I remember my mother ‘going to Clifton’. Clifton hospital near York. On googling, I find there was a county asylum there until around 1994. I’ve no idea if this was the place but she was gone for what seemed a while in a young girls life. She made me a…
Month: May 2019
The Library
I remember books. I’ve always loved books. The smell of a new book and it’s pristine pages is a little bit of rapture in everyday life. As a child I spent hours and hours on Saturdays with my spending money in W.H.Smiths. I wanted them all. I had to touch…
The caravanette
I remember our little holidays with granny Vi and grandad Bill in the caravanette at Primrose Valley in Filey. It always rained, and rained and rained. I remember playing cards with granny Vi and I remember the cramped, claustrophobic feeling and the smell of cigarettes and damp and bacon grease….
Ciders in the shed
I remember things going downhill pretty quickly after the marriage to Robin. He was an alcoholic and he hid it well. He’d go off down the shed to do some manly thing or other. One day Mum found the empty cider bottles. Things escalated and he started getting violent. Me,…
Hawkwind
I remember my first ever kiss. I was in second year at Grammar school and he was in year four. Me and sis went on a joint date with his mate for a walk around the Valley Gardens. My date was called Mike Reid and he was the lead singer…
The three minute hand wash
I remember learning how to do peritoneal dialysis. This type of dialysis is best explained by Wikipedia because I’m damned if I still understand the magical process to this day ‘Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a treatment that uses the lining of your abdomen (belly area), called your peritoneum, and a…
Dear Prudence
I remember our ginger Cairn terrier. It was sis’s I think, given for some birthday or other, from Granny Vi. Anyway she was a cute but smelly little thing called Suzie. Only we called her Prudence because it suited her better. It’s like children. You give them a name when…
A glass full of valium
It must have been the smell of burning that woke us. I was about 10 or 11 so sis was younger. We had an antique, double lined, brass coal scuttle that was used as a bin and it was currently shooting out flames perilously close to the curtains. My mother…
Beetroot and blackberries
I remember the migraines like it was yesterday. It was years and years before I would eat certain things again. Beetroot, blackberries and apple combined and jacket potatoes. It was the smell. The school dinner smell of those three things especially. I have a picture perfect memory of being sick…
The strange household
I remember our last night in Mallorca, sis and me. I was 22. We’d been there working for 7 months. Working and boozing. Well mainly boozing. We got free accommodation and free drinks vouchers and the equivalent in Pesetas of £7.50 a night. We lived off egg and chips, San…