Memories

 

Over the winter holidays, looking for something else at my in-laws, I came across my father-in-law’s Kodak Retina from the early 1950’s. As someone who went to college, studied photography, and made it their career for a long time, I had to see if it worked. I bought some film and ran it through the camera, and it does. It’s a 35mm, fully manual camera. By that I mean you have to pay attention to taking a photograph, it’s not point and shoot in any manner or form. Ideally you want a light meter to tell you what settings to use for shutter speed and aperture, and a tape measure to measure the distance between camera and subject. All of these settings (aperture, shutter speed, and focus) need to be done manually on a few dials. Fortunately, having grown up in the age of film, I wasn’t too bad at the exposure, but found I either completely forgot to focus, or that I need to work on figuring out distance-by-eye!

 

As I looked over the blur, the grain, the light in these photographs of family members, I wondered at how my wife’s siblings had changed since the camera first recorded them, playing as kids, going on holiday, and at school events. All those moments in lived stories which had shone through a lens onto a bit of film base covered in a gelatin emulsion.

There are some cultures where having your photograph taken was seen as taking a piece of your soul away. (I look at famous people these days, and wonder if that’s actually true!) These moments that are captured and saved are moments of storytelling, fragments which can prompt memories. People can look at a photograph and something that they may have forgotten about suddenly floods back. Looking at family photograph albums we look at people. Some things we may remember and others we don’t. What stories happened to have such memories? What stories happened (or didn’t) that caused us to forget.

We don’t make photograph albums anymore. Do we? Well, most people don’t - my mum still does! And so do I, but for me these are smaller albums of events, highlights, and are not the whole big picture of what was going on with notes and names always. My mum created a photo album for each of my kids. She collected photographs of them growing up, wrote next to the photos, and built the albums over the first sixteen years of their lives and then gave the albums to the kids on their sixteenth birthdays. They were both genuinely bowled over by this. For when they were too young to remember, the notes explain what was going on in the image, and where.

The stories we tell are made up of fragments which we piece together. What pieces do you have that you’ve pieced together? What stories do they tell? Do you see things clearly, smell the smells, hear the sounds? Reclaim these stories of your past and share them with other family members.

 

 

All photos and writing by Simon Brooks © 2024

Stories the ads tell us

I do not watch too much American t.v. because I dislike the number of adverts which continuously break up the flow of a story. This Thanksgiving I sat watching cable t.v. with my kids and was horrified at what I saw, on kid stations.

Time-Warner Cable showed a father with two kids taking over what could have been a living room or den/family room. The furniture has been taken apart, blankets and rugs added to make some fabulous forts. In walks mother and gives a look of disapproval, that says she gives up, and takes her tablet to another room to be on her own. Is playing with the family so bad? Is it better to vanish with your devise? Admittedly there are times we need to spend on our own, but is the place of companies to suggest we go to our devices?

Ensure Active had an equally disturbing, if that's not too strong a word, commercial. The scene is similar to a type of gym with lots of fruit and veggies standing around, as if they were people, along with plastic containers of Ensure Active, also humanized, Veggie Tales style. One of the plastic containers of Ensure seems to be the instructor for this 'gym' and tells a pear, in not so many words, that it is not fit, that you can get better nutrition from a mass produced product in plastic, rather than from fresh vegetables and fruit. Unbelievable that in country where obesity is a problem that a company would steer folks away from fresh produce.

On the flip side Kellogg's Frosted Flakes have a much better idea. Tony the Tiger is with the family playing American football with them. When a break happens in the play and they move to the kitchen for a Frosted Flake snack, moves are discussed, using the frosted flakes on the table to plan the 'play'. A wonderful story of family playing together, tied in with a product. Tony is greeeeat!

Another story I finished over Thanksgiving was a book from a genre I have not tried before - alternative history. When someone let me borrow Harry Turtledove's "Ruled Britannia" I had a blast. Set in Shakespeare's London, the story tells this alternative history of the Spanish invading and ruling, with Elizabeth I in the Tower,on Philip of Spain's orders. It is not a bad book, and is one I enjoyed. Lots of Shakespeare's work entwined into the writing and lots of facts, given a nice twist, or explanation!

