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Stories on this page :-
The Day my mum had all of her teeth out.
My Sister returns from Tenby.
So Grown up.
Peledro
Aberfan
THE DAY MY MOTHER HAD ALL OF HER TEETH OUT
My mum had not been well, since the birth of her last baby. My father bought her Sanatogen wine to drink for a tonic but he drank far more of it than my Mum did because he said his nerves were bad. My mum said he didn't have any, but he carried on drinking the stuff.
Mum was really down and said all her gums bled when she cleaned her teeth, so she arranged to see a dentist. Dad took her early one morning and left my brother in charge of us kids. When mum returned later is was to tell us kids she had to have all her teeth out and had to go back to the dentist in the morning. She had something called pyoreia in her gums.
'How will you eat Mum with no teeth?' I asked. A vision of my mother starving coming into my mind. 'I'll be fine love,' she said. 'It will only be for a little while then I'll get some new teeth.' To me there didn't seem much wrong with the ones she had.
Early next morning mum and dad was off and dad left us with a stern warning to behave as my mother would not be well when she came back, and would not feel up to looking after us today. A big plate of sandwiches were left on the kitchen table for us if we were hungry. I held on to my mother as she was going. I did not want her to go. She would come back with no teeth and I was scared of that thought. She gave me a big hug and said, 'now be a good girl love, really try for me to be good till I get back.' I promised her I would and cried as they drove off.
My brother started bossing us about before they had gone half a mile and all my fighting spirit rose up in me. Who did he think he was - our Dad? I was going to find something to do for my mother while she was gone I thought. I wandered into the kitchen thinking what I could do, my eyes fell on the kitchen scissors hanging on the wall. I know, I'll cut all our hair, what a nice surprise to find us all with nice hair cuts when they came back. I got hold of my younger sister who, after complaining loudly, agreed to let me start on her. She had long flaxen blonde hair, as we all did, so I decided to cut the sides short. Chop, chop, it fell to the floor in great lengths and soon her hair was shorn to her head. I began to feel queasy, this was not turning out as it should I though. I was full of good intentions but nothing seemed to be going right again. My sister caught sight of herself in the mirror and started bawling her head off which brought my brother in. He took one look and said, 'now you've done it our Beryl. Our ad will kill you when he gets home.' Pam, my sister, would not stop crying and all the rest of my sisters were looking at me like I had just committed murder. 'I was only trying to tidy it,' I said, but I knew there was no going back.
When my parents got home I'd be for the high jump. It seemed like hours before we heard the old van trundling down into the yard and my brother, the traitor, could not wait to tell them what I'd done. He was outside in the yard running, his mouth off before the van had come to a stop. Pam followed him, still crying, looking like a load of rats had chewed on her hair all night. My father took one look and stopped in his tracks. 'Oh my God, Bren,' he whispered, 'look what she has done now.'
My mother came out of the van and I looked at her. She looked awful, her mouth looked like two flat tyres. Not like my mother at all. All thought of what I had done went and I burst into tears. I wanted my mum back without the flat tyres for her mouth. I ran to her and buried my head in her skirt. God I loved my mother. She patted me on the head and said, 'I'll deal with you later my girl.'
My father helped her into the kitchen and we all crowded around her and as she talked her words were all lispy. 'Go and find something to do,' my father said. 'Leave your mother alone, she's not well.' Poor mum did not look well either and I felt so sorry I'd been naughty again, but I can honestly say I never ever meant to be , it was just things always went wrong for me.
Poor Pam walked around for ages with shorn head. It took ages for her hair to grow back again and I promised I'd never ever try to cut hair again.
MY SISTER RETURNS FROM TENBY
One morning my sister, being sixteen, decided she wanted to work away
from home and after much arguing between her and my dad she got her
own way. She got a job as a trainee receptionist in a hotel in Tenby.
The day she went we all cried as my dad took her to the station in the old
pickup. It seemed to me we would never be the same again. One of the chicks had fled the nest. But she wrote often. It seemed she liked her job very much and was quite happy but I knew my mum and dad missed her a lot. She seemed so grown up now, working, earning money. I felt she was very lucky but I was telling myself I'd never go away. I got home sick if I was away from the farm for a few hours and had not ambitions, really, to go looking go for work.
One lunch time we had a letter saying Pam was coming home. We all got
very excited at the thought of seeing her. It had been six months since she went away. My brother was sent to pick her up at the station and we all hung around waiting for her.
At long last we heard the pickup groaning as it came down the track and ground to a halt by our door. First thing I noticed was this strange young man getting out of the passenger side, followed by Pam, but what a changed Pam. Her tummy was very big and even I knew she was having a baby. We all started at her, mouths agape, and the first voice I heard was the young man's saying 'I intend to marry her sir.'
My father was frothing at the mouth and I'd never realised he could speak a foreign language. I could not unerstand the words coming out of his mouth and he was a sort of blue colour. He seemed to turn a half circle as he dived into the house. Mum grabbed Pam and was holding her close as my dad reappeared. He had a shot gun in his hands and now could understand what he was saying. 'I'm going to kill you, you bastard,' he was shouting and mum was trying to get the gun off him. Next second the young man took off acoss the field with my father in hot pursuit, waving the gun around as he ran.
The young man vaulted the gate from the farm with inches to spare but poor old dad stumbled and the gun went off with a big bang, missing the young man by a mile. He wasn't the only one frightened. We all were. I'd never seen my father in this state before and it took all mum's powers to calm him. 'She can get married , Bill,' my mum said. 'It's done now, let's get her married.' I heard my dad say 'I'll shoot the bugger first Brenda.' But Jack and Pam tied the knot several days later and Jack turned out to be a good husband.
