20) The Arnold Family
Every Tuesday morning Maureen would come and collect me, Jonathan and Dominic to take us to our Mothers Club meeting. It has just struck me that one cannot do that these days. Today most family cars only have five seat belts and so the six of us could not have gone to the club in one car. Seat belts were very new then and not compulsory. Some new cars had them fitted on the front seats but there weren’t any on the back seat. I do appreciate that seat belts save lives but I am glad that we did not have that law then or we would have been denied a great deal of pleasure. I remember when I was small going on car trips with the car full of people. Only the driver had a seat to himself, we would squeeze in wherever we could fit. We would sit on each other’s laps, on the floor or even on the parcel shelve at the back window. My favourite place was on the floor at the feet of the front passenger. There was one place on the road to Llanelly where my grandmother lived that had a large hump in the road and if Dad drove over it fast it would seem as if the car was flying and that we had left our seat and were touching the car roof. Then we would come down into our seats and a few seconds later our stomachs would settle back in their places. We all loved this and would urge Dad to go faster and faster as he approached the hump.
Maureen’s son David was three years old, one year younger than Jonathan and Janet and Dominic would have been two that year. The children immediately got on well together and I really can’t remember them ever fighting. I suppose there must have been some disagreements but I just can’t recall any. David at three was a very adventurous child, he had climbed over their garden gate once and Maureen had found him across a busy road and almost on the railway line. He pulled some furniture in front of the medicine cabinet once and took something he should not have. If he had been a cat he would have used up his nine lives very quickly. Janet was very sweet, a shy little girl and did not take to strangers easily but she always had a soft spot for her Uncle Jonny. I remember the very first time Maureen left her children with me while she went somewhere, they had played happily together all afternoon and when Jonny got home he found little Jan, put her on his knee and made friends with her. Maureen came back and was amazed to see her daughter sitting on the knee of someone she had just met. Apparently Jan was reluctant to get friendly with people until she had known them a long time. Whenever Jan knew Uncle Jonny was coming to visit she would find him an ashtray (her parents did not smoke) bring him a bottle of beer from the fridge and would comb her hair and wait for him to arrive.
When I first met Maureen’s husband Roy I thought that he and Jonny would have nothing in common and would not be good friends but I was very wrong. They got on very well even if their interests were different. Roy liked soccer and Jonny liked rugby, Roy like classical music and Jonny liked Rock and Roll, Roy was a university graduate and Jonny was not. Roy worked in a building society office and Jonny was an artisan. Some of the happiest times of our lives have been spent with the two families together. And for many years we saw the New Year in together, usually playing darts on the veranda of the Arnolds house and we nearly always spent Easter with each other but apart from these holidays we spent a lot of time together.
We baby sat for each other a lot. The kids were completely happy about spending time in each other’s houses and sleeping the night so we had no problems. Roy and Maureen would often come for supper or we would be invited to their house for a meal. It was good to have people one could try out a new recipe on. I remember once making a sweet and sour pork dish and it was a terrible flop, but then I made the mistake of trying a new pudding at the same time. I remember that it was chocolate and bananas and although Roy had very bravely eaten as much pork as he could he had to admit that he did not like the combination of chocolate and bananas and had to skip that. I think we all ended up having sandwiches to fill us up. What a disaster!! Roy liked to try out different wines on us and one evening he brought a bottle of Portuguese wine that he had been given as a gift. We all thought it was going to be a special treat but it was like vinegar and we teased him about that one for ages after.
Maureen and I spent one of our years on the Mothers Club committee organising the speakers. We really enjoyed that as it meant that we could have the kind of meetings that we enjoyed. But we did find that we got a few moans and requests for more flower arrangements or make up demonstrations, so we would pop in one or two very domesticated meetings and then go back to the things we liked, talks that were not so house and home orientated but were more thought provoking or educational. We had to attend a committee meeting once a month and they were always fun too. Shirley Shaw the chairlady was hardworking and very dedicated to her club. She was rather over weight and suffered with asthma and had a bit of a heart problem. When she was not feeling too well she would tell us that her favourite hymn was “Abide with me” and that we were to sing it at her funeral. Her husband worked in an asbestos factory and she arranged for us to go there on a visit. It is hard to imagine now when we are so aware of the dangers of asbestos but we were shown around the factory and watched the workers cut and work with the asbestos cement roof sheets, wall panels, garden furniture and even garden ornaments. The men wore facemasks but we didn’t.
I remember at one committee meeting Shirley told us a story that she had just heard and that had shocked her. Apparently there was this family who were going on holiday to South Africa. There was a mother a father and two children and they were also taking Granny with them. Granny was sitting between the children in the back seat and after they had crossed the border into South Africa Granny said that she was not feeling well. The Mom and Dad were concerned and told her that they would stop at the next town and get her to a doctor. Well the distance between towns was just too far and Granny expired. The children did not like the idea of sitting next to dead Granny so Dad wrapped her in a blanket and tied her on the roof rack. When they got to the next town they parked the car outside the police station and went in to report the incident. Unfortunately no one was prepared to stay with poor dead Granny (on the roof rack) and when they came back, the car plus Granny on the roof rack was gone, never to be found again. She went on to explain the problems that the family had trying to get back into the country. They had gone out as a family of five with one car and now they were trying to get back in without any documents or a car and without Granny. She took it all so seriously and Maureen and I just laughed and laughed, we could not believe that it was anything but an Urban Legend.