What stories did you enjoy over Thanksgiving? What stories did your family tell? What books did you start or finish? What devises did you lay down to cool off over the break?

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving, with those you love and care for.

Peace,
Simon

Recording (Family) Stories

If you have young children, read on.  If you have grandchildren, read on. If you have elders in your family, read on.

We all come from different cultures and each and everyone of us has different life experiences. These experiences, and our heritage, I believe, make us who we are.  These experiences can be told in stories, and the stories from our own culture and heritage can be, and should be told. As our planet, Earth, gets smaller and as we travel further a field to live the life we want to, we sometimes find ourselves leaving family behind and the stories they have within them.

Photo by Simon Brooks, 2014
Showing: Disney's Babes in Toyland LP, a compact disc, an Agfa cassette tape,
the Olympus WS-300M, the Zoom Q3 and Roland's Edirol R-09HR

I was not able to record many stories from my Gran before she died, just a little bit here and there, although I knew a great deal about my Grandad - he also came to America and Canada.  My grandparents on my father's side, sadly passed away before I could get any family stories from them, and it wasn't until after their death I found that I had Irish in me. My Mum, however, shared some great stories of her life growing up, when I last saw Gran, two years ago.  I found out about her jaunts to the jazz clubs of Birmingham and her wild and crazy friend. Her sneaking off to date with boys! I got some of these stories on tape. (To be used later...!)

As a kid, my brother and I recorded on my step-father's Grundig reel to reel machine, and occasionally on the Dictaphones my dad sold from his office supply store in South Wales (before Office Max was invented).  I wonder where those tapes are now, and if they still have a couple of little boys pretending to be police officers or spies on them! I later used that same Grundig to record my rock and band. I moved 'up' to a cassette machine, a Walkman and then an Olympus voice recorder. I have always loved recording sounds, stories, other people!

As Gran grew sick I realized how much I did NOT know about her.  She came from Canada originally, told me we were someway related to Cecil Rhodes, but I can't see how! She lost her brother, James, at a fairly young age. Gran and my Aunt (great aunt really) Andree sold their burial plots because they were worth some money and planned on being cremated! Our family has been Quakers and Christian Scientists. I tried to get over to the UK and record some of her stories but she was reluctant to talk into the recorder.  I wish I had done more many, many years ago.

These days, it is easy to record at very high quality for not too much money. With the ease of getting digital recorders we do not need tapes anymore, we only need free computer space, and we can get more of that with memory sticks, or external drives! For the cost of taking the family out for a meal or two at a restaurant, you can get voice recorders which record nicely. My grandfather was recorded on cassette, but there is a lot of hiss on it, as it was from one of those Jones cassette machines you see libraries giving away!

Now to bring this into a full circle!  I whole-heartedly suggest that you invest in a good voice recorder. Go to a store, take a good pair of headphones and try a few out. Why? The headphones will allow you to hear the sound quality, which you might not otherwise hear in the store.  Buy one and record stories for your children and grandchildren. If you have elders in your family, ask them to share some of their memories with you. Record your own stories! When your kids grow up, and have their own children, they might want to hear stories you might forget! When people pass away, so do their stories, their life experiences and the stories they knew and loved. If your elders are young enough, then they can record those stories and send them to you. Keep them.  Even though young kids might not appreciate the stories now, when they get older and get interested, you will have them.  If your family moved from another country be it England or Ireland, Egypt or South Africa, India or Serbia you might have family still there, embedded in your heritage.  Have them share those stories with your children, or share with other people's children within your community. You might have a rich source of stories that others do not.  Share this source, your heritage, your stories.

Books are great, they can contain so much information, but voices of your own family or of those close to you contain so much more - their own lives and experiences.

