A Little Bit of History

Time and Place: Morning in bed in the back bedroom at Mum's

Yep I'm still here.

My daughter was miffed that the boys were mentioned in my previous post as having stayed in the back bedroom when they were babies, but she was not. So I have to go back to 2009 when we stayed at Mum's after I sold up, gave up my job, got married and left for sunny Spain with new hubby.

Rich and Kez lived at Mum's for a little while longer before Rich bought his flat in the summer of 2010, when brother and sister duly moved in together and have since lived in rather dubious sibling harmony. At Mum's, Kez had managed to bag the back bedroom and proceeded to keep it in the manner in which all bedrooms are kept by Kez, which is by no means a tidy sanctuary of calmness.

Previously in 2005 when we moved in with Dad and three cats the sleeping arrangements were thus:

Mum and me sharing a bed in her room and Kez in a single bed next to us – yep we all fitted in.

Dad in the small front spare room that was my brother's bedroom - where all sorts of shenanigans happened in the 1970's.

Rich somehow managed to persuade Carl to have the sofa bed in the dining room below the back bedroom while he had the back bedroom all to himself.

The cats just slept anywhere...

Are you keeping up?

So daughter dear, you are now mentioned as one who stayed in the now infamous back bedroom.

As a matter of historical interest it was once the norm to share beds with other family members. Mum shared a bed with her two sisters and her two brothers shared the single bed at 13 Meadow Road in Feltham. In the Second World War Mum wasn't evacuated, as they were just outside the evacuation boundary area. She recalls regular visits to the air raid shelter and the Doodlebug (V-1) that dropped on the railway at Feltham goods yard.

Have a look at this site. I can't click on the bomb in the field in Pevensey! Road Nature Reserve! Any ideas?

http://bombsight.org/#15/51.4460/-0.3851

Anyway Mum says the Doddlebug incident was about 1944, so that wouldn't have been her bomb on the map. Apparently the V-1's came later in the war. Anyhow, there was an air raid warning and Mum remembers they didn't have time to get in the shelter at the bottom of the road in the field, so they were ushered in the covered alleyway between the houses. She must have been about 7. There was the distinctive drone and when the engine shut off and it glided in deathly silence over the house. Mum panicked and screamed and Grandma slapped her round the face. Another time a V-2 landed in Crane Park - you couldn't hear those coming. Oh Lucky number 13!!

See below if interested in V-1's and V-2's

http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_into.html

I mention all this in passing, as Mum recently received a letter from her older cousin Popsy describing the sleeping arrangements on a visit to South Norwood, for a family wedding during the war. She writes that recently it was her sister Nin's 72^nd wedding anniversary, and recalls the night before the wedding at her parents' house.

'There was a terrible air raid the night before. You and Harold were sleeping top to toe with me in a single bed. Grandma, your Mum and my Mum were in a double bed and my Aunty Louis, Auntie Ethel and cousin Babs were in another double bed. In the back downstairs room were two more double beds. Grandad, Uncle George and your Dad were in one. My Dad, Uncle Edward Fred were in the other. Upstairs Nin, Auntie Edie, Jean and Marg and on a mattress was my Uncle Bill and cousin Andrew and Bernard. It was at a time when you had to chalk on the front door how may were in the house. In the big front bedroom it was all laid up for the reception afterwards. On trestles and benches brought up from the church on wheelbarrows. With all that going on my headmistress would not let me off my algebra homework. But Bernard at 16 helped me to get it done. It is amazing what you can remember.'

Well what an amazing piece of history!

Now, why am I still here, in the back bedroom at Mum's, you ask?

I don't know, is the answer and unfortunately neither does my doctor. Which is rather worrying. Apparently I am a mystery. Two sets of blood tests do not indicate a virus. I'm convinced it has something to do with my lumbar epidural steroid injection in my back nearly four weeks ago. I've been feeling ill since then – but what do I know, I'm only the patient! So I have to wait for her to find out any known side effects of the procedure and get back to me. Let's face it, she's stumped and I just wait and continue to feel rubbish. But on the upside, it means I can sit in bed in the back bedroom, watching The Wright Stuff and do some writing.

Unfortunately, as I have been a tad unwell I have not written a word of my book for nearly 4 weeks. But as I am not a celebrity and have no advance or any dosh to speak of to promote the fact I am writing a book, or even have any idea if anyone will be remotely interested in some ordinary person's memoir, I have at least started the process of every creative person's nadir – marketing, advertising, promotion – you get the picture. As I don't see myself, any time soon (or ever, in fact) doing the rounds of daytime TV such as those Loose Women or Lorraine etc. I have started this blog to do a little bit of self-promotion and hopefully amuse and inform you at the same time.

Well, for goodness sake, what is the book about? You ask.

Let's start with the title. 'The Burning Bed.' The background picture is a watercolour painted by my Dad, I think in the late 70's early 80's. I was living with him in the mid 1980's after my parents had divorced and asked him what the painting was. He said it was a burning bed and was a reference to the breakdown of their marriage. But he said it could mean whatever you want it to mean.

I have some form to the book – yes chapters and everything! I suppose I would say It is a third completed. That's all your getting for now........Haha!

Next time – My Mum is Super-Mum....

The Burning Bed by Clifford Grattan

My blog is not my book, it is a journal of writing my book. When my book is finished I hope you will read it.

I am writing a book and thought I'd start a blog about writing my book. Once my book is written printed and hopefully read I will never write the words again in that same sequence that will bring my story to the reader. Now, I am not suggesting that my storytelling is in anyway magnificent or that my craft is infinitely skilful. I am a novice, maybe deluded. But the story I have to tell is powerful, intense and true and I think, a story worth telling.