

I sat at the back of the church and thought about my 35 year old grandmother, holding her new baby with an eight year old by her side. And my grandfather, did he sing with the same beautiful deep voice as my father? Who were the God parents?   Maybe Cissie's cousins: Teresa Dudden, John, Gertie or Emily Broomfield, or Margaret Morgan ,  the children of Tom George's sister Teresa, who lived on Rhondda Street, just up the up the hill. 

A Family History Mystery

I'm here in Swansea to try and understand more about the little family in this photograph taken here in Swansea in 1922.  This is my Dad, George Rea, his baby brother Thomas and my Nana, Mildred.  She was known by her family as Cissie, a name given to her by her brother which stuck maybe because her mother was called Millie as a shortened version of Amelia.

I have come here to try and figure out why they were living here in Swansea when my Dad had been born in Lambeth, why was there such a big gap between the children, what their father Tom Rea was up to  and why they suddenly uprooted and returned to London in 1926.  This sudden move meant my Dad had to forfeit his scholarship place at a grammar school and register at the local board school.  For a bespectacled boy with a Welsh accent, it must have been a traumatic experience. I recall him telling me that he hated his London school, that if he was reprimanded he would respond with a nervous smile that resulted in a beating. The move had such a disastrous impact on his education that it  took him a whole lifetime of nightschool and correspondence courses to make up the loss.  But determined he was, and he eventually provided for his family a nice semi-detached home in Wimbledon of a type that he must have set his sights on here in the Uplands of Swansea on his route to and home from school. When he died it was with the confidence that his wife would be "alright", unlike the desperate straights his own mother was in when her husband checked out early.  He had done all he could to give his children the best chance but one by one we all rebelled as children do.  Or was it more?  What characteristics did we inherit from our grandparents - from Tom and Cissie Rea?

The Swansea days undoubtedly shaped Dad's aspirations which in turn left a trace on mine so by returning here, and in trying to understand the grandmother I never met and redeem my black sheep grandfather, maybe I will learn more about the mystery of myself.

A golden start to my hols

I'm on holiday.  And this year it's a good old fashioned British holiday in a guest house in Swansea.  For once it feels a great time to be British and there are signs that we may even be  reclaiming  the Union flag from the BNP and xenophobic football fans.  The red, blue and white looked pretty stylish wrapped around Jessica Ennis but even better as a cloak for Mo Farah.  And good to see  a ginga in gold as well. Watching the games this afternoon from the big screen in Swansea made me think back to the days when I used to watch the Olympics on a black and white TV with my Dad and we would marvel at the god-like perfection of the athletes and the extraordinary stamina of the marathon runners.  Then one day I heard with amazement that my own brother Chris was running the London marathon and impossibilities were swept away.

The new generation take such challenges in their stride so that to run a marathon these days is almost a rite of passage.   Jessica Ennis is a Sheffield lass and everyone feels they know her.  She used to go to a school where I worked. I know her old sports teacher. She even budged up on her track for me so that 200 school children could launch pop bottle rockets down it.  She is really a very extraordinary girl next door.

For years I've been chewing a mouthful of sour grapes over sports because back problems stopped me diving,  dancing and running.  Time to spit them out and smile and say well done.   I, myself , am a long way now from being an Olympic anything, but maybe some of the magic will rub off.  Well done all.

Being British

It is on occasions such as these when I feel forced to consider what it is to be British.  More British than English I surely am, having ancestors that spring from the four corners of the Queendom, and yet it is a vague and unsatisfying classification, more about colonialism than identity, more about guilty domination within the islands than a rejoicing of a birthright.

I have spent most of this rainy Jubilee Weekend trying to gain control of my own small dominion and assert myself over the contents of my home all of which bits and pieces have their own story and personality.  It is the paper that has causing the problem today - or more precisely those black marks which convey meaning and messages that I may need someday.  Unread, they laugh at me - so to subdue the rabble I must glance at every one before deciding the sentence: to shred or to save, and then where to store.

Taking a break, I switched the TV on and caught the last half hour of the Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace with a stressed looking Sir Paul McCartney trying to recreate the old magic.  He sounded lonely. He looked old.  He is. We are.  I thought Live and Let Die a curious choice for the climax to such a happy evening.  The apocolyptic pyrotechnics were alarmingly reminiscent of the London Blitz, possibly intentionally.

