January 2003
Written by: Kate (Mackenzie) Bentley
Bletsoe in Jan: Lots of rain, lots of sunshine. Catkins in the hedge,
(flooded fields and roads) Periwinkles with pretty blue flowers, daisies on the lawn, bursting buds on shrubs and small trees, winter jasmine all the month.
We lost my Grandmother today. The phone call came through last night; there had been a fire at her cottage and she was in hospital. A mixture of disbelief, shock; her great paranoia was of a fire at her thatched cottage to the extent that fire precautions were a pathological priority. The electricity turned off whenever she was away (which was frequently), appliances unplugged, smoke detectors regularly tested and batteries changed. The enormity of what might be blurring time, movement and thought. A physical weight empathetically constricting my chest and throat. Another phone call, Come quick, the doctors say there is nothing they can do and it is only a matter of time. I turn to my husband, unbelieving. A part of my world falls in.
We make it to Bedford Hospital Accident and emergency. I give my name at the desk as Katherine Mackenzie. I am never known as Katherine and I have been married for almost four years. My father appears, he warns us that Mopsie is on a ventilator and covered in bandages. I still have a vision that she is going to turn to me with a twinkle in her eye. The truth is brutal. Without being told it could be anyone lying there; there is no movement, only bandages and nothing to recognise. My mother is by her side, as are two of my cousins, they are talking to her,
ëKatie has just come in with John, they tell her. I move forward,
I don't know Mops,already there is a need to claim her back, to will her personality in being again, we leave you alone for two minutes, and look what happens. The soft chiding and teasing that she loved so much.
You can stroke her lower legs.
I do, the power of speech now gone. Alarms go off. I am startled, has she gone? Where is the crash team? But no, the shrieking is to warn the nurses her drugs are running low.
Now Mops, you never thought you'd end your days dependant on drugs. I say, the gentle teasing forcing its way back, despite the stark realism of the truth.
Like a flock of birds coming in to roost, other members of the family arrive. The word has gone out and they are moving heaven and earth to be with her. I donít think the hospital has ever seen anything like it. Every time someone arrives, daughters, partners, son-in-laws, grandchildren, her heartbeat strengthens again. One by one they take in the sight, adapt mentally, and then speak quietly to her, adding to the growing tapestry of life around her. The little cubicle is getting very crowded and we are spilling out into the hallways. She is still on the A&E trolley, as the doctors hadn't expected her to survive this long. Now they want to move her, but my mother is anxious about the effect a move might have; MM, her youngest sister and Mopsie's youngest daughter, is on the road from Wales,
Just let her arrive first, she says.
Hang on Mops, M is on her way, we say.
Shock hangs in the air and the smell of singeing is like a physical presence, a black omni-present shadow hovering over us. Against this horror, there is a need to comfort her and to shield her from the fact that she is the centre of this chaos and pain, a need to put her comfort first, a need to make these last hours of her life as rich as the rest has been. As one, and without ever being conscious of it, we are creating a impenetrable barrier around her, an invisible blanket of love to protect and carry her. A CD player has been found. Classical music is playing, people are talking and remembering, jokes are even being told. A springboard of love is being made for her to leave us from.
My aunt M makes it, Well done, we tell them both, and agree for her to be moved. But keep Hanging on we say, Eddie is coming, Eddie is her youngest son, he will be on the first plane out of Holland. He'll be here as fast as he can. She is moved to her own room off a day ward, and, as it is the wee hours, we are given the full run of the ward with access to tea and coffee. There is a little house with beds for a few to sleep, for drivers to recoup before the next day starts, whatever that day may bring. In her new room my brother is reading to her from a book on Byzantium history. It is beautiful. Our selection of CD's is limited so radio 4 is now quietly and contentedly murmuring. Another Mopsie association, she always had the radio on, even through the night, I think she was their biggest fan. There is a great sense of peace. The nurses flit in like ghosts, taking her pulse, checking the ventilator, checking morphine levels. The anaesthetist comes in who treated her when she first came into A&E. She is amazed at the strength of her heart. She doesn't know the strength of her character. Another check of her pulse, but they are struggling. There are just four of us with her me, my eldest brother and my two sisters. They bring out a stethoscope and try listening through the bandages. We eye each other, thinking about those who are not here. A silent sigh of relief, she is still with us, but we sense time is running out. Eddie has landed we tell her, he's on his way.
The day ward is awakening and is needed for its normal job so we are on the move again. She has pushed at the barrier of expectation once more and cheated death for a little bit longer. They find us all another room. We ask for them not to take her pulse again until Eddie has arrived. We don't want him to know whether or not he has made it in time, we just want him to know he has made it. They agree and pour us more tea. There is a window and it is raining.
