Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them - (V)

At Grammar School my trials and tribulations hadn’t quite come to an end, but I learned to keep my head down and follow the rules. I was now a pupil at a fee-paying Catholic Girls’ School, the child from a poor background and the offspring of communist/socialist atheists, who took their convictions seriously; I should therefore have been totally out of my element. Like many children lacking in confidence, I was only too happy to blend into the background; I’d had enough of being the focus of attention, temporarily anyway.

I made friends with girls whose background was as unlike mine as possible; girls whose parents were well on the way to renewed prosperity, girls from professional backgrounds, business people, farmers who had got rich during the period when most people were starving, and the daughters of minor ex-Nazis. Germany's ‘economic miracle’ was taking hold but there was still a lot of confusion.

The last time a lamp made a particular impression on me was at a birthday party at the house of one of these friends. Birthday parties were rare and modest affairs, and I didn’t really feel like going because Mum couldn’t give me money to buy a present. On the very few occasions I accepted an invitation all I could take was a tablet of chocolate or a second hand paperback. Sigrid was the daughter of a businessman, she had new clothes and a proper haircut and lived on one floor of a large house in a once well-to-do area. I remember the living room as enormous, although it would probably not be as grand today as it seemed to me then. The room was well and comfortably furnished, with a special and separate seating area near the large window: three upholstered easy chairs around a small table, and a standard lamp in the corner behind it. The lamp drew me like a magnet and I asked if we could sit there instead of at the dining table at the other end of the room. Sigrid was surprised when I sat down in the chair under the lamp, leaned back and stretched out my arms on the arm rests. In the end we sat on the carpet and admired her presents, until her mother came in with hot drinks and cake for the three of us, Sigrid,  Elke, whose war widow mother was a teacher, and me.

I’ve got used to all sorts of lamps now; our lighting is slightly haphazard, some lamps have permanent positions, others are moved about the room to wherever they are needed. Ceiling lights are strong and have shades; Beloved with his poor eyesight likes them best and, if he had his way, they would all blaze away at the same time and cosy little corners with dim lighting would be done away with in our house.

Afterword

Writing this necessarily abbreviated series has not been easy. I’ve smoothed over some of the rough edges, yet a whole host of painful memories came flooding back and I felt great pity for the sad and lonely girl who didn’t really fit in anywhere. As an only child I carried the full weight of my parents’ hopes and aspirations; inevitably, they were disappointed many times. Ungrateful, they called me when I displeased them yet again. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. Away Away!” so said King Lear in a fit of rage to Cordelia, and, like her, I left.

None of that matters now, one can’t live ones life in permanent regret for what happened in the past; it becomes a story to tell like so many other ups and downs one lives through; looking back, events become distant and unreal. There is, however, one aspect I regret very much nowadays, particularly when I read bloggers’ posts or listen to friends’ accounts about their close connections with siblings, the places they lived in as children and throughout adulthood, from school years to university and through professional lives. I envy the continuity and the ties that keep such lucky people firmly anchored and deeply rooted. I know that rarely do two people remember their joint past in quite the same way but I would love to be able to argue about it. I have lots of unanswered questions and no one left to ask, much less answer them.

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (IV)

Yes, there had indeed been a meeting, possibly the sort of thing that might be called an emergency council. We didn’t know about it at the time, it was much later that a fellow pupil in my new school told me in confidence, urging me never to reveal the ‘secret’. Or else her Dad, who was a member of the school’s governing body, would get into deep trouble. She also confided that her Dad and my Dad shared political sympathies; if these were known they would jeopardise his position. I was a loyal little body but also so cowed by now that I obeyed without thought, not even telling my parents. I don’t think I ever did.

Herr Thomanek stood above us on the level half landing with Mum and me on the steps below him. His physical attitude was that of a bully but his voice had softened a little. He seemed to be uncomfortable and spoke quietly. I was crying enough not to be able to hear him anyway; Mum listened, she didn’t speak for a long time. She nodded and appeared to agree with him and said to me “I’ll tell you when we get home.” They didn’t explain or ask my opinion..

