Hitchcock ? More Like The Vicar!

 

The Great British Bake Off  contestants are a boring lot. 

I streamed making a casserole tonight watched by a Spanish IT expert, the Polish actor and a wise cracking Irish city man who said I sounded like Julia Childs. 

All were surprised that I made it from scratch

I couldn’t bake being watched by tv cameras and Nigella Lawson I’d go to pieces

I remember swearing on my driving test

And I still passed! 

Around 3pm I had a lay down in the front garden to watch some clouds and 

Mrs Trellis stopped by the gate and asked me if I was sending her a Christmas card this year 

I answered in the affirmative 

and she looked slightly disappointed 

“ if you’d said no “ she explained “ I would have given to charity” 

I asked her to join me in cloud watching knowing full well that she’d refuse 

But She didn’t refuse 

But stood by the gate looking skywards as I laid back down 

“ do you see that cloud ?” I pointed out upwards “  It looks like Alfred Hitchcock “ 

She squinted like a Mole, her beret slipping to one side and she smiled gently

“ looks More like the ex vicar ! “ she said 

Tongue firmly in cheek, me thought…….

Welsh Terrier Time

Roger and I listening to The Archers tonight

 

PTSD

Even looking back through a childhood’s eyes, I can easily work out that my grandmother had PTSD from the war. Her stories, framed around semi heroic running through the streets as the bombs fell or lifting a horsehair sofa over my mother and uncle as the windows were blown in by an Ariel torpedo were the stuff of legend in our house. But there was a darker side to grandmother, masked by humour and love, and that was a pathological fear of thunderstorms. 

As soon as there was a rumble of thunder she would disappear into the airing cupboard of her bungalow, face buried into scented towels and sheets and pillowcases.

We grandchildren would shriek with laughter, and she would try to join in, but the fear was there, palpable and horrific.

 She never had any help with those fears expect the cathartic sharing of the tales themselves but even as a ten year old , I remember feeling proud as a button when she told me the story where she bravely reentered her bombed home , hand in hand with the ARP man, to collect, her children’s clothes and the cat! 

My grandfather was a volunteer fireman in Liverpool during the war. His stories were brief and sobering.and scared us as children. The dead left where they lay, entombed by the bombing. An Alsatian dog running through the streets with a terrified cat on its back. 

An old lady found dead with her arms around her grandchildren

He , like million of others just got on with things after the war

Strangely for both of them, wartime was the biggest part of their lives. 

It excited them as well as horrified them 

And there was my mother.

A teenage girl when she left Liverpool. A girl who worked in an ammunition factory and who was once shot at by the rear gunners of the bombers as they turned for home over Everton Church.

She lost her grandfather in the May Blitz but found a handsome Welsh  RAF navigator when they came to Wales. 

A new life that brought forward, four children, three grand children and four great grandchildren to date

Oh and this blog too……..

Family History for Katie

For Katie as requested

Well to start with the parrot was an African Grey and it died flying into a coal fire in Wales after the war as I remember being told

Rowena Price, one of the older residents of the Village confirmed a few years ago now that we were in fact related albeit by marriage! Now, I knew that my Great Grandmother Mary Jones was the only true Welsh member of our family. (She infact hailed from Twysog, which was a huge farm on the outskirts of Denbigh.) whereas my other Great grandparents hailed from Liverpool,Bristol,Ireland and Scotland!
Rowena was married to Tom Price who was a distant relation of Mary's, and reading her hand penned version of "our" family tree, that she forwarded on to me, brought back all of those stories that my Grandmother used to tell us as children.
Mary Jones married my Great Grandfather,James Fry in the late 1890s and they Lived in the city of Liverpool (which was then called the capital of Wales)

They had five children, Hughie,Alf,Lizzy, Louie and my grandfather Jim and all the family lived in close proximity to one another around the area of Everton which is just North of the City centre and overlooks the famous Liverpool docks. My Grandfather married my grandmother, who was also called Mary in 1924 and they had my mother Joan in 1925. The entire family remained in Liverpool until the war, and I was interested to see that Rowena's sketched family tree documented the most famous of our family stories, namely the family disaster of the May blitz of 1941.

