Bev Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "family"
Stories of my Grandmothers
One of my grandmothers was tiny and round; she had the most beautiful soft skin, blue eyes and silver hair.
The other one was tall and soldid, her eyes were brown and her hair was dyed a determined, unrelenting black.
One smelt of Pond's cold cream and the other of Woodbines untipped cigarettes.
I loved them dearly.
They were around the time the old Queen died, not necessarily welcome aditions to families long on kids and very, very short on money. Later they married into families long on kids, but perhapos not quite as short on money.
The result was, of course, a fund of stories of their own lives and going back to their mothers and grandmothers.
I've taken elements of these stories and writen a series of flash fiction tales from them. Some liberties have been taken with time etc., but there is a nugget of truth in each one.
I'll share some of them over the next few months. Here's the first
Florence Lester 1904 to 1907
On bitter February afternoons in the days before central heating, the only place to be really warm was Gran’s back room where the fire hadn’t been allowed to go out since November.
I’d sit and watch the flames play over the coals and eventually tuck my heat mottled legs up under me. The cat curled up the grate would open one baleful eye and glared at me, but he never moved even though the smell of burning fur sometimes scented the air as a spark landed on him.
As a favoured grandchild my comfort was enhanced by treats like crumpets to toast and lavish butter upon, or hot chocolate steaming in thick pottery mugs or, if all else failed, bags of toffee made pliable and yielding by the heat.
A piece I had dropped on the rug had acquired a generous coat of cat hair, so I’d lobbed it into the back of the fire where it melted on the hot coals, adding the smell of burnt sugar to the ever present tang of Gran’s Woodbines.
After a while she flicked the long tail of grey ash off the end of her cigarette and said,
“It smelled like when Florrie died.”
Turning away from my fire inspired day dreams I smiled up at her, thinking she must be as mazed by the heat as I was
“Florrie isn’t dead,” I said. “You spoke to her on the phone last week.”
She shook her head,
“Not that Florrie. My other sister Florence.”
“You had two sisters called Florence?”
She nodded, lighting another of the untipped cigarettes she would smoke all her long life.
“I remember her lying by the fire wrapped in a blanket. Mam had given her a sugar lollipop and every now and then she’d try and lift it to her mouth.”
Gran smiled, “I never took my eyes off it, just in case. I was about four and that jealous.”
I thought of the little she’d let me know about her childhood in the dirty mill town during the years before The Great War.
“Wasn’t there one for you?”
“No,” Gran said. “I don’t know how Mam found the penny for it, not with my father and the drink.”
She drew on her cigarette.
“It seemed such a waste to me,” she said. “She’d give it a little lick, but she wasn’t enjoying it the way I would’ve. Eventually she dropped it and I was there like a shot, little guts that I was, but Mam shouted “No” before I could get it in my gob and put it on the fire.”
Our eyes met and we both knew in that moment long dead Mam had saved this daughter’s life.
The toffee on the fire charred black.
“I don’t remember what happened after that,” Gran said. “She just wasn’t there anymore. And then, later, another Florrie came along.”
She gazed once more into the flames.
“Poor little soul. I’m the only one left alive who remembers her”
And just for a moment on that cold February afternoon, the small sister whose brief existence had made scarcely a dent in the passage of my Gran’s long life, lived again in the smell of sugar burning on a coal fire.
[c]Bev Allen 2011
The other one was tall and soldid, her eyes were brown and her hair was dyed a determined, unrelenting black.
One smelt of Pond's cold cream and the other of Woodbines untipped cigarettes.
I loved them dearly.
They were around the time the old Queen died, not necessarily welcome aditions to families long on kids and very, very short on money. Later they married into families long on kids, but perhapos not quite as short on money.
The result was, of course, a fund of stories of their own lives and going back to their mothers and grandmothers.
I've taken elements of these stories and writen a series of flash fiction tales from them. Some liberties have been taken with time etc., but there is a nugget of truth in each one.
I'll share some of them over the next few months. Here's the first
Florence Lester 1904 to 1907
On bitter February afternoons in the days before central heating, the only place to be really warm was Gran’s back room where the fire hadn’t been allowed to go out since November.
I’d sit and watch the flames play over the coals and eventually tuck my heat mottled legs up under me. The cat curled up the grate would open one baleful eye and glared at me, but he never moved even though the smell of burning fur sometimes scented the air as a spark landed on him.
As a favoured grandchild my comfort was enhanced by treats like crumpets to toast and lavish butter upon, or hot chocolate steaming in thick pottery mugs or, if all else failed, bags of toffee made pliable and yielding by the heat.
