Chapter
Twenty-Two - Up the Pensioners and Hooray for the Internet
I coughed until the end of February and then I went to the homeopath, Kate. Very soon afterwards the cough disappeared. On the whole, The following months were comparatively uneventful except for when Emily chopped the tip of her finger off in the door on the hinge side. It was horribly traumatic for Jennifer and Roger who eventually got her to a hospital in East Grinstead where micro-surgery was performed. The finger is now as good as new, but for a long time it was a worry to them that she did not seem to have learned from the accident that it was not a good idea to put her fingers in door hinges and they had to rig up special Heath Robinson ways with string and corks to make sure that doors could not be closed fully in the house.
Tony Blair led the Labour Party to victory in the May General Election. They had not been in power for so long that many young voters had never known anything but Conservative Government. I was not particularly confident that any party could restore Britain to its pre-1979 state. Things that had been closed down and left to rot would be unlikely to be re-opened or facilities restored. Jobs lost were unlikely to be regained. But I felt that at least the Labour Party had its heart in the right place. They wanted things to be better for all, even if it wasn't going to be possible. Ted and I stayed up very late watching the election results come in on TV and found it very exciting.
1997 was the year in which I and a lot of my friends turned 60 - Dawn and Nova in February, Maureen in May, Mary and me in July and Barbra in September. Soon the pension age will be extended to 65 in England, but at this time we were sent our little pink cards which meant cheap lunches in many cafes, half price on the buses, or free transport if you lived in London. Mary would be able to go on any bus, tube or mainline train in the Greater London area. I felt quite envious about this. Mary kept stressing that her Council Tax was higher but I would have been happy to pay about £5 more a month as she did in order to have free fares in as great an area. My usual fares were much more like £25 a month and that was just going about locally. Dawn and Nova however were apparently not due for a pension or maybe they hadn't paid into one in South Africa.
Because I was divorced from Sep, my pension would be based on his National Insurance contributions. This was just wonderful and no one has ever been as happy to turn 60 as I was. I would still be counted as being within the lowest income bracket even with the DSS pension added on to my small BT pension, but it would be more than twice as much as I had been getting.
Mary's gentleman friend, Don, had one heart attack after another and finally
died in June shortly before Mary's birthday. She was extremely upset about it
as he had been a part of her life for 22 years. She was very friendly with his
wife and family and had always helped drive his wife to visit him in hospital, so
they would all have expected her to grieve, but perhaps not quite as much as
she did. I went with her to the funeral and felt really sorry for her. We sat
near the back and the family naturally sat in the front row of the church. The
vicar spoke about his being a family man and about his devotion to the family.
Mary must have felt totally left out however much she understood the position.
She cried so much (and I cried along with her) that at one point I saw the
Vicar actually notice her, his eyes resting on her speculatively for just an
extra second as he looked out into the congregation. He knew the close
relatives were in the front pews.
I did not want to have a special 60th birthday party but Barbra and I went to
Mary's little lunchtime event in Chingford. Barbra was not sure whether to
mention Don's death to her, but it was lucky that she didn't as his widow was
there too. Maggy was there and Pam C from Woodford who had still not yet been
down to visit us in the Lancing house. She had met a new man and had a
part-time job since leaving the bank and although we still spoke occasionally
on the phone, I felt she would probably never have the time to come and see us
again. Joan G was also there. She was from the College Operatic Society and had
been one of the leading lights there. I had been fairly friendly with her many
years before and she had visited Woodford when Cathy was a baby, but it was
only quite recently that she and Mary had become friendly and they now saw a
lot of each other. Sometimes Joan and Mary came down together to Lancing for
the day.
Two days after my birthday, I went to an interview for a part-time job. Jennifer was temping at Brighton Council and saw this job advertised internally. It was to work in an organisation affiliated to the Council connected with all the youth clubs in Sussex and also the Prince's Trust, an organisation which Prince Charles had set up to help disadvantaged young people to learn new skills and improve their chances. I really only went to the interview to please Jennifer. I was so sure I wouldn't get it. I had been to dozens of interviews for part-time jobs over the previous few years and although they often went well, I was never chosen. So I was pretty certain that now I really was a pensioner, I would not stand a chance. Also it seemed ironic for me to get a job just when my income was about to increase. But I did get it. I was astonished and showed it. I told the boss that Cathy was expecting a baby and that I would have to rush to Bath at very short notice but he didn't seem to mind. I also told him about G2 and said I might occasionally have to change my days around and this seemed fine with him too.
