So now I approach the end of my story. It is 1987 I am a grandma, and my son Jim is still on the dole, with a wife and three kids to support. Most people round here are now on the dole. Frank and I no longer have that problem, for we have been 'put out to grass' on our pensions. Frank is not well these days. He had cancer of the bowel and has had to have a colostomy. While they were doing this they discovered he was a diabetic, which he didn't know about. It has affected his eyes and he has had to have an operation for cataracts. Since then, he has lost the circulation in his leg, and he has had to have a bypass operation on the artery. He has just come out of hospital, and has a massive scar on his leg. The operation does seem to have worked though, because the leg is warm again.
Frank and I still have our 'ups and downs' but we manage to plod on. He now has to wear thick 'bottle bottom' glasses, but he copes ok, apart from falling over the odd causeway edge. He watches the TV and reads his westerns. Our Jim has now been out of work since 1985, and he cannot get a job. I wish something would turn up for him; they just manage, but money is tight. I don't build up my hopes anymore, they have had so many failures. I wonder if he will ever get some work to his liking. He is 37 years old. He will be too old to get a job soon. He wrote a book while he was unemployed, and a publisher took it up, but it all fell through in the end. He was offered (and accepted) a job with a touring theatre company, which would have taken him to Australia, but they gave backword and that all fell through as well. He has applied for loads of jobs, and got nowhere. He is now very disillusioned, disappointed and bitter. Still, God moves in mysterious ways, and I am sure things will work out alright in the end, no matter how much we worry.
I do believe that things are planned for us. We have had our share of sadness and sickness, but it can't go on forever. The whole world seems at odds.... what with strikes and violence. Whatever became of the goodness and compassion in people? It seems to be 'every man for himself' nowadays.
As I mentioned earlier in this story, I had not seen my sister Edie for many years. Surprise surprise! I was walking our Peggy when a big Rover pulled up. I thought it was someone asking the way, I didn't know my own sister! I am very happy that we are now together again. It preyed on my mind all these years, and I was very worried about her. We lost seventeen years over something and nothing! Life is too short to go on not speaking to each other!
My brother Bill had to give up his job on the parks. After a long period on the sick, he finally went on the old age pension. He now suffers from chronic bronchitis, (He had a bad chest when he was little). My favourite nephew Chris started work on a 'pop round' and has done various things since. He is now courting. He calls to see me every Saturday.
Poor Chris! He found out one day that he was epileptic, and it has worked against him ever since. He wanted to be a motor mechanic, but they wouldn't take him on because of the epilepsy. He has not had a fit now in over three years, so at least he is able to drive! Hopefully it will work out OK for him.
Frank's sister Annie comes to see us fairly often. Our Susan, my favourite niece, brings her in her car. They still live on the farm at Calverley. There is also Annie's other child, Mick, but he doesn't come very often. He is a good lad, the apple of Annie's eye. He works in a slaughter house. His dad, Raymond, was a good butcher, but he never got around to owning his own shop. It was a shame really, because I always thought that he and Annie would have done well in a butcher's shop. He has a good job though now, in a textile mill.
But my, how it's all changed! Another memory disappeared not to long ago.... Buttershaw Mill Chimney was dropped.... I suppose the mill will be next. At one time you could sit on the hillsides around Bradford and count hundreds of mill chimneys! Not so today ... very few of them are left. The textile trade in Bradford is a dead duck! It's now rumoured that Bulmer's Mill are moving out of the area - to Lancashire! It wasn't all THAT long ago they moved into the new mill at Buttershaw.
It's strange how you never forget the skills you have learned. A few years ago I went with our Jim to the Industrial Museum at Moorside Mills, Bradford. I saw lots of old spinning and drawing frames which were still in working order. There was a mechanic there, trying to persuade a ring frame to work properly. He wasn't having much luck! He couldn't understand why the ends kept snapping off every one he 'got up'. I told him that he'd got the travellers on the wrong way! We put them on properly, and I helped him to get two boards of ends running! He seemed very surprised that there were still people about who understood the old machines. He said "I could do with you in a part time job, showing visitors how the spinning worked!" I told him that my working days were done. Our Jim was very interested in the old machines. I would love to visit there again, it brought back so many old memories
My how time marches on! My sister, Edie, lost her husband last year. He was sixty. They had been treating him for some time and had given him pints and pints of blood. It was no use.... he had cancer. I wish there was a cure, but I don't honestly think there will ever be a sure cure for it. We also had some bad news from down Unstone. Doris, Jim's wife, died very suddenly. She was in her sixties.
