|
 | |  | |
Archie Greenshields was born in 1920 and brought up in Chichester, West Sussex.
My Mother was resolute and tenacious a fact which was illustrated even more so in the last decade of her life. I remember the proprietor of the rest home in which she spent those years remarking that he admired her fighting spirit and that it is exactly what she had for most of her very long life.
So many knew her from her daily visits by cycle to the City centre of Chichester, doing her shopping or perhaps taking her grandchildren for walks. Even a colleague from my days as a policeman once had a laugh with me over an incident involving her and the famous bike.
This man was stationed at Chichester and was directing traffic at the Market Cross and had signalled all traffic coming from his rear to halt. Not Mother of course, who continued on riding her bike past him, to hear a shout, 'Come on, you are supposed to stop too, Mrs. Greenshields!'
She replied on the lines, 'Don't be daft, how can I with all this shopping on my handlebars, anyway, my brakes don't work!'
Many might say the two, bike and Mum, seemed inseparable. A year or two before I finally retired and during the time I was employed with the County Surveyor's Department, the Highway's group constructed a cycle-path around the large traffic roundabout of the ring road at Northgate.
We members of the Highway Inspectors group were asked to supply any comments, adverse or otherwise, made by cyclists who were known to use it. Of course knowing Mother frequently used that area in her daily trip into town I made a point of asking for her observations.
Her reply was, 'Ugh! It's no good, is it? No bloody good at all!' I asked her why, only to receive her reply, 'Well, it's not wide enough, I can't overtake!'
It was sad when eventually her memory failed her and the worst of it was she was still running errands for some of her near neighbours when in truth someone should have been running for hers.
I called on her frequently at this time and once discovered that her cycle was missing from its usual place in her shed. She could not remember where she had left it, so I quickly went into town and saw it standing patiently by the kerb near the back entrance of Woolworth's waiting for her to ride it home.
Mother must have commenced her daily grind at the very young age of 12 years according to a certificate I discovered among her personal papers which I believe was the sole document of any importance kept by her marking no doubt her pride of achievement.
The certificate had been applied for by her parents on the 9th November 1910, to enable her to take a Labour Exam and leave school earlier, an action quite common for parents of larger families to get support from their children to supplement their income in those far off days.
I believe she went into service after leaving school for I have heard her say she worked in Chichester and in Arundel. Mother and Father were married in the Spring of 1920 and I arrived later the same year.
With many to care for she soon began to develop quite a sharp and cutting tongue and fractious behaviour from her many children would bring out the beginnings of a temper, accompanied with a slap or two to emphasise it.
Threats of 'I'll swing for you yet, you'll see!' or 'You'll drive me to Graylingwell!' never came to fruition. That she could be free with her expletives goes without saying but god help any of her sons and daughters that did so until they were old enough to stand up to her.
Do not allow me to give the impression of a humourless, hard hitting and swearing harridan. That she was not. She had a salty humour and was fond of aphoristic announcements, such as an enquiry from a hungry child of 'What's for dinner Mum?' would bring, 'Ssssh with sugar on it'.
It was to be many years before I realised that the sibilance hid the actual verb but she was more forthright in describing the ingredient of an old recipe of chine-pie as consisting of 'All round the pig's arse is pork!'
Another descriptive remark she passed about someone she well knew but was not particularly fond of was 'There she goes, tits in front and her arse is coming behind!'
Both of our parents seemed tireless and their home life was constantly occupied. Mother's day surely was filled with household chores, the cooking, shopping for the next meals, and the endless washing and ironing, the latter for many years with a pair of ancient flat-irons that constantly needed re-heating.
I believe she enjoyed reasonably good health, suffering the usual common ailments, of coughs and colds, but also frequently had nasty headaches that laid her low and fallback on her cure all remedy of 'aspro'.
Eventually we children grew up and left our home, going different ways. Mother's way of life continued in much the same pattern as it had always done. With Father still working until he was in his late 60's mother had still someone to care for.
Both enjoyed their visits to the many cinemas that Chichester offered at that time and still liked a visit to a pub at the weekend. At my Father's death there of course was a dramatic change in Mother's life.
She did not mourn as I expected her to, keeping all her grief private, illustrating her resolute spirit by facing up to the rest of her life. And this she did for a further 24 years, quite dominant in her widowhood, doing things that she had always wanted to do, going on a holiday each year that Father would never agree to, and joining a Club offering her the new delight, Bingo.
I have already mentioned that her memory began to fail and the time came in March 1983 when I felt it time to get medical help and made an appointment to take Mum to her doctor as by then she was in a very confused state.
I saw her humorous side coming to the fore during his examination when at one time he asked her if she knew what month it was. She was well out in her guess by several weeks and when prompted by her doctor, came back quickly with 'What ever happened to March then?'
The doctor referred her to a Psychiatrist and she was admitted to Graylingwell Hospital for assessment. After a few weeks a place was found for her in Merton Lea Rest Home where she remained for the next ten years, struggling hard against the ravaging effects of her dementia.
I became worried when apparently after a quarrel with another resident of the Home, Mum came off worse and fell or was pushed over. As a result she fractured the neck of a femur and spent a short time in hospital after it had been pinned.
During my visit I heard her carrying on a conversation with a full length medical chart illustrating the skeletal make-up of the human body. She was convinced she was being stared at by a man and demanded quite briskly to the chart, 'Who are you staring at. Have you got your eye full?'.
The staff often remarking that her proud, fighting spirit, kept her going until the end. I took her flowers on her last birthday, 3rd January, 1993, that she refused to look at and ordered me to 'clear off'. Less than three weeks later following a fall, she died in the Home on the 21st January, 1993, at the age of 95.
She was cremated at Chichester Crematorium and it was arranged that her ashes would be spread at the same spot as Father's had been at Porchester.
Archie Greenshield, West Sussex, 2001
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
