Accidents

Although Mum didn’t work full-time when we were children, she did work: on the market on a fruit & vegetable stall once or twice a week, and a 4-hour early evening shift at CAV, although not at the same time.  We had a series of babysitters to look after us when Mum wasn’t there.  One of them, Lorraine, lived in the flats off East Street, I think, and she was also a hairdresser.  Sometimes, in the sixties, she’d come to the house to wash, set, and style Mum’s hair.  At that time, Mum had a hugely backcombed bouffant style for special occasions, with a little braid across the front above her forehead, to keep her hair off her face.  That definitely wasn’t her everyday look, though! 

I think Lorraine was at home with Mum the day I cracked my head open!  I was running into the house from the garden, through the conservatory, and the doormat slid across the floor as I stepped on it, pitching me forward. I lost my balance completely and my head made contact with the brick corner of the doorway.  I can still see blood colouring the water in a blue bowl on my lap, and a damp folded flannel held with both hands over the cut, frequently rinsed, wrung out, and re-applied.  

We didn’t yet have a telephone; I think I was carried to the doctor’s, all the way down Friars Street (though that may be an earlier memory).  The cut needed two stitches, and there was a fairly obvious purple and white scar in the middle of my forehead for many, many years.  It’s still there, although perhaps not quite as visible.  Jayne had a duplicate accident not long afterwards; her scar is hidden in her hairline.

The biggest childhood accident in our house was when Jayne famously fell off the swing!  We were all outside, and Dad was just settling down in front of the television to watch football – the FA Cup final, I think!  The swing had solid metal bars to suspend the seat from the overhead bar, and although we weren’t allowed to stand on it, Jayne wanted me to hold the bars steady so she could climb up and stand on the seat.  Just as she got up to stand, she lost her balance and fell forward, landing awkwardly on her arm on the rock-hard dirt under the swing. She stood up and went running inside, while the three of us were stock-still, quite shocked at the accident and at the sight of her misshapen forearm. 

Of course, the afternoon of football was ruined and Dad and Jayne spent the afternoon at A&E while Jayne was X-rayed and a cast put onto her broken arm.  Worst of all though, was that Dad thought he’d seen me push her off the swing, and she never did own up and put him straight, so it was my fault.

It was almost impossible to stand up to Dad, even when he was wrong, although in a much later incident, I didn’t back down.  We were at Priory Road, so I was a teenager, and I’d been with him in the garden helping to plant or dig up potatoes, I don’t remember which.  We were called in for dinner and I went into the cloakroom, the downstairs toilet, first to wash my hands.  I rinsed around the washbasin and hung the towel tidily when I’d finished, and went to sit at the table. 

A few minutes later, Dad sat down and accused me of not washing my hands.  I showed him my clean hands, and protested that I had washed them, but he insisted that I couldn’t have done because the washbasin and the towel were untouched!  The exchange escalated into a row and I ended up screaming at him and leaving the table without eating.  He never did come after me or follow it up; he must have known he was wrong, because he must have also known that I wouldn’t have dared behave in that way if he was right.

In Priory Road, we always sat together at the table for tea, our evening meal, and each of us always sat in the same place; Mum and Dad at either end of the table, me next to mum and opposite Jayne, Suze and Dinah next to dad.  Occasionally, meal times were really enjoyable, if Dad was in a good mood, and if us four girls were not arguing.  Then, dad could be light-hearted and joking, and we could all contribute to the conversations and talk about what we’d been up to in school and out of it.  Often, though, Dad would be in a bad temper over something, and the slightest noise, giggle, or perceived disobedience would set him off.  There was rarely a row, just an overbearing, ominous, bad atmosphere.

Dad worked nightshifts, a fortnight about (two weeks of days and two weeks of nights).  When he was on nights, he’d come home around breakfast time and go straight to bed. Before we had all reached school age, it must have been a nightmare for Mum, trying to keep us all quiet so he could sleep.  He expected silence and wouldn’t tolerate any disturbance. 

On one or two occasions when I was a teenager, he was more mellow and empathetic.  I had a paper round in Sudbury, but I didn’t have a bike.  I had to get up every day before school, walk down to the newsagent’s on the Market Hill, collect my bag of newspapers, and walk back up to Woodhall and Tudor Road to deliver my round.  A couple of times Dad drove back from work that way, and drove slowly around the round, with the heavy bag on the passenger seat in his car.

Of course, there was another accident that affected the whole family, especially Michael, but that deserves a post of its own.