I suppose that most of us have, within our characters, behaviour patterns which could certainly be construed as a lot less than virtues. Throughout our lives we are at times maybe covetous, greedy, self-centred, unthinking or just downright bad-tempered and unpleasant – not necessarily huge personality faults in themselves but traits, sometimes exhibited, which stamp us as rather less than totally desirable.
However, every once in a while a delightful individual emerges who is, quite simply, a truly “good” person. I don’t mean in any religious, studied, self- righteous, manufactured, carefully contrived or “hiding behind convention” sort of way, but someone to whom unpleasantness of spirit is such an alien characteristic that it can be completely ignored.
A person with whom every encounter is an experience of rare worth.
Just such an emerald was our dear, dear mother — such a warm, soft, gentle, loving and unselfish lady. My earliest recollection of Mamma was being tucked-up in bed by this lovely comforting lady singing Angus and me to sleep with “Safe in the arms of Jesus, safe on His gentle breast”……. and safe we certainly felt in the presence of our calm and caring mother.
With a delightfully innocent sense of humour, she was very easily brought to laughter even when events had taken a turn for the worse and some minor depression was in the air. One always had the impression that lurking in the background was her innate good humour, just waiting for a chance remark to make her smile and when really tickled by something she became quite helpless with laughter. I remember time when we were trying to teach my brother-in-law how to perform a Pas-de-Bas in Scottish Dancing – he was bobbing up and down like a jack-in-the- box even while we were still trying to explain the step, and Mamma, watching this spring-loaded Dervish, was so overcome with laughter that she became completely rooted to the spot, setting the rest of us off into almost uncontrollable mirth.
What a gem she was and such tolerance she displayed at events which would have driven any ordinary woman to murder! When I eventually had managed to get my first coal-fired locomotive to the stage of steam testing, it was about 12 o’clock midnight but that didn’t deter me from getting up steam and having a trial run! (impatient youth of course!). There was a long passage (ideal for testing) from the workshop past the bedrooms and bathroom ending at the landing and my mother’s bedroom (this was the West Norwood house). With a plank supported on a couple of skates (I believe), Angus and I were attempting rides along the carpeted passage – smoke, sparks, steam and oil everywhere – when Mamma popped out of her bedroom to see what all the “chuff, chuffing” and commotion was. Instead of going berserk at the mess and noise, she simply watched it for a while, said “Oh isn’t it good” and went back to bed!! Even I was astounded after expecting certain censure.
Mind you, she did have the odd idiosyncrasy; Mamma would go through china and crockery almost as fast as it could be made, and I think she destroyed at least a twelve-place dinner and tea service each year. She didn’t just break one plate at a time, but more usually ruined least a dozen. Come to think of it, if the ghastly amount of washing-up was taken into consideration, the breakage rate was probably fairly reasonable.
I blush even yet when I think how we all took her for granted. She was there because she was there and, unwittingly perhaps, we expected everything from her. She had to listen, understand, guide, and utilise all the craft of mothering and home-making in bringing up a large family in her totally selfless way, and demanding so little from us in the process. I am inclined to think that all really lovely people suffer from a universal trivialisation of their greatest qualities. By being so devoid of demands on their immediate associates, their goodness and accomplishments are just taken as events with which they are almost handicapped! If you are nice then you’re damned lucky – the rest of us haven’t got the time to be so pleasant.
Dear Mamma must have had faults of course, but she continued such a generous existence that they remained hidden, and we as a family benefitted so much from her wonderful devotion. She died at the very early age of sixty-two, and looking back now I just wish that I had been more appreciative of her wonderful virtues when it would have mattered to her – ah! well, I suppose many of us sigh for the days that might have been.
We did have a certain amount of help with someof the daily chores, there being two Cockney ladies who shared alternate weeks and jobs such as cleaning the stepsand the front of the house. I believe they were Mrs. White, who always wore enormous black hats and tremendous amounts of clothes ( maybe her total wardrobe!) and her sister Mrs Brewer, a skinny little woman who was always incredibly cheerful. The daily helps were Daisy (regularly) and Ivy (variously). I remember that Daisy had a slightly unpleasant habit of licking the porridge serving spoons if she thought that nobody was looking. Later we had Mrs. Hawes, whose chief occupation as far as I can recall, was sitting drinking tea and gabbing while my mother did most of the work. I expect Mamma enjoyed their company – she undoubtedly got lots and lots of laughs from them, so I expect that they were worth their time and money.
