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Part of an autobiography by
Wendy Zoula (nee Smith)
After my grandfather’s accidental death during the General Strike,
Ellison House in Wardley became a house of women. There were three
women, all of whom loved each other greatly. All of these women were
beautiful. Mary was the youngest and helped in the house and shop from the
age of fourteen. Mary had long black hair, a lovely smile and was
always pleasant and cheerful.
My mother, Eleanor, had classically regular features with a
straight nose and big brown eyes. Her hair was black and naturally curly.
She was immensely strong and had gained that reputation by cycling to
Jarrow and back every day to attend Technical School when there was no
public transport during the General Strike.
Grandmother was very large and loving. She also had large brown eyes, so
deep, you would think you could sink in them.
My grandmother loved my mother so much that she gave her all her life
savings so that she could train as a teacher at Sunderland Training
College. Mother cared so much for grandmother that she would frequently
serve in her shop so she could have a rest. Even after she started
teaching my mother would still work an evening in the shop. They both
thought so much about Mary they asked her to come and be a home help as
soon as she left school.
Mary was very shy at first and would not serve in the shop. But she
overcome this shyness eventually and was a great help to my grandmother.
They loved her because she was so honest and it had been so difficult to
get employees who did not steal. Occasionally they would all fall out with
each other and Mary would leave but she always returned in the end. Mary
is still alive (2005) and is now eighty eight.
My mother had a car, which the garage mechanic had taught her to drive. On
their day off, all three women would go for a run on the Durham moors or
down to the seaside. These were great days for Mary. She came from a
family of six children and her mother could not take her on such
adventures. She later said that my grandmother was like a mother to her.
Grandmother had informally adopted her sister’s illegitimate child,
Nancy, when she was a baby. Nancy was married at a young age and had a
child.
The only male who eventually broke into this feminine triangle was my
grandmother’s brother, Jock. He had been made homeless and walked
from Hebburn to humbly ask my grandmother if he could live with her. She
cared for him dearly and even when she was dying she wanted to know if my
mother would continue to look after him.
My mother met my father, Jack, at a dance in Felling which was the
nearest town to Wardley. He was a very good dancer, a bit like Fred
Astaire. He had trained as a teacher at York Training College. At this
time he was also taking a degree externally at Newcastle in French and
economics. He was very thin and had a long face and long nose. His eyes
were wave-washed onyx. He was very interested in politics and his
long-term ambition was to be a M.P. He had not only attended Jarrow
Grammar School where the top five percent of the population went, but he
had also been a prizewinner at that school. My mother had only gained a
place at the Technical School, but had transferred to the Grammar for her
higher exams.My grandmother did not care for Jack and begged my mother not
to marry him. While considering things, my mother went off to a school
camp where another male teacher took a lively interest in her. Word
reached Jack who insisted on an engagement when she came home. The
marriage took place at Heworth Church in July 1937 and Jack’s younger
brother, Eddie, was his best man. Jack loved Eddie all his life and Eddie
idolised Jack.
Jack and Ellie, my mother, were both very strong characters, and after
their marriage a life-long struggle for dominance began. There was no
sense of harmony in their relationship; the ‘yin and yan’ of Chinese
culture simply did not exist.
When I was a very young child my mother drowned a litter of kittens in
front of me. I became hysterical and had to be pushed out of the scullery.
My great uncle, Jock, killed my brother’s pet rabbit and intended to cook
it and eat it. My brother found it and gave it a decent burial in the
garden. I look back on these events and wonder why we could not talk about
the bereavement in our lives, why it all had to be suppressed and then
acted out with animals.
How did Jock feel about his four years in the trenches in the First World
War? All he ever said was that he had seen plenty of dead men. He did not
say hundreds; he did not say thousands or even millions, which was the
absolute truth. Such numbers would have meant nothing to me as a child and
we can only tell children what they are able to understand. But my
brother’s rabbit was living and dear to me; it was soft and playful; it
loved to jump on the grass and run. Now it was dead and limp. Where had
its life gone? Where had all the life gone that had marched into war?
Jock had a hole in his back where the shrapnel had hit him. This terrible
war would have in fact saved his life. He was invalided out of the
trenches to a London hospital and made a good enough recovery to last
another forty years, in total gentleness and peace. But sometimes his
feelings over-whelmed him. And so the rabbit died.
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