Eddie has made it. We part like a wave to give him the space to reach her. We have a flash of recognition of what a terrible scene this is to witness, and then the curtains close once more. More news of family comes her eldest son and daughter-in-law, Andy and Mireille, are in Thailand and can't be reached, but their daughters, Nathalie and Sam, are on their way. Hang on, just for a little bit longer, we will let you go soon. Somehow Nathalie arrives, and, completing the circle of life, she tells Mops that her sister, Sam, is pregnant. A special moment. In the room we number seventeen, there is now a representative from each of her five children. The doctors feel the end is close and ask permission to turn off the ventilator. A group leaves the room momentarily to discuss the inevitable and agrees a time limit to give Sam the chance to arrive. But Mops has taken events into her own hands. She has waited till her family had gathered, and now she has quietly gone. She has gone, and at last we can hold her. I fold my fingers round hers and remember every happy memory I can and pour them in as fuel for her final journey. Outside the wind is blowing and clouds race across the sky. I hope with all my heart that Popsie has grabbed her by the hand and is dancing her across the heavens.
CHAPTER 1
Childhood Memories
Written by: Beryl Archer (Mopsie)
Jenny Wren flew by today the cat is blameless after all
I was born in 1915 and brought up by two spinster Aunts in The Ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth I quote Daniel Defoe. Great, because at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, herring was king, fresh, kippered, bloatered or as a red. It brought fame and fortune to the town. The herring shoal came down the North Sea from North East Scotland in October and reached the peak of perfection at the Dogger Bank, a driftland of shifting sand which partly faces a coastline semi-circling out into the cruel sea called Norfolk.
Great Yarmouths main street ran lengthwise between the sea and the River Yare, whose mouth or estuary ends at the harbour. This strong and sturdy wooden structure was built by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. In my school days I had numerous picnics, sheltering in its wooden arms. Before the war and the bombing which destroyed many of the ugly cramped houses, the two main streets were crossed by long alleys, these were known as Rows. There were 145 of them, they were all numbered and were originally constructed so that the swollen sea, in times of storm, might disgorge her waters into the river without opposition from buildings. These mean alleys, some of them not two yards wide, contained tiny houses. These were sometimes single, other times four or even six to a small courtyard, with a stand ñ a pipe or pump for water supplies. The very poor lived here and miserable men collected their rents, making many a local factotum rich, but not loved.
Auntie Mac was loved. She was the district nurse, child officer and health visitor all in one and knew all the communities that made up Yarmouth. She would often come home and tell us tales of her adventures. I remember one old couple who lived in a Courtyard cottage. My Aunt was visiting the old lady because her varicose veins had ulcerated. To this day I can still remember the treatment: Leg up always and Scotts dressing. Because of her affliction, the old lady was always referred to as Viney. Her consort was a dear old man who was short, stout and stubby with almost white hair. There was always a smile on his well-weathered pock marked face and he possessed a huge splodge of a nose, hence his nickname. As I recall, Auntie Mac noticed that poverty was rearing its ugly head in this household. Blob-nose was over seventy, and casual work on the wharves was scarce; younger men were hungry for work too. When the Scottish trawlers lined up in the river with the Lowestoft and Yarmouth trawlers, Blob-nose used to help with the herrings, hauling the swills from boat to cart or wharf. Any of the silver darlings that slithered away were his to eat or sell. There were countless times when the Aunts would part with a needed shilling in exchange for a few fish from Blobnose. That plus ten shillings per week pension to only one of the them was their sole income. I was ever a Big-ears as a child (my nickname. And not because I had big ears) and I gleaned, listening when I should not, that much to my shock, Viney and Blob-nose were not married and therefore living in sin. Not only was this morally scandalous but it also had a knock on financial implication in that as two single people they were not eligible for a double pension. My Aunt decided to take matters into her own hands and, arming herself with the relevant particulars, went to the town hall to organise a marriage as soon as possible and consequently raise their pension to £1 per week.
Thank ya Narse, said Viney (whom I secretly called Whiney) when told of the plan, But I hadn't got no coat to go in.