(I am doing a workshop on recording stories using voice recorders, computers, microphones and Digital Audio Workstations - DAWs - at Sharing the Fire, the North Eastern Storytelling Conference on Friday, 28th March at UMASS, Amhurst MA. For more details visit the website of the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling: http://lanes.org/storytelling-conference/friday-pre-conference-intensives/)

Not the Three Little Pigs! How a fractured fairy tale came to be!

Part of the art of storytelling is working on the fly: improvisation.  Storytellers do it all the time.  As a live performer, especially working with kids, you get people calling out every once in while, making some comment and you have the choice to ignore it, or acknowledge it, or work it into the story.  Sometimes people want to share their own story, and if we did not have time limits and were not being paid to tell stories, we could listen to all the stories people had to offer, all day long but we can't.  Sometimes people jump up to join in (class clown)! Some people have something to offer.

Art by Simon Brooks, Copyright 2014

This weekend I went to perform at a birthday party. I was told the theme was Spiders and having spoken with 'mom' I had a few other stories ready for the party too.  One was the English story of the Three Little Pigs. When I arrived it was a chilly but beautiful evening. The sun was about to set.  The family had made a canvas sheet for the kids to sit on and there was a rocking chair under the tree with some lanterns above it for me. The canvas had a spider web on it. So of course I open with the story of how Ananzi Received Stories. I did another story which I had discussed with mom and was about to start another requested story, The Three Little Pigs.  One of the birthday girls' friends said: "Because it is a spider party, could you tell it a spiders?" And because she asked so nicely, without thinking I immediately said: "Yes." And then started the tale. I left aside the whole notion of spiders building webs, there was no way I could 'write out' or eliminate the three different houses in that moment. Then came the huffing and puffing.  Birds cannot huff. I am not sure wolves really could, but we will let that pass. Birds really can't.  So this bird kind of coughed and then got a passing wolf to help. Birds also cannot smell. Fact. So how can the bird follow the scent of the spider? Ah! The spider left a fine thread for the bird to follow to the next house! No more wolves helping out - wings! It used it's wings to knock the house down. Great! Bird follows the two silver threads to the house of bricks etc etc. Then I followed and ended with Ananzi's Hat Shaking Dance! It was such a great night and I have to say I could have spent the whole evening telling tales to that family and the birthday girls' friends.

For the full story of  The Three Little Spiders go to my website: http://www.diamondscree.com > Free Stuff, scroll down and click on link to Story and click on the image of the Raven!

There is something very satisfying about being challenged, rising to the challenge, and making it work.  The kids loved it and even helped the story along. Storytelling shows by example that the imagination is a powerful thing, that knowing how to create with storytelling gives strength to the imagination. Without imagination, one could never think out of the box and the Three Little Pigs would be just that - The Three Little Pigs, and we would have no "Little Bad Wolf and Red Riding Hood" or "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" and one of our favourites at home, "The Three Little Wolves and the Big, Bad Pig."

Untold stories - Elephants, Native Americans and my Grandad

This is my grandfather, Samuel Horrocks Williams in the 1920's.  He took to farming in Canada instead of following the family mill business in Manchester, England.  My great grandfather told him he has to start, like everyone else, at the bottom sweeping the floor. Grandad had schooling and did not want to start at the bottom so took off for fields a new and became a farmer in Ontario, Canada.

My grandmother, his second wife (his first wife Mollie died of T.B.) had most of his photograph albums and some other things of his that were not tossed out or passed on to other members of the family.  Last year, Gran died.  Almost a year after my mum was able to ship over some of Grandad and Gran's things, reminders of them that have no real value, other than sentimental and keepsake memories.  But Mum threw in a photo album from which the photo above is from.  The album has opened a few questions in the family which cannot be answered, but one of my favorites is this photograph.

Grandad is, I think, the one with what looks like a tan shirt and silly hat on!  This photo, as with all the photos in the album, are from Ontario, Canada.  Look at the houses in the background.  And here he is, presumably in one of the farm's fields with a small herd of elephants and a Native American.  And we are left with this great question: What on Earth is going on here?  The only thing we have come to is that the elephants and maybe some of the people in the photo are from a traveling circus.  The elephants, I presume, have been let off the trailers, be they pulled, or from a railway locomotive, to eat and stretch.  But I wish I knew the story of this image.

