Kay Reed | Childhood

Childhood

Derwen Fawr

Those were easy days on the eye,

When beauty spilled over the countryside.

As a child I could hear a cry,

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

Wild Honeysuckle and roses hedgerows dressed.

Winberries, blackberries filled mam's pies.

With happy memories I am blessed.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

The land was as wild as the river

That snaked before the 'row',

Where rats played and trout slithered,

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

This dream was as real as a lie.

Stars shone through a hole in the roof,

Pans placed aptly kept me dry.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

Night was as black as a witch's cloak.

Bats played in the great oak's boughs,

At my window tapping twigs broke.

And echoes called across the valley.

Come! Come!

T'was then dads worked every day

To keep their familes well,

While mams cleaned their lives away.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

Robust children to the village school

Saw bluebelled fields through child eyes.

To leave all this I'd be a fool.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

My home was condemned when I was ten,

No toilet, hot water and wet.

My paradise was too soon to end.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

We moved a few miles away,

To a house, not a home.

I used to look back each day,

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

I see seven cottages in a row and as a child I lived at the far end in number seven. The house had a large area at the side where we grew vegetables and kept chickens; it was my job, each morning before school, to collect the eggs from the cwb. I did this with no fear and we owned one cockerel.

We reared the chickens from beautiful yellow fluffy chicks my father would buy on his way home from work. We’d help the chicks in early days by enclosing them in cardboard in front of our large black leaded hearth with its stacked coal fire. I can never remember feeling cold as a child, although it was a stone house with two bedrooms up and two rooms down.

My father’s brother, a butcher, used to cull the fully grown and amply fed chickens every xmastime and my parents made a few bob profit. As a child I was sent out for the day so that I did not witness the carnage in the living room. The chicks replaced the chickens in the spring.

We were very fortunate to have cold running water indoors in the kitchen area of the living room. The sink housed one cold tap and next to it was a two-ringed cooker top. All baking was done in the oven at the side of the coal fire and water was heated on the actual coal fire with its small resting shelves each side. The bath hung outside next to the back door and bathing water was heated in buckets on the hot coals. Bath night was Sunday with the youngest in first. Vinegar would be added to the final hair rinse to ward off head lice and so that the hair would shine. Clothes washing was done on Mondays with the help of a scrubbing board and iron hand mangle to wring the washing. Water would flood the solid stone slab floor.

Outside, stone steps were scrubbed each day by the women of the row to ward off rats, from the rubbish tip, by their cleanliness. Because we didn’t have a refuse service our rubbish was thrown over the ‘cwm’ a few steps away from our back doors. This was a valley which housed a fast flowing river where we loved to play.

Also sanitation was poor and virtually non-existent. At the bottom of each garden, at the front of the row, was a sort of toilet housed in stone and a wooden plank to sit on over a running stream; squares of newspaper were used to wipe afterwards. There was no light and no window. My father built a tin shed at the side of our house with a chemical toilet and we felt very posh to have this facility. He buried the contents every Sunday, with Jeyes fluid disinfectant, in a waste ground area. Also at the side he built a swing and I would nurse my baby brother, sitting on it, to help my mother.

There were allotments near the cottages for each of the tenants to grow vegetables. The weekly rent for each house was ten shillings. They were inspected regularly because they were classed as condemned and unfit to live in. In spite of this we all loved living there even with bad living conditions. There was only one access to the row over a wooden bridge spanning the width of the river; This was flimsy, dangerous and condemned. During heavy rainfall the river rose above the bridge and children were unable to go to school and fathers to work.

When the men could get overtime they worked 7 days a week and often with no bus service. They often walked many miles in all weathers.

One regular visitor, the local farmer, delivered milk and orange juice by horse and cart. He often gave us children a ride to the village school. In the lambing season we were always welcome in the farmhouse kitchens to feed the lambs. Stone slab floors were scattered with sawdust and we sat on wooden furniture around a black-leaded fireplace with a towering mantelpiece. We were amply rewarded for our visits each with a bottle of orange juice.

