Haven’t written any posts recently as well it just didn’t seem like the time to be imagining alternative lives when we have landed in the Corona-verse. The reality that none of us imagined existed. Where our lives have changed beyond what we would have consider reasonable anytime before March this year! And no one knows if or when things will change, not soon for sure, we can hope.
But this missent email struck a cord as it is a gift from a granny that I don’t have. Both sets of my grandparents died long ago and I didn’t know them at all. I have memories, and on receiving this email I started to remember the little I know.
I am not at my home home, and was looking for pictures of my grannies to see what they looked like and to remember their faces – and I only have these, from my parents wedding day! Which I think was 1972 or 73.
God people had a lot of hair in the early 70’s! It is really hard to see as this is actual size and there is no enhance that can change the existing photo, no matter what endless series of CSI try to tell us.
My Mum’s Mum, Granny Carton, Sheila, is the lady in the blue suit, third in from the left. My father’s Mum’, Granny Allen, Mary, is the lady in the white/cream coat, third in from the right. They would both have been in their 40’s when this photo was taken, my Mum got married when she was 23 (so young!) so I am assuming both grannies had their kids in their 20’s as was the way, it might have been even earlier!
I have more memories of my maternal granny, Sheila, than of my paternal granny Mary as my parents separated when I was seven-ish and we didn’t really see them after that.
Memories of Sheila; grey short hair, sore legs, sitting on her chair in front of the fire, she had a funny expression when we used to ask what was wrong with her legs, I remember it as ‘I jumped over a stile and a hen pecked me’ ; your guess is as good as mine here! ; she drove a yellow Fiat 127; she was a piano teacher, though I don’t remember ever hearing her play the piano; she bought me a pair of red shoes when I cried as my sister had gotten new shoes and I didn’t (in my defence I would have been 4 or 5!); she had raspberry, logan berry and blackcurrant bushes in the garden and we used to run out to eat the berries in the summer; the journey down used to take hours, days, probably not really but it felt like it when we were kids; that you could and still can see the mountains from the house; that there was a big blue vase/urn on the stair landing that scared me; I remember my Auntie Betty coming up to the house to tell us that Granny had died, we had no phone at that time; I remember seeing her dead in the room and being encouraged to talk to her, we all sat around her bed, it was probably the first time I was in her room, she was yellow from the jaundice, cancer, she was in her early 50’s. Still a young-ish woman.
My other granny, Mary, I don’t really remember at all; I remember being in the house in Dublin, Rathgar, they were posh!; the door handles were too high for me to reach; her hair was always ‘set’ similar to the photo above; they used to serve us drinks but never tell us what they were! not standard kids fizzy drinks like coke or orange, but mixers – what I now know to most likely have been Rose’s lime cordial; there was a distinctive smell in the house, and they had a bathroom in the under the stairs space which was definitely fancy; shopping for my older (by just over a year) sister’s communion dress, probably in Arnott’s, I think she bought it, my sister was the first grandchild, they were interested, I was always too young for any trips or stay overs with them; I remember my farther ringing them to say we were on our way over once, not a home you just dropped in on; after our parents separated we saw them maybe once, and the annual Christmas £10 book vouchers ended in my teens, and ended our contact with them. She died in 2013, in her late 90’s I think, I missed the funeral as I was not in Ireland at the time, I hadn’t realised that she was still alive, this is really sad.
I was wondering what types of lives these women had; Sheila married Joe, who I think was a crane driver/operator, the story in our family is that the first meal she ever cooked him was rice pudding, it was all she knew how to make, her family had a shop and possibly a maid. I can’t imagine her sharing a cake recipe. Mary, I don’t know her background but Thomas her husband was a professor/lecturer at University College Dublin (UCD), and wrote a book about the Irish Language. Sheila had 10 children, 5 of each, my Mum is the second eldest, Mary had five boys, I believe my father was also the second eldest. Sheila died in her early 50’s, Mary in her 90’s. Worlds, lives apart.
In a way the email made me sad, or maybe more truthfully feel sorry for myself. How lovely it would be to have memories of these two women who’s genes I possess, to know if I have their personality traits or looks, to have any concrete interaction that hasn’t been dulled or shaped by years and my own bias. How lucky grandchild Sarah is, to have a granny who shares her cheesecake recipe, to have a granny who emails. That Sarah will have interactions and evidence of her granny and their relationship. While we may all get fed up with the barrage of social media, there are things to be thankful for, emails from loved ones, family WhatsApp groups, and surely the improvement in photograph quality and definition is one we should all be glad of.
I will make the cheesecake at the weekend, and share the results with the lovely Grannie Annie, I think it sounds great, and I love to make a cake!
IJustHaventDoneItYet 