My Ancestors

Did I tell you they moved my bed again last night? It’s the one complaint I have about this place. That and the problems we have with everyone’s things going missing all of the time. And also there’s no one to talk to. Half the people in here don’t even know what day of the week it is, let alone want to have a decent conversation, so I’m glad you’ve come to see me.

Have you heard any more about my mother and father? I haven’t heard anything about them since it happened. I was talking to Dad the other night. He was sitting in the kitchen, where he used to sit. They’ve done it all up. It’s all modern now, with those shiny cupboards and rails, but I still recognise it, just as it was when I was growing up. My room was up in the attic, and we had gas mantles on each set of stairs, and I used to have to take a candle with me when I went up to bed, and they used to make such frightening shadows that I had to have someone come up the stairs with me. Dad was reading stories to me in bed. He never told me fairy stories because I didn’t like all that nonsense, but he used to tell me about when he was a boy, his sisters having to drag him to school and all the children going around without shoes.

Have a look in that drawer there. I think there’s a folder of photographs and things my son printed out… Try in the bottom of the wardrobe. As I say things keep getting lost. Oh, that’s it, you’ve got them. Someone must have put them in the bedside cabinet. Yes, that’s me there, on the beach with my sisters. They were much older than me. Mum would take in lodgers in the summer in order to pay the rates. I remember one of them was called Oliver Sutton and we girls all used to call him All-of-a-Sudden and thought it was very funny. When the lodgers came I had to move out of my bedroom and I had to sleep on a camp bed downstairs. We used to have to go and fetch a block of ice from the fishmongers before school. There were no refrigerators in those days.

Didn’t someone ask if we wanted a cup of tea? They’ve been a long time haven’t they? I expect they’ve forgotten about you. Perhaps we should go and find someone. But I expect they’re all busy.

Oh yes. Those. Those are some of my school reports. Look at those marks. Second in the class… a most excellent worker and shows great intelligence. Yes, well, that was before the War came. That’s when all the fun and games started didn’t they? I was only just ten when I remember Mum coming up to my bedroom and telling me I was going to be evacuated. Of course I didn’t know what that meant. I don’t remember the preparations, but I do know that Dad made me a canvas haversack and that he stamped my initials on a spoon and fork. We went by coach to the station and then on a train up to Staffordshire. I’d never been anywhere before without my parents. I remember how awful it was sitting in that large village hall waiting to be chosen. We were almost the last to be chosen and then a large lady said she’d take Olive and me. Well I’d never liked Olive, so I don’t know why she did that. I remember the cottage as if it was only yesterday. We sat on a large, high backed, wooden settle with no cushions and had gooseberry pie. We were so nervous that we got the giggles. Olive and I had to share a double bed upstairs. There was no bathroom, just a toilet at the bottom of the garden, and so we had potties under the bed.

Ah, the tea at last. Thank you dear. You can put it down on the side there and we’ll help ourselves. Have you found my bag with all my pens and paper in yet? I know I put it down by my chair, but someone must have moved it.

Oh yes, that one’s of me as the carnival princess. I remember we all had to audition in the school hall, walking round to music. I never got to take part in the procession though, because Mum and Dad had moved to Sheffield and Mum managed to get me home again, so by the time I was eleven I had moved again, to Sheffield. We rented some rooms a mile or so from the city centre. There were only two bedrooms and so my bed was in a little alcove, like a cupboard under the stairs with a little curtain over the front. I passed the eleven-plus, but I ended up having to go to the Grammar School in Ramsgate when Mum and Dad moved back down to Kent.

This tea’s only just about lukewarm. Now that’s something isn’t it, you’d think these girls here would know how to make a decent cup of tea. Wouldn’t it be nice to get out of here and go and have a nice cup of hot tea.

Ah, that’s a good one of my dad. I loved my dear old dad you know. With three daughters, I was the son he never had. He taught me a lot you know. We used to do woodwork together. I remember I made a box for my sister with a wiggly back so she could use it for her curlers.