This seemed, when all was considered, a rather strange comment to make, but Auntie Mac never battered an eyelid. She simply removed her very own coat from her very back and handed it over. An action I rated as heroic; it was a black fur coat, with seal skin at the collar, cuffs and voluminous hem. It was probably the nicest coat she had ever had and I had hoped to inherit it one day. My other Aunt, Auntie Ray, was a great cook and she set to making them a feast a huge celebratory wedding cake, freshly cut ham sandwiches and home baked sausage rolls. Then, on the great day, we took everything over to their cottage, wished them well and left them to their festivities. As the day lengthened, I could feel that a sense of curiosity was chaffing at the Aunts; usually we took the dog for a run on the Promenade or by the seashore. But on this particular evening it was decided we should walk by the river. To get there we had to go through the rows and naturally this meant walking through the very row of the nuptials. There, in the courtyard with coat on, glass of beer in her hand, her leg on a plank and singing heartily was Viney. Blob-nose, also with beer in hand was dancing, whilst his neighbours clapped lustily. We watched for a few moments and then moved on quietly, careful not to be seen as we made our way to the river. As Big-ears I later heard that the celebrations continued well into the night.
Next day, during tea, there was a loud banging at the back door. I rushed to open it. There stood Blob-nose, with a few herrings suspended by a string through their gills,
Tha's a few fish for the Narse he said,
Who is it? Called an Aunt,
It's Blob-nose, I shouted back, and I expect he'll want his usual shilling.
I was quickly hustled from the door. I never did know his real name, but he and Viney and the drifters and trawlers of the herring industry have slipped into that mist of time we call The Past which we recall sometimes with pleasure, sometimes with pain.
***
Written by: Kate (Mackenzie) Bentley
We are rawly shocked by the violence of her death. The brutality of what happened is such an anathema to the peace, order and diplomacy that ruled her life. Not that she was a quiet, reclusive little old lady, far from it. Her bones may have been a bit more creaky but, even in her late eighties, she still considered herself merely slightly beyond middle aged. Old was a title reserved for the ninety year olds in the village whom she would still help. Until a couple of years ago, when she finally gave up her car, she would regularly take the elderly as she called them, shopping or pick up fellow students. Her driving was fairly unique; rarely moving out of second gear and pushing in the clutch on every corner, only to rev it like mad to get the car moving again. She got around, but I think it's fair to say, she was your speeding business man's blue rinse nightmare. But that wouldn't hold Mops back, she had a sparkling mind and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, attending history classes, creative writing classes and was forever globe trotting with her friends and ever extending family whenever she could. She proved, with her inextinguishable zest for life, that it was possible to be an octogenarian and still find the future an exciting prospect. And now she has gone, and for all her eighty seven years, a good innings in anyone's book, it feels as if her life has been tragically cut short. No-one lives forever, yet her presence was as permanent as a block of granite and her loss has turned our hearts to running water. And there is the further pain in the manner of her passing. She was very prosaic about death, it was not something she feared but rather saw as inevitable; maybe because she had seen so much of it as a nurse and thorough the war, I don't know. But she would never have wanted this drama or destruction, she would have liked to slip quietly away with careful lists in place, documents filed and labelled, the cottage spotless with the freezer full of fare for her funeral and even a plate of cheese straws on the side, in case anyone got peckish. Instead there is a horror that assaults the senses, the smell, the look, the fear, the touch of fire. It is a betrayal.
We have seen her beloved cottage or what is left of it. Battered and bruised, we wandered round, each with our own thoughts and demons. For no other reason than they belonged to her and she cherished them, we rescued damaged photos and shattered bits of china. We stared in wonder and disbelief. It was like walking through a film set. It was not real. My mother, Aunts and Uncles are facing life as orphans for the first time, yet there is no time for reflection or grief. Already they have been thrust into a boiling cauldron of paperwork, decisions and deadlines, funeral directors, police investigations and coroners reports. Each one is trying to be strong for the others; to hold the family together in this emotional whirl of ancient sensitivities and loss. They are doing their utmost to cope with the present and blank out the smouldering devastation and stench of burning that follows us all.
I am sorting through Mopsie's papers; my task is to find and preserve her creative writing, her poems and stories. After retirement, Mops turned her attention to writing and joined a writing group that was to be a constant in her life, meeting every Tuesday afternoon, for nigh on twenty years. Now I am attempting to rescue the many fruits of her labours. There are bags and bags of notebooks and papers to go through and much of it is water damaged. A tangled, soggy mess perfumed with cinders and smoke. I also find my job fascinating and make slow progress, dipping in and out of fiction, fact and a mixture of both. In one bag are the two folders I gave her a couple of Christmas's ago to specifically collect her life stories and poems in. I am pleased to see they are both well used.
***
Earliest memories: Soldiers billeted, pram in garden, the armistice.
