More about Harold

Dad told me once that he never bought anything he couldn’t afford, so he wouldn’t take out HP (a hire-purchase agreement that allowed you to pay in instalments), but instead saved up first for what he wanted then paid in cash.  They did have a mortgage on the house, at 1A Newmans Road, and I used to go to the Halifax with the mortgage book to pay the instalments, which at one time were £11 per month!

As we got older, the teak dining table was the place where we did our homework, played board games, or covered with newspaper to make things we’d seen on Blue Peter. At Christmas and for birthday parties and other family celebrations, the table would be opened up and its extending leaf unfolded and set in the centre, making enough room for eight, ten or even twelve to sit round.  Mum and dad rarely had friends round to the house, but big family meals were a little more frequent, with one or more of dad’s brothers or sisters coming to eat and spend an evening, together with their families. 

We always had fun with Uncle Chicker (George), who knew how to entertain us and had a small repertoire of nursery rhymes and songs that he doctored to make us giggle and squeal. (Baa baa black sheep/have you any wool?/Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full/One for the master, one for the dame/And one for the little boy who hasn’t got a bum!). I think his wife was Pearl, and they lived somewhere on the coast, maybe Felixstowe.

Uncle Bob was Stephanie’s dad.  When I was 4 or 5 years old, she married her American sweetheart, Gary, in Lavenham church, and I was one of the bridesmaids.  They settled in America and had two children, Julie and Shelley.  On my last trip with mum, in 1992, we went to stay with them in Washington State. Julie was newly married then, and Shelley was their “black sheep”, living her own American Dream in Seattle. We loved Shelley, and stayed with her in Seattle for a couple of days; later, in my first year in Turkey, she and her friend spent a day or two with us in Bandırma and on our holiday in Adana.  Stephanie died a few years ago, and I think she spent the last years of her life in a care home because she had dementia.  She had suffered with debilitating migraine headaches all her life.

Bob came to visit once, at Newmans Road, following a trip to the States, and I think he and dad fell out after that because Bob only brought us very small gifts, maybe even freebies, from his trip, and dad felt hurt and insulted, I suppose.  (Not for the first time – I think we were estranged from mum’s father for a similar reason.)

Two of dad’s sisters, Alice and Olive, came to visit fairly regularly (although not often) when we were children.  I don’t remember Olive well, although I stayed with her in Sheffield for some reason when I was small.  All I remember of that visit is a very neat little house, and soaked prunes for breakfast and dessert!  Alice is more clearly defined in my memory.  She was a very speedy and prolific knitter; she always had something on her needles.  She could talk for England, chatting tirelessly for hours on end, with her needles clacking at the same time.

Another sister, Kit, lived in Lavenham, and another, Phyllis, probably lived nearer to George.  Two more sisters, Blanche and Ethel, were probably in Lavenham too. There was another brother, Edward, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1930, aged 22, and another, Alfred, who only lived a year. Some sources show that Alfred had a twin, Lily, who also died.

I vaguely remember dad’s dad, my grandfather, although I think he died in 1964, so I’d have only been about 4 years old. He also lived in Lavenham, in a house on the market place where you had to go down a long corridor of a hallway to get from the front door to the living room. He was born in 1881, the same year as Atatürk! I know little of his life; he had a big family, 11 children (of whom 9 lived, I believe), and dad was the youngest of them, born on 5^th July, 1923.  By the time dad was born, he was already an uncle; one of his sisters had already had her first child.  The whole family lived in a house in Prentice Street in Lavenham (number 11 perhaps?), which at the time (we were told) had just two bedrooms, one for the parents, and one for all the children!