The Autobiography of Sheila Day

I had one grandparent, my mother's mother, Jean, who had an interesting history inasmuch as she was born illegitimately in Edinburgh to a nurse and a doctor. Jean's mother was sent to live in Australia and Granny Jean was passed around the family. Interestingly, when she was due to receive her pension, my mother had difficulty in doing this for her (Granny wasn't terribly able and was certainly a very needy grandmother) because her birth certificate was destroyed in a fire at the records office so no-one really knew if she was born in 1898 or 1897.

She married a lovely man when she was quite young and they had my Mum. Sadly my Mum's father died not long after the great war, of gas poisoning. My mother was very young. I guess that was a pretty familiar story back then. Granny didn't have much time for my Mum and she was sent to a Masonic Boarding school at the age of 7, which, from stories from my Mum sounded like hell. But that's my Mum's story. Granny didn't want to be shackled with a child so my Mum had to stay in the school during holidays whilst Granny had fun with boyfriends, dancing drinking. My Mum left the Masonic school and enlisted straight away to be a WREN in the Second World War.

Anyway, Granny used to come to lunch every Sunday and lived locally to us in Hove in a grotty little flat. I can remember going to her flat after school and huddling round her oil fire (remember those old round ones). She made me banana sandwiches with fag ash on them. She always had a cigarette dangling from her mouth and actually had a streak of yellowing hair where the smoke had risen to. She still went out to the local pub every evening and drank a few Guinness's.

She certainly wasn't a 'fun' grandmother or a 'nurturing' grandmother and looked extremely old, even when she must have been only around her 50s and 60s. Every Sunday she would turn up for lunch and bring the News of the World with her. My father would scoff at her choice of newspaper and then hide in the lounge reading it. I can remember Granny sitting at the kitchen table shredding peas or trimming sprouts, glass of Guinness in front of her and fag in her mouth. She was always in a bad mood.

My brothers and I just sort of tolerated her and on the very rare occasion that she baby-sat us she would grumble that my parents were out 'galavanting again'. If we were due to go on holiday then Granny would become ill a day or so before and give my Mum hell for leaving her on her own.

On Sundays I used to go to the end of the road to meet her from the bus before lunch and walk home with her. One Sunday, when I didn't go to meet her for various reasons, she was knocked down by a motor scooter that had been racing another scooter from Kind Alfred Baths to Worthing. She lost her lower leg and spent a long time in Hospital then into a convalescent home in Newhaven. We used to visit her every Sunday.

After a few months of botched operations, she came out and came to live with us. It was awful. The dining-room was converted into her bedroom and she spent a lot of time telling us all to be quiet. She picked on us all with nasty little jibes. I guess I was around 12 and my brothers were 4, 15 and 18. She used to poke my Dad with her walking stick and wave it around at us or our friends whilst insulting us. That lasted for about a year until they found a lovely care home from us, five minutes away and she moved there. My Mum and I used to visit her two or three times a week. She was still having a crate of Guinness delivered every week. She died around 1972.

My Father was the second to last of 14 children born to an affluent Irish family in Cork. He had nephews and nieces older than him. His parents, being elderly, died whilst he was a teenager and he 'ran away' to Brighton to work. I have a picture of his family circa 1912 before my father and his younger brother were born. So, I never met them and he certainly didn't talk about them much. I think his father was very strict, a trait my father embraced totally.

Table Manners

My parents I guess they lived in an age where their parents imprinted 'good manners' on them. We weren't allowed elbows on the table either, or allowed to leave the table until my father did. We got told off if we put too much in our mouths and had to use the cutlery in a certain way of course. My brother Michael was left handed but still my Dad kept telling him to put his knife and fork in the right hands. Michael has lived in America for decades and, as with the American wont, eats with a fork in his right hand, barely using his knife. 

My father was the strict one, and also pretty grumpy. He used the meal at supper time to grill his four children on Capital Cities, UK Geography, spelling and other awful interrogations. His favourite was capital cities as he had travelled the world quite a bit in his job. Thank goodness there were lots of suppers that he missed. I was pretty awful but I'm sure he picked out the hard ones for me. 

I wasn't too hard on my kids at meal times, but did want them to stay until we had all finished, didn't have the TV on for meals and picked up the odd knife licking. However, my grandchildren, well, two of my grandchildren were allowed to use their fingers quite a bit and I wasn't allowed to tell them off as it was 'not my job'. It irked me but they have ended up at 21 and 25 very polite eaters. All they need to do now is get rid of their phones at the table. Luckily it's not that often that we all eat together and they seem to be able to take 20 minutes away from their phones.

My Dad would turn in his grave. He also used mealtimes to pick on us one by one. I remember being at a dinner party with family and guests when I was in my 30's and my Mum offered me more lemon merangue pie which, of course I said yes to. My father leaned over and hissed at me very loudly - "you are being a pig". When I told him how rude he was to speak to me that way, he said it was his right as my father.

And Julie, my father was an Irishman, well educated but awkward. He adored my three brothers but he could never show me any love. My mother didn't stand up for me and I did discuss this with her in the final year of her life, once my Dad had died. She said it was perhaps that Irishmen liked to flirt, as he did with my sisters in law.

Funnily enough, he adored his daughter's in law, of whom he had five (two brothers had two wives). I remember him taking my door key off me to give to his newest daughter-in-law, saying anytime you want to pop in you can have She-She's (my nickname) key. I also remember on a few occasions him not opening the front door when I came to see my parents with my children. Once, he said to me "What are you ding here? You aren't supposed to be here till Sunday. My Mum called out "Who's at the door" and he replied "It's only Sheila". I didn't go in, but fled the scene.

I didn't like him and he didn't like me. Sob story over. (Maybe that's why I had four failed marriages).