Farmers carried guns and objected strongly to any trespassers on their land. We were, however, allowed to play in the fields unharmed.

We were a very close-knit community where back doors remained unlocked by day and families cared for each other during times of illness and bereavement.

The village nearby, of which we were a part, held carnivals, processions and parties. It was said we had the best Guy Fawkes bonfire for miles around. It held a full evening of entertainment for all the ‘row’ and everyone ‘mucked in’ to help. As children we would spend many weeks collecting wood for the bonfire from the surrounding woods. Mothers helped to create the Guy and my father brought paraffin home from work to help the flames on their way. Mothers all cooked hot dogs and later on in the embers we cooked potatoes from our gardens.

I remember the wonderful village carnivals with the brightly decorated floats. One year, my mother made my dress as I was chosen as one of the attendants on a beautiful floral-decorated lorry. Old chairs were adorned with bright curtains to sit on and flowers made from crepe paper. We had the reputation for the best carnivals.

We left all this behind to move to a council housing estate. Many tried to resurrect the community spirit but it didn’t last. It would be wonderful if close communities could be developed again, but it seems unlikely. I believe it is because these groups of houses are artificially erected from cold bricks and mortar, unnatural compared to the natural growth of old villages. It is known that village entertainment in the valley of my youth has also ended. My friends and I from the ‘row’ had a childhood children today could only dream of.

We were privileged.

Memories of my favourite childhood book

My earliest memory of such a favourite book lives deep in the fabric of my childhood. All of my much loved books then were given to me by my Grandma. I was an avid reader but practical skills have needed to take over in my life path since, because of the need to care for myself and my family. My Grandma taught me all of those skills also.

A distant memory of such a book was recalled in my mind’s depths, ‘Jemima Carolina in the Water’. It was highly illustrated, and I never tired of the comfort this book offered me, usually during childhood illnesses when total bed rest for a few weeks was advised. I cannot remember how old I was acquiring this book, but I am aware that it came off my book-shelf during times of needed comfort. My distant memory seems to tell me that Jemima was a clothed wooden doll who sought adventures underwater, and this book was one of a series.

The memory, now triggered, is important to me. I am a child, not small, doomed to bed rest for an infectious illness by my family doctor. It is winter, and I am glad of the comfort of my bed and ample warm blankets. I occupied one of the two bedrooms in our end house of an isolated row of miners‘ cottages.

I loved my bedroom; it had pretty wallpaper decorated with small pink roses. And it housed an open coal fireplace, which was never lit, and it had a white painted wooden mantelpiece on the wall opposite my bed. To my right side was a large ill-fitting window with a low sill which caught the rain, while the wind whistled through the loose small panes. Leaves and twigs on a wayward branch of a giant oak tree, would tap against my window.

There was no vision or memory of the left hand side of my bedroom. I have no memory of anything happening that side either.

The stone walls kept me cold in the winter and cool in hot summers. During pitch darkness, I could reach a battery operated headboard light in pink plastic casing. I had a posh pink bed with a soft mattress and deep sprung pink base supported by four short stout legs. My father hand fitted a white painted wooden shelf for my books and dolls. Underneath it was a navy and grey doll’s pram with lots of dolls’ clothes made lovingly by my Grandma. Next to the pram was a crib which my father had made in work for me one Xmas.

My mother had sewn drapes patterned in tiny red roses edged with lace. In the fireplace was a large portrait of my Grampa as a handsome young man. My grandparents had lived here for many years before we moved in. On the window sill was a tall paraffin lamp no longer in use. And during bad weather my parents carefully placed bowls and buckets to catch the rainwater. I saw stars through a hole in the roof. A multitude of bats played in the caverns of the giant oak tree outside my window.

The row of cottages was named after a large oak tree, ‘Derwen Fawr’. Red bushy-tailed squirrels were a common sight, as were an abundance of wild fruit and flowers in ample unspoiled hedgerows.

