It's The Little Things

I went into one of mum's favourite charity shops yesterday and came to a hurtful halt when I saw one of mum's handbags hanging on a rack.

I'd recently given the church shop a sack of mum's bags, they were after all no good for her anymore and I knew she would have preferred them to go to place where, in the fullness of time, someone else would get pleasure from them as she did.

Yet when I saw the small brown handbag hanging amidst all the other bags it brought home to me my loss.
We had spent time and a small fortune in charity shops buying up bits and bobs, bags and blouses, ornaments and books, they were places of pleasure where we could spend our cash willy nilly and NOT break the bank.

Coming home, either to my bungalow or to her flat we'd drop the bulging bags down, I'd then make tea and drink it while holding up a blouse or bag each getting nods of approval from the other.
It was the one area where we truly connected. There were many others where we did not. But today is not about differences it is about talking kindly.

She was born in 1937 in London to poor parents, an only child and a much loved one. Growing up in London during the war she had of course many memories to store up, too many to note here but her childhood was one of pretty dresses and fussing parents. Then mum grew up and fell in love with my dad, Fred, it was then she was met with the wrath of bullish parents who, at the time, were not happy with their daughter's choice of partner, and so they really dug their heels in refusing to attend the marriage and then after the cake had gone, putting mum in the difficult position of choosing either her parents or her husband. She chose Fred.

A young inexperienced pair set out on life's matrimonial highway determined to prove that they would survive despite having very little money, nowhere to live and a baby on the way.
 After ten years of living in many mouse infested rooms we finally qualified for a council flat...
And in the spring of 1966 mum dad and myself moved into our first proper home..... a fourth floor flat in Durban House on the White City Estate supplied by the council it was small and old but clean and wonderful and we loved it.
There was a nearby park, football stadium. greyhound track and glorious Shepherd's Bush market where incidentally mum and me started the Handbag thing....

Dad was working, mum wore a pinny and cooked mince and onions and Christmasses were filled with pies and presents and love and youthful energy. I was a happy nipper.

Then mum's dad died suddenly at 59 and she went bonkers. Asthma set in, dad lost his job and we left the old block of brown and red bricks for brand new flat in a grey stone and glass block.
Mum was never the same again. Almost from day one she regretted it, she never made friends, I made a few, dad was working again and life carried on.

To supplement dad's meagre wages mum worked and worked hard. Getting up early coming home late but oh boy she looked terrific. Blonde curly hair, never ending legs and stunningly beautiful blue eyes. Dad liked what he saw and showed it often to the annoyance of mum who by nature was shy. She didn't do displays of affection, some would call her cold I called her mum.

We were often in cahoots over things. Like me bunking off school, like me not going to work, like me wanting to stay home and clean every room and make dinner. Even then I showed love of domesticity which in my later years would prove my saviour.
At any rate she never let dad know I didn't go to school that day.

On those fun occasions when I skipped school I had the temerity to sit on a wall near the dry cleaners shop where she worked and wait patiently for her. Then along she'd wriggle in a 1969 short skirt, hair gleaming with gold and big bag swinging from her arm.
"What are you doing here?" she'd ask
I grinned like the ugly oily 13 year old I was saying that I hated being bullied and that I want to be with you instead.
It ALWAYS worked.
And after a thorough telling off on the way to the bus stop we'd arrive at my nans place (they had made up by then) where we'd eat chips with vinegar and read the Woman's Own. I'd often be asked to skim  the scum off nanny's beef stew and got 6d for doing so. Nan had given up the fight. After Ted, her husband died, she gave up on life.preferring to sit and stare and complain continually about my mum. Her skirts were too short, she worked too much, and why was she stilll with my dad. Water off a ducks back to mum. She didn't allow the ramblings of an embittered mother ruin the good little life she had with dad and me.
Thankfully we never stayed long our visits usually being once a week, enough for mum and enough for me.

Mum had many jobs but the job she loved most was being a cashier in a betting shop. Man, did she and could she hold her own amongst those rowdy gamblers. I mean she was never fazed. And I know how difficult working in a bookmakers could be because in my later years I too worked in one.I didn't handle money though, I did the board. And I have my daddy to thank for that. He was working there and they needed a boardperson straight away and so I was enrolled.
19 years old. Unafraid. After all I was TOLD I could do it by my parents. And whatever they said I believed. "Hey you go walk on those hot coals, I promise it won't hurt"
And it didn't.

Mum's life carried on with all the va va voom of a woman who bent the knee to nobody. Although I could never understand her offishness with strangers, I  mean she hated everyone, I always respected her no-nonsense attitude.. She didn't concern herself with what nosey neighbours thought. She was clearly her own woman.
It wasn't all easy though, I'd be lying if I said otherwise. There were times especially during the 1990's when even my famous patience started to run out. It was when she had emotional problems and need to go the hospital, I always went with her, and on the one occasion I wanted to go home straight afterwards she made a cutting remark that floored me.
I don't know why she wished I'd never been born or why, during the last years of her life she felt she had no-one to talk to.
What more could I do to prove that I loved her?
I'd given her my home and love. I sacrificed my marriage. I made myself ill making her well.
Yet she still said she had no-one.
Life and families and love. A troublesome three. And when joined together sometimes make for an un-holy trinity.

I sorted out her draw yesterday coming across her favourite headscarf. I held it to my nose and breathed in her scent. What did I feel?
I felt sad.
The funeral last Friday was mercifully quick, her wicker coffin simple exquisite and as I peered through the slats I saw her head covered by the shroud. All I said was "Sorry I couldn't save you"
We didn't always see eye to eye but.........
I knew she would have done the same for me.