There were lots of ladybirds flying around yesterday. It was unseasonably warm. One landed on my hand after class. I showed my urban Indian friend how if you point your finger up to the sky, the ladybird will invariably crawl to the top, spread its wings and fly off. She was captivated.
Later we sat by a broad oak tree. Judging by the thickness of this tree’s trunk it must be hundreds of years old. I told my friend about a hollow oak tree in Suffolk,
‘What, you can actually go inside the tree?’ she asked.
We talked about our forthcoming writing projects. My friend wants to write about carparks, I want to write about nature. But we also want to write about people.
‘I’m thinking of writing a love story about a tree and a car who fall in love.’,
my friend mused. I smiled. We are like town mouse and country mouse I thought to myself.
‘That’s so funny! Like Romeo and Juliet?’
‘Exactly!’ she said.
Last week we were tasked with reading Question 7 by Richard Flanagan. I admit I found it tough going and dry at times. I’m not really interested in HG Wells or his love affairs. Nor am I keen to read about the fallout of the the H bomb, such gory details were rubbed in my face as a kid.
There are two aspects to Flanagan’s book which did enthral me though. The first is his description of how two Japanese ladies came to find his father after the war. They wanted to say sorry for how he was treated by their countrymen in the POW camps. They asked him to describe what happened. Sorry. That five letter word. Soon after their visit Flanagan’s father forgot his traumas. A humble, unspoken miracle.
The second thing which struck me about this book was the way Flanagan wrote about his mother. He described her hands and what she did with them. She baked bread daily, she sometimes smacked him, she read him stories, she swept his childish hair from his face and tucked him into bed under a tin roof. Later, when she got old, he stroked the back of her wrinkled hands, massaging her arthritic fingers as she shed tears of regret for things she’d done or endured.
An old friend of mine recently told me she doesn’t like nature writing. She finds it boring because there are no people in it and nothing really happens. My husband once said photos can be boring unless there are people in them.
I have to say I agree. I am fascinated by people. Who are they? What are their stories? What kind of family do they have? What kind of family did they come from? Did they thrive as children? How do they show their love to the children in their lives? Do they have animals? What do they dream about?
Here is a photograph of my great grandfather and his family. They lived in a place called Kessingland where my great grandfather was vicar of the local Church. His wife had some German heritage I think. Her surname was Ramsden. In this photo they are sitting outside their house with their three daughters and pet dog. The ground looks sandy, the girls barefoot and tanned. The child in the middle is my grandmother. The child on the right, looks remarkably like my late mother and one of my brothers. But what about the taller girl? She looks rather lost and sad. What happened to her? No one ever spoke about her. Mum was intrigued.
There are archivists here at the UEA. I want to ask them about the private mental hospital where, later in life, my great aunt was incarcerated. It’s been turned into flats now, somewhere in Norwich. My friend in Yarmouth seems to know where that might be. Perhaps I’ll go there and knock on a door as Mum did some years ago. She drove there with my little sister.
‘This is the place.’, she said, checking the map after parking her car.
The woman who lived in the converted hospital opened the door.
‘Come inside’, she said, after Mum had explained why she was there, ‘I’d like to show you something.’
My sister and mother climbed the stairs of this stranger’s home. They were shown the inside wall of a walk-in cupboard. Written in pencil were the words I’m so unhappy here. Let me go.
Mum told me that her grandparents visited her aunt every week (quite a journey in those days) so they must have loved her.
I like singing. Mum used to sing tunelessly when washing up, hippy Native American chants, songs about peace and nursery rhymes. She was a great believer in nursery rhymes. She thought all children should learn them. Here’s one from my little sister’s nursery rhyme tape,
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home!
Your house is on fire and your children all gone,
All except one, and that’s little Ann,
And she has crept under the frying pan.
I used to sing this song to one of my students. This particular little girl lives next door to her Nan. Her father is a the son of a farmer. Her mum cleans holiday cottages. My student is very close to her Nan. Every night she goes next door to say goodnight to her. When I sang this song in a lesson one day, she said this to me,
‘Why didn’t the ladybird just go next door to her Nan’s?’
Children Intent on Reading a Spelling Book, 1869 by Giocomo Cornish (1837 -1910)
Lovely stuff as always Nancy. Keep writing ♥️