Grandad died in the 1980's and I had never seen this photograph album.  Most of the photos taken pre-Gran were not let out or looked at. And Gran has gone so I cannot ask her.  My one surviving aunt from my grandfather's marriage to Molli also has no idea, as most of the photos in the album are from Grandad's first trip which he made before coming back to get Mollie.

I love the photo and the mystery it has created.  Grandad loved animals and the letters of recommendation we have from this time period state this categorically.  And I love the fact that Grandad could ride a horse sans saddle.

Peace,
Simon

The Magic Mortar

Many thanks to Tim Van Egmond who pointed me to the story!
Also many thanks to Sean Herman who allowed me to use his art. See link under image for his DeviantArt work.  He is also an amazing tattoo artist, I discovered!

The Magic Mortar, retold by Simon Brooks (c) 2012

A tale from Japan

Once, long ago in Japan, there were two brothers. The older brother was wealthy, greddy, and mean-spirited. However, the younger brother was generous, and kind-hearted, but had few possessions or money.

It had been a hard year for the younger brother and New Year was fast approaching.  How could they celebrate the New Year if they had little to no rice or wine?  The young man’s wife told him to go to his older brother and asked for some rice.  If he gave enough, they could make their own wine. Otherwise water would be fine. So the young brother made his way from his own humble home to his brothers fine palace which sat on it’s own island.

The younger brother borrowed a boat and rowed over the sea and came to the palace.  When he walked in and asked the servants where his brother was, he was told by the pond feeding the coy fish.  He made his way out down the long paths between shady trees to where his brother was.

"What do you want this time?" asked the older brother.

"Tomorrow is New Year and I have little rice for wife and children to celebrate.  Could I borrow some?  I will return whatever you are able to spare later in the year."

"No!  You should not be so generous.  Maybe if you were more like me, you would not have to come scrounging for food on New Years Eve. Go!  And don't come back!"

The younger brother rowed back to the main land and returned the boat.  As he trudged home, he felt the weight of the world upon his shoulders.  As he was walking, an old man called out to him: “What is it that bothers you so, young man? You bend your back down like mine!”  The young brother looked up and saw the man was carrying a bundle of firewood on his back.

Image used with permission from the artist Sean Herman - via DeviantArt

“Here,” said the young man. “Let me carry that and I will tell you my story,” which he did.  When they reached the old man’s house, the man pointed to a wall and said: “See that gap in the wall?”  The young man nodded.  “Well, go in there and you will see a statue of Buddha and beneath, some tiny people.  Give the little men this rice cake.” The old man gave the young brother a rice cake whose top was coated with honey. “But only when they offer you a stone mortar.  Go on! Go!”

The young brother was puzzled, but thanked the old man and made his way through the gap in the wall and saw the stature of Buddha.  A tiny shriek came from by his feet, and when he looked he saw, he found he had trodden on one of the little men. “I ma so sorry,” he said.  “You are so small I did not see you there.  Are you alright?”  He lifted the wee fellow up and apologized again.  The wee fellow saw the rice cake.

“What’s that?” asked the little man.  “It smells so good! Can I have it?”

“This is very valuable to me. What would you give me in exchange?”

The little man asked to be put down and he went and talked to his friends. When he looked back up at the young brother he said: “How about yards of silk?”

“No, this cake is more precious to me than silk,” said the young brother.

The little man ran back and talked with his friends again and came back and said: “Well, what about a large bag of gold?”

“I am not sure,” said the young brother.  “What else might you have?”

The little man ran back to his friends and a great deal of whispering began.  Eventually the little fellow came back and said: “We have a stone mortar.  Would you take that?”

“That sounds like a fair trade,” said the young brother. So out came the stone mortar and the brother handed the little men the rice cake.  As the young brother turned, the wee man called out: “Wait!  You need to listen.  That is a magic mortar. It will give you whatever you want.  All you need to do, is sing what you want and turn the pestle clockwise.  When you have enough, stop the pestle and turn it counter-clockwise and sing stop!”