I am thankful for this childhood recall triggered by my memory of a book that I had forgotten, and more importantly the great significance of pink roses. Nearly half a century later, they were to play a prominent part during a major breakdown while I was a detained patient on an acute psychiatric ward.

Until writing this I had no idea where my love of pink roses originated.

They were to play a main part in my recovery from a place somewhere inside of me I did not know existed, and from where I nearly didn’t escape.

My breakdown has opened up a whole world of floral creativity which had been totally absent in my life but now flowers communicate to my wayward soul. I am very much aware they offer me the opportunity to dare to delve into my depths and learn through their endless beauty.

One day I hope and pray I may discover who I am.

I thank my God I can write this in my home and am relatively stable. My brother was not that fortunate.

I am thankful for my unexpected journey into the realms of a much loved childhood place and a room that could speak countless untold words.

Kay Reed 9.11.2005

1.9.68

It was a city on water and I was just a little girl of 7 years travelling to America with my beloved grandma Lily. Our journey by ship proved to be the best part of the 3 months visit to South Carolina to see my aunt and family, Lily’s daughter; my mother’s sister.

I really don’t know what grandma expected but we had a big send off at our local train station, press and all. It was to be a holiday of a lifetime which was to become a secret between grandma and I until now, 55 years later, 2013, 40 years after her death. It totally changed our lives and nothing was to be normal again.

As a child and then adult I watched my beloved grandma change from a bubbly loving lady to a depressed and withdrawn person only putting on a mask for the outside world. She never recovered from the experience.

“Please don’t cry grandma!!”I used to say to her at night before she fell asleep exhausted from a hard day looking after us all; my aunt, her husband and 4 young children. Yes, the ‘black maid’, one of many over the years caring and cleaning for my aunt was sacked in time for our arrival.

You guessed it! – my precious proud grandma was the new maid for our 3 month stay.

In that time I did not see a day when she did not wear a pinny.

The home was a wooden one floor building with a porch and play area at the side. Opposite was a mill that was functional 24 hrs x 7 days a week and the noise was deafening. We were assured we would get used to it. There was a pavement our side of the road and a dirt track the other. I quickly learnt the black people were only allowed to walk opposite. I noticed these children had no shoes and wore rags. I tried to speak to my grandma because I couldn’t understand. She brought me up to believe all people were equal despite their colour. She kept quiet but when I told my cousins, the reply came. “They’re only niggers!”

I hung on to my grandmas socialist beliefs that were inbred in me. I saw and learnt much during our stay that shocked me and memories that I have lived with.

There were no equal rights. Back home on my bedroom shelf sat a black doll dressed in a yellow trouser suit knitted as a Xmas gift from my grandma. A very wise and wonderful lady was she.

While she skivvied in the kitchen, I never saw my aunt out of high heels and smartly dressed with a cigarette in a holder at her lips. My aunt was manageress of a store and worked hard. She often brought home pretty dresses for myself and cousin that grandma had paid for.

One night in our put-u-up bed in the living room I saw her write a letter home asking for money to be sent to us. I wet the bed every night. No one knew our secret suffering, grandma and I. We just counted the days for our return passage home. Nothing was ever said to my aunt.

I became very close to my aunt by telephone before she died but one day she told me how she deliberately sacked her maid because she planned how grandma would look after us all. She found this humorous and laughed saying how naughty she was. I remained silent and near to tears.

She told me she never, never paid the maids but they were grateful for their meals and hand me down clothes for their children. The maids would fulfill all duties a mother would do and this was enjoyed freely by my aunt.

Grandma and I saw the segregated chicken wired areas these unfortunate families lived in. Somehow they survived in shacked wooden huts on dirt ground.