Before we turned back down the stairs to leave I urgently wanted to make Thomanek understand that I never meant to be ‘cynical’ (whatever the word meant) and that I only smiled at him during lessons because I liked them. Hopefully, I lifted my tear-streaked face, but he turned abruptly, without looking at me.

In the German Secondary School System Middle School was the less academic branch of higher education. Although core subjects were taught, i.e. foreign languages, maths, geography, history etc., the school for academically gifted children was the Grammar School, where subjects included classics, science, music, German literature, etc. School fees were higher and students stayed on to 18/19 years of age.

At that time, in the 1950s and early 60s, both Middle and Grammar schools were occupying the same large building. It was one of the few in the town left unbombed and everywhere schools and other establishments budged up to make room for those who had lost their premises.

The heads of both schools, their senior staff and representatives of the governing body, including my fellow student’s Dad, had decided that the situation in Thomaneks’ classroom had become toxic and it would be impossible to restore order. I would have to leave. I would be offered a place in the same year at the Grammar School; school fees would be waived and I would continue to receive a scholarship. It was to be hoped that I was bright enough to catch up. It was fait accompli. Take it or leave it. The alternative was to return to basic education in the ordinary compulsory state system for all children, which precluded any chance of further academic education. Nowadays the choice would be called a No-Brainer.

Within days I was a Grammar School pupil. Some teachers disliked me from the beginning, rumours of misconduct had gone round both schools but, as now and always, gossip and rumours come and go. The girl whose Dad had spoken up for me and my parents befriended me, we discovered a joint liking for literature and poetry. I didn’t catch up in all subjects, certainly not in those I hadn’t been taught for three years, and I slipped from being top of the class to somewhere in the middle. By and by new, younger teachers came for whom I was an ordinary pupil, not tainted with having caused a teacher’s fall from grace, and we took/didn’t take to each other as such things are arranged in the natural course of events.

Middle School and Grammar School took outdoor breaks at different times but on the same school playground. Sometimes we’d overlap slightly and I’d see Thomanek doing supervising duty. I knew better than to smile at him and besides, he always turned his back on me.



there’s a paragraph or two to do with another lamp to come and a bit of an afterword. But the drama is all over.

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (III)

“You can’t just barge in here without an appointment”, he blustered. “This is my home and my family and I are about to eat our supper. If you have anything to say about what happens at school you have to bring it up there.”

Mum stood her ground, but he wouldn’t budge. “You have no right to invade my privacy.” He continued to attack us, insisting that he was not going to discuss any complaints except at school. A time was fixed for the next day and we left, having achieved nothing. He had bullied us into submission but his extreme reaction made Mum determined not to let the matter rest. Thomanek knew this, he knew that he would have to answer for his behaviour; Mum, working class, with no more than a basic education and quite unsophisticated, would demand answers from the school establishment.

Alas, she never got them. At least, not in so many words. In 1950s Germany most ordinary people kept their political allegiance, past and present, quiet. My parents, however, were among the few exceptions, foolishly perhaps, but definitely bravely, as they and the family had been during the whole of Nazi-Germany, for which they paid a heavy price. In the 50s the Cold War was raging, with divided and four-sectored Germany the buffer zone between East and West. Twelve million people had fled and migrated from East to West and, until the erection of The Wall in 1961 put an end to it, the mass exodus still continued.

In the end, Herr Thomanek's persecution of me was not due to personal antipathy, but the politics of hatred and fear. He was one of those who had gone on the long trek from East to West.

As a child I was sickly. Weak, under-nourished, too tall, too thin, with lung disease and all the ailments that befell children who had had a poor start in life. I wasn’t the only one, there were many of us. Twice I had been sent to sanatoria, once during the war to the mountains of Bavaria and once after the war to the island of Norderney in the North Sea. It was hoped that mountain and sea air would heal, or at least strengthen, my lungs.