Having two boys I must admit I was a little fonder of male children than female ones. I had met quite a few little girls that I was not fond of. They seemed to me to be so much more complex than the boys, they seemed bossy and know alls, in fact old beyond their years but Janet restored my faith in little girls, she had the sweetest nature, and we all love her dearly.
Maureen’s son David was three years old, one year younger than Jonathan and Janet and Dominic would have been two that year. The children immediately got on well together and I really can’t remember them ever fighting. I suppose there must have been some disagreements but I just can’t recall any. David at three was a very adventurous child, he had climbed over their garden gate once and Maureen had found him across a busy road and almost on the railway line. He pulled some furniture in front of the medicine cabinet once and took something he should not have. If he had been a cat he would have used up his nine lives very quickly. Janet was very sweet, a shy little girl and did not take to strangers easily but she always had a soft spot for her Uncle Jonny. I remember the very first time Maureen left her children with me while she went somewhere, they had played happily together all afternoon and when Jonny got home he found little Jan, put her on his knee and made friends with her. Maureen came back and was amazed to see her daughter sitting on the knee of someone she had just met. Apparently Jan was reluctant to get friendly with people until she had known them a long time. Whenever Jan knew Uncle Jonny was coming to visit she would find him an ashtray (her parents did not smoke) bring him a bottle of beer from the fridge and would comb her hair and wait for him to arrive.
When I first met Maureen’s husband Roy I thought that he and Jonny would have nothing in common and would not be good friends but I was very wrong. They got on very well even if their interests were different. Roy liked soccer and Jonny liked rugby, Roy like classical music and Jonny liked Rock and Roll, Roy was a university graduate and Jonny was not. Roy worked in a building society office and Jonny was an artisan. Some of the happiest times of our lives have been spent with the two families together. And for many years we saw the New Year in together, usually playing darts on the veranda of the Arnolds house and we nearly always spent Easter with each other but apart from these holidays we spent a lot of time together.
We baby sat for each other a lot. The kids were completely happy about spending time in each other’s houses and sleeping the night so we had no problems. Roy and Maureen would often come for supper or we would be invited to their house for a meal. It was good to have people one could try out a new recipe on. I remember once making a sweet and sour pork dish and it was a terrible flop, but then I made the mistake of trying a new pudding at the same time. I remember that it was chocolate and bananas and although Roy had very bravely eaten as much pork as he could he had to admit that he did not like the combination of chocolate and bananas and had to skip that. I think we all ended up having sandwiches to fill us up. What a disaster!! Roy liked to try out different wines on us and one evening he brought a bottle of Portuguese wine that he had been given as a gift. We all thought it was going to be a special treat but it was like vinegar and we teased him about that one for ages after.
Maureen and I spent one of our years on the Mothers Club committee organising the speakers. We really enjoyed that as it meant that we could have the kind of meetings that we enjoyed. But we did find that we got a few moans and requests for more flower arrangements or make up demonstrations, so we would pop in one or two very domesticated meetings and then go back to the things we liked, talks that were not so house and home orientated but were more thought provoking or educational. We had to attend a committee meeting once a month and they were always fun too. Shirley Shaw the chairlady was hardworking and very dedicated to her club. She was rather over weight and suffered with asthma and had a bit of a heart problem. When she was not feeling too well she would tell us that her favourite hymn was “Abide with me” and that we were to sing it at her funeral. Her husband worked in an asbestos factory and she arranged for us to go there on a visit. It is hard to imagine now when we are so aware of the dangers of asbestos but we were shown around the factory and watched the workers cut and work with the asbestos cement roof sheets, wall panels, garden furniture and even garden ornaments. The men wore facemasks but we didn’t.
I remember at one committee meeting Shirley told us a story that she had just heard and that had shocked her. Apparently there was this family who were going on holiday to South Africa. There was a mother a father and two children and they were also taking Granny with them. Granny was sitting between the children in the back seat and after they had crossed the border into South Africa Granny said that she was not feeling well. The Mom and Dad were concerned and told her that they would stop at the next town and get her to a doctor. Well the distance between towns was just too far and Granny expired. The children did not like the idea of sitting next to dead Granny so Dad wrapped her in a blanket and tied her on the roof rack. When they got to the next town they parked the car outside the police station and went in to report the incident. Unfortunately no one was prepared to stay with poor dead Granny (on the roof rack) and when they came back, the car plus Granny on the roof rack was gone, never to be found again. She went on to explain the problems that the family had trying to get back into the country. They had gone out as a family of five with one car and now they were trying to get back in without any documents or a car and without Granny. She took it all so seriously and Maureen and I just laughed and laughed, we could not believe that it was anything but an Urban Legend.
Having two boys I must admit I was a little fonder of male children than female ones. I had met quite a few little girls that I was not fond of. They seemed to me to be so much more complex than the boys, they seemed bossy and know alls, in fact old beyond their years but Janet restored my faith in little girls, she had the sweetest nature, and we all love her dearly.
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