May God forgive the whites for abusing these good people because of the colour of their skin. I noticed in school there were only white children and white teachers. Also an immaculately tiled outdoor local swimming pool stood next door to an unlined dirt pool of muddy water for black children with dirty underwear. I watched in disgust through a hole in the dividing wooden fence. I was only 7 years old and too young to understand what was happening. These were dangerous times and grandma wouldn’t speak to me about it through fear.

One day we children asked grandma for money to visit the local cinema and she barely had enough money in her purse. Only white children were allowed in. During the interval the lights came on and exposed my aunt and uncle sitting at the rear of the cinema with no shame while my grandma stayed at home with chores in their kitchen while on a holiday of a lifetime.

Grandma saved the money sent from home and before our return passage by ship we toured a little. We travelled to New York and Washington and saw many sights. On one bus journey she gave me a large bag holding a large doll and a pile of beautifully knitted doll’s clothes. This she kept a secret from me and I loved my grandma Lily dearly.

As the ship was about to dock in Liverpool we waved to my grampa and father, grandma turned to me with desperation in her eyes and pursed her lips, “sssh!!!” she said covering her lips with her finger. “It’s our secret”.

I had many rows off adults for never speaking about those 3 months in America. Grandma’s dignity and pride was more important. I couldn’t let her down.

By the time I was in my early teens I was already suffering from a mental illness called bipolar. I have suffered from it ever since.

I now realize it was very wrong of my grandma to expect me at 7 years of age to bury 3 months of that bad experience. I watched her grow old bitter and riddled with cancer.

My beloved Lily – “Why”.

In this piece I am the adult and the child.
Written post breakdown
6.11.05

A Little Girl

It was evening when the sharp descending sun cast a sudden red hue onto the trees. Even the leafy ground turned as red as the sky. It reminded me of blood that I would rather forget. It is only a few months since I was in a very different place. This evening also reminded me of beauty, and the many visitors that seek comfort from the world here. This is tranquility and peace. I am at one with my God. There is wildlife in abundance, and as I look over the lake beyond contented wildlife, a mother duck leads her new brood, a string of babies, following her in a straight line, and she was as proud as a peacock loving every minute.

I see a few seats beyond the lakeside, where families gather to feed the ducks, geese and a black swan. I steal my place on a bench unnoticed, as someone moves to chase away a runaway child.

There are many children here, so I do not notice at first, a child sitting next to me.

She had long thick brown hair, large brown pools of eyes, and rosy cheeks. She wore a plaid skirt, with pleats no longer ironed in, and to keep her warm, a lovely hand-knitted red and white cardigan over a matching top. There was something about this child.

“Lovely here, isn’t it?” I said breaking the silence.

“Y-y-yes”, she replied with some difficulty.

“Did you come by car?”

“Never b-b-been in a c-c-car. We w-w-walked from C-Caewern”, came the reply.

“I live there, have been most of my life”.

“We j-just moved in a new house w-w-with a bathroom, a real t-toilet and hot w-water”, she exclaimed.

“Do you like it there?”

Thoughtfully she contemplated her reply, “No, I miss C-C-Cilfrew…loved it there. W-W-We had a river, lots of f-fields and woods to play in, dens and r-river pools. My f-f-favourite was w-walking up r-river on f-flat rocks, t-t-touching the trout beneath my f-feet”.

These exciting memories shone in her eyes. She, so young and already experiencing the loss of a life she may never be able to replace. In recent years I overheard someone as he looked over Caewern, “Many houses, few homes”. I wonder if this little girl will find a home here. She broke my silent thoughts.

“When it r-rained the river w-w-would rise and c-cover the w-w-wooden bridge, our only w-way across. Dads c-couldn’t get to w-w-work…children c-c-couldn’t go to s-school”.

“How old are you?”

“Eleven”.

“What school do you go to?”

“C-Catwg Primary….j-just passed the s-scholarship for the Girls Grammar S-S-School”, she announced, proudly.

“Congratulations!” I felt pleased for her. I also passed a scholarship.

“Are you an only child?”

