A touch of Tudor splendour

Given the slippery nature of time I shouldn’t be surprised to realise that it’s already more than two weeks since we arrived up here in the North-West Highlands after a most enjoyable 90^th birthday celebration weekend for DH’s mother, which I haven’t even mentioned yet.

We assembled on the Friday afternoon at the home of DH’s youngest brother in Southport for an evening of family chatter before the big day itself. At 90 one doesn’t want to spend the day too strenuously before one’s birthday dinner in a local hotel, so it was decided we would go out in the afternoon for a gentle stroll around a local historic property, Rufford Old Hall, near Ormskirk.

Rufford Old Hall was owned by the Hesketh family for some 500 years until it was handed over to the tender care of the National Trust in 1936. The original building, which dates from around 1530, was a late mediaeval hall-house, though now only the Great Hall survives. Its elaborate and highly decorative half-timbering is both beautiful and impressive, though I couldn't help thinking how many oak trees it must have taken to build it.

Wonderfully carved screen 

Spartan dining

 Hammerbeam roof with angels - highly unusual outside a church

In 1661/2 a new wing was built at right angles to the original hall which, being brick-built in Jacobean style, contrasts very clearly with the hall’s black and white timbering. The house was further extended in the 1820s to give the building we see today. 

A touch of extra glamour is given to the house by the possibility that the young William Shakespeare himself may have acted in the Great Hall in the early 1580s when he was working as an assistant teacher in the household of a local landowner.

Detail of the screen

And this is meant to be movable?

The house is surrounded on three sides by formal gardens and on the fourth by a branch of the Leeds to Liverpool canal, giving it an air of great tranquillity and timelessness and a feeling of being very far from the hustle and bustle of modern life. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour through four centuries of English domestic architecture and came home very ready to relax with tea and birthday cake before sprucing ourselves up for our evening out.

The doors would have given access to the lost wing

The photographer photographed - DH and his beloved camera

The birthday girl herself

Sadly, the sunshine we enjoyed that afternoon didn’t last and our journey up through Scotland on Mothering Sunday was notable for the mist and murk which conspired to hide even the grandest of the mountains we drove through. That’s Scottish weather for you!

An Advent Sunday baby

Perhaps I should hesitate to start a post with what verges on a cliché, but I can’t help wondering where the years have gone. Back in the earliest days of this blog I asked myself the same question when DD celebrated her fortieth birthday, and today I’m looking back even further, to the day forty-five years ago, when, at the tender age of 22, DH and I became parents for the first time.

It was 1968, the year of students riots in Paris and the doomed Prague Spring in Soviet Czechoslovakia, of the last mainline steam trains in Britain and the first manned Apollo mission in the US. It was the year DH and I graduated and bought our first, rather decrepit house for the princely sum of £2,150.

We were subsisting on a student bursary of £500 a year while he trained as a teacher and once the mortgage had been paid each month, there was very little left over to live on. The house was minimally furnished with family cast-offs, the unused rooms still empty. The only clothes we bought that year were for the baby I was expecting and even those were just the few things I couldn't make myself.

I discovered very quickly how fortunate I was to have been brought up by a mother who taught all her daughters to cook plain, healthy and, above all, economical food. DH was away at college from Sunday to Friday evening, living in our ancient camper to save rent, while I was alone at home, trying to turn a neglected house into somewhere to care for a baby. I’d made a start by painting the kitchen what should, if the label on the tin were to be believed, have been a warm but muted shade of coral, but which turned out to be a vivid and virulent pink, which we had to endure until we sold the house four years later.

Two weeks before the baby was due I went for my weekly ante-natal check-up on the last Tuesday in November. DH was at college as usual, after a very pleasant weekend at home during which we’d celebrated his birthday. Out of the blue, the doctor who examined me said he was worried about my puffy ankles and on hearing there was no-one at home to look after me, insisted that I be admitted to hospital the same afternoon for rest and care until the baby was born.