During the time I was a student in Herr Thomanek’s class, Dad was offered a place for me in a sanatorium on the Baltic coast by one of his friends in the Socialist Movement; the problem was the holiday would have to be during term time and require permission from the school authorities. Permission would probably have been granted had the sanatorium been anywhere else but in East Germany, the place many of the teachers at the local schools had called home and had been forced, or had chosen, to leave. Dad, in his naiveté, had committed a monumental blunder. Permission was refused and Herr Thomanek turned against one of his star pupils.

Mum and I still had to meet him. She knew nothing about the politics of the staff room, all she knew was that her child was hurting and she wanted to know why.

We met him during morning break on the half-landing between two floors, leaning against the stone banister. Thomanek was standing above us, looking down. I was half sitting in a window embrasure, crying bitterly all the time of the interview. Although he was physically in a position of superiority, he was noticeably quieter, even conciliatory. The Headmistress had spoken to him and advised that he try to calm Mum down. There had been a meeting, he admitted as much as that.

But what would happen to me?



to be continued

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (II)

I caught a cold, a snot-rattling, throat-rasping, eye-watering, croaking-voiced cold.

Fräulein Optenberg was certain the cold would be gone by the day of the concert. All would be well. I begged to differ. The cold was the perfect excuse for backing out. What teacher didn’t know was that I had long had cold feet and the nearer the day came the more terrified I became. "No, Miss, I am certain the cold won't be gone in time and please excuse me from going on stage”.

Snivelling little idiot.

Frl. Optenberg was frantic. I hadn’t ever heard the phrase ‘The Show Must Go On’; Miss begged, cajoled, implored. I sneezed pitifully, then I had an idea. If it meant that much to her I’d get her a replacement. I’d get her Klara. Klara was plump, small, stupid and in possession of a much healthier, more powerful voice than my lung-sick one. Klara jumped at the chance and was so abjectly grateful that I began to doubt the wisdom of my abdication. Aladdin’s cave was no longer mine for half an hour twice a week.

My cold evaporated, the day of the Christmas concert came and Klara was a great success. Neither Mum, Dad or I were in the audience.

This was the beginning of a lifetime of doubt in my own abilities.

Then came Middle School; I passed the entrance exam with flying colours and was granted a scholarship. There were school fees which my parents couldn’t afford, ends were barely meeting. Still pig-tailed, tall and very skinny and ten years old I joined children from varying backgrounds, some already well-off, particularly the children of farmers and professional people, and some from poor backgrounds like mine, on scholarships. We scholarship kids were the bright ones, the kids from the farms the least able. (That’s not prejudice, that’s how it was. After the war many farmers were rich, had their girls been bright enough they would have gone to Grammar School, where the fees were higher.)

Herr Thomanek was my form master. I adored him and he seemed to enjoy teaching me. For three years all went well. When kids from professional households made fun of my pronunciation of foreign words he shut them up and patiently explained where these words came from and how to pronounce them. Herr Thomanek was my favourite master and I had a bit of a crush on him, as a thirteen year old  might.

When from one day to the next he turned on me I was devastated. Open-mouthed incredulity met every unkindness, every jibe at my expense, every shouted term of abuse. It’s no exaggeration to say that my form master bullied me unmercifully. He focussed the attention of the whole class on me. “There she goes, sneering again. That cynical grin of hers, look at it. What makes you so superior, I would like to know." Once I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I got up from my seat, howling in fear and frustration, making for the door. “Look at her, look how she runs and howls; exactly like one of the Furies.” I went home and finally told my Mum.

That same afternoon Mum grabbed me and we went to Herr Thomanek’s house. His wife came to the door and said we couldn’t come in, they were about to have their evening meal. Mum insisted. For once she believed me without looking for confirmation elsewhere and she was going to get the truth out of him there and then.

