Forties (part 2)

I seem to have been a sickly child, because my mother later kept telling me so.  In fact, I had croup when I was three, whooping cough a couple of years later, chickenpox at some point, and German measles twice (which wasn’t supposed to be possible).  My parents later told me that they’d shoved me into rooms with neighbouring kids who had mumps in the vain hope that I’d catch my immunity before it could do permanent harm, but mumps declined me (until I was in my forties).  The same ‘expose and immunise’ system was probably applied to other childhood ailments, like scarlet fever.

My body obstinately refused to comply.  I still haven’t had scarlet fever, as far as I know.  Again later in life (probably in my teens) I was reminded that my TB test – a ‘patch test’, it was called; it was conducted at Cranleigh Road school, and for some reason I had to go back and have it again because the first try hadn’t worked – had come out positive.  This meant that I was immune to TB.  Somehow this was presented as bad news.

But the by-product of that sickliness was reading.  Memory is a distorting mirror, but I do know – having been told so many times – that I was reading by the age of four.  How fluently I have no way of telling, but the breadth of my reading is fairly well established.  It was ‘Picture Post’ and ‘Illustrated’ magazines, and The Children’s Encyclopaedia.  

I was given the two magazines, unedited, to keep me occupied.  I was reading words I’d never actually heard or said.  I clearly remember wondering how that word ‘illustrated’ was pronounced.  I say unedited, because I have since looked back and there were some fairly challenging images in there; but I don’t recall being traumatised.  Perhaps the worst pages got torn out before the mags were dropped onto my bed, but I doubt it.

The Children’s Encyclopaedia, though, was another thing, and must have formed a large part of my early education.  I don’t intend to retrospectively flesh out my actual memories, but I will use the internet to check facts, so I am fairly sure that what I had was the 1920 ten volume blue-bound edition.  So I certainly learned about the solar system, and probably picked up some attitudes that may have taken a while to question and discard.  I wish I had those books now, because I’d love to revisit and revise that early education.

Forties (part 1)

I was born on Bastille Day in 1942, although I didn’t know that at the time.  I was later constantly reminded of this fact by my mother, Gwyneth, who needed her children to be important in some way.  Much later, she told me – this may have been after she discovered the loosening effects of alcohol – that I hadn’t been particularly noticed as being bright, until Miss Wade, my kindergarten teacher, did.  This came as a surprise to my parents.

In the early 1970s, I was involved in various different ways with three girls who in their various different ways contrived to draw me into the irrational sphere of astrology, which required very precise information about the minute, if not second, that one emerged from one’s mother’s womb, so I asked mummy exactly when I was born. She couldn’t remember.

I do know where, though.  Tuckton Nursing Home.  I can quite clearly picture Tuckton, a kind of nowhere zone between Southbourne and Christchurch, with some useful shops, alternatives to Southbourne Grove – but I don’t remember the Nursing Home.  Today, I have to wonder what one of those was, and how it could have a maternity ward; but this was 1942.

I remember Miss Wade, and where her kindergarten was.  It was on the corner of Paisley Road and Irving Road.  You walked a little way up Watcombe Road, turned right and then you were there.  Those streets (I use the word generically – Bournemouth is famous for being one of the few towns in England not to contain a single named street) were amongst the first things I ever learnt.

Another thing I learnt from Miss Wade was the technique of prevarication.  This came about when I asked her why you had to be married to have a baby.  It was probably when my brother was expected, in 1947; I certainly knew by then that babies came out of their mummy, and was just naturally curious about how this worked.  Miss Wade responded by referring me to Jesus.  That was probably part of the start of my wondering why people seemed unable to give simple answers to even simpler questions, a wondering that has only grown since.  But the few children I’ve known haven’t asked me awkward questions like that, so I’ve yet to be put to that particular test.