Snapshot: Pround grandparents with Dad at Oxford
The photograph may smack of Oxbridge privilege. It is indeed a snapshot of proud parents with an adored son who was taking a degree in history at Keble College, Oxford, c1958. But that’s my grandad Pat and my nan Hettie with my dad and they had none of the advantages we might infer from the picture.
My grandad was brought up by deaf Irish parents in a tiny Guinness Trust flat in London. When the stammer he subsequently developed was deemed too serious, he was sent to Gloucester to live with a kindly Catholic family who could hear and speak. He lost his stammer and excelled at school until he was a teenager and his education was no longer affordable.
After service in the war, he worked as a bus conductor for 37 years, walking up and down collecting cash fares and winding the handle on his ticket machine until the receipt rolled out.
Nanny had little education and later cleaned houses and worked in a shop where she scrubbed floors till they shone. She also pickled vegetables, made jams, bottled sloe gin, knitted jumpers, sewed clothes and, at her council house in Surrey, cared for two boys who were the light of her life.
I have to really pay attention to those details to fully understand the magnitude for Pat and Hettie of what is happening in this photo.
They look quite relaxed but how must they have been feeling as they posed for the shot? Were they wondering just how on earth they got to be standing in that grand Keble quad? My dad is 80 next year but has never stopped marvelling at where in life his grammar school education and some hugely influential sixth form teachers took him. Privilege of another sort. His family continue to reap the benefits. RIP Nan and Grandad.
Rachel Lohan
Playlist: Aha! Enough of Dad’s classical music
Super Trouper by Abba
“Tonight the Super Trouper lights are gonna find me / Shining like the sun”
Our TV stood on a cabinet full of LPs. Almost all of them were classical albums – Mozart, Bach, Haydn. Dad turned his nose up at Beethoven as too modern. He was mild-mannered, but fiercely opinionated about music.
The exceptions to the classical music rule belonged to Mum. There were two Beatles albums and Nana Mouskouri’s Passport, which never got played. Then there was Abba’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 – and Super Trouper.
There they are on the album cover, dressed in white and bathed in light like angels. What was a Super Trouper anyway? Some sort of space superstar? My child’s brain had mixed up Abba’s white outfits and the beam of light with spacey things, and I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper added to the confusion. I know now that a super trouper was a stadium spotlight, but I think my version was better.
Mum would put the record on carefully; we’d listen to the crackle, and wait. The a capella opening was as precisely enunciated as any choir, but the best bit was the chorus. We didn’t sing along or dance; we sat and imagined ourselves famous, shining like suns, on tour in space.
Dad might peep round the door and shake his head at us in disgust, but we didn’t care. We were Super Troupers. Thanks, Abba.
Liz Hedgecock
We love to eat: Crisis pie when the family rallies round
Ingredients
4 large skinless chicken breasts
1 punnet chestnut mushrooms (sliced)
1 small onion (finely chopped)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
100g butter
50g flour
½ litre milk
Salt and pepper
250g puff pastry
1 small egg for the glaze
Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and slowly shallow fry in a thick pan in 50g of the butter until cooked through and slightly browned. Remove the chicken pieces from the pan with a slatted spoon and set aside on a plate until later. Add the vegetable oil and turn the heat up and sauté the onions and the mushrooms so that they are softened but not browned.
In a small pan make the white sauce by melting the rest of the butter and making a roux with the flour. Slowly add the milk, salt and pepper and whisk over the heat until it forms a lump-free sauce. In a large bowl add the sauce to the chicken and onion and mushrooms. I usually add the dregs of the frying pan into this mix also. Don’t worry about the white sauce turning a slightly mushroomy brown colour. Put the mixture into a pie dish and cover with the rolled-out puff pastry. Glaze with the beaten egg and bake at 220C for 45 mins to an hour.
This pie is made whenever there is a family crisis. It’s quick and easy and can be eaten as the main course with spuds for six people or in smaller portions as part of a “using up the scraps” buffet laid out on a table with salads etc. I make it in times of uncertainty – after a death for example. Or if someone in the extended family is seriously ill and I want to bring something homemade instead of buying processed food. It can be made while your mind is on something else.
Last year, Annie was born at just over 6lb, 11 days early. Our new grand-daughter slept like an angel. As the days rolled by she slept and never cried, not even for feeds. This was my son’s first child and as grandparents we had no recent experience of small babies, but I felt something strange in the pit of my stomach. Living a three-hour drive away worried me but I put it down to the newness of the situation.
Annie slept longer and the weight dropped off her. After six days she was in intensive care. Meningitis was top of the list. My son and daughter-in-law were pale and weepy. I felt helpless.
Annie’s frail body was put through rigorous testing over 48 hours. I camped in their kitchen and as a change from endless cups of tea I made the crisis pie. It came in and out of the fridge endlessly and we all toyed with it. When Annie’s tests came back clear and we were told she was responding well to antibiotics for an infection, we started to eat.
One year on, we are looking forward to celebrating Annie’s first birthday on 12 October. She gobbles her food now and is bouncing well towards her toddler years. I am glad that some good old-fashioned comfort food helped us all through a very difficult family time.
Brigid Black
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