We were always round at the aunts’ house because it was just across the square and Mum used to meet me after school. I used to have to sit on a little stool and read a book because little girls were to be seen and not heard and mustn’t listen to grown ups conversations. My grandad used to live with the aunts you know, but they made sure he stayed out of sight. He cleared out people’s junk and I don’t think he ever made any money out of it, but he always found something for me to take home. He used to pick up all the old cigarette ends and spend the evening extracting the tobacco for his pipe. I think the aunts were quite ashamed of him and he lived downstairs with his bed in the kitchen and a rocking chair. He always dressed in black and wore a black homburg hat and his coat was long and had big pockets. I remember he always had sweets in the pockets – sometimes it was chocolate, which was dusty looking as it was made in large blocks and chopped up in the shops. But then on Sunday he used to dress up with a white silk scarf and travel for miles preaching at the local chapels. At Christmas we stayed the night at the aunts’, in a big bedroom that overlooked the square and I remember Christ Church’s clock striking the hours all night.

Did I tell you I went to see Aunt Alys last week? I went all by myself. They were just sitting down to tea and she said there was no room for me at the table, and she got very fierce, so I had to sit on my own and then I think they forgot about me. Can you believe it? In the end I just had to get up and come back.

No, I don’t bother with the TV now. I can’t get the blessed thing to work and there’s nothing on it anyway. If they find my bag with the pens and paper I’ve been writing a letter to my friend Vera asking if she can come and fetch me. But I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to get it to her when they won’t let me out of here. I do hope the girls will find my bag. They have a real problem here with things going missing.

Did I tell you about the problems they are having here with things going missing? The girls do their best but they keep moving the beds around so no one knows which is their room and all the things keep going missing. Look in the wardrobe; those aren’t my clothes. It really does upset me. I’ve got nothing to wear here except this blessed old cardigan and these old pyjamas. Well yes it may have my name on the label, but it isn’t mine. I wouldn’t have a blouse like that.

Yes, you can take the tea things. No, I don’t know. What was the choice again? Sausages and mash, or chicken and beans, well it doesn’t really matter to me, it all tastes the same to me here, and it’s never hot.

You should see the table manners of some of the people here. They shouldn’t be in here if they can’t look after themselves. Some of them can’t hold their cutlery properly and some of them were putting their food on the floor. It’s awful. I don’t remember how I ended up here. I just wish I could find some way to get back to my flat.

I went out last week. Did I tell you? I did. I went all the way to London on the train. It was night-time when I arrived and I didn’t have anywhere to stay so I found a cupboard and a blanket and went in there to sleep where no one could find me. And then when it was light I woke up and… well I don’t remember what I did next.

Dad was very good you know. He never really had a proper job, but he and Mum worked hard and they saved enough to put down a deposit on a new house. Mum used to let the front room and the front bedroom to visitors in the summer to pay the rates. I had to share a bedroom with my two sisters. They had white metal twin beds with brass knobs at both ends and I had a black enamelled bed. All three of us in the same room. And Mum and Dad had a four-foot bed in the little bedroom. It must have been a bit of a squash.

Have you heard anything from my son? He never comes to visit me here you know. I wonder if he knows where I am. I suspect with all that’s gone on he just doesn’t know where to find me. I know how it happened you know. I went for a walk down by the canal near Vera’s flat. We went down to look at some boathouses, or perhaps they were sheds, on the canal. My sister was with me, which was odd because I know she died years ago. And there we were, trapped in this hut and I kept telling my sister to get out the way so I could open the door and crawl out and go and get some help, but I couldn’t get past her. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the family though. Have you heard anything from my mother and father? Maybe you could go round and see if they are all right, but I suspect the house will be all shut up. It’s such a good job my son managed to rescue these photographs otherwise we should have absolutely nothing to remember it all by would we. Wasn’t that a stroke of luck?

Ah, that’s the bell for dinner-time. I’m sorry you’ve had nowhere to sit other than perching there on the bed. Did I tell you they moved my bed again last night? It’s the one complaint I have about this place.

This piece is a patchwork composed from conversations I had with my mum in 2014-2015 as her Alzheimer’s worsened. It was originally published in the UEA MA Non-Fiction Anthology 2021. UK: Egg Box Publishing.