A piece I had dropped on the rug had acquired a generous coat of cat hair, so I’d lobbed it into the back of the fire where it melted on the hot coals, adding the smell of burnt sugar to the ever present tang of Gran’s Woodbines.
After a while she flicked the long tail of grey ash off the end of her cigarette and said,
“It smelled like when Florrie died.”
Turning away from my fire inspired day dreams I smiled up at her, thinking she must be as mazed by the heat as I was
“Florrie isn’t dead,” I said. “You spoke to her on the phone last week.”
She shook her head,
“Not that Florrie. My other sister Florence.”
“You had two sisters called Florence?”
She nodded, lighting another of the untipped cigarettes she would smoke all her long life.
“I remember her lying by the fire wrapped in a blanket. Mam had given her a sugar lollipop and every now and then she’d try and lift it to her mouth.”
Gran smiled, “I never took my eyes off it, just in case. I was about four and that jealous.”
I thought of the little she’d let me know about her childhood in the dirty mill town during the years before The Great War.
“Wasn’t there one for you?”
“No,” Gran said. “I don’t know how Mam found the penny for it, not with my father and the drink.”
She drew on her cigarette.
“It seemed such a waste to me,” she said. “She’d give it a little lick, but she wasn’t enjoying it the way I would’ve. Eventually she dropped it and I was there like a shot, little guts that I was, but Mam shouted “No” before I could get it in my gob and put it on the fire.”
Our eyes met and we both knew in that moment long dead Mam had saved this daughter’s life.
The toffee on the fire charred black.
“I don’t remember what happened after that,” Gran said. “She just wasn’t there anymore. And then, later, another Florrie came along.”
She gazed once more into the flames.
“Poor little soul. I’m the only one left alive who remembers her”
And just for a moment on that cold February afternoon, the small sister whose brief existence had made scarcely a dent in the passage of my Gran’s long life, lived again in the smell of sugar burning on a coal fire.
[c]Bev Allen 2011
Going Home
I've been a bit busy, so just a very short story this time.
Going Home
The wind ripped the handkerchief she had been waving from her fingers and carried off high above the liner’s bows.
Despite the cold she could not bring herself to go below, she stood by the rail and watched the shore slipped further and further away as the evening tide carrying them out. She knew when she came on deck tomorrow green waters would have turned to blue and the land would be a memory.
She had always promised herself she would go home, go back to her mother and all her brothers and sisters. Every part of her had ached for the familiar faces and familiar places of home.
Eventually she could bear the aching need no longer and she had packed her case and fled back to the land of her birth.
Once there, softly and quietly the familiar had wrapped itself about her. Remembered sights and smells and sounds had woven in and out of her senses, drawing her back to the places she had left when she had begun her great adventure.
She had come home and home had welcomed her with open arms, but now she was leaving them again, crossing back over the great ocean.
As the light finally faded and she could no longer see the dark shadow of the land, her thoughts turned to the wooden cabin by the lake.
The fruit harvest would over and soon the trees would blaze with the colours of autumn, heralding the promise of the long white winter to come.
He would be there, waiting.
When she left, she believed she was going back to where she belonged, but now the ship was carrying her back to him and to the land she knew she would forever more call home.
(My Aunt Jean went to Canada in the 1920s. She always said you have to go back before you really know where you belong).
© Bev Allen
Going Home
The wind ripped the handkerchief she had been waving from her fingers and carried off high above the liner’s bows.
Despite the cold she could not bring herself to go below, she stood by the rail and watched the shore slipped further and further away as the evening tide carrying them out. She knew when she came on deck tomorrow green waters would have turned to blue and the land would be a memory.
She had always promised herself she would go home, go back to her mother and all her brothers and sisters. Every part of her had ached for the familiar faces and familiar places of home.
Eventually she could bear the aching need no longer and she had packed her case and fled back to the land of her birth.
Once there, softly and quietly the familiar had wrapped itself about her. Remembered sights and smells and sounds had woven in and out of her senses, drawing her back to the places she had left when she had begun her great adventure.
She had come home and home had welcomed her with open arms, but now she was leaving them again, crossing back over the great ocean.
As the light finally faded and she could no longer see the dark shadow of the land, her thoughts turned to the wooden cabin by the lake.
The fruit harvest would over and soon the trees would blaze with the colours of autumn, heralding the promise of the long white winter to come.
He would be there, waiting.
When she left, she believed she was going back to where she belonged, but now the ship was carrying her back to him and to the land she knew she would forever more call home.
(My Aunt Jean went to Canada in the 1920s. She always said you have to go back before you really know where you belong).
© Bev Allen
