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Monday 11 January 2021

Old Ladies in Hats

Thank you for all the solidarity. It is much appreciated! Hugs to those who suffer or have suffered. 

Sarah - darn these cycles to heck, and the exercise comment was so ironic! 

Fifitr - when I was little, I was fascinated by the poem 'Lochinvar' in the 1920s set of encyclopedias that belonged to my grandfather. It may have affected my writing. Old books can be such a great influence.

Wherethejourneytakesme - I think that it's only right that the supermarkets enforce their rules. I see that Morrisons will. I plan to be going again on Thursday (another tip run) and then trying to get it to once per week. I shall have to be very stringent with a list and do without stuff I forget.

Today I had a long trip planned, but I am also showing a few signs of kidney stones (though none of the serious ones) and I was in a lot of pain, so after the tip I only managed a stagger around Tesco, which was very quiet. 

As a couple have mentioned my great-great-aunt, I thought I'd share my thoughts. I never met her. She died when my mother was quite young, but was very much a grandmother figure to my mother. I've heard a few stories about her, as well as her mother and niece, and I think she was one of those 'old ladies in hats' that were so formidable when I was young.

When I think about it, these ladies and their ancestors may have been the reason that Britain got an Empire. The menfolk fled abroad to escape them. My brother has traced our family tree back to the sixteenth century and there was a lot of movement in that branch of the family, even long before the railways. It was to escape the strong minded women. My grandfather was one of six. They were all born in different towns, grouped around the Wirral. His father was a ship's captain who sailed from Liverpool. He came home every three years, got his wife pregnant, moved house and then was off again. His poor wife was moving around to escape her mother-in-law, or the great-great-aunt's mother. That lady was known as the Duchess, and was the housekeeper for years up at the big house of the village, with a reputation of terrifying the staff. 

My great-great-aunt, call her Aunt E, knew everyone. She ran the post office, library, and I think she was involved in the Sunday school. Mother talked about doing flowers in church with her. There will have been committees for the village fete and sale of work, and she would have been on them all. Any vicar who had the nerve to try and impose his will on the church would soon realise his mistake as those old ladies in hats would carry on regardless after a cool, 'I don't think so'. The old ladies could look a youngster up and down and know exactly how to reduce them to a puddle of mortification. It was a form of martial arts that had been honed by experience, gossip and cynicism. Aunt E belonged to a very tough minded family and was a veteran of village life. No vicar would stand a chance and making sure that he knew his place was a duty.

Her niece, my great-aunt, Aunt C, was the last regular church goer in the village and she was possibly the one with the nicest nature. She was a lovely person, quite shy and a little overshadowed by the rest of the family. She lived to 101 and I miss her. On the whole, her strong Christian beliefs kept her from being too hard on the vicar, but she had Views and was not afraid to express them. There was an ongoing battle of wills as the vicar was 'High' church with a move towards the more Catholic side of the Anglican Church. Aunt C was 'Low' church and wasn't going to be bullied into calling the minister 'Father' instead of 'Mr' or 'Rev'. She never caved and from what I saw of the church magazine, he wasn't called 'Father' there or anywhere else. And she was the easiest of the siblings.

I was probably the last of the ladies of the family to have much to do with the vicar there, and I was possibly a little unnerving. As a background, this was in Wales and there was 'Chapel' and 'Church' and possibly a sense that those who didn't want much ritual or formality would go to Chapel. The Church was likely to have a little more ceremony. My mother wanted to be buried there, but was very much against ritual and ceremony and left instructions. I was the one who arranged the service and went to see the vicar. 

He had held a few funerals for family before, and the consensus was that he wasn't that good at them. So instead of a daughter in deepest grief, he had me being firm. I was channelling my fiercer ancestors and not ready to be told what to do. I gave him a copy of the eulogy, a list of the reading, psalm and hymns, the section of the Common Worship prayer book to use and a complete veto of anything else. I wasn't trying to be difficult, but looking back, I think he looked a little stunned when I left. I wasn't meaning to be difficult, but I have been told that I can be scary at times, and I was in no mood to take any nonsense. The service was fine. This is the same place that had the difficulty with my mother's grave, but it was a different vicar. I didn't take much nonsense from him either, looking back.

Here is a pic of the church. I got married here. My mother, uncle and grandparents are buried here as well as Aunt E and Aunt C. 


Writing stuff - still gearing up to the release of Under the Bright Saharan Sky, and today's flash fiction is a little hint of what may be coming. 

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