The young brother could not believe his luck and ran home after thanking the little gentlemen.

When he got home his wife asked if he had rice and said, no but had something better.  He pulled out the stone mortar and told her about the old gentleman and the little men.

“Does it work?” she asked.  The young brother looked at his wife and said: “Let’s find out.”

He held the mortar in one hand and turned the pestle clockwise with the other, and sang:

“Rice, rice, can we have some rice? Rice, rice, can we have some rice?” And the pestle suddenly speeded up and rice began to flow up from the bottom of the mortar until it overflowed onto the floor!  The younger brother called out: “Stop, stop, we have enough rice! Stop, stop, we have enough rice!” and the pestle stopped turning and the rice stopped.  The husband and wife smiled at each other.  The younger brothers wife asked if he could ask for wine.  They got a vessel and the younger brother tilted the mortar over it and sang: “Wine, wine, can we have some wine?” and the pestle took itself from his hand and spun faster and out flowed wine, until he sang it to stop.

The younger brother was ecstatic! “We could have a great party and invite all our neighbours over!”  But his wife said their house was not big enough for all the neighbours. So the younger brother took the mortar in one hand and turned the pestle clockwise with the other, and sang: “House, house, can we have a bigger house?” and shots were heard and the house began to grow new walls and as the house grew it was filled with fine furniture until the younger brother sang the mortar to stop. Which it did.

And so they asked their neighbours to come and celebrate New Year with them. And the next day, on New Years Day, they came.  Many were surprised to see the new house and the fine clothes and furniture the younger brother and his wife now had, but people were too polite to ask where it had come from.

Well the older brother heard about the celebrations and came to join in.  When he saw the new wealth, of course he had to ask: “Yesterday you came to me asking for rice and now you have all this!  How did you come by all your new wealth?”

The younger brother knew not to tell his older brother, so said “I suppose that it came because of my kindness and a lot of luck!” But he said no more.

People feasted and laughed and played until late.  When people began to leave, the younger brother said, wait.  “I want to give all the children who have come a little gift.  Wait one moment.”  He went off to the kitchen and the older brother quietly followed and saw the younger brother pick up the stone mortar and sing it to produce sweet candy curd cakes.

“Arr is that how it is done, is it?” and he sneaked back to the others.  But, he did not see how the mortar was stopped.  After the other guests had left, the older brother asked his younger brother if he could stay the night.  “I have eaten too much and my belly aches.”

“Of course you can,” replied the younger brother. So he and his wife took out a tatmi mat for sleeping and laid it out for the older brother.  But as soon as the younger brother and his wife were asleep, the older brother got up and stole the mortar and took it with him to his boat and began to make his way over the waters to his island.  He was thirsty and hungry, despite what he had told his brother so looked around his boat and found some un-salted rice cakes. He picked up the mortar and holding the pestle sang out, “Give me salt, give me salt!” and salt began to fill the mortar.  He sprinkled some on his rice cake and ate it, putting the mortar down on the deck of the boat.  But the mortar continued to make salt.  As he rowed he found the boat getting harder and harder to row and then realized that the boat was filling with salt.  He tried to stop the mortar but in his panic did not say the right words, and could not have even if he knew the right words to say.  He tried bailing the boat out, but it sank and took the older brother with it as well as the mortar.

And because no one has asked the mortar to stop making salt, it still makes salt to this day.  Which is why the seas are filled with salt.

 Retelling copyright (C) 2012.  Do not copy, duplicate or reproduce in any form.  It's illegal and NOT cool.

Sources:

Ready to Tell Tales, by Holt and Mooney

The Magic Listening Cap: More Folk Tales from Japan, by Yoshiko Uchinda

Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, Inc.

