Memories of a 1960’s Childhood – Part 1 The Shop

Grandma lived with us and I now realize that she made life very difficult for my parents, but at the time very little of the tension and frustration was noticeable to me. I had no idea that she had not wanted a grandchild because she was jealous of her place in the family and by the time I was old enough to notice she had recovered from her deep disappointment that I was not a boy. In her eyes boys were superior because she had produced a son (my father) who was allegedly born potty trained, walking and talking and with impeccable manners! Despite her initial rejection we grew to love each other and she had a massive influence on my life.

Grandma had known real poverty in her childhood, like many men of his day her father drank and her mother struggled to raise her large family. As an adult she had lived through two world wars, three of her brothers died in the first war and she had dreaded losing her precious son in the second war. By the time I arrived she had been a widow for a number of years, but she still felt pain at the loss of my grandfather Mick. Sometimes I would go with her to tend his grave, she called it “Grandpa’s little garden” but much more often I would curl up on her bed eating her special nougat while she told me stories about him. Through her memories my Grandfather, and Grandma’s whole family became far more than names, they are still as real to me as if I had actually known them.

Food rationing had finally ended in 1954 and when I arrived in the early 1960s I was given the best of everything. My mother bought rose-hip syrup from the chemist, this was diluted with water and I had a glass full every day to make me ‘big and strong’. I was given rich and creamy gold top milk because it was good for me - how times have changed! Needless to say my baby photos are deeply embarrassing, I look like the Michelin Man’s daughter.