Written by: Beryl Archer (Mopsie)
I called them my Aunts, but they were no blood relation to me, and neither were they related to each other. But you don't need blood to have a special bond. Auntie Mac (nearly everyone called her Mac, so I called her Auntie Mac, but her name was Susanne Lillian Mac affrey) met Auntie Ray (real name Rachel Burrowes) when they both trained as nurses together and they remained lifelong friends and companions. Hospitals in those days were places where the poor went on the whole. They weren't the equivalent of the earlier workhouses, but those with money would always send for the doctor and stay at home. Uncle George used to call Auntie Mac sausage fingers but her patients called her Butterfly fingers. I remember they brought in a very aristocratic lady one day she must have come down on her luck or something. She took a shine to Auntie Mac and used to say of her: Power by name and power by nature, a single, mortal, worldly lady, heavenly qualified,
I knew Auntie Mac was Irish, but I didn't know until they were both rather frail that Auntie Ray was Irish too. Auntie Ray's mother had a huge family of nine children and longevity was in the their genes, except for the father; he never worked, was a poet, fond of the grape and drowned in a puddle where the South Bank now stands. Auntie Ray was brought up and went to school in Tottenham. She left London to train at Plymouth and South Devon Hospital. She was a redhead and extremely intelligent and would have gone to University if she'd been born today. By the age of 22 she was totally deaf. She blamed the teachers who hit her ankles when she was young.
Auntie Mac's father, Da MacCaffrey was an Irish man who left Galway at the time of the potatoe famine to come to Great Yarmouth. The Irish were not popular in East Anglia - Cromwell's area I can actually remember when I was a child, people spitting at the nuns who taught us; the nuns never got involved but, on the other hand, they never went out to visit the sick, just lived in their own enclave.but enough said anyway, because of the anti-catholic feeling Da changed his name to Caffley. He became a coal merchant and owned coal boats which took coal to Russia. He put his roots down in Yarmouth and married Miss Susanah Fish, one of three sisters who lived on the other side of the River Yare on the road to Gorleston. He then founded a silk factory called Grouts in Great Yarmouth which still flourished in my childhood and may still be there. Susannah and Da had three children the eldest was Uncle George, three years later came Auntie Mac and fourteen months later, Jimmie was born. Susanah was pregnant again when she developed typhoid. She started haemorrhaging badly and needed a doctor quickly, but she would only see her own doctor. She made Da take the carriage to fetch him, but before he left he had to promise that if she died he would not marry again. The doctor finally arrived but it was too late to save her. Da held true and kept his promise.
So Da was left with three children. They lived for a while in a house behind what is now the town hall, with a well in the yard. But then, to help out, Auntie Mac was given to the care of Aunt Sophia and Uncle Robert. Sophia had been the maid of the Misses Fish, Auntie Mac's aunts, but now she and Uncle Robert ran a smallholding outside Stalham in Norfolk.
Auntie Mac always remained close to Aunt Sophia and Uncle Robert. Throughout my childhood we (Auntie Mac, Auntie Ray and me) would visit them twice yearly in spring and in autumn, when we gathered blackberries from the hedgerows. These visits were very special to me. We were always met by Uncle Robert with the pony cart and Prince the horse. I was allowed to take the reins and guide everyone home, feeling very important. Little did I know that the horse knew the way blindfolded. I would take them all the way to the little red brick cottage with its tiny front garden surrounded by a clipped hedge. There to meet us would be Aunt Sophia, her eyes were like sapphires, her cheeks like sun kissed apples and her smile as welcoming as the sunshine. I can't remember what we ate as a main meal, but I do remember the Dundee-ribbed stone jar which sat in hot water in a saucepan on the range and within it was the most delightful creamy, well-set baked custard I've ever tasted; eggs from the chickens clucking around, milk from the clumsy cows, meandering, in the adjoining fields and made, it seemed to me, with Aunt Sophia's magic.
***
Written by: Kate (Mackenzie) Bentley
I laugh when I read her description about the egg custard. It might explain why baked custard held such a special place in her heart. Mopsie, taught by the Aunts, was a fantastic cook always making everything from scratch with never any waste. The kitchen in the cottage would constantly sing with productivity: Beautiful velvety soups, cakes sprinkled with icing sugar and oozing homemade jam, sausage rolls, creamy rice puddings, pert chutneys, and always a fantastic roast dinner with all the trimmings. Nine times out of ten and particularly when my father or Uncle Andy were around, she would bake a proper egg custard and proudly present it to them saying Here's your favourite, I know how much you love it. It took them both years and the eventual moral support of each others company for my father and Uncle Andy to confess to their true hatred of egg custard. Mops was livid with the pair of them. I'm not sure what drove her more mad, the rejection of her beloved egg custard or the fact they had remained silent for so long. I don't know if they were ever fully forgiven. Afterwards, whenever we needed to question Mopsie's unstinting support and loyalty to my father in some matter we would all quietly chant, Egg custard, egg custard.
