A Life Well Lived

January

Suresh
My millennium man, taken in India when I was as taken to meet the family.

 

Rebecca 1970.

 

Micky Mouse gas mask as used by me during air raids in WW2

Born in January 1943, youngest of six children, the only boy, Roy, died in infancy leaving a distaff family headed by Minnie, a profoundly deaf woman who, at time of my arrival was 42.  Minnie was a great Mum, and, despite her deafness was a great communicator; she was born in 1900, a time when sign language was frowned upon and deaf children had to cope with lip reading.  Minnie was a warm, fun loving woman, popular with friends and neighbours and she loved her girls.  She was used and abused by her feckless husband, George, throughout their married life.

I was born in Pudsey, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24th January 1943; my Sister Joan, then aged 18, was so disgusted at my parents still  “being at it”, that she never acknowledged me, talked to me or picked me up. Three months later, Mother was out shopping, said baby screaming house down, picked up by Joan. Spoiled rotten thereafter! I always believed that Joan was my birth mother, but never had the courage to ask until after Mum passed away. The answer was no. There are no photographs of me as a baby. We knew no-one who owned a camera and as a very poor family could not afford a studio sitting.  Being wartime, I was at birth, issued with an all embracing gas mask, a box like contraption that I was placed inside, whilst someone operated a hand pump to keep me alive, I later graduated to wearing a Micky Mouse version; a horrible red rubber contraption with black circular eyes that fitted over my head ; see picture.

My first birthday is very clear in my mind: I was sitting in my high chair in front of a huge built-in, floor to ceiling cupboard, at  home in our all purpose room waiting for a “ suprise”. The door opened and in came in a man I later learned was my Father, holding a package across his chest. He approached me offering up the package, saying here’s a dolly for you. The dolly’s face was turned for me to see and it was horrible!  Just three black marks like the eyes on a coconut.  Nine months previously my Father had been involved in an industrial accident and had lost his left arm at the elbow, the pinky, ring and middle fingers of his right hand were severed.  All that was left of the right hand was his index finger minus the top bit and thumb.  This day, my first birthday, he had been discharged from hospital  and the bandaged bundle was in fact the stump of his amputated left arm being held by the remnants of his right hand. The three hole face was just the dried up drain holes. That was our first and last conversation; he never talked to me;  he criticised me, threatened me, punished me, ridiculed me but never just talked to me.  He was a bright, self educated  man who could have brought so much to our family life but chose not to.

January in Yorkshire in the 40s meant sledging! I had a slatted wooden job with plumbers pipes for runners, greased with candle wax  and adorned with a bit of old rope to pull it along. She was a real goer!  We sledged ‘til dark, all weekends and after school; there was always snow during our winters, drifts of it.  We wrapped up in as many clothes as we owned, topped off with woollen( fents from the mill), homemade pixie hoods and  wearing my Dad’s socks as mittens.  I can recall the smell of our home as multiple pairs of woolly socks dried on the winter hedge ( clothes horse) around the fire. A bit like wet dog.

Many years later, as a late teen. I travelled home from London monthly to visit Mum. I remember sitting on the train watching the changing landscape from the soft south to the harsh snow covered north. Waiting for the bus in City Square in inadequate clothing, seeing the snow covered Black Prince amid the huge piles of snow shovelled  by snow plough onto the square to clear the roads.

The best thing to happen to me in January was giving birth to Rebecca! Transverse lie, turned three times, returned to transverse … she was born a  month early, by then she was in breach position and so she was delivered that way.  A protracted delivery observed by dozens of John’s friends and colleagues as a natural breach delivery was rare and many of these young doctors would not have this opportunity to observe one again. I must have been daft to agree, but there you go.

The  January of the Millennium I met a most interesting young man ( well maybe not so young …) who would later become my husband; Suresh Anand Pai. He was the kindest man I’d ever known and I know how lucky I was that he came into my life. Still missed.

Some Januaries later I had to have surgery for breast cancer;  I was well supported by my then husband, Suresh, and my children, Rebecca and Ben, but most of all by my stepdaughter, Helen, who was not only a constant hospital visitor  but she made sure that friends and family were kept up to date with my progress.  SO appreciated Helen, thank you. X

As my 65 th birthday approached, Suresh asked what I would like as a gift, “sunshine” was my reply, so he took me to Lanzerote and I had the most wonderful sun laden birthday ever! As a winter baby I had grown up with cold, post Christmas birthdays and always wanted a summer celebration … Sorry Rebecca, did the same for you AND later you did the very same giving your firstborn, Mimi, a winter birthday!