I can't seem to work up much interest to write about these days. Our Jaimie and little Laura are growing up fast. I took our Jaimie for a new coat not so long ago.... it was funny! Her mum took her old coat off so she could try it on. The shop lady remarked on her being such a big girl. Our Jaimie piped up "that's because I'm growing up to be a mummy!" We did laugh! Trish says she doesn't know where she gets it all from. I'm sure she has been here before!
I wonder if it's good or bad to go back to one's roots? After many years I decided to go back to Featherstone, my old home village. I found that Margy, my best schoolfriend, had passed on seven years previously. Her mum though, (my mum's best friend) was still very much alive. She was still going strong at the age of ninety four! We had a good old natter about the old days. It was a very happy day, but also a little sad. There are now new houses built on the village green and our old childhood haunts. My cousin, May, went with me. The old house they had lived in was still there, and also up for sale! I asked our May if she would like to live back there. She said no. Once she had come to Bradford, she had never wished to go back. It's funny, but I felt much the same way. Once I had got my mum and dad established with me in Bradford, I had never wished to return either. We don't have any relations in Featherstone anymore.
One thing I did notice on my return to Featherstone and Castleford was how clean the streets seemed compared to those in Bradford. Maybe they spend their rates more sensibly than Bradford. Last year we went into Ladyhill Park at Allerton, and what a letdown it was! The lovely rose garden where I used to take my dinner hour was gone. The paddling pool was filled in and the flowerbeds were a disgrace! The excuse is 'no money'. I don't believe that tale for one moment. I think we have bred a generation of loonies when I see the vandalism and broken glass scattered all over the place! My old mill is still there. It is the only one left working in Allerton out of about four original mills The village has now been swallowed up by a sprawling housing estate. It's funny how the years roll by, and we don't even notice until we return to our old haunts.
I had to go to the hospital for my annual checkup last month. I have been going for nineteen years now! I asked the 'doc' when they were going to sign me off. He laughed, and said "when you have been coming for twenty five years!" I told him I would be seventy two by then! Frank had cancer eight years ago. He now has a colostomy, and also has to have radium treatment. It proves one thing- cancer sufferers can live many years after their treatment. My doctor said that I had been one of the lucky ones! Even so, perhaps it's a good thing that we can't see ahead of us!
I still get plenty of walking with my Jack Russell terrier. We were down the woods only the other week. My two little granddaughters have got lots of bluebells for 'nanna'. I can relive my own childhood through them. Their little speeches are a treasure! I thank God that we are able to see them at the best time! I am sure that they keep grandad going! I just wish that we were fitter to play with them.
I went to a car boot sale last week. It's amazing what you can find if you take your time looking around.! I saw a rubbing board and a posser priced at eight pounds! Most young people today don't even know what they are for! I don't think though, that I would like to go back to a rubbing board now. We have come a long way in a very short time. Even my washer and spin dryer are considered 'old fashioned' by today's standards. The standard of living has improved incredibly since the war, but I cannot say the same for the quality of life. I feel that that has deteriorated badly. In the sixties we all looked forward to a better life. Today, people live only for today, and would rather not think about what the future holds!
And what a price clothes are now! Most of mine come from jumble sales! I cannot afford thirty pounds for a coat! I got one for our Jaimie.... THAT cost fifteen pounds and she is only four! It costs over twelve pounds for new jeans for our Richard, and he is only nine! I don't know how Trish copes, what with the food, clothes and three children. I only wish our Jim could get a job of a sort. He was interviewed for three jobs this week, but he has heard nothing. He is now taking a computer course to see if that will do him some good! He sends his books and manuscripts off to loads of publishers, but no-one seems to want to know! He gets many disappointments - he has written three good 'walking books' and a comic novel about the countryside wardens, which I find hilariously funny! It would make a good series for TV. I think it's not what you know, but who you know... the old, old story. I am sure that there must be an opening for him somewhere.