The job was meant to be ten hours a week spread over two days, which would have been perfect had it lasted that way. However, things didn't turn out quite like this. My boss was an erratic worker, and although I started the day at 10 am, he often did not come in until lunch time. Sometimes he did not even bring work to me until after the time I should have left. I was paid overtime so financially it was good for me but I never knew what time I would get home at night and I just didn't like not being able to plan ahead, for instance if I had wanted to meet someone after work, I would never have known what time I would get away.
That August Pixie came over and brought Anjelica with her. They stayed three weeks although during their middle week they went to a hostel for dancers in St John's Wood in London so Anjelica could easily see more of London. She and Anjelica got up early on Sunday 31st August so as not to waste the day and I was also going to London because I had a G2 job on the Monday and had decided to spend the night at Michael's flat. However I did not need to leave until later in the day. When I came downstairs quite early in the morning, Pixie told me that Princess Diana was dead. Like most of the nation, I was absolutely stunned. When Pixie said it was a car accident, my first thought was 'so they've got rid of her'. By 'them' I meant of course the 'Establishment'. Later, on hearing further details, I realised it could hardly have been planned or arranged, there was too much chance involved. As it was a Sunday, Barbra was on duty at the palace. She didn't know what to do, but went there anyway. The officials there cancelled the public opening that day and after giving the temporary staff coffee, sent them home.
Later that week Pixie and Anjelica went into central London to see the floral tributes and when they went near Downing Street, Tony Blair came out and Pixie's was one of the hands he shook. She seemed very pleased about this. Barbra had become a childminder during the week, but on the Friday of that particular week, she was free so when she was asked to go into St James's Palace to help with the crowds signing the Condolence Books, she was able to go. That was the day the Queen and Prince Philip returned to London, due I believe to pressure from the media, and Prince Philip spoke to Barbra. I felt quite left out from all these glorious connections. I took Ben to see the flowers too and kept him attached to me for safety in the crowds with a toddler strap between our wrists. He was more interested in the pelicans in St James's Park.
I saw Pixie and Anjelica off on Friday 12th September. That week the three of us had a lovely day out at Portsmouth harbour, seeing the 'Mary Rose' and the 'Victory' and having a tour round the harbour. Pixie loved ships and the weather was good too. Unfortunately I slipped on the station forecourt and hurt my wrist. This made it difficult for me to type at work and I went back to the one-finger method temporarily.
The day after they left, John rang to say Cathy had been taken into hospital with an infection. Cathy had wanted very much to have a natural childbirth and at home. But as so often happens in life, things didn't work out. She had a lot of pain all night and on the Saturday, they put her on a drip and started to try and induce labour. The pain eased slightly but finally the staff decided she must have a Caesarian anyway so the whole affair was a disappointment to Cathy as none of it was natural and she had suffered a lot of pain as well.
I got to Bath on Saturday afternoon and John asked me to wait at their house, which I did - anxiously. He came and fetched me when William was born and took me back to the hospital. William was perfect and bonny but Cathy looked ill and exhausted. She didn't want to stay in hospital too long, although the staff suggested she should. For the next week or two John's mother and I alternated our visits to help her. She had the normal post-natal depression but seemed to have an exceptionally difficult time as she had thrush on her breasts and even the breast feeding which she very much wanted to do went wrong and soon she had to give up. Sometimes I took William in bed with me to give the tired parents a break, and so did her mother-in-law. At first it was very difficult for me to lift William because of my wrist. Eventually I went to the Casualty Dept. at the hospital in Bath about my wrist, but they said it was only a sprain.
Barbra for her 60th birthday had planned a restaurant lunch for the whole family and then a party at her house in the evening for a wider group of friends and family. Although her birthday was on the 24th September, it had to take place in early October after her weekend work at Buckingham Palace was over.
Although I was invited to both events, I knew that Clare was not happy about my presence, so I said I would not go to the lunch but would stay at Mary's flat and we would go to the evening party only. Mary was at a matinee at the Kenneth More Theatre in Ilford that afternoon so I met Angela who I hadn't seen for ages and had lunch in the Exchange Shopping Centre. We had a lovely time looking round the shops and catching up on news. Geoff was looking after the children so we felt free and happy. Angela also had a part time job at the children's school. At about 5 pm we parted and I went to meet Mary at the theatre.