Sting of the Geisha by M. M. Rumberg

Tiz the season

Crow II by Simon Brooks, (c) 2012

Recently I have spent a lot of time working on voice over work and learning new stories and rehearsing some of my old favourites.  Last night I told some of these tales for teens and grown-ups in Amherst, NH.  There was a wonderfully warm crowd there and the atmosphere was cozy, I thought.  I was telling Winter Holiday stories. Although I am not a practicing Christian, I am Spiritual and my upbringing was Christian.  So most of the stories reflected that.  I always feel a little odd telling Jewish tales, not being Jewish! Almost all of the stories were folktales, although I also told the true story of the unofficial truce on Christmas eve, December 1914.  Although the Pope himself could not stop the war or get a cease fire, and although the suffragettes could not petition for the war to end, the fighting soldiers themselves began truce. On Christmas Eve the Germans set up trees they had been sent, and lit candles along the trenches and  when the Germans sangs hymns and carols the British sang their own, not to be outdone! It had been raining up to Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day the weather was good.  Together, on Christmas, they swapped gifts and buttons, exchanged cigarettes and rations, and played football (soccer), in some places along the front, as many as 50 soldiers on each side.  No-mans-land being the pitch (field) they played on.

Raven by Simon Brooks, (c) 2012

All of the stories I told, although featuring Christmas, have a strong message in their own right.  The message is about sharing, looking after each other as well ourselves, of giving to those in need - because no matter how badly off we might find ourselves, there are always people worse off than yourself.  The stories are about fairness and caring and most of those I told were about family.  These things are not ties to any religion, but are tied to all.  And you do not need to be religious or spiritual to practice these traits!  So whilst we are shopping for those we know and love, do a little shopping for those you don't know and give to those in less than comfortable circumstances, and please consider dropping food off at food banks.  If you can't afford to do this, then maybe volunteer somewhere.

I will be telling more winter stories at a couple of other venues before the year is out, and one of the stories I will be telling will be a Siberian version of this tale: http://youtu.be/3xhWWdGm8fE.  I remember watching a lot of Canadian short films growing up (it's the Commonwealth thing!), but never saw this one!  I love it though, and wanted to share it.  The differences between the version I found in James Riordan's Siberian Folktales and the one above on YouTube told by the Native speakers themselves, is the Siberian Raven paints Owl with ash from a fire and not oil as in the Inuit tale.  And the reason Raven gets painted black is slightly different, although both tales blame Owl for one thing or another - lack of patience, or vanity, although in the Inuit tale Raven is being his usual bouncy self which don't help Owl!  What are YOUR favourite winter/holiday tales? Tell me in the comments, or shoot me an email!  I would love to hear from you.

One last thing before I go!  Over this season folks often try to get together with family.  This would be a great time to record tales our parents and grandparents tell, either personal stories about themselves and a time and place all but forgotten, or their favourite stories from childhood.  If you need help coming up with ideas to start a 'story time', there are some great resources at: storycorps.org  and there is a wonderful PDF here: http://nationaldayoflistening.org/downloads/DIY-Instruction-Guide.pdf that StoryCorp have put out.  And here is a link to why we should be recording stories our families tell from an earlier date on my blog: http://worldofstories.blogspot.com/2011/10/recording-family-stories.html

None of us are going to be around forever, so catch those stories for our later generations and give them a piece of your own family history.

Peace,

Simon
www.SimonBrooksStoryteller.com
which is the same site as: www.DiamondScree.com!

PS, the images used in this blog are original art done by myself.  Please do not copy, cut and paste, or redistribute in any manner or form. It is not cool, AND it's illegal!

The passing of my Gran

My Gran

For the last couple of years my Gran has been getting worse in health and on Friday, 11th May, 2012 at 10.15 am GMT, she passed away aged 94.  She had lived on her own until January of 2011 and did not complain too much when her kids moved back in to help!  My mother and uncle (Rob) spent a week on and a week off sharing Gran's house, looking after her.  But now that is over.  I was asked to speak  at her funeral and two stories came to my mind, the second my brother reminded of, and I thought I would share what I said at her funeral just a few days ago.