I have just been sorting out our cupboards. We could do with a car boot sale! I must mention it to our Jim when he comes over. My brother comes to see me every week, and sometimes my nephew, Chris. He is now courting, although he is only nineteen. He is a grand lad, but I am afraid he has a lot to learn! I am more like a grandma to him than an auntie.
Because Frank is poorly I am now not only the chief cook and bottle washer, but also the gardener as well! Frank will be some time before he will be able to do much gardening. He is a right bossy boots! He seems to think that I don't have any brains at all! I call him 'Mr. Perfect' and that gets him mad! Still, there's never a dull moment with him and the potty dog! I don't know if our Jim can make any sense of my scribbles or not.... but he gets full marks for trying!
Well, Labour lost the election! I have always been a staunch Labour supporter myself, and I would never let 'the side' down. But some of the 'loony left's' politics I don't agree with at all! I knew though, deep down, that Thatcher would get in again. Labour won't do a thing until they get a united party, and a stronger leader. As it is now, we will have to put up with another five years of greed, corruption and robbing the poor to pay the rich!
My friend Winnie called while Frank was in hospital with his leg, and asked me how he was. I do wish Winnie would wear her hearing aid! It would be much easier to talk to her! Our Peg went barmy as usual when she saw Winnie! It's a good job she had some Polo mints in her bag. Peggy sits up and begs until the mints are all gone! She is a good little dog. She has missed dad awfully while he has been in hospital. She looked all over the house for him! She has been an excellent guard dog while Frank has been away.
I feel that my life has been so ordinary and humdrum. Maybe it won't take much reading, but I felt that I had to put something down in writing. There are so many things I keep remembering, and I have to go back to set them down. Above all there are the DOLLS.... dolls always seem to have figured in my humble life, dolls I always wanted but never seemed fated to have or hold. In the end, though, there arrived the 'doll of dolls'. My husband, Frank, had acquired a doll while he was working in a REME Depot in Germany during the last months of the war ... it arrived on the front of a Sherman Tank which had been brought in for repair! How it survived I don't know! It was fastened to the front of the tank, very dirty, but still in one piece. Frank took it back to his billet, and washed it, clothes and all.
When washed and cleaned the doll looked beautiful! He called her 'Helga'. He carried the doll through Holland and took it on the boat home, often having to endure the 'ribbing' and 'mickey taking' of other blokes! On the train up from London someone offered him five pounds for the doll, to pacify a little girl who had taken a shine to it, but Frank was determined to bring the doll home to Bradford.
In the end Frank left it at his mum's, and there it stayed for over forty years! Last year, Frank's youngest sister, (who had kept the doll), was clearing out, and so it was that 'Helga' returned to us. She was in a poor state. The eyes had dropped in to the bisque face, and her lovely honey blonde hair had been cropped short. The stringing had rotted away, and the papier mache limbs were starting to crumble. Trish and I took the doll to a 'doll's hospital' in the Halifax Piece Hall. We thought that if she was repaired she would make a nice toy for the little girls. It was not to be. As soon as the woman in the shop opened the box and laid eyes on the doll, her face lit up! You'd think she'd lifted the lid off King Tut's tomb! She asked us where we had got it from, so we told her the story. It transpired that 'Helga' had been made by Heubach Brothers of Koppelsdorf, Germany, at the turn of the century, and was quite a rare doll. The bisque head, she informed us, was in perfect condition, and that gave it considerable value. She also showed us that the doll had 'flirty eyes' which moved from side to side, and a moving tongue! She told us that to renovate the doll was a highly skilled job, and would cost us about forty pounds! I thought that was a bit steep, until she told us that when restored, the doll would be worth around £500! I could have fallen through the floor!
