It was always mum who cooked our food, washed our clothes and generally looked after us, but it was auntie who nurtured my soul.
Mum gave me orders every morning on what not to do. Like do not tamper with the fire after she had to leave for work at six. Mum’s great fear was that one of us would suffer the plight of a little girl in the next street from ours: poor lass reached up to place something on the mantelshelf above their grate and the hem of her frock caught the flames. Months in hospital never soothed away the scars.
So with the fireguard kept in place, mum, still troubled, left for work.
At ten minutes past seven, big sister repeated mum’s warning to me before leaving the house. Her job was to take little sister to day nursery before making her way onto her own school.
Alone at last, I hummed to the “Flight of the Bumblebee”, put away the breakfast things, and set the table for teatime. When I began to dress for my own school, “Pizzicato polka” danced inside my head followed by “Golliwog Cakewalk” and other favourites until the man told me it was ten minutes past eight and time I switched off. I left the house and walked the labarynth of terraced roads to Peacock St School, named after our local locomotive manufacturers that in those days shipped steam engines to all the red bits on the World’s map and was the main employer of our district.
On Saturday morning Auntie sent Uncle Mac to teach me the words to “Pretty Little Black-eyed Suzie” and “Close the Door, they’re coming through the Windows” and “You’re a Pink Toothbrush”. By the time I was nine, I knew all the tunes and their lyrics to all kinds of music.
Around the time I was twelve, big sister had been working for a while, so with the extra income, mum could afford a television. Our household was the last in the street to have one, but as always, there was a silver lining; we were the only family to have a television set with BBC 2.
My friend came round to watch H.G, Welles’s ‘The Pit” and boy, were we scared. Then came the “Twilight Zone” and so on. I wasn’t just hooked on science fiction; I watched all the drama BBC2 offered. I absorbed Tolstoy and Zola like I was a parched sponge even though I was far too young to truly understand them.
So with memories of this gentle nurture I grew up with a taste for drama, a love for classical music and a thirst to know everything in the universe. Yes – there is no doubt, I am truly Auntie’s girl, dear, dear Auntie Beeb.
(c) 2024 Pat Barnett.
