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Memories Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003 My grandmother's death started me thinking about the summer holidays my sisters and I spent at my grandparents' home in the country. My favourite memories of my childhood will be of those times. We usually went for a week or so in August. Their house was down a short dirt track off a narrow country road, about a mile from the nearest village. Next to the house was an apple orchard with a derelict farmhouse in it, that was owned by my grandfather's brother. My grandfather kept chickens, and at night they roosted in the farmhouse. These chickens were completely free-range. They'd wander out of the orchard onto the lane, sometimes venturing into the field of wheat that was next to it, or sometimes near the house, looking for scraps. One of my favourite games was to herd them all back. Another was to climb the apple trees, one in particular was easy to climb since it was next to the gate to the orchard, so by climbing up onto the gate I could reach the lower branches. The fallen apples attracted loads of wasps. Behind the orchard was a meadow bordered by a stream, which my grandparents called 'the beck'. It was in fact the river Chet that flows through a place called Loddon, joins with the Yare on its way to Great Yarmouth, where I was born. Sometimes I'd try to dam it but without success. My grandfather worked at a chocolate factory in Norwich, so there was always loads of chocs to eat, as well as apples, but I don't remember eating any apples at all- I was probably worried about wasps. At the end of the week my grandfather would kill one of the chickens, although I never saw this, and we'd have it for lunch. When we fed the scraps from the meal to the rest of the chickens they didn't seem to mind that one of their number was now part of their snack. There wasn't a bathroom in the house. The toilet was outside in a shed, and basically it was a hole in a plank of wood with a bucket underneath it, which my grandmother would empty into a cesspit. When I told old Annie about this she asked me what century was I born in, but it's true. My grandparents raised 4 children in a house without a toilet. There was no street lighting outside of course so the house was very dark at night. My sisters slept in a bedroom with a picture of Jesus and the Apostles in it. That picture frightened me during the daytime- I'm really glad I didn't have to sleep in there. So my childhood memories can be summed up as chickens, wasps, apples, chocolates, and a dark, scary picture of Jesus. It was great, and yesterday I mourned it's passing.
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