My family
had not, what I would consider today, a very close and loving
association, however, relative to what appeared to be the average
marriage of those days, it was workable. Mum had a difficult
relationship with her in-laws during the early days of her marriage, and
this degenerated to near impossible as time went by. The physical
closeness of their respective homes did not help a great deal, and the
solution of moving house was obstructed by Dad refusing point blank, to
even talk about such a daring adventure, never mind execute it. To me,
and to Bob, she was everything that a loving mother could be; she gave
her every attention to ensure that we should know that there was another
life, other than the generally accepted; “go to school, then go to
t’pit”. She continually went to great lengths to teach us to eat and
speak correctly, she taught us to sew and darn, to hold ourselves
responsible for our actions, keep a moral attitude and above all to be
honest in all our dealings. I have always considered her greatest gift
to us was to teach us to read, and write, almost in tandem with learning
to walk and speak. As a respected member of her Chapel community she
made us attend services every Sunday, and later, would quiz us on what
the preacher had made as his subject for that day. For
me this was a lost cause, I tried, but there were so many questions that
could not be answered by the usual response which I invariably received;
“What do you want to know that for?” “You are too young to
understand” and so on. I must have broken her heart many times over.
She was born in Nottingham; her
father; (Tom Burns) was a blacksmith, he was also a member of the South
Nott’s Hussars, a Territorial Army cavalry unit. Her mother, Ann
Brook, was the daughter of a farming family who had property in the
Barrowby area just South of Grantham. The only one of her father’s
relatives that I remember was his sister Mary, who married a man called
Whittaker; they owned a ‘Fish and Chip’ shop in Dinnington. This
Aunty was a good friend to us; we often walked the distance from
Tickhill, just to visit. Aunt ‘Spuddy’ was always handy for the
occasions that the ‘tooth fairy’ came to visit.
I
do not know the true circumstance of how Eva met Bill; it was one of
those unanswered questions. I believe she was working as a Housemaid at
Scaftworth Hall and she would travel with her friends to Tickhill on
their bicycles, there were small dances, a good cricket team and the
annual fairground available for the entertainment of those who wished to
live dangerously. Nothing like the bright lights to get things going!
After her marriage she was
innovative, and would work hard at trying to make a home with the sparse
materials at her disposal, she would get us boys cutting old clothes
into strips, we would peg these into old sacking to make rugs for the
floor, To my shame I have often criticised her cooking abilities. I
never took into consideration that her tools were a coal fired oven
where the temperature control was to throw on some more coal, thereby
temporally cooling it down, followed by an uncontrolled increase of
heat, and of course the saucepans and frying pans were placed on the
open hob above the coals. She did her best and had faith that Jesus
would return and make it all worthwhile.
She
was directed to a job in a munitions factory close to the colliery at
Maltby, where the production of armaments interfered with the important
work of the manufacture of such black market goods as cigarette lighters
and other useful trinkets
It is paradoxical that one of the
greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, (WW2) was to make such an
improvement in her daily life. In one small space of time her lot was
transformed from eking out her small allowance from “the parish” to
having a steady income from the revived fortunes of the mines. Life, for
her was still hard, but at least she won out on her wish to move house
and we moved to Wilsic road, still in Tickhill but away from her
in-laws. She could now buy herself some small luxuries, albeit her
chapel rules did not permit too much frivolity, such as lipstick and
makeup, (Horrors: A painted woman!). Needless to say this hiatus proved
a mixed blessing, for, as the War gathered pace, she and thousands of
other women were conscripted either into the Forces or to ‘essential
industries’ In her case she was directed to a job in a munitions
factory close to the colliery at Maltby, where the production of
armaments interfered with the important work of the manufacture of such
black market goods as cigarette lighters and other useful trinkets, This
illegal trade made her very troubled and it genuinely upset her. I
remember her talking it over with some of her fellow workers; she seemed
to be the only one concerned about this situation.
Her, (to me little understood)
pride in her Scottish heritage, was very important to her. Her paternal
grandfather was born in Scotland and lived in the Corby/Harlexton area
at the time prior to my birth. To digress; in the early 1970s she was
visiting me in Eton, it was my daughters birthday and we had promised
Angela a new skirt and blouse as ‘the useful’ present, (as opposed
to a frivolous one) both items to be chosen by Angela without question
from the adults. Angela chose a kilt in the Stuart tartan, and Eva
became infuriated! If, “my grandchild is to wear a kilt, then she must
wear the Campbell tartan.” There was an altercation, after all, there
had been a promise made, which resulted in Eva packing her bags and
departing for home in high indignation. The funny thing is that I was
obliged to drive her all the way.
Perhaps her best friend was Annie
Bonnet who lived on Doncaster Road; Annie was a fun loving person and
from my recollection did not let things disturb her too much.
She had a good relationship with
both her daughter–in-laws, it was amusing to hear her confide about me
to my wife, coming up with exasperated remarks like; “Well, you know
what he is like!” She enjoyed the company of both June, Bob’s wife
and my Val. to a degree that I believe to be unusual; perhaps her own
experiences had an influence, who knows? Both June and Val as well as
her sons, found a huge void in their lives when she died.
During her early childhood she
lived in Stoke Rochford and attended school in Great Ponton, both south
of Grantham.
At the commencement of the 1914 war
her fathers TA regiment was mustered into the colours and, after a stint
in France, he went to the Middle East where he was attached as a Farrier
to General Allenby’s headquarters which was in Palestine, and was
present when the League of Nations mandated England to administer that
country. He was quite perturbed that twenty five years later his
grandson, me, was there in one of the Regiments at the time the Mandate
was terminated.
During summer vacations, she always
made efforts to visit her parents with her boys. We would set off early,
catching the bus to Doncaster and then by train to Grantham, then
another bus, which ran about four times per day, to the ‘Red
Cottages’ it took the whole day to travel. By this time her father was
unemployed due to a severe injury to his arm and her mother was
invalided with Parkinson’s disease, her sister, May, acted as
housekeeper and did not marry until after grandmas death, in 1951.
I once left a
copy of Omar Khayyam, as translated by Fitzgerald, lying around and she
wrote in the flyleaf; ‘A great fatalist. Read Paul’s letter to the
Romans’
There was always a dog or a cat
underfoot, as one of them would die the cry would be; “I am never
having another Dog/Cat again, they are too much of a nuisance”
Inevitably someone would turn up with a stray animal that needed care
and so it went. One of her favourite dogs was ‘Sally’ a German
shepherd, or Alsatian.
I caused her a lot of grief with my
searching within different religious groups to find one that matched my
ideas of what God is. She believed that it should be the other way
around, that I should fit into a recognised religion, silly girl. I once
left a copy of Omar Khayyam, as translated by Fitzgerald, lying around
and she wrote in the flyleaf; ‘A great fatalist. Read Paul’s letter
to the Romans’, I treasure this to this day. She had a wonderful
conviction that her ideas were unquestionable in this regard and why
not? It worked for her.
We became slightly estranged
through distance, we both loved each other as much as ever, however our
ideas changed, I had lived through some character changing times in the
army and wished to hide these from her, this was wrong, but nevertheless
it was my way.
I was living in Canada at the time
of her final illness and she decided to keep its severity hidden from
me, she had, what I was told, was a slight heart attack and that I would
be kept informed on her progress, I telephoned every day and was on the
point of booking an airline ticket to be with her when Bob phoned to say
she had died in an ambulance on the way to hospital. Much later Dad
apologised to me about this, but he said it was that she did not want
to; “Put him (me) out”. That pretty much sums her up; she never
wanted to inconvenience anyone.
Read
the next installment: William
Henry Stables (1904-1991)