My earliest memory is one of getting into a suitcase that had been opened and my mother lifting me out and saying that's not a good idea. Some conversation carried on between her and another woman who was there and then I remember urinating in the case and my mother making a great sound of apologies. The funny thing is I can remember exactly what she looked like. She was dark with rosy red cheeks and a very friendly attitude. Ten years later, she bought me a red dressing gown for my birthday and that dressing gown became a favourite of mine. Her name was Dolly Wisdom as she married a bloke called Frank Wisdom. The family maintained friendly relations with them for years and years.
When I was about fifteen, we bought a farm, probably fifteen kilometres from where the wisdoms lived. I can only remember going to their house once. They had a swimming pool and all these kids were running energetically around the pool. They seemed to be other teenagers, but they were a bit old for me. If they were boisterous, I couldn't deal with it. I remember thinking that looks like fun. I'd like to join in. But I didn't know how to get to that stage. I was very introverted.
I had a lot of reasons to be introverted. The circumstances of my birth. There was this huge pile of presents, such a big pile of presents that it was quite a daunting operation. During the war, my mother had stayed in the mess, which was a group of women who had got together and hired some flats, and these women pulled together. I had such a huge pile of presents for Christmas that my mother thought it was wrong for me to have all those presents and maybe I should give one way. My mother said it couldn't be one I didn't like, it had to be one I liked, so there was sacrifice involved. She wanted to teach me values. It taught me to sacrifice things that you make too valuable. So then under pressure I selected a wooden fire engine, which was duly put back in its box and later I was taken to the children's home and the box was placed in my hands and I was told to take it in and give it to them. I walked into this building and all there were was a lot of kids running around. Some boy came up to me and said what do you want. I pushed the box to him and said that is for you and some matron came and said yes what is it.
I said this is for the boys and she said okay, and off she went. Strangely enough, many years later, I met a young man who had actually been bought up in the children's home and professed to remember the fire engine. It gave me a link back to my childhood, which was a good thing. My childhood was full of broken promises and broken connections.
My mother had put me I a crèche run by a Mrs. Stirrup, once again surrounded by a bunch of kids running around, I didn't feel like I belonged. So I wandered down onto the front lawn and did the one thing that I knew in the past had produced results. I started to bawl my eyes out. My mother had just started work at the standard bank, a job she needed to hold onto to feed me. When she was told about me, she told the boss I'm sorry but I have to go and she came down and picked me up. A few days later, I was taken there again and put into a playpen with a large African nanny. I yelled my head off and told the matron I wanted to get out of there. I was warned that I had to behave myself, I must have become quite wild because eventually somebody restrained me.
I was dumped with my grandmother whilst my mother was at work. A fierce lady who spoke Portuguese, and a little English. The first time I went there, she said, "Atow Petaaah! Who has cut your hair?" As I had no idea who had cut my hair, I feared for the worst, but my mother, whose name was Doris, walked by at that moment. "Dor, who has cut this boys hair?" So she continued for the rest of my life, because she was used to being in charge of my mother. She had always been in charge of my mother and there was my mother doing something she had to okayed. The issue of my hair was to be brought up every time we visited her.
My grandmother's house was gloomy. All the binds were kept permanently drawn. It was like the house in Ruwa, only darker. The dining room had all new wooden furniture, but you couldn't see where you were going. A heavy sideboard had a lot of silverware on top and in the drawers. My grandmother was born to a Portuguese family who were very well off and owned several properties all over the world, many of which were sold during the depression.
My grandmother was married to an eccentric benign old man, Edgar Ansell. He also came from a well to do family. At the time when my mother was born, he was working for the eastern telegraph company, near the island of Fayal. The island is part of the Azores. He was there for the purpose of laying the telegraph cable to America. My grandmother was brought up strictly catholic. My grandfather was not catholic and didn't want to have anything to do with the church. He was definitely secular. He didn't like the whole thing. My grand other remained faithful to the end. The silver was from one of the clans and their name was Forgage. All the silver is monogrammed. That includes knives, forks, and various eating utensils. It wasn't pure silver it was EPNS, which is electroplated nickel silver. Also on the cabinet were some elephants in ivory and ebony. After my grandmothers death, uncle Charles came and collected the silver for the money.
Charles was my grandmothers only son, seven years older than me, hopelessly spoiled and undisciplined. From the earliest time, He used to shoot the fruit in the neighbours garden with a pellet gun. The same pellet gun or a catapult was used to demolish all the street lights in the neighbourhood. He had a cruel streak. The more noise a cat made when he shot it, the better he liked it. He used to roam the streets with a gang. One of them was named Labruscfen. All of Charles misdemeanours, which were many, came from l. Charles took anyone he could along with him, including me, and would pick a fight with passing Africans. Occasionally, he would take me out with him t night, on his bicycle, which meant I had to sit on the handlebars or cross bar and dodge his flying knees. It was a bit frightening, especially when he went downhill. Charles contributed a hell of a lot to my upbringing, what I experienced. One day he came round to our house on his motorbike, which was a 500CC AIS. He said he was going to take me for a ride. I remember everything going past in a blur. He asked me in front of my mother how fast I thought we were going. I guessed 60. He said 100. This was in a built up area. I was 10.
Charles would park his motorcycle next to the kitchen door and rev it up until it roared because He knew it annoyed my grandmother. He looked down on her because he'd come to the conclusion other people looked down on her because she was Portuguese. My grandmother would call to help to my grandfather, asking him to deal with the situation, but Charles was too violent. He had no chance.
He also ran a kind of a club in the garage at the back of the house. They used to make model aeroplanes and fly them. I can remember the smell of ether mixed with something, for fuel. The plane engines were fixed in a vice and run until you couldn't think anymore. Then we would take them out onto a large empty field and send them off never to see them again. I remember walking for hours after dark, looking for the planes. There was no remote control.
I had all his collection of superman comics and William series books. I don't anymore. Charles got married eventually to a pretty, delicate woman, who couldn't put up with his violent behaviour and left. This was not before the rest of the family had pooled resources and built him a house. I took the photographs at his wedding. In those days, I used to do my home processing, and when I took them round to him the same day of the wedding, Eileen was in tears. That wasn't the only problem. He used to work long humours of overtime as a motorcycle mechanic. He would get home late every night, stopping at the pub en route. Then if he met a friend at the pub, they might decide to go to Beira for the weekend without leaving any messages, which worried my grandmother to distraction.
One side of it you're free and easy, you grow up and upon extend yourself as much as you can, the other side is you have to consider the people who nurture you. I didn't say anything to him. I didn't really want him angry. The only person who Charles took any notice of was my mother. She could get angry, especially when he took my grandfathers check book and forged his signature. To me that was the limit. I was about sixteen. Charles then got married again to Lynn who was very self composed and good looking in a dolled up way with lots of makeup. I tried once or twice to get in touch but made no progress. They don't reply. I think Charles never liked me.
When I was sixteen, an endowment from the national war fund appeared, in my name. I bought a motorcycle. My first motorcycle was a Frances Barnett 150CC, which I bought from Charles. Some years later, I traded it in on a matchless 500 single. Then later, I sold it back to him for the original price, but we had a disagreement about its mechanical condition. Nonetheless, I used the money to buy a car, a VW beetle.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Add a comment