For the grand finale walk down we had a not only a host of knighted pop stars: Sir Cliff, Dame Shirley, Sir tom, Lord Lloyd Webber but the real royals too, standing shoulder to shoulder with the plastic people.  The heir to the throne has learnt to speak like a nice normal person and call the Queen "Mummy".  She didn't look amused.  Fascinating family dynamics: perhaps it's just as well they can't easily execute each other any more.

Despite the inevitable association of the Union Flag with the abhorrant BNP I felt very proud of those thousands upon thousands of good plain folks standing steadfastly in the Mall and yesterday by the riverside (my London riverside) in the driving rain. From the comfort of my settee I was well placed to appreciate the gesture of solidarity from the Monarch as she, and in consequence her entire retinue, stood for four hours to witness and wave as the many canoes, rowing, fishing and rescue boats, gondolas, tugs and barges came bobbing along the ancient waterway until finally the entire London Sinfonia Orchestra floated into view playing Rule Britannia while young, beautiful and wet music students sang their hearts out through a deluge.

To see the freezing Royal Family gently jigging to the Sailors Hornpipe was worth the wait.

Yes - that is what being British is about: weathering the weather together. Even from my sitting room.

Library Love

What a delight it will be, on my granny duty days, to sit in the library with little Lizzy. This week we made our second visit and we sat on the floor by the board books while she pulled a few books out turning each over, inspecting and feeling them until she found one she liked.  Then we took it to the checkout machine, zapped her ticket and beamed the book.

When I was very small there was a Penny Library at the back of Boots the Chemist at the foot of Wimbledon Hill. You could rent a book for 1d
(one old penny) a week.  A strange idea now.  I mainly used to go with my Dad to Wimbledon Library where the Junior Library filled a whole room and you could easily get lost in the grown-ups' library, with its tall shelves and reading tables.  My Dad said that if you spent your whole life in the library reading you would never have time to read all the books.  That's why you have to learn to choose.  You had your own set of cardboard pocket tickets into which the librarian would slot the card from the book and then insert it into her ticket file under the due back date which she would stamp onto the slip in the front of the book.  If you knew what you were looking for you could flick through hundreds of index cards in vast banks of little drawers. Soon all this will be as distant a memory as the Boots Penny Library. Lizzy will think it most quaint.

It was my dream to be a librarian so I could stamp the cards so my sister and I made our own library, patiently sticking date sheets into all our books and issuing them to each other, as well as to our dolls and stuffed toys.  I should have maintained this habit because then I would know to whom I have loaned my copy of "The Civilising Mission and the English Middle Classes" by Dr Alison Twells of Sheffield Hallam University.  This is the most expensive book I have ever owned, and purchased because as well as giving a fascinating glimpse into the Victorian mindset, it has a very well researched chapter about the extraordinary Mary Ann Rawson and the Read Family of Wincobank Hall. If it is on your bookshelf please may I have it back?

Chess opening

A very long time ago I remember my father sitting with my sister's eldest son Jeremy who was then about 7 and beginning to teach him to play chess.  His younger brother was sitting watching and I remember him playing with the pieces and turning the pages of a children's chess book before he counld even read.  Chris played chess at school, and later for Kent and then for England.  In 1996, the year his mother was critically ill, he brought a smile back to her face by becoming British Chess Champion and earning the title Grandmaster.

Today I watched with pride as Chris brought chess alive for some very young children and their parents who came along to a Children's University Chess Day. They listened with great concentration then played with determination and courage. Chris even made it seem possible that I could finally polish my pawns, rattle my rooks and ride out into the fray.  I just hope my Dad will take time out of his heavenly match to help me out. I may need a guardian angel if I get out of my depth.

Easter Lizzy

Easter is a joyful celebration of new life and at breakfast Lizzy was beaming sunny smiles even though her poor parents were groggy from lack of sleep.  Lizzy's first visit to Granny Penny's Sheffield home was like a trip to the funfair with the travel cot providing all night entertainment.  This is something I remember very well from the long nights in my sister-in-law's silent home trying to persuade the wide awake and very vocal Tom to sleep.

It was a treat to hear music in my home once more.  Whether it is  Chopin, jazz or chopsticks a piano is for playing.  All the hours of practice over the years have given Rosy a precious skill and she now teaches from home and in schools as well as leading a singing group for the Altzheimer's Society.  Lizzy pays careful attention to her lessons.  She has a clever teacher.

