Photographs and Memories

'Time goes, you say? Ah no! 

Alas, Time stays, we go.' 

(Austin Dobson)

In the back yard of a small terraced house in the East End of London on April 11th 1925, a group of people assemble for a wedding photograph. The marriage in question is that of my maternal Nan and Grandfather, who sit arm in arm at the centre of the image. To Nan's left is my Grandfather's sister Maud, who, a little over 35 years later, would be known to me as Aunt Maud. At the other end of the same row, holding what looks like a small dog, is Maud's sister Marie. Towards the right end of the back row, standing alone, is Nan's sister Beatrice and in front of her, wearing a dark top and holding a baby in white is her other sister Carrie. The baby is Henry.

My Grandfather died in 1956, four years before I was born and Nan, Aunt Maud, Marie, Carrie (mother of my recently departed Aunty Emmy), Beatrice (emphysema ravaged Aunt Beat) and Henry were the only people from this photograph that I would get to know, albeit briefly in some cases. I have many photos of family get-togethers from the 1960's and into the beginning of the 1970's and gradually Beat, Carrie, Marie and Henry disappear from them. I don't remember any sadness or funerals at the time, though no doubt I was spared any such upset at my young age. It's a strange thing that, when you're very young, older people simply slip away almost without you noticing - they just don't come around anymore. You only remember that they were ever there at all many years later when you see a faintly familiar face in a photograph.

The sisters - Beatrice, Carrie and Nan, circa 1967

In 1974 Nan and Aunt Maud came to live with me and my parents, an often fraught arrangement in a small family home. By this time they were both in their late 70's, Nan was struggling to walk while Aunt Maud had been virtually blind since the 1950's. They were very loving though, and I have fond memories of much laughter in the house - they were real characters and each had their individual idiosyncrasies and mannerisms. Nan, for instance, would pepper her conversations with peculiar old proverbial phrases of dubious context, often leaving me scratching my head in confusion. One of the most baffling (and most regularly used) of these was, 'If you can't fight, wear a big hat'. Occasionally though, her arcane phrases would verge on the poetic. For example, after getting out of bed earlier than usual in the morning, she would claim that she had been up 'before the streets were aired', a lovely image which stayed with me in later life, popping into my head on many a frosty morning as I scraped the ice from my windscreen at 5.30am.

Additionally, there were also a number of bona fide homegrown 'Nanisms', her own little quirky ways of saying things, some of which affectionately remained in my family's vocabulary long after Nan died in 1976. These included pyjamas, which she always referred to as a 'pyjam suit' and, as a consequence of Nan's failure to get to grips with decimalisation in 1971, a 50p coin is, was, and shall forever be known as '...a silver ten-bob note...'

Marie and Aunt Maud, circa 1969

Aunt Maud died in 1982, still sneaking outside for the odd crafty ciggy until the end. She was a tiny lady and as I soared through the 6ft barrier in the late 1970's, she would look me up and down and declare in her soft cockney tones, 'I reckon I'm growing downwards!' It's remarkable to think back and realise that Nan, Aunt Maud, Marie, Beat and Carrie were all born in the 19th Century and that, at the time of my birth, Nan's wedding photograph was only 35 years old, although it may as well have been 135 years to my young eyes.

One last photo. Remarkably a present has survived from my Nan's wedding and it has become an unusual family heirloom. Times were hard, money was scarce and therefore an unknown guest (I wish I knew which one) offered a functional gift to the happy couple - a handmade coal shovel. As is often the way with wedding presents, it appears to have never been used and probably occupied a place on display in the family hearth, therefore remaining in the same pristine condition as when it was given, 95 years ago today.

Kevin Ayers - All This Crazy Gift of Time

Feeling Gravity's Pull

In her final years, as her frailty and ill heath became gradually more pronounced, my Nan would quite often grab my arm for support, pull me close and whisper in despair - 'Don't ever get old'. I remember it distinctly. I also remember shaking my head at the absurdity of the very notion. I was young - I wasn't ever going to get old. Nan was living with us by then, as was her Sister-in-law, always known to me as Aunt Maud. Aunt Maud bore her own old age in a more stoic fashion than Nan. She laughed a lot, she enjoyed a drink and a cigarette and was generally the more sociable of the two, in spite of her increasing deafness and having been registered as blind for most of the second half of her life. As I went through a growth spurt in my mid-teens and shot up past them both, Aunt Maud, a Cockney through and through, would peer up at me as best she could and exclaim, 'Blimey, I reckon I'm growing downwards!'

Your humble author in 1975, aged 15, with Nan and Aunt Maud.

It would appear however, regardless of my very best efforts over the intervening 40 odd years, that I am in fact getting old. Or at least old enough to qualify for a recent invitation to our local medical centre, to have a general health and well-being check. Questions were asked, blood was drawn and readings measured. I'm doing ok apparently - BMI, weight, heart, pulse, cholesterol and blood sugar all tickety-boo. 'One last thing...' said the nurse as I was about to leave, '...step over here and we'll check your height.' 'Six foot six, I chimed confidently - I'd already told her as much, earlier in the examination. The nurse stood on tiptoe for a moment to adjust the measure so that it rested lightly on top of my head. 'Six foot four actually' she countered with a smile. 'Blimey,' I said. 'I reckon I'm growing downwards'.

REM - Feeling Gravity's Pull

Stories

Nan, my Maternal Grandmother, was born in Stratford in the East End of London on the 19th of January 1893, 122 years ago today - a time when the first controlled flight of an aircraft lay 10 years in the future and the sight of a primitive motor car on the streets of the nation's capitol was still an incredibly rare event. As a child, she grew up in a house with no electricity, no gas, inconsistent running water, a rudimentary coal stove, a tin bath hanging on the wall and a toilet in the backyard. By the time she died, she'd survived two world wars, outlived two husbands, given birth to one child and watched men walking on the moon on her own colour telly. 

Nan's birth certificate. Frail and precious.

Nan was 67 when I arrived on the scene in 1960, dying a couple of days short of my 16th birthday in 1976. I spent a lot of time with her when I was a kid, particularly during the mid-1960s when both my parents were working. Her vernacular was an anachronistic Victorian Cockney, liberally sprinkled with odd turns of phrase that my Dad always referred to as 'Nan-isms' (a subject I've previously touched on here and I'll devote a whole post to one of these days). Her kitchen was always 'the scullery', my pyjamas a 'pyjam-suit' and, in later years, a 50p coin was a 'silver ten-bob note'.

Nan (wearing her ever-present pinnie), Mum & I, 1963.

When I was being looked after by her, Nan's favourite trick to keep me engaged and, no doubt, out from under her feet, was to sit me at the table with pencil and paper and and give me a subject, often just one word, upon which I would write a story. When I was done, she'd sit opposite me as I read it to her, then she'd dream up another subject to repeat the process. My young imagination was vivid and I loved to make up stories, so this would literally keep me amused for hours. Meanwhile Nan, wearing her ever-present pinnie, might fill the coal scuttle, scrub the doorstep or potter around in the scullery, perhaps baking a cake, before inviting me to scrape out the sticky leftover cake mix from the bowl with my finger. Then I would ask her for new subject, sit down at the table and begin another story.

A treasured inscription in an old autograph book

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After the Sex Pistols there was The Rich Kids and after The Rich Kids Glen Matlock formed The Spectres with ex-Tom Robinson Band guitarist Danny Kustow. The short lived combo gigged heavily while pursuing both David Bowie and Alex Chilton as potential producers, but ultimately issued just two singles, both in 1980, a cover of Ray Davies' 'This Strange Effect' and this, their own, 'Stories'.