What provokes a memory? For me it is a happy thought. When the sparkling summer sun playfully shimmers into my bedroom window, then I see children skipping and laughing down a pavement street. Images come flooding into my mind of a time when Alison and I were about two and four respectively. Mum would help us to get dressed into our ironed summer dresses, as she prepared herself to go out for the afternoon.
We walked down the road full of excitement. When we got to Auntie Peggy’s we heard sounds of laughing, accompanied by the ringing doorbell.
“Welcome, come in Joy. Alison and Moira, the kids are outside in the cubby house. Go join them”.
We tried to walk but usually skipped past the dining room table laden with food mostly sandwiches, sometimes pies, and the cakes not very often baked but bought from the local cake shop in Hatch End High Street. We rarely hosted these afternoons as Auntie Peggy was a wonderful hostess and always offered her home.
Mum was always happy at these times with her special friends; she always looked pretty and dressed up in a smart dress with one of her brooches or scarves. Her face had a blush of powder and red lipstick. She with the other ladies were not locals but were brought together with a shared history. They grew to be her close friends – they had all lived through wartime in Britain. All the ladies met at the baby clinics set up to weigh and measure babies, but were also places to share problems and good ideas. As friendships grew they asked each other to share afternoon tea always at their homes. They were women who valued their men; they all especially loved laughter and camaraderie.
“Well hello, how’s my handsome boyfriend’ giggled Auntie Peggy
“Bruce is on early turn this week, so he will be home soon to rest”
Mum shared the news of Dad’s typical life – never there in the morning on early turns and late home on “late turns”. Turns meaning the roster times of a Policeman. In those days ladies flirted outrageously with my handsome Dad, knowing full well he was intensely loyal to Mum.
“Come in come in – we are all out in the garden today – table is outside”
Mum brought sandwiches or cakes normally we did the home baking – the others could afford the cake shops. All were welcome in the back garden which overlooked the Shaftesbury Playing Fields where we could pick blackberries in autumn, or play on the swings and roundabouts occasionally.
Let me introduce the gathering, all ready with a smile and a hug for each other. We children had to call the older ladies ‘Auntie”. We had Auntie Joyce who was a school teacher, more than that she taught Maths. She used to listen to my chatty meanderings in all seriousness, and then say “Well done Moira – that sounds wonderful” Her daughter was Margot Buck. Margot was a little bossy, but then she was an only child.
Auntie Easter was a more exotic Brazilian ex-pat, she was blond and had a sunny smile. She had a lovely smiley daughter called Mandy, who was slightly younger than me. Later on Easter had “an afterthought” a young child called Johnny. Auntie Easter owned the really big home in the expensive side of Hatch End. Mandy was a very pleasant girl who never used to get upset at all! Seven years later she was at Oxford Polytechnic when I stayed with her and her boyfriend for the day and she showed me around. I now own Auntie Easter’s Brazilian moonstone ring which she gave to Mum when we left for Australia. Mum bequeathed it to me.
Auntie Peggy lived in Colburn Avenue and her house backed onto the playing fields. Her daughter was Karen, and her husband was a salesman in baby clothes. She always had great ideas in home decorating, and spent a lot of time and money on redoing her lounge room or kitchen at least once every two or three years. This always involved a lot of discussion, oohs and aahs from everyone. Her family came from Switzerland and she had a very famous cousin who was a well-known comedian and dancer in the 50’s and 60’s, Dickie Henderson. He had his own Television show on the BBC. Karen was an only child too and owned a play house – but you had to be careful how you pulled the curtains! I never did these things the “right” way.
Auntie Daphne who had Leslie Morton my sister’s best friend was truly a great friend of my mothers. She was a smoker, and she had four children altogether. Leslie had really bad eczema which she grew out of in later life. Then David was born with asthma and eczema, he lived too about eighteen months old then died. Then John her husband got a really good job in Glasgow at his bank – they moved to Scotland to a beautiful village called Lanark between Glasgow and Edinburgh. There they had two more children another boy, Richard and girl, Judith with not smidge of eczema! Daphne could sing really well and John could play the organ and piano. They were the mainstay of the local choir.
Auntie Gerda was German Jewish; her second marriage was to Fred Kirby. All her family had died in concentration camps Mum whispered to us. She had a much older son Frank, and a younger daughter our age called Norma. Norma loved playing weddings. As she was pretty, blond and had a flouncy dress – she was the bride, I had to be the groom and Alison and her friends the bridesmaids. We had a big fight one playtime as I absolutely refused to go through the full wedding ceremony as I was convinced I would be legally married to Norma. We finally made it a brief ceremony!
In 1976, on the train to Glasgow from Lanark, John Morton shyly showed us a picture he had in his wallet of Lesley, and Alison who were bridesmaids, Norma the bride and me dressed as the groom. It was so worth it, despite gritting my teeth over the memory of a very determined Norma versus my intransigence, as it had given John many happy moments over the years!
We had a fabulous trip down memory lane, popping back to Colburn Avenue to meet some of them again. They really were an amazing mix of wonderful, intelligent and very funny women brought together by Peggy who had a heart of gold. She welcomed us back from Australia for a very brief “afternoon tea”; it was such a special time.
Below a picture of John Morton playing the organ at the Lanark Choral Society about the 1980’s. Next Auntie Easter, Moira aged 22, Auntie Peggy who insisted on being photographed eating a cake, the point of an Afternoon Tea, with Auntie Joyce and in front Karen with her gorgeous son – who would be 46 years old in 2019!!
thewishedforhappinesstree 