Little did we know about the disastrous lunch the others were having. I was so glad I hadn't been there so there was no way I could be blamed for anything. Cathy, John and William had come all the way from Bath, quite an undertaking for parents with such a tiny baby. Clare said they could stay at her house in Enfield. She and Sep went at weekends to the house they had bought together in Suffolk but Clare needed a London base as she was still working as a social worker, so had not sold her house. In the restaurant, Ben apparently ran into a wall and cut his forehead quite seriously. An ambulance was called and Roger went in it with Ben. Only one person was allowed to go along. Jennifer was very upset and Sep said he would follow the ambulance with her and would drive his car, as she was too shaken to drive. Clare apparently had a tantrum about being abandoned and said she wanted to be taken home. She was obviously angry that Sep had put Jennifer first as anyone would have in the circumstances where a child had been injured. She asked Alan to drive her to the Woodford house in the pouring rain. He was very annoyed about all this. In fact it turned out Clare didn't have a key to the Woodford house and ended up having to get a taxi back to her house in Enfield.
It was a shame that Barbra's expensive meal treat was overshadowed by all this temperament on top of the unavoidable stress over the accident. I would have thought that Clare would have been pleased to stay around and help with Emily who must have been wondering where her parents and brother had gone. If similar problems had occurred in Ted's family, I would have felt obliged to stay and help. Clare could have gone on to Barbra's house with the others after the meal and waited for John there. She must have been terrified of meeting me when I arrived for the evening party.
When everyone returned from the hospital, Sep was told that Clare had gone off in a huff and he looked very anxious and rushed off, taking Michael with him. Very soon Cathy and John had to take William home to Clare's house too as they were tired and had to get William to sleep. Apparently Clare and Sep had a vociferous row in the kitchen where Cathy was trying to sterilise the baby bottles. It must have reminded her of her early days hearing rows between her parents.
William's christening took place at the end of October in the same church where the wedding had been. Mary and I went together and stayed in a B&B. What was nicest of all was that at last I met Dot, Paul's mother. I had spoken to her on the phone for so many years and I knew we would like each other. Paul's sister Julie was ill that day and couldn't come but Dot came from Wales with her friend Ray. Because Dot's mother had died only a few days after mine, she was now free to get about. For seven years she had nursed her very frail mother and hardly ever left the house. Barbra and Alan were there as well, everyone except Sep which was a shame, as it was his first blood grandchild. I think he felt Clare would cause too much of a scene if he went on his own. None of us knows the truth as Clare always says (though not to me, of course) that she doesn't mind his going on his own to family gatherings but finds it personally stressful.
Dot must have felt a bit sad at seeing Cathy married to someone else. She
must have once hoped that we would share a grandchild if Paul and Cathy had
ended up together.
Paul however had fallen in love with a Portuguese girl called Silvia who was a
journalist and spoke English very well. At Christmas he brought her to meet all
of us. Cathy, John and William were in Lancing at the time so met her too. I
believe Silvia was a bit apprehensive about meeting Cathy but it all went well.
They stayed with Jennifer and Roger for a day or two and everyone liked Silvia.
Then they went on to Wales and spent Christmas with Dot, Ray and Julie.
Three months after William was born, Joanne gave birth to Ted's first grandson, although he already had four grand-daughters. It was about a week before Christmas and I had a very bad cold. I was unable to attend the work 'do' at Hove Town Hall, nor could I risk taking germs to the new baby, Connor, so Ted had to go on his own.
After Princess Margaret opened the new HQ building in which I worked at the end of September, the media interest increased and the charity received National Lottery and other increased funding. My work got more and more intense, I worked three or four days rather than two and eventually my boss said he wanted someone for five days a week full time. I really didn't want to do this and felt my lifestyle was being interfered with, so I said he must look for someone else. It took a long time to find the right person and I worked there altogether about nine months, right until April 1998. The extra money did help me to acquire many things I had long desired like stainless steel saucepans with glass lids, a slimline electronic organiser, a new cordless phone, a new mini-camera and best of all I was able to go on to the Internet. For months I had been trying to register on to the BT Internet which was very cheap for BT employees and pensioners. I think my modem was not sufficiently powerful. With my extra earnings, I paid my computer man to sort out all the problems and he did.