They made a lovely job of it! Restored, she looks beautiful. We kept her in the glass cabinet in the living room for a while, but in the end, she had to be stored away. It has been a great worry to have such a valuable thing on full display, so in the end we decided storage would be safer. The girls have cried and pleaded to play with her, but of course that is not possible now. (Ah! It makes me think back to Featherstone and my favourite doll in the glass case! How much might that be worth now if I hadn't been allowed to play with it!) I really do think it would be best to sell her, and put the money away for the girls for when they grow up. (Although my son does not agree!)
So you see a doll did do us some good after all. We are so like dolls.... when new a 'baby' to gladden a little 'mummy's' heart; when older, pretty and demure, and in the end, with the passing of years, old, tattered and forgotten in the drawer of time. But as our children cast away the trappings of their childhood, their children fill their shoes, re-open the old drawers and excitedly unearth the innocent joys of days long passed. And so it all comes fullcircle..... mum, dad, grandad, grandma Jarratt ... I cannot see them, but I know somehow that they are there, playing with my grandchildren. I remember them so they are there, and always will be ... as long as memory gives them wings to fly. And what is silver and gold? I have had precious little of it in my life, yet I have seen those who had riches beyond imagining sicken and die. Wealth, power.... all illusion. And so it comes down to my poor wooden doll, carved from a tree to pacify a little crying girl. Rough hewn, roughly finished; but yet the tree it was carved from lived, and opened its arms to the sun's rays, and the hand that carved it, carved it with LOVE..........
Annie E. Jarratt 1987.
copyright © Annie.E.Jarratt 2002
Frank's sister Annie comes to see us fairly often. Our Susan, my favourite niece, brings her in her car. They still live on the farm at Calverley. There is also Annie's other child, Mick, but he doesn't come very often. He is a good lad, the apple of Annie's eye. He works in a slaughter house. His dad, Raymond, was a good butcher, but he never got around to owning his own shop. It was a shame really, because I always thought that he and Annie would have done well in a butcher's shop. He has a good job though now, in a textile mill.
But my, how it's all changed! Another memory disappeared not to long ago.... Buttershaw Mill Chimney was dropped.... I suppose the mill will be next. At one time you could sit on the hillsides around Bradford and count hundreds of mill chimneys! Not so today ... very few of them are left. The textile trade in Bradford is a dead duck! It's now rumoured that Bulmer's Mill are moving out of the area - to Lancashire! It wasn't all THAT long ago they moved into the new mill at Buttershaw. It's strange how you never forget the skills you have learned. A few years ago I went with our Jim to the Industrial Museum at Moorside Mills, Bradford. I saw lots of old spinning and drawing frames which were still in working order. There was a mechanic there, trying to persuade a ring frame to work properly. He wasn't having much luck! He couldn't understand why the ends kept snapping off every one he 'got up'. I told him that he'd got the travellers on the wrong way! We put them on properly, and I helped him to get two boards of ends running! He seemed very surprised that there were still people about who understood the old machines. He said "I could do with you in a part time job, showing visitors how the spinning worked!" I told him that my working days were done. Our Jim was very interested in the old machines. I would love to visit there again, it brought back so many old memories
My how time marches on! My sister, Edie, lost her husband last year. He was sixty. They had been treating him for some time and had given him pints and pints of blood. It was no use.... he had cancer. I wish there was a cure, but I don't honestly think there will ever be a sure cure for it. We also had some bad news from down Unstone. Doris, Jim's wife, died very suddenly. She was in her sixties. I can't seem to work up much interest to write about these days. Our Jaimie and little Laura are growing up fast. I took our Jaimie for a new coat not so long ago.... it was funny! Her mum took her old coat off so she could try it on. The shop lady remarked on her being such a big girl. Our Jaimie piped up "that's because I'm growing up to be a mummy!" We did laugh! Trish says she doesn't know where she gets it all from. I'm sure she has been here before!
