Snapshot: My grandmother at the beach in Sussex
The enduring memory I have of my Welsh grandmother Kathleen is of her taking me swimming as a child; of happy afternoons spent at her local lido, involving much laughter, splashing and swimming. I remember her with her floral swimming hat, happily bobbing around with myself and my older sister. So it’s appropriate that after her death, this was the one image my mother gave me to remember her by.
She is in her early teens here, on the left, with a friend in about 1930, at a Sussex beach. Kathleen was from the seaside – but in her case, Swansea, where she was still living with her parents, Jim and Daisy, at the time. I assume she was in Sussex as she had relatives who had moved to Brighton to run a boarding-house, and she regularly visited them there.
Here, she looks confident, full of laughter; enjoying an innocent, happy life before the second world war disrupted it; before a move to London, marriage, children and then an early widowhood changed it further. She had a major part in my life – my father’s family stopped all contact with me when my parents divorced (I was 12 at the time), and her husband, my grandfather, died several years before I was born. So she was all four grandparents rolled into one – babysitter, confidante, friend, teller of stories and painter of the most wonderful pictures.
She reminds me physically of my cousin Rosalind here, and so the link between the past and the present is strong. Every time I have a birthday, I think of her, as it was her birthday the same day. Her last birthday was her 90th, in 2006 – just four weeks before she died. But ultimately, this picture reminds me of those happy childhood afternoons swimming – and of the kind, funny woman who passed on her love of swimming and the sea to me. Dwi’n dy golli di llawer.
Nell Darby
Playlist: When I couldn't wait for Sgt Peppers
When I’m 64 by the Beatles
“When I get older losing my hair /Many years from now / Will you still be sending me a Valentine / Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?”
On the 1 June 1967, my beloved Beatles were releasing their groundbreaking album, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I was to turn 16 that summer and was desperate to own a copy but they were selling like hot cakes.
My lovely mum ordered a copy for my 16th birthday as a surprise and hide it in her wardrobe. When I asked if they could get me a copy as a present, my parents acted totally uninterested.
One afternoon I came home from school. Mum was nowhere to be seen. So I nipped up to her bedroom, stood on the Lloyd Loom chair and rummaged through her woollies – and there it was, in all its glory. My beautiful present. So overcome was I by the sight of the cover, I had gone completely deaf. Mum had been at our nextdoor neighbours' house, called up to oblivious me, to say she was home. No response.
So Mum climbed the stairs to catch little old me red-handed, the album in my grubby little hands. She had the good grace to laugh. Dad said they weren’t upset but I should have been more trusting and he hoped I wouldn’t go snooping again. Lesson learned.
Later, listening to the album on Dad’s record player, we all loved Paul McCartney’s wonderful lyrics to When I’m 64, which he has said was written when he was about 15. Those words summed us up as a family. Scrimping and saving, going to the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear. Grandchildren on my knee, Vera, Chuck and Dave.
I wonder if you will remember this, when you are 64, Mum said. Yes indeed. I am 64 in July and my actions of that summer on my birthday 49 years ago are clear in my mind. Although my grandchildren are actually Cameron, Phoebe and Enola. I still own that album, with the cardboard intact. Happy memories.
Christine Swann
We love to eat: Mum’s peach cages, a pièce de résistance
Ingredients
Tin of peach halves
Apricot jam
Beaten egg
Roll out the pastry and cut out rounds slightly wider than a peach half. Spread a small amount of apricot jam on each round before positioning the peach half. Make strips of pastry to “cage in” each peach and secure with apricot jam. Brush with beaten egg and bake at 170C or until the pastry is slightly browned. For extra pleasure, serve with whipped cream.
These were considered the height of sophistication in the late 50s when my mother hosted supper parties. Coming straight after the war from Germany, her array of open sandwiches – wheeled in on a tea trolley and served with a Martini – was viewed by friends and neighbours as something exotic from “the continent”.
However, the peach cages had nothing at all to do with her German origins as pastry was not popular there and she made it to please my father, a Yorkshireman brought up on apple pie and sausage rolls. Such a simple idea, yet her pièce de résistance made her the hostess with the mostest.
Margaret Davis
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