Posted by: ireneintheworld on: September 11, 2008
I seem to have lost my early years at school and only retain the bad memories – much what I have done with my grandmother The Dragon. I remember being excited at the thought of going to school and my brother being so impatient that he often disappeared from the house only to be [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: September 1, 2008
‘Help, help! Teddy, I’ve won the bingo!’ My mother would wake up the whole street two or three times a year. We’d get a quick glance at all the prizes and the handful of paper money waving through her laughter before we were pushed back into our little cupboard bed; it was folded away [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: August 29, 2008
It smelled of old grass and Magnolia paint. My brother and I would ease our bodies in backwards pulling the door shut through coats hanging on the inside, jangling half-crowns and florins – Fanny Hill lay on the top shelf. Sometimes, there would be pickles and cheese in Dad’s pocket with [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: August 21, 2008
Sundays were a trial, whit wi straw hats an elastic under yir chin, an orders Don’t sit doon ootside; nae paddlin in the burn; an straight hame; an make sure the minister disney find oot yir cousins ur cathlicks; don’t let them cross thersells – tell them there’s nae holy watter left. My God! [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: August 13, 2008
My mother was a Mantle-machinist; that means she made the whole coat – she didn’t do piece-work…in fact she sneered at piece-work. Her skills gave her power; she worked to her own timetable and her boss let her away with murder, apparently. I vaguely remember the mention of a company called Silvers. (for security purposes [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: August 7, 2008
My mother spent her afternoons in the parks; every day, rain, hail or shine – only fog kept her in. Fog wasn’t good for the chest. She and her sisters met in various parks around the city and we cousins splashed, jumped and snow-ball fought to our hearts’ content; those of us too young [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: July 28, 2008
He went to cleanse the seas of bombed and battered wrecks to dredge iron debris from man-made canals, stoked fierce fires in the belly of his ship and breathed the black air deep into his lungs. He thought of life in the sun, servants and money to burn but the [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: July 27, 2008
A white tablecloth tacked to the wall kept us happy for hours when my brother got a projector for Christmas – it was red plastic, and it might have had something to do with Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade. The Keystone Cops chased fools around our walls; Buster Keaton dangled from trains, cranes and [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: July 25, 2008
Oh, to live in The Faraway Tree; it just wasn’t fair that I ended up in a pokey council flat in Glasgow. My mother was as bossy and complaining as Dame Whashalot but Carnwadric, however much fun we had there, was not a patch on The Land of Do as You Please, or The Land [...]
Posted by: ireneintheworld on: July 24, 2008
How many Black Jacks can you get in your mouth, and how much chewing-gum is enough? - We had to take it out to suck off the extra juice! How cold was your bathroom? - In winter my brother only washed his cheeks, using two fingers on each hand. When the [...]