I wonder if it's good or bad to go back to one's roots? After many years I decided to go back to Featherstone, my old home village. I found that Margy, my best schoolfriend, had passed on seven years previously. Her mum though, (my mum's best friend) was still very much alive. She was still going strong at the age of ninety four! We had a good old natter about the old days. It was a very happy day, but also a little sad. There are now new houses built on the village green and our old childhood haunts. My cousin, May, went with me. The old house they had lived in was still there, and also up for sale! I asked our May if she would like to live back there. She said no. Once she had come to Bradford, she had never wished to go back. It's funny, but I felt much the same way. Once I had got my mum and dad established with me in Bradford, I had never wished to return either. We don't have any relations in Featherstone anymore. One thing I did notice on my return to Featherstone and Castleford was how clean the streets seemed compared to those in Bradford. Maybe they spend their rates more sensibly than Bradford. Last year we went into Ladyhill Park at Allerton, and what a letdown it was! The lovely rose garden where I used to take my dinner hour was gone. The paddling pool was filled in and the flowerbeds were a disgrace! The excuse is 'no money'. I don't believe that tale for one moment. I think we have bred a generation of loonies when I see the vandalism and broken glass scattered all over the place! My old mill is still there. It is the only one left working in Allerton out of about four original mills The village has now been swallowed up by a sprawling housing estate. It's funny how the years roll by, and we don't even notice until we return to our old haunts.
I had to go to the hospital for my annual checkup last month. I have been going for nineteen years now! I asked the 'doc' when they were going to sign me off. He laughed, and said "when you have been coming for twenty five years!" I told him I would be seventy two by then! Frank had cancer eight years ago. He now has a colostomy, and also has to have radium treatment. It proves one thing- cancer sufferers can live many years after their treatment. My doctor said that I had been one of the lucky ones! Even so, perhaps it's a good thing that we can't see ahead of us! I still get plenty of walking with my Jack Russell terrier. We were down the woods only the other week. My two little granddaughters have got lots of bluebells for 'nanna'. I can relive my own childhood through them. Their little speeches are a treasure! I thank God that we are able to see them at the best time! I am sure that they keep grandad going! I just wish that we were fitter to play with them. I went to a car boot sale last week. It's amazing what you can find if you take your time looking around.! I saw a rubbing board and a posser priced at eight pounds! Most young people today don't even know what they are for! I don't think though, that I would like to go back to a rubbing board now. We have come a long way in a very short time. Even my washer and spin dryer are considered 'old fashioned' by today's standards. The standard of living has improved incredibly since the war, but I cannot say the same for the quality of life. I feel that that has deteriorated badly. In the sixties we all looked forward to a better life. Today, people live only for today, and would rather not think about what the future holds! And what a price clothes are now! Most of mine come from jumble sales! I cannot afford thirty pounds for a coat! I got one for our Jaimie.... THAT cost fifteen pounds and she is only four! It costs over twelve pounds for new jeans for our Richard, and he is only nine! I don't know how Trish copes, what with the food, clothes and three children. I only wish our Jim could get a job of a sort. He was interviewed for three jobs this week, but he has heard nothing. He is now taking a computer course to see if that will do him some good! He sends his books and manuscripts off to loads of publishers, but no-one seems to want to know! He gets many disappointments - he has written three good 'walking books' and a comic novel about the countryside wardens, which I find hilariously funny! It would make a good series for TV. I think it's not what you know, but who you know... the old, old story. I am sure that there must be an opening for him somewhere. I have just been sorting out our cupboards. We could do with a car boot sale! I must mention it to our Jim when he comes over. My brother comes to see me every week, and sometimes my nephew, Chris. He is now courting, although he is only nineteen. He is a grand lad, but I am afraid he has a lot to learn! I am more like a grandma to him than an auntie. Because Frank is poorly I am now not only the chief cook and bottle washer, but also the gardener as well! Frank will be some time before he will be able to do much gardening. He is a right bossy boots! He seems to think that I don't have any brains at all! I call him 'Mr. Perfect' and that gets him mad! Still, there's never a dull moment with him and the potty dog! I don't know if our Jim can make any sense of my scribbles or not.... but he gets full marks for trying! Well, Labour lost the election! I have always been a staunch Labour supporter myself, and I would never let 'the side' down. But some of the 'loony left's' politics I don't agree with at all! I knew though, deep down, that Thatcher would get in again. Labour won't do a thing until they get a united party, and a stronger leader. As it is now, we will have to put up with another five years of greed, corruption and robbing the poor to pay the rich!