SO GROWN UP
Now I was coming up to fifteen years old and, according to my parents, looked about eleven. I had no figure, nor was there a promise of one developing, but that was the least of my worries. I just did not want to row up. I would watch my sisters with their make up and frilly skirts and think, yuk, hope I do not have to do all that before I can go to the village shop.
The highlight of my life was a trip to the shop. I'd dream all the way down, mostly about my pets, my life, and what I hoped would never change. Life was so good, I always thought. If I was up to my knees in muck I was happy.
My sister had asked my parents if she could bring her boyfriend home for the day, so I knew we would all be scrubbed up for that. Why she had to bring him to our house I don't know, upsetting all my routine. But my
mother was going to put on a show because it was Peter, the bank manager's son, that she was going out with and, according to dad, it paid to keep in with him.
Early next morning, all hands to the wheel, the house was given a spring clean, and I could smell the chicken roasting. Yummy! I thought. When my sister walked in with Peter, I nearly busted my sides laughing. Ginger hair,
pimply face and if he stood sideways you'd miss him. She was clinging on to him for dear life.
We all sat round the table for dinner. Lovely roast chicken and vegetables.
Peter was very delicately picking his chicken over when my father looked across at him and, with a chicken leg in his hand and gravy running down
his chin, said, 'pick it up son, eat it with your hands.' I thought Peter was about to pass out. He went as white as one of mum's sheets and I could see he'd never picked a chicken leg up in his fingers, nor was he about to
do so. He did not take long to think up an excuse to vacate the table and was soon on his way back down the mountain to civilisation, without a backward glance. My poor sister was in tears and mum was glaring at my father. It was all I could do to keep a straight face and thought it will be quite some time before my sister decides to invite anyone else home for a meal.
That was their loss. The dinner was great, I thought, as I sucked on the chicken bones. Think I had more of my father's genes in me than my mother's.
PELEDRO
Over the mountain, about one hour's walk, lived an old Italian recluse by the name of Peledro. He would walk to our farm, his boots and coat tied up with string and a huge walking stick by his side. We would hear him long before we saw him because he'd be singing at the top of his voice and dad used to say to my mum , 'Look out Brenda, your boy friend is coming.'
My mum would mumble some retort and go into the kitchen and shut the door. She wanted nothing to do with Peledro, but us children found him fascinating and would gather around him just to listen to his talk. Dad would go and get two cups of tea and they'd sit out on the bank talking and bartering some deal for hours.
The word was Peledro was a very rich hermit and my dad was always on the look out for a good deal. After an hour or so one of us kids would be sent for the cider jack and then the singing would start up in earnest, Dad singing "Myfanwy" and Peledro "Valencia." To us kids it was box office material. We did enjoy his visits and I think Peledro did too.
If a deal was reached, the following day we would all load up in the old pickup dad had. With him and mum in front we would drive over to Peledro's, all us kids singing in the back as we travelled over the mountain. Sheep would run all ways to get away from the noise and as we approached Peledro's farm - if that is what you could call it - my mum called it a scrap heap as old machinery lay all around in various states ofdecay. Chickens would dive out of our way squawking and several old
dogs would be running, barking toward us.
As soon as dad brought the pickup to a halt mum would get out and warn us kids not to accept any food or drink off Peledro, she said it had come from the cafe he owned in Cardiff and was all waste. He did have several sacks hanging in the kitchen and he'd put a very grubby hand in one, fetch out handful of tea leaves for kettle and in another he'd bring out handful of
milk powder. Into the kettle it would all go and once kettle was boiling you had your tea ready made. Mum said if dad drunk it it was his doing but not her and the kids.
Peledro's house was falling down, half the roof was missing but he did have one room full of beautiful furniture that mum said was when he was going to marry a girl from Italy who jilted him at the last moment and turned him a bit daft.
Peledro and my dad enjoyed their wheeler dealer relationship for many years. The last I head of Peledro was, many years after, when he was attacked in his own home. News of his wealth had spread and the poor man was very badly beaten. Looking back he was a lonely soul and must have had solace from our family.
ABERFAN
It was early in the morning, just after milking had finished, that we sat down to breakfast.
There was no school that day because it had been raining for days and everywhere was under water, so we had yet another day off.
Dad switched on the television to watch the news. There was not a lot he could do outside as it was raining far too heavily. Over breakfast he began telling us that we had to sort potatoes and I hated that job. It meant all the little potatoes, and ones going soft, were put aside for the pigs into the old copper boiler.
Suddenly we all went quiet. Coming over on the television was a news flash that a tip had slipped at Aberfan and it had slid down the mountain, covering a farm first, then the village school. It said over one hundred school children were trapped and help was needed to dig them out. It was calling on all men in the area to go and help rescue them.
My father was up in a minute and pulling on his wellingtons, he was off, calling out to us to do the chores and milking if he was not back in time. It was three days before we saw our father again.
As the day progressed, news came that most of the children were dead. It was a nightmare. All those small children buried alive under that filthy , stinking, black dust. The whole of the world stood in grief with us
We all missed our dad very much. He had never been away from us for any length of time before. When he did get home he looked dreadful. Lack of sleep and the trauma of
what he had seen was in his face. One thing I did notice, he kept washing his hands all the time. As a family man, I think he had suffered seeing those poor children and the awful way they had all died.
I heard him talking to my mother saying, 'Brenda, here in Wales we have paid dearly for our livelihood, now we are paying with the blood of our children. How much more must
we pay.' My mother was crying. 'It could have been our children Bill,' she said.
That was a week in my life I will never forget.
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