She also has a taste for the recorder and has discovered that it toots when she eats it.  She has a taste for printed matter, and reads the newspaper by licking it. She has chewed the occasional important letter.  

So will she grow up to be a musician, a journalist or a secret agent?  Watch this space....

River view

This is a London skyline that still seems strange to me.  I am a Londoner but everytime I return it has changed just a little bit more.  Half remembered landmarks are dominated by towers of glittering glass, symbols of a fragile success that threaten to crash down and smash into lethal fragments whilst the Shard stretches even higher towards the sun.

Ed & Shelly

Last night I slept cosily curled up on a comfy couch in Ed and Shelly's stylish London flat that they have stripped out and remodelled, doing nearly all the work themselves on a shoestring.  I am so pleased to be able to stay here and very proud to be the auntie of Edward Ward, a designer of lovely stuff.  www.alllovelystuff.com
Ed and Shelly are a brand for the future and their next product is due out soon.

Overground

For seven years I travelled to school on the District Line. If we were in time we would run up the train and jump into a no smoking carriage but otherwise it was a dirty smelly experience, and particularly unpleasant during Wimbledon weeks when visitors would cram onto the trains and elbow us out of the way.  Now there is  a new train running - The London Overground. Smart and clean with plenty of standing room - very much like the Singapore trains but not quite as shiningly tasteful.  Stylish would be asking too much.  This train is homely.

Stitch in time

Back in the centuries before internet and TV the wealthy had time on their hands to sit and stitch.  I'm not sure whether this could be called leisure or even pleasure as the tedium must have been a trial with the final product a testimony to their self-discipline and perseverence. Patience is a virtue ...  The breathtakingly intricate lace shawl allegedly made by Ann Boleyn and her ladies for the baby Elizabeth would have definitely kept them out of mischief for 9 months.  How could they possibly see to sew in the castle gloom without table lamp and magnifier?  Seated by the draughty windows they would have needed gloves.  Who can do this now?  You can see how education has gone downhill.  Bring back the thimble.

A Canadian Abroad

My friend Beth from Toronto is visiting and we are on a micro tour of quintessential England, with weather.  Having already visiting Stonehenge and Avebury in the sunshine at the weekend, she has now seen Bourton-on-the-water in the pouring rain, Broadway in the biting cold and Blenheim Palace in damp drizzle.  Meanwhile back in the Sheffield there is snow on the ground and the Woodhead Pass is closed.  Sensibly, she came prepared.

CU on my Last Day

So here I am, now on my last day with Sheffield City Council, after eight years growing the Children's University.  Okay, so there was a brief interruption when I was made redundant but that gave me a reason to look out across the city to a broader horizon. I am staggered that there are now 15,000 children in Sheffield who are part of this little project. But it's not all about numbers, it's about encouraging children to seize opportunities to try new things. It is about spreading the message that learning is wonderful,  learning is fun.  It is time for me to move on now, to leave it to others to shape and strengthen, tighten up and polish so that it survives and shines on into the future.  There is a talented team in Sheffield, running the show against challenging odds in difficult times.  Across the country there are many and various versions of Children's University where determined people are working long hours and making magic.  I hope that in another thirty years or so we will be celebrating 50 years of a joined up Children's University that it is as widely known and valued as is the Open University.  It is a university without walls, the first step to lifelong learning.

Time

I was trying very hard to be in bed by 10.30 to make this the earliest I have been to bed since Christmas.There is so much to do, so much to be done in this short space between morning and night, during the weekdays and over the weekend.  So many possibilities.  There are six and a half weeks until I finish work.  The government seems to feel I should work until 68ish -  but I am 56 and I'm stopping work at the end of next month.  I'm leaving my job.  Not really stopping work for I shall work every day until I die I am sure.  But I choose to choose at what I work and the bus I am on is going in a strange direction so it is time to get off.  Time for a change.

Green Girl

Little Lizzy now has 50 metres of Grenowood to look forward to exploring.  Just as soon as she has got the hang of propelling herself along on her own two feet, she will be able to choose any direction and toddle for 50metres and know it is all hers.  It will belong to her and all the others who have clubbed together to save this very special place.  Thank you Sheffield Wildlife Trust for masterminding the campaign to save this ancient woodland for Lizzy and future generations to play in and to learn about the world as it was before concrete. And then of course, she also has Wincobank with the best trees for climbing.