As it turned out, DS didn't wait for the two weeks to be up before making his entrance. An accidental fall on a wet bathroom floor precipitated the first signs of labour and DH arrived home for the weekend to find that active fatherhood was imminent. When that Advent Sunday dawned, it was obvious that the baby was well on the way and DH spent the long day by my bed, fetching and carrying and making himself as useful as he could.

Back in those days it was mandatory for fathers to have attended ante-natal classes if they were to be admitted to the labour-ward. Being away at college all week meant that he hadn’t been able to go to the classes with me and the staff were adamant that he had to say goodbye to me at the labour-ward door and wait outside until it was all over.

He didn’t have long to wait. The first stage of labour might have been long, but the second was almost precipitous and DS made his entrance into the world only 20 minutes after I’d been wheeled through that door.

When he was wrapped up and given to me to hold, someone asked what we were going to call him. DH and I had whittled  down the possibilities to two short-lists of names, but hadn’t yet made our final choice. At that point I could remember only one name from the boy’s list, probably because it was the shortest, but as soon as I said it out loud, I knew it was the only possible one. When DH was allowed in to see us both, I presented him with not only a son but a name, and suddenly we were a family and life would never be the same again.

Forty-five years on, DS is a husband and father in his turn, with a son who will soon be 10 and a very busy and worthwhile career. But on this Advent Sunday I can still see so clearly the baby with dimples, who looked up at me at the end of that long day and lodged himself in my heart for ever.

Postscript:    It may seem almost unbelievable in these days of camera-phones, Facebook and Instagram, but we don’t have a single photo of either of our children until they were at least 3 months old. They were both born in winter and our first photos were taken when it was finally warm enough to be outside with them. 

Islands ahoy!

The Orkney islands, that is…. Tomorrow will be my birthday treat, when DH will drop me at the ferry at Scrabster and head off in our little campervan to do his own thing for the next day and a half. Meanwhile I will let myself be carried across the probably choppy waters of the Pentland Firth to my long-awaited and eagerly-anticipated visit to Sian on her small island of Graemsay.

As usual in this most disappointing of Aprils, the weather forecast isn’t wonderful, but we won’t let that deter us. One can talk and talk in the worst of weather and take advantage of any lulls to get out and walk on the lovely shoreline I’ve seen so often in Sian’s photos.

On Friday, thanks to the vagaries of the ferry timetable, we will spend much of the day on Orkney Mainland before I catch my ferry back to Scrabster and DH. It’s my first visit to Orkney and Sian has kindly offered to show me some of the historic sites (and sights) for which the island is famous. My camera batteries are fully charged and I just can’t wait. J

Image via Google

Our Kath

A young Kathleen Ferrier

Every year when this week in April comes around, I find myself beset with memories of my parents. Thirty-four years ago today my father died at the age of 70, a fair age, but by no means very old by modern standards. He died on the eve of my mother’s 62nd birthday, and sadly she survived him by less than five years.

In their thirty-seven years of marriage my parents worked very hard bringing up their five daughters, but still managed to find some time for their own interests and hobbies. One interest they shared was their love for the extraordinary voice of another Lancashire woman, who might have celebrated her 100th birthday this weekend, had her life and immensely successful career not been cut tragically short at the early age of 41.

Kathleen Ferrier was born on April 22nd 1912 and grew up in the neighbouring town of Blackburn, only a very few miles from where my sisters and I were born and grew up. Throughout my childhood I was aware of her as ‘our’ celebrity – the local girl whose name and voice were now known throughout the world. Every school class in the area had its quota of Kathleens and her premature death only added to the sense of local pride in her achievements.

For Kathleen Ferrier had been blessed with a truly wonderful contralto voice – rich, deep, resonant without a hint of harshness, and extraordinarily expressive and moving. It shone above all in the repertoire of 18th century opera and oratorio which she made her own, but also in her much-loved recordings of British folk-songs.

Unlike my younger sisters, I’m no expert on the subject of music or singing, but I have always known that Kathleen Ferrier possessed a unique talent, which, almost sixty years after her death, continues to enrich the lives of so many people, including me. I find it sad to think of the recordings she never lived to make, but we must be grateful for the superb legacy she did bequeath to us. I will leave you with two clips, which show to perfection the breadth of her skill and the glory of her voice.