My friend Winnie called while Frank was in hospital with his leg, and asked me how he was. I do wish Winnie would wear her hearing aid! It would be much easier to talk to her! Our Peg went barmy as usual when she saw Winnie! It's a good job she had some Polo mints in her bag. Peggy sits up and begs until the mints are all gone! She is a good little dog. She has missed dad awfully while he has been in hospital. She looked all over the house for him! She has been an excellent guard dog while Frank has been away.
I feel that my life has been so ordinary and humdrum. Maybe it won't take much reading, but I felt that I had to put something down in writing. There are so many things I keep remembering, and I have to go back to set them down. Above all there are the DOLLS.... dolls always seem to have figured in my humble life, dolls I always wanted but never seemed fated to have or hold. In the end, though, there arrived the 'doll of dolls'. My husband, Frank, had acquired a doll while he was working in a REME Depot in Germany during the last months of the war ... it arrived on the front of a Sherman Tank which had been brought in for repair! How it survived I don't know! It was fastened to the front of the tank, very dirty, but still in one piece. Frank took it back to his billet, and washed it, clothes and all. When washed and cleaned the doll looked beautiful! He called her 'Helga'. He carried the doll through Holland and took it on the boat home, often having to endure the 'ribbing' and 'mickey taking' of other blokes! On the train up from London someone offered him five pounds for the doll, to pacify a little girl who had taken a shine to it, but Frank was determined to bring the doll home to Bradford. In the end Frank left it at his mum's, and there it stayed for over forty years! Last year, Frank's youngest sister, (who had kept the doll), was clearing out, and so it was that 'Helga' returned to us. She was in a poor state. The eyes had dropped in to the bisque face, and her lovely honey blonde hair had been cropped short. The stringing had rotted away, and the papier mache limbs were starting to crumble. Trish and I took the doll to a 'doll's hospital' in the Halifax Piece Hall. We thought that if she was repaired she would make a nice toy for the little girls. It was not to be. As soon as the woman in the shop opened the box and laid eyes on the doll, her face lit up! You'd think she'd lifted the lid off King Tut's tomb! She asked us where we had got it from, so we told her the story. It transpired that 'Helga' had been made by Heubach Brothers of Koppelsdorf, Germany, at the turn of the century, and was quite a rare doll. The bisque head, she informed us, was in perfect condition, and that gave it considerable value. She also showed us that the doll had 'flirty eyes' which moved from side to side, and a moving tongue! She told us that to renovate the doll was a highly skilled job, and would cost us about forty pounds! I thought that was a bit steep, until she told us that when restored, the doll would be worth around £500! I could have fallen through the floor!
They made a lovely job of it! Restored, she looks beautiful. We kept her in the glass cabinet in the living room for a while, but in the end, she had to be stored away. It has been a great worry to have such a valuable thing on full display, so in the end we decided storage would be safer. The girls have cried and pleaded to play with her, but of course that is not possible now. (Ah! It makes me think back to Featherstone and my favourite doll in the glass case! How much might that be worth now if I hadn't been allowed to play with it!) I really do think it would be best to sell her, and put the money away for the girls for when they grow up. (Although my son does not agree!)
So you see a doll did do us some good after all. We are so like dolls.... when new a 'baby' to gladden a little 'mummy's' heart; when older, pretty and demure, and in the end, with the passing of years, old, tattered and forgotten in the drawer of time. But as our children cast away the trappings of their childhood, their children fill their shoes, re-open the old drawers and excitedly unearth the innocent joys of days long passed. And so it all comes fullcircle..... mum, dad, grandad, grandma Jarratt ... I cannot see them, but I know somehow that they are there, playing with my grandchildren. I remember them so they are there, and always will be ... as long as memory gives them wings to fly. And what is silver and gold? I have had precious little of it in my life, yet I have seen those who had riches beyond imagining sicken and die. Wealth, power.... all illusion. And so it comes down to my poor wooden doll, carved from a tree to pacify a little crying girl. Rough hewn, roughly finished; but yet the tree it was carved from lived, and opened its arms to the sun's rays, and the hand that carved it, carved it with LOVE..........
Annie E. Jarratt 1987.
copyright © Annie.E.Jarratt 2002