One of Mamma’s genuine delights was cooking, and what a cook! Not a tidy one it must be admitted. The kitchen would appear in complete chaos, but oh! the results. Out of the jumble of rolling-pins, currants, butter, tins and bowls, scales, flour and sugar would materialise as if by magic, soda-scones, treacle-scones, tattie-scones, Chelsea-buns, madelines, cream sponges, Parkerhouse-rolls, Madeira-cakes, Dundee-cakes, Scotch- pancakes, apple-pies and turnovers (with and without cloves), fruit tarts, jam tarts, waffles, meringues, gingerbread men and ladies, etc.etc. The list was endless and indeed, the quantity vast – it had to be I suppose, in order to satisfy the appetites of her own brood plus an enthusiastic sampling by neighbours children all having a whack at reducing the piles of “goodies”! (and they surely knew where to come!). It was all produced to the personal accompaniment of a quiet but very tuneful voice and regardless of many interruptions by small fry for hot scones and butter or warm gingerbread men. She was equally adept at producing any kind of meals. Roasts, soups, stews, pies, puddings, casseroles, fish-dishes, game, poultry and gorgeous sweets, all achieved seemingly to us, with trifling effort.
Such is the penance of true ability!
Each year she somehow found time to fill an immense number of jars and crocks with jams, marmalades and preserves of every kind. These filled the kitchen cupboards and the big walk-in larder, the shelves of which always seemed to have a variety of cold meats and sometimes a brace or two of pheasant or grouse sent by my uncle in Scotland. He would put them on the morning train “to be called for” at Euston Station by my father or delivered by Carter Paterson to home – just a label tied round the necks and no-one ever appropriated them. Just imagine trying to send the same sort of merchandise in a similar way today. I think it would be asking the impossible.
How that amazing woman managed to cope with it all and still fit in time for making dresses and blouses for the girls, knitting jerseys and socks for we boys, sewing countless pearl buttons on shirts and God knows what else for us, I simply cannot conceive. In addition she had the facility to read books at a tremendous rate whilst knitting, and to absorb everything she read – she had astounding recall and, I believe, remembered every word she read. Many times I have asked her about something in a book which she had read months or even years before and her memory of it would always be quite faultless.
Shopping was just another chore that was accomplished by her and although a lot of stuff was delivered in those days, she still carried great bags of purchases home – my father did not drive so we had no car.
It should be realised that there were no stainless steel or plastic surfaces (unless American-cloth sheets were counted). We had no electricity, so all mixing was performed with a fork or a hand-driven whisk. We had no refrigerator, thus all meals had to be planned with care, since some of the ingredients obviously had a limited life in the larder. To be candid the said larder always appeared very cold to me but perhaps that was just an association of ideas about cold food storage and stone slabs. Anyhow it seemed jolly cold on the odd occasions when the larder was cleared of food and scrubbed out in order to wage war against a cheeky crowd of ants who had assumed squatter’s rights.
Another time consuming task, which the ladies of the house always managed most successfully, was ironing clothes. Being devoid of electricity meant that electric irons were “out” and other methods were employed. We had at various times a paraffin-heated iron, a methylated spirit fuelled iron, and a gas-heated iron with a long metal-clad, flexible tube connected to the gas-stove by the simple expedient of removing one of the burner castings and pushing the rubber connector over the jet. (I wonder what the Fire-Brigade of today would have to say) . Come to think of it the gas-stoves of today don’t have convenient jets anyway. Minor interruptions could be caused by someone tripping over the flexible tube, which would promptly part company with the gas-jet, necessitating the nearest person to dive for the gas-tap before anything serious happened. In addition to the above selection, we mostly used the ubiquitous flat-iron, heating it on the gas-stove until the temperature was judged correct ( by holding it close to the face), before clipping it into a nickel-plated slipper, another iron heating on the stove meanwhile. The art was in setting the gas-stove flame to just the right level in order to have the second iron ready at the moment the first had given up its useable heat.
Most clothes that needed ironing were made from either cotton or linen and consequently had a fair spread of ironing temperature before scorching. I don’t know how today’s synthetics would have fared with the tendency of some of them to forget their “long-chain molecule birth” and to become “melting-type molecule” materials under a slightly hotter than recommended electric iron setting.
Flat-irons had some useful secondary roles such as nut-cracking or doing duty as a shoe-last when a nail or maybe a “blakey” or two were needed in boy’s boots or shoes and the official item could not be found.
The paraffin and spirit-fuelled irons were beautifully made gadgets, each with a neat little tank attached which fed a small flame inside a vented cover. This would sometimes become a much larger flame outside the cover and demanded the sacrifice of an all-engulfing wet towel. Oh! yes, one needed one’s wits about them when using such aids to ironing, but it all added to the jollification of clothes-pressing time.