Things my Grandmother said

I have thought of a couple more things that Nana used to say that rarely get a mention in our house:-

Up the little wooden hills to bed.

This and better might do. This and worse will never do!

I love the second of those two. So often appropriate to my lifestyle nowadays.

46 Queens Drive

When my grandparents first moved into the house where my Mum was brought up the address was 32 Priory Road. This later changed to 32 Queens Drive and then the number changed again – to 46 Queens Drive.


The house was on the corner of Heywood Road and this is the view down Priory Road towards Childwall View and the Rocket.


It was taken around 1908 and if you peer closely you can just about make out the cows in the field on the right. Mum could look out of the front bedroom window and see over fields all the way to the Runcorn transporter bridge.



After Nana left the house in the mid 1960s the house was demolished and the site became a petrol filling station, known to us as The Garage.

(Thanks to jamese for reminding me that I hadn't posted these pictures before.)

Keepsakes

A couple of Mum’s keepsakes.


This little shoe – about an inch high – was presumably on her Wedding cake. Mum and Dad were married at Childwall Parish Church on 6th August 1938.


This was presumably on a cake on their wedding anniversary in 1963.


And was this from when GB was born or was it to commemorate my arrival? Either way, this little chap is around 60 years old! Doesn’t look a day over One.

Firsts

Some notes made around 1990:-

Mum's Firsts
First memory - At age 21/2 Being taken into mother's bedroom and being shown newly-born Eric.
First disaster - The day Barry started school - turning around to let him go and falling over a woman bending down to tie her child's shoelaces - consequently tearing a ligament in her hand.
First Wage Packet - 2s 6d for writing an article for the Liverpool Echo and then 15s a week for her first job.
First love - Arthur Mason who lived next door and was older than Mum and \pa. He took her skating (chaperoned of course) at the age of eighteen.
First success - Writing an article for The Guide magazine and getting a nature book for it. Aged about 12 years.


Dad's Firsts
First memory - Walking down Larch road, Birkenhead.
First disaster - Eating apples off a tree in the Birkenhead garden of a man named Cumsty (who was subsequently murdered) and being very ill. Or on a Sunday school treat to Leasowe Embankment, falling into the sea and hearing his brother Frank say "Oh, look. He's swimming." Being rescued and carried to Leasowe Lighthouse.
First wage packet - Miss Sharples newspaper shop delivering newspapers. Then Furness Withy Office but cannot recall the sum.
First love - Myself! Or Rita Nichol later to become Rita Blaycock, financial adviser to Birkenhead Operatic Society.
First success - Lord Knows! Playing for the school rugby team.


GB's Firsts
First memory - The winter of '47, aged 2 1/2, lots and lots of snow.
First disaster - Sticking fingers in a plug (the round 15 amp plugs of those days). (Judging by the ensuing debate about where this took place it occurred more than once - including at Dorothy Penningon's at Moels and in our living room where he shot across the room and nearly reached the other wall.)
First wage packet - Ayrton Saunders - 19s 6d a week which became 19s 11d after five weeks; left after six weeks when told he wasn't paid to think.
First love - Dorothy S******n, from age 5 to 11.
First success - Dorothy S******n....

Eric Spencer Body

St Patrick’s Day is the birthday of my Uncle Eric who died a couple of years ago in his 90s. He was born at 6pm on 17th March 1912.


This is Uncle Eric as cheeky-looking schoolboy at Prescot Grammar.


After school he worked for Meccano where his picture was used in an advertising poster.


Like Dad, Uncle Eric was a motorbike enthusiast.



He then moved to Vauxhall Motors in Luton before the War interrupted his employment and sent him to N Africa and Italy.


After the War he returned to Vauxhall where he continued to work until his retirement.


He kept a diary for part of the war years and I have spent many a ‘happy’ hour translating them from his notorious scribble to English. So far I am about two thirds of the way through but as the war went on and paper got in shorter supply his writing got smaller and smaller and even more unintelligible. This sample is from the early ‘ easy’ days.


In Mum’s eyes Eric and his wife Doris were notorious for moving house though they probably didn’t move much more than many people. Mum, having only lived in two houses her whole life, could not understand their desire to find pastures new. His last few months were spent in the Hebrides where GB looked after him but prior to that he had lived on Anglesey and he is pictured above in his ninetieth year with Mum.

A number of younger folk knew Mum and Dad and will remember them after GB and I have gone but it seems a real shame to me that once GB and I have passed on there will remain no one who really knew Uncle Eric. Such is life....