The best thing about it was the e-mail and the Genealogy mailing lists. In three months I found out more family tree information that I had previously in years of ordinary research. I had particular help regarding the South African ancestors from William Jervois, genealogist at the Albany Museum in Grahamstown from whom I learned that my Penny ancestors came from Margaretting in Essex and also that my great great grandfather, Thomas Hambly Parker, was one of the sailors guarding Napoleon on St Helena. On the London mailing list, I got to know a few Americans with English ancestry by photographing places in London for them where their forebears had lived and posting the photographs by normal mail. Someone in New Zealand gave me information about my Grubb connections in Berkshire in 1743 and I also had a lot of help about Ted's ancestry, which I had started doing as well. His male line had once been glassblowers in the Bristol area and someone on the Internet told me who to contact about Glassblowers and we quickly went back to the 1700s with this man's help.
I have only very briefly mentioned Ted's cousin on his father's side, Nelly, who had moved to Worthing from Deptford with her family in 1940. I was very fond of Nelly who was about 9 years older than I was and whose daughter when she married, had joined the Mormon church, in fact called the Church of the Latter Day Saints. The church is especially interested in research into one's ancestors and has done an awful lot of work, which helps everyone interested in this subject. Nelly was very pleased when I started working on Ted's (and her) ancestry and I even traced the mysterious Priscilla of part-gypsy ancestry whose mother coincidentally hailed from Brighton originally. Years ago when I first became involved with genealogy, it was not nearly as easy to look at records as it now is. Most central libraries today have microfiche machines and one can look at Births, Deaths and Marriages records as well as the 1851 Census, apart from the IGI (the International Genealogical Index). I started booking in to Worthing Library every Tuesday. One could book a microfiche machine for two hours at a time. This was long enough strain for anyone's eyes anyway. With all the added help from the Internet mailing lists I really felt 1998 was a year of progress even if it meant that I was progressing backwards!
Meanwhile, in Bath, John wanted to become a policeman, only partly because he thought it would be a steady job with regular good money to enable him to better support Cathy, William and any future family. He was really keen anyway. It's good that people are all different. If everyone felt like I do, nobody would want to be a policeman or a politician or a soldier or anyone who might be hated or in the firing line, but someone has to do these things. John found out that police were being recruited by the Durham Constabulary where his sister was already a policewoman. It seemed a drastic career move from being a musician to the police but his heart was really set on it and he read all he could about progression through the ranks and was taken on the training course. He changed his diet and lost weight too. He did well throughout and yet at the end, was turned down. Everyone was very surprised as they had thought it was a foregone conclusion. Perhaps so many people applied that they could afford to be exceptionally choosy and only took on people under 30.
They were so geared to the idea of moving that they went up North anyway, having sold their house in beautiful Bath. I was very sad about this as not only had I loved going to Bath on visits, but it was much cheaper and quicker to get there from Sussex than it would be to go up North. They started out renting a house from John's sister and then moved to York. John came from York and his parents were there still, as well as several of his friends. They bought a very nice semi-detached house at a bargain price and are gradually making improvements to it. York is beautiful too and the part where they live has all the shops one could possibly need and its possible to walk from there into central York. I am a little sad that William won't know me as well as Ben and Emily do, but I'm glad that John's parents have a grandchild nearby, as their only other one lives in Edinburgh. One day they may get e-mail and I will be able to communicate more easily and cheaply with them.
Shirley in Houston is now on the internet too and it is lovely to be able to communicate so easily with her. So is my cousin Marjorie in the Cape and all my BT friends are too, whether in London or Hove. Barbra, Sep, Michael, Jennifer and even Ben have mailboxes. I have made two new friends in America from the genealogy mailing lists too, one in California and one in Arizona. I am so pleased about all this and really love the new technology and wish that Ted shared this enthusiasm with me though maybe it's just as well we don't need to fight over access to the computer.
Although my life was fairly full, I kept hearing about other people going on courses and continuing their education, and felt I should be doing something along these lines, but I couldn't find anything that I could afford which also interested me. I already belonged to the U3A and often looked at the lists of things one could study for the year ahead. The classes were usually in people's homes and no-one seemed to live very near to me. I wanted something that would really interest me so much that I wouldn't feel too lazy perhaps to go a long way on a bus to reach the class. Then I saw 'Autobiography' and I thought 'that's it, I would really like to do that'. I went along to enrol hoping that the class would not be full but it wasn't and, as they used to say when visiting the cinema in the old days, 'THIS is where we came in!'