Lying fallow?

Like a number of bloggers I follow, I’m finding that after the intensity of Holy Week and Easter, my mind seems to have gone on to standby as far as inspiration is concerned. Or perhaps it’s just that all my available mental energy is being absorbed by my new acquisition.

Yes, dear readers, all the detailed and careful research I mentioned in passing in my last post came to fruition last Saturday with the delivery of this year's birthday present and my brand-new pride and joy – my very first laptop!  

I feel I should apologise for teasing you all with such secrecy about a basically mundane purchase. Yet to me it feels very far from mundane. Since the moment I first clicked tentatively on a computer mouse nearly 20 years ago now, all my computing has been done on a series of desktop machines, mostly DH’s cast-offs.

Not for me the app-laden smartphone or glossy tablet: instead I’ve been nursing the same ageing desktop since before I retired 5 years ago and it’s still going strong, albeit rather more slowly, like its owner. I blame my addiction to blogging for making me realise I needed a means of mobile computing, and for me a laptop was the only sensible solution.

Hence the poring over internet searches - reading reviews, comparing specifications and looking for reliability reports - which took so much time early last week. The Transit household really doesn’t go in for off-the-cuff purchases. J

Now that DH has finished setting up my new baby, I’m spending every spare moment getting to grips with Windows 7 and all the other innovations which have passed me by for so long. It’s a steep learning curve and my brain is beginning to hurt a bit, but I’m gradually getting there and am enjoying the process enormously. It doesn’t take much to make me happy…….

Epiphany celebrations

Tonight is of course Twelfth Night, the beginning of the twelfth and final day of Christmas, and tomorrow the Christian church will be celebrating the great feast of the Epiphany. However, for the Transit household tomorrow is also a day of family celebration, as my next-to-youngest sister and Grandson #3 both have birthdays on this special day. Indeed I’ve recently learned that DD’s mother-in-law was also an Epiphany baby, so it’s a triple for us. 

This is the reason why our family has always defied tradition and left the Christmas decorations up until after Epiphany. It just seems so mean to take them down the day before and leave the house drab and ordinary for their birthday. Well, that’s my excuse for enjoying a few more days of colourful Christmas cards, flying angels and our lovely little African crib set. 

DH is now enquiring plaintively when supper will be, so I will leave you for now with what to me is one of the most beautiful of Epiphany carols. 

Image via Wikipedia:
Sixth-century mosaic of the Magi in Persian costume

Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy

A milestone birthday

In just over a week I will be officially old J On Easter Day, that greatest of Christian festivals, I will qualify to draw my church pension and will celebrate a birthday I once wondered whether I would live to see. Before then, however, we have another important family birthday to celebrate: that of Grandson #1, which falls tomorrow.

Luckily, given our fading memories, all three grandsons’ birthdays are easy to remember. Grandson #3 was born on another of the great festivals of the church (and one of my favourites) – Epiphany, while Grandson #2’s arrival coincided with our wedding anniversary. How sensible of Prince William and his fiancée to choose such an auspicious date for their wedding.

However, I remember the birth of Grandson #1 for a very different reason.

Just before Christmas twelve years ago, when DD was 5 months pregnant, I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time. In the initial daze of shock and fear I briefly wondered whether I would even live to see the birth of our first grandchild and certainly whether I would be fortunate enough to watch him or her grow up. As it turned out, I was one of the lucky ones, whose cancer had been found early and was eminently treatable.

Early in the New Year I had surgery, and a few weeks after that started on a 5-week course of radiotherapy. This necessitated my making a daily round-trip of 88 miles on country roads to the nearest District General Hospital – three hours of driving for three minutes of treatment. I beguiled the tedium of the journeys with the wonders of audio-books and with daydreaming about my impending grandmotherhood, to which I was looking forward immensely.

The course of radiotherapy finished a fortnight before the baby was due. Ten days later I drove through a mid-April snowstorm to visit DD, who had been admitted early to hospital, and to stay with our son-in-law until the birth. We didn’t know whether it would be a boy or a girl, as DD and her husband hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise. In the event we welcomed with joy and gratitude the safe arrival of the first of our three grandsons, and suddenly life took on a whole new dimension and meaning.