“N-No, I have a little b-b-brother”.

“I had a younger brother, he died suddenly eight years ago. I miss him”.

“I help my m-mother…. Play w-with him and t-t-take him f-for walks in the p-pushchair. H-He’s very busy. One d-day he w-went m-missing….neighbours helped s-search for him…f-found him in a f-field f-full of cows. M-My mother gets t-tired. I like h-helping her”.

“What does your father do?”

“He w-w-works all the time…. Don’t s-s-see much of him. He w-wears overalls. He s-saved a m-man’s life once i-in w-work… a b-boulder landed on his f-foot and b-broke it”, she said with pride.

“Who made your lovely outfit?”

M-My m-m-mother made my skirt, and m-my grandma knitted m-my two-piece…. She t-taught me t-to knit. Embroidering a t-tablecloth I started a f-few years ago w-when I had chicken p-pox. G-G-Grandma bought the kit f-for me and t-taught me the s-stitches”.

She waved at a pretty woman with a little boy.

“That’s m-my m-m-mother and b-brother.

You are s-s-sitting in their p-place”.

The Other Side of Childhood

The woods were dense and poorly lit; the muddy track led to the flimsy wooden bridge over the full river beneath and the heavy downpour of rain mixed with my tears. I was very frightened and alone with a good trek to the farmhouse in the dark. I didn’t know how I was to fill the empty bag I was carrying, with potatoes and be able to carry it home. I was 8 years of age.

When my father came home from work there was no food on the table because there were no potatoes to cook. In his temper he gave me a bag and told me to go to the farm to buy some. Halfway I became very frightened because we lived in a very isolated part of the village. I turned and ran back home to face the consequences. I believe my mother borrowed potatoes from a neighbour. Problem solved for the time being but it proved not for me.

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In my adult years during times of trouble I always sought out my father as if he was the only and last person who walked the earth! There was no-one else. But my brother died a sad and lonely suicide while in care. For many years he did not know where my father lived and I was severely reprimanded by my father for giving my brother his telephone number. For many years I had no transport to visit him but when we could we did and we invited him to stay on a regular basis and my father did visit him also regularly.

To this day I do not know what angered him but I was too young to understand. I was afraid and ran to the back door. It was dark outside and an old coat acted as a draught excluder to cover the gap at the bottom of the door; it is bitterly cold and the wind howled through the wild branchesof the huge tree outside, it was bigger than the house. My mother stood at the sink nearby. I cwtched into the green door, not being tall enough to open it and suddenly I felt something on the back of both legs and couldn’t breathe. My mother grabbed me and I could hear raised voices. I let out a loud scream. My mother screamed to my father,”Lay a hand on her again and I’ll leave you!” He never hit me again but he also never stood up to my mother and she always protected my brother not me, which left me wide open for him to take vent of his raw nerves on me. My stammer annoyed him immensely and no-one ever discussed the problem with me. I became introverted, isolated and delved into a relationship with my long term boyfriend in my teens; we were inseparable.

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Childhood memories

My naked legs scratch to the blades of long grass while tears run un relentlessly down my warm face; there was no one to listen to my wild sobs; I am 8 years of age. When my legs tired I fell to cry in the privacy of the fields near my home. There were few if any happy memories these days since the birth of my brother who proved to be a difficult baby who had recently fractured his collar bone. These were hard times for my parents and my father had a short temper coupled with the habit of taking his raw nerves out on me instead of my mother. We were sitting around the table at a mealtime and for no reason he took his vengeance out on me when my brother began screaming. When I stopped crying with spent exhaustion I slowly make my way back to the house to face my wasted meal; no-one will look for me and nothing more will be said about the incident. This was to be the start of my life at the raw end of my fathers temper and around this time I developed a stammer which was to affect me into adulthood when I left home. By the time I was in my early teens I developed what I now know as bi-polar disorder, a severe and major mental illness. I spent a lot of time alone in my room and cried far too much.

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