Snapshot: The benchmark for family get-togethers
Our father, Fred Soulsby, was stationed near the Peak District during the second world war and in the 1950s, our holiday was a day out in a hired car from Cleethorpes to Derbyshire. We explored the beautiful countryside and visited Chatsworth House, ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire, which is often voted the UK’s favourite stately home.
This photograph, taken in August, is of eight of the 11 great-grandchildren of Fred and his wife, Linda, and the grandchildren of my brother John, sister Susan and myself. It was taken at the annual family fun day at Chatsworth adventure playground, where we have taken the children for the past seven years.
All but two – Ruby and George on the left – live in Cleethorpes or Grimsby and we meet with my daughter and two grandchildren, who live 20 minutes from Chatsworth. We spend all day there and it has become a tradition that the children have a photograph taken on “our bench” every year. As we live in different towns, we want the cousins to know one another so, as well as catching up at other times, this is the main event of the year. Not all the children can come every time. Three – Jasmyne, Annabel and Olivia – couldn’t make it this year but those present range in age from three to 18.
Those days with Mum and Dad left us with a love of this area and the park. It has a very special place in our family and I hope we have passed it on to these young people too.
Ann Reading
Playlist: This song helps me quieten my black dog
Another Grey Morning by James Taylor
“When I feel as though my love is sinking down, the sun doesn’t want to shine / When it feels like she won’t face another day, life is unkind, she’s frozen in time”
In 1977 I was 14. I vividly remember the magic I felt creating tape cassette playlists and the woven harmonies of my singer-songwriter heroes.
The gatefold album was my original Wikipedia and devouring the lyrics opened up for me an understanding of the dark side of life. Despite my father being a doctor I was blissfully unaware of the pain and crushing effect of depression and stress that can pounce from the shadows.
It was Another Grey Morning by James Taylor that, more than any other song, awoke me to life’s pain. Ten years later, when my sister experienced the most appalling postnatal depression, the song became a comfort blanket to hold her in my thoughts, praying that something or someone would help interrupt her sorrow.
There was a tension in Taylor’s silky, spacious, beautiful baritone voice that drew me in; this is a song for the victim and the carer. “She hears the baby waking up downstairs,” the “foghorn calling out across the sound”; “The repetition in the morning air [which] is just too much to bear.”
It’s sunny outside as I write but even on a day like today I find myself returning to the song, singing it to keep my sorrow in check and quieten my own prowling black dog back. It has helped me through decades of denial; helped me to recognise the unremarkable powerlessness you encounter when you have to surrender to family mental illness and simply be there when “another day comes creeping by empty and ashamed like an old unwanted memory that no one will claim”.
Simon Lloyd
We love to eat : Easy-peasy ice cream
Ingredients
300g condensed milk
300ml double cream
300g raspberries or other soft fruit, fork mashed
Whip the cream until it holds in firm peaks. Fold in the condensed milk, making sure it has blended well with the whipped cream. Carefully mix in the mashed fruit. Divide the mixture equally between eight ramekins. Cover with cling film. Place the ramekins in a freezer for a minimum of eight hours. Take the required amount of ramekins out of the freezer about 10 minutes before serving.
This has got to be the easiest ice cream to make. You don’t need any specialist equipment and once it’s in the freezer, that’s it. You do not need to do anything else until you are ready to eat it – you can see how delicious it looks from my photo
My mum first made this for me as a child and I’ve been making variations of it ever since. I love the raspberries’ sharpness, contrasted with the sweetness of the condensed milk. But it’s delicious without any flavouring, with sponge and pureed fruit on the side.
My grandson loves a chocolate version where I add eight teaspoons of cocoa powder made in to a soft paste with water before adding to the mix.
Emma Douglas
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