I loved my Gran and Grandad (who died in 1981 at almost 80 years of age).  Sometimes I would cycle down to their house, sometimes I would walk, and once in a while I would drive with friends if we were passing  by on the way somewhere, just to say 'hi'.  Gran was always good for a cup of tea and biscuits (English cookies). My friends would suffer my forced visits to my grandparents because of the treats, as well as them being fun to be around.  I was in my late teens on one of the first visits with my friends and I began to hand out the chocolate fingers my Gran made whilst she brought in the tea.  Gran used to make wonderful snacks. My personal favourites were biscuits made of oats and had a 1/2 cherry in the center.  Once the chocolate fingers had been passed around, I began to hand around a plate full of these wonderful, soft, oat biscuits with the cherry in the middle.  "Anyone for a titty biscuit?" I asked, for that was what they were called.  They had always been called that, and to me it was just a name with no meaning.  But to my teenage friends who had never seen them before - well, there were some slack jaws and some snickering! "What?" I asked.  One of my friends said: "Titty biscuits?" and held one up.  The penny dropped.  I looked at Gran and she was smiling, pouring tea.  I was mortified, she was giggling.  And from then on, when my friends came with me to Gran and Grandad's house, they were always sure to ask if there were any titty biscuits to be had!

When I last visited Gran in January last year, we got talking about cars.  She had mostly had what might be classified as little racers! Gran wasn't reckless, but she really liked to drive.  She stopped driving when she knew she would was not safe driving.  There are many elderly drivers who could take a lesson from her there.  And  I remember that my Gran was good driver and probably would have been a racing driver if she was born in a different generation.

A very nice Ford Anglia - Gran's was white!

This goes back to when Gran was driving her beloved Ford Anglia.  A wonderful little car with fins; a wonderful little car that in 1966 won the British Saloon Car Championship.  The Anglia has also been in movies such as 'Harry Potter' (the car that flew), and 'Blow Up' with Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings (one of Uncle Rob's favourite movies).  Gran loved that car.  When Gran drove, she never went over the speed limit, but stayed right on it.  And when Gran got to traffic lights, she would, of course, stop at the red lights never running them. The amber lights, however, were different!

This time, Gran must have had enough of my brother and me and was trying to get to Mum's as soon as possible.  We were sitting in the back seat in a car that had no rear seat belts and certainly no headrests. I was sitting in the middle of the back seats, my favourite spot, no doubt with arms on the back of the front seats, looking alternately between the speedometer and speed limit signs. Gran was coming towards a set of traffic lights.  They were green.  Then they turned to amber and Gran sped up.The amber light turned red.  And Gran would not run a red light and so she braked. Hard. Really hard.

I remember we careened to a stop, no doubt JUST on the line!  I do not remember the car skidding, nor do I remember bouncing off Gran's arm, but I do remember that I did not stay on the back seat as the car came to an abrupt halt.  I had been propelled between the front seats and took rest in the passenger foot well in a tidy shaking ball!  I imagine my brother wondering, gleefully, if I were still alive!

Gran calmly said: "Are you alright, dear?"  and helped me out of the well and gently helped back over the front seats into the rear of the car.  My brother has similar driving skills which I am sure come from Gran, inspired by that amazing stop.  "Wow" I think was all he said.  I always liked the Anglia, despite it's grumpy look.  When I had talked to Gran about it she said: "Oh, I did love that car."

I can imagine Gran now, freed from her body at last, to be the young spirit she always was.  I can see her driving off at top speed in her Anglia to get to those who have been waiting for her for so long, so happy to have her with them again....maybe with a tin of titty biscuits and chocolate fingers sitting beside her in the passenger seat.

Uncle Rob, Mum (Di) and Gran (Daphne), 1990

Many people shared memories of Gran at the funeral and afterwards at the pub.  Not just my Mum, Uncle Rob and cousin Kat, who also delivered eulogies at the service, but others who came up to us to tell us their memories.  Some inspired or remembered (triggered) by what we had said at the funeral.  We found out where the name titty biscuits came from.  There were children (now in their sixties and older) of people who knew Gran and Grandad who came to say how much they were loved.  I learned more about Gran that day than I ever thought I could.  She truly left a positive mark on many people, and a legacy to live up to.


Love you, Gran.

Simon