Snapshot: Driving a train on a beach in Guernsey
The little girls in the photograph are myself and my sisters in 1964 – I’m the eldest, the one at the front pretending to drive a train. The adults looking on are our parents and aunts.
It was taken on a beach on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, and we were on our holidays from London visiting relatives. My dad was in the prison service and each time he was promoted, roughly every two years, we had to move. This nomadic existence wasn’t good for us children or our education, moving from school to school, always the new girls.
I never quite fitted in at school and perennially like felt an outsider. No sooner had I made a friend than it was time to move. This feeling has stayed with me all my life – I move from job to job, but never feel I belong there and soon it is time to move on again.
In time, our three brothers were born. I became the eldest of six and with that developed a sense of over-responsibility. We three girls became little mums to our brothers and the days of playing in the sand and being just little girls was behind us.
We had to grow up fast in such a large family, but at least we developed caring personalities even though our childhood was swift.
Vanessa Cranmer
Playlist: A reminder of my grandson’s birth
I Still Pray by Kasey Chambers
“When I can’t walk, He’s there to carry me / When I speak, He hears my words / When I wake and I have nothing / He sends me gold, frankincense and myrrh”
My only grandchild (to date) was born in Australia. The ping of a text message heralded the announcement of his birth. It was 1.30am, but I was instantly awake and excitedly scanning my daughter’s short message:
“Baby born two hours ago – he’s having fits, his eyes are rolling – will try to ring tonight.”
The tingle of anticipation I had felt on picking up the phone was replaced by an enervating sense of helplessness. My daughter’s distress was evident from those two short sentences. Both she and my new grandson, already named Patrick, were suffering. They were 10,000 miles away and there was nothing I could do. I spent a sleepless night considering the implications of her news – fits, rolling eyes – could there possibly be a positive outcome? By 7am, I had decided that the only way to escape my thoughts was to go to work.
I drove off just after 8am and, as I pressed “play” on the CD player, Kasey Chambers’ plaintive voice filled the car, “I still cry for baby Jesus / I still pray when I’m alone / And when I’m lost / He’ll come to find me / Because he died to save my soul.”
Tears trickled down my cheeks. I was crying for baby Patrick and I was praying for his parents, who had so many plans for their baby. Each time the track finished, I pressed repeat. Throughout the 20-minute journey, I listened to the track on a constant loop.
Fortunately, I only needed to pop into my office to pick up papers for a seminar at a nearby hotel. I got back into the car and pressed play. The words offered a measure of comfort as I tried to block out visions of my grandson’s future. He could be physically or mentally disabled; at worst, he would not survive.
My role in the seminar proved too passive to suppress my dark thoughts and, by early afternoon, I was in the car again, heading for the gym. An hour’s workout provided a little respite, but back in the car, driving home, I once again sought comfort from the track, “When I cry my tears of sorrow / When my heart will only ache / And if I’m troubled when I’m sleeping / He will hold me until I wake.”
The promised telephone call came at around 7pm. After a difficult birth, baby Patrick had been unable to breathe for six minutes.
The good news was that, after being given medication for the fits, they had stopped, but it was too early to tell if there had been brain damage.
Patrick is now nine years old. He survived his traumatic birth and, although he was not totally unscathed by the trauma, he has made a remarkable recovery. Despite suffering a slight brain injury, which affects memory and processing, overall he is a happy, healthy and mischievous boy who was extremely fortunate.
As for the Kasey Chambers song, I have been unable to listen to I Still Pray ever since, but I will never forget the support it provided on that bleakest of days.
Patricia O’Brien
We love to eat: Grandma’s famous parkin
Ingredients
1 beaker* of self-raising flour
1 beaker oatmeal
1 tsp ginger
1 beaker milk
¼ lb (115g) margarine
1 beaker sugar
1 large spoon of treacle
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
(*a beaker is a small mug)
Mix the flour, oatmeal and ginger in a bowl. In a pan, warm the milk, margarine and sugar, then add the treacle and baking soda, and pour over the dry ingredients. Mix well, pour into a well-greased baking tin and cook in a warm oven (160C/gas mark 3) until firm.
My grandma is famous for her parkin, at least with me, and our family all love it. A few years ago, before Gran died, I managed to get the recipe, written in her shaky, unmistakable handwriting on a tiny piece of paper ripped from a notebook. I wanted to make it for my kids for bonfire night, which is when I remember eating it as a child. The recipe is not exact – Gran did try to explain her cup measurement and told me to put it in a hot oven. I have since acquired said mug size and worked out what “hot” means.
There is much debate about what goes into parkin – there is a great Lancashire/Yorkshire divide and many regional differences. My grandma was from Lancashire and her parkin recipe uses treacle and no eggs. My sister has her mother-in-law’s Yorkshire recipe, which uses syrup and eggs, and hers is light brown whereas mine is much darker, almost black.
As a kid, I remember eating it in various backyards, depending on who was having a bonfire. I loved it, but it was a once-a-year treat. Gran’s parkin has followed me around the world. While I was backpacking, Mum brought some to Hong Kong and, a few years later, to Vietnam where I was working.
I am happy to say I have finally learned make parkin myself and, even though I no longer live in the UK, I always make it on bonfire night for old times’ sake, even if we never go to bonfires.
Vanessa Rees-Challinor
• This recipe was amended on 17 August to correct the quantity of margarine.
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