The Louisa Street Bombing 1941

I always remember my Grandmother recalling the time she was running through the streets with my mother (who was around 16) and my Uncle Jim who was perhaps 12. The sirens had already sounded and the bombers where overhead as they debated where to run to. The options open to them, was a reinforced room in the local school or the family shelter located at my Great Grandparents (Jim and Mary's) home in Louisa Street, both of them within running distance, and as the bombs started to fall, my Grandmother had a premonition to run to the school.
The family shelter took a direct hit soon afterwards.My great Grandfather was killed instantly and Mary, with Lizzy and Louie were buried along with many others . Fortunately they survived but over 1450 people were killed in one of the worst raids of the war

My Grandmother, Mother and Uncle had already survived a previous bombing raid, when an unexploded parachute "torpedo" (middle photo) actually crashed through the next door house and lodged under their kitchen floor while the three of them were hiding under an upturned settee in the living room!. 

My grandmother almost lost her wits that night, and my Uncle was infamous in the family for walking to safety in a pair of high heeled ladies shoes and a chenille curtain. So the May blitz, was the last straw for them, and it provided the springboard for my Grandparents to move to the safety of Wales. The village where my family first settled was in fact Gwaenysgor, which is located just a mile away from where I am sat now!
It's a small, small world, isn't it?

Tea Leaves

 My gran used to read tea leaves 

I’d forgotten that fact , but watching Portrait Artist Of The Year last night where Welsh actress Joanna Scanlan  talked about her grandmother and tea leaf reading , my memories were triggered of leaf tea clumps in china cups of a 1970 pensioner bungalow with Space 1999 on the tv and beans on cheap white toast on the coffee table covered by gingham 

Of course she couldn’t read “ the leaves”

But she always told a good story .

I learnt at an early age , to watch her read the room 

And to use humour to observe it and run with it 

She played to an audience

So do I 

And we both are good at what we do.

To my knowledge she never really go anything right

But who cares ? 

Right?

My gran with my mother circa 1942

My mother was 17

One of their first photos in wales 

They left Liverpool after their home was destroyed 

The photo was taken in Gwaenysgor 

The sister village to Trelawnyd 

Chatter

 I had my catheter changed today.

As usual I didn’t tell the district nurse I was a nurse

It was painful but a short lived pain

And she was very professional .

I’ve chased up urology too which was a lesson in pedantics

And I feel better for it

And mindful of the budget all over the radio

I bought almost out of date chicken kievs for supper.

I Cleaned the cottage , scrubbed the bathroom and gave Mary a warm shower in baby shampoo.

And I want to see how much would readers ask for personally made Greeting/Christmas Card designed by Ma Manley

She has now designed several of the village key buildings 

The ancient Dove Cott at Gop Farm

The village school

The historic Still House

Me me me

 I watched the opening night of Manon live from the Royal Opera House at Scala Cinema today. Not quite as good as their 2024 version but a powerful watch in the cinema 

I’ve been a bad friend to someone very dear. 

So preoccupied I have felt with the catheter and eye appointments and leg bags, blood sugars and tiredness and lack of money, I’ve taken my eye off the ball and let mutual support drift, allowing myself to retreat back into the world of Bwthyn y llan, where the basics are met, but little else is looked at. 

Manon was a nice diversion, but I’ve let normal things slide, and I’ve known that. 

Invoices not sent, tax returns were late, emails and texts not answered.

Today , it’s taken effort to catch up with paperwork and to remember another friend’s birthday .

I’ve known it for a little while but have pretended to myself everything’s ok.

It’s not ok. I’ve let my friend down 

She knows it.

I know it. 

In my defence, I have to admit that living alone sometimes warps your perspective on things. 

You can slowly lose that “ bounce effect” 

When dollops of reality can be held up in front of you that you have missed

“ I’ve messaged you several times” my friend reminded me today 

And suddenly I realised that she had and the ball was always in my court. 

I’ve been self pitying, and self absorbed and lazy and sad

And several of you have shown their concerns here about my affect

I’ve had things of concern on my mind true….

But so have my loved ones…..

Tonight , an other friend accompanied me to see Manon 

Gave me a Yorkshire fat Rascal as a gift. 

“Buck up” she said kindly as we parted

And I thought to myself , 

I Bloody Will Try 

60 seconds of Stormy Wales

The storm remains blustery 

And the garden is now a brown/ green  rather than a green green,

The fat man flying 

Remains flying