We were let into the sitting room. I was probably too distraught to take in details, but I instantly saw an old fashioned roll top desk in an alcove, with lots of papers on the open flap and a lit desk lamp on the shelf above. Otherwise the room was in shadow. Herr Thomanek turned towards us as we entered, his face, illuminated by the lamp, a study in angry discomfort.




to be continued

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them. (I)

"I can’t stand a naked light bulb,

amy more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action”,

Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” gives herself away with this line as someone who prefers illusion to reality; who believes that dressing up naked truth prettily makes everyone happier and everything pleasant and easy. “I don’t want realism, I want magic,” she says in a later scene.

I woud hate to take Blanche as my role model but I admit, that as far as the softly glowing light of a prettily shaded table lamp - or standard lamp - is concerned, I am firmly of her opinion. It’s the kind of magic I want for myself. Standing lamps have always fascinated me, perhaps because such luxury was never my lot as a small child. Naked bulbs dangling from the low ceilings of cellars where Mum and I hid, the narrow glory hole of my bedroom or the slightly higher ceiling of the kitchen/sitting room in which we spent most of our time provided sufficient light but no comfort.  The apparent security and privacy of an individual light wasn’t mine to enjoy until I was an adult, in my own home. Once the hardship of the early postwar period was over, my parents had the means to buy lamps but, although ceiling lights were now provided with lampshades, table lamps were outside any experience they themselves had ever had. Light was a matter of necessity, not comfort; light had to be efficient, nothing more.

Fräulein Optenberg was my Infant School teacher;  she lived with another woman and it was in their sitting room where I saw my first ever upright lamp. It was Advent and a school Christmas concert was planned and I was to go on stage and sing some songs, solo. I was bright and enjoyed singing;  for teacher to choose me from all other children was flattering beyond all measure. But I was also shy and inhibited. I had none of the natural confidence some children are handed in the cradle. Rehearsals were to be held at Frl. Optenberg’s and progressed well. The first time I went, properly cleaned up, my long hair plaited and in my Sunday smock, the two ladies invited me into a room the like of which I’d never seen before. It was probably very modest by today’s standards but to me it was like Aladdin’s cave. There was a carpet, a small dining table and chairs, a desk in a corner, a pair of easy chairs and, in the alcove by the window, a piano, and, on the piano, a table lamp. It was afternoon, the lamp was lit. Immediately I knew that I had no right to be in this room, a room like this was not for me, and that all my life I would strive to win one. I was seven years old.

During the course of rehearsals a nasty episode happened. On the way home from school I daily passed  the house where Frl. Optenberg and her friend lived. On this particular day a group of boys, some infants like me, others up to fourteen years old, stood in front of her house, shouting and jeering. I couldn’t make out what it was they were shouting and when I did, I couldn’t understand what the word meant. ‘Mannweib’, the boys shouted, over and over. (Literally ‘Mannish Woman’, ‘Virago’.) I saw Frl. Optenberg appear at the window and I ran off, I didn’t want her to think that I was part of the rowdy group of children, the numbers now swelled by other girls returning home from school. I told my Dad what I had heard and he said to take no notice, that the boys were naughty and rude. The next time I went to rehearsals I stammered that “it wasn’t me who shouted at you” to Frl. Optenberg and she smiled and said “I know, child.”

The day of the concert came nearer and I caught a cold.



to be continued.

A Family Reunion - All Saints’ Day - Part II

Aunt Katie’s welcome smile ushered us in. The black and white tiled hall of the cottage was unheated. We shed our coats, hats, scarves and gloves as  quickly as we could and  made for the kitchen-livingroom  where the round cast iron stove blazed fiercely. Grandfather was sitting in state on his sofa under the window; he didn’t get up for us, and we had to squeeze past the table in front of the sofa to shake his hand. I didn’t like to hug him, a peculiarly stale and dusty smell enveloped him, which offended my nose. Although we liked each other well enough, I was never his favourite grandchild; that honour belonged to my cousin Gisela, Aunt Katie’s daughter, who had lived with grandfather since the day she was born.

I loved Aunt Katie. Her smile lit up her whole face and her deep blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. Her kitchen was always cosy, and the large kettle on top of the black stove sang a sweet song of hot drinks to come. The aroma of a good thick soup tickled my nostrils. I was always hungry at Aunt