After my operation, the kindly consultant had given me a very good prognosis, but the radiotherapy and the driving had been hard work. Now the birth of this first grandchild brought me a new sense of optimism and hope for a future that had for a little while seemed doubtful. I could look forward again, not back, and could trust that, barring accidents, I would indeed live to see him grow up. Even a totally unexpected recurrence of the cancer when he was six didn’t destroy this hope, though it certainly dented it for a time, until tests showed that again I had been fortunate and the cancer had not spread.

Now, as the magic age of 65 looms, I am so glad still to be here and watching all three grandsons growing up into loveable, talented and unique individuals. Each birthday is celebrated as the significant milestone it is, but still, for me, the birthday of Grandson #1 has a special meaning, as I remember what might have been and give renewed thanks for what is and what may yet be to come. Having had cancer twice, I know that the future can never be taken for granted, but at present life is good and I am content, and always, always grateful. 

Where did the years go?

Today is rather a milestone in the life of our family, being the day when DD turns 40. How on earth can my youngest-born be entering middle-age? Does it mean I can no longer claim that still desirable label for myself?

I know it’s a cliché to say this, but I truly can remember that day as if it were yesterday. She arrived 4 days before her due date, thus making life considerably more complicated for her parents than if she’d waited just a little longer.

I went into labour the night before DH had to travel halfway across the country for an interview. We lived around a hundred miles away from either set of parents, so DH had perforce to stay at home with DS, then a lively toddler, while I was dispatched to hospital in a hurriedly-summoned ambulance, which made an even more hurried return to the hospital. 

Clinging onto my seat for dear life, I asked the ambulance-man (this was long before the days of paramedics) where the fire was, only to be told that they’d had to deliver a baby in the ambulance the previous week and were taking no chances of a repeat performance.

Once we reached the hospital, the system swung into action and I soon found myself in a side-room on the labour ward – alone. The ward was not only very short-staffed because of flu, but also extremely busy, with three births imminent. This was the beginning of a long, painful (no epidurals back then) and tedious night (no birthing pools, music or other distractions either) but one which is also utterly unforgettable.

At intervals a kindly but harassed nurse or midwife popped in to check on progress, but otherwise I was left alone to put into practice all those exercises so carefully learned in pre-natal classes. Eventually I was trundled into the delivery room, where at 6.20 in the morning DD made her trouble-free entrance into the world and was placed in my arms.

She was our second child, so I should have been prepared for what happened next. But somehow, in that long, hard night, I had managed to forget temporarily just what that first glimpse of your new-born baby can do to you. I looked down into her face and fell instantly, helplessly and hopelessly in love with this little scrap of humanity, marvelling, as if no-one had ever done so before, at her gossamer eyelashes and miniscule fingernails, at her neat cap of hair and indeterminate button nose, at all the infinite potential of this brand-new person, our daughter.

It was as though I’d been filled up with all the love I would need to accompany  her through not only the joys of life, but through childhood knocks, adolescent growing pains and the difficulties and disappointments of adult life.

And what a very different world it was back in 1971 when she was born. A world without email, mobile phones or Facebook with which to tell people of her arrival. At that stage we didn’t have a phone at home, and as she was born in the middle of a national postal strike, with all the post-boxes sealed, I couldn’t even write to tell anyone.  All I could do was to get hold of the ward phone trolley and phone both sets of parents to ask them to pass on the good news.

She was born the week after Britain’s currency went decimal, when Ted Heath was Prime Minister and George Harrison was topping the hit parade with My Sweet Lord. When she was born the average house price was around £5000 and a gallon of petrol cost 33p.  This was the year when the digital age was also born, with the invention of the microprocessor and the floppy disk, the year when it became possible for the first time to dial direct from London to New York.

Forty years on, she is a happily-married mother of two lovely boys, a hard-working and competent professional, a woman who in her scarce free time likes to relax with music and books and knitting, and always and forever our loving and deeply-loved daughter. Happy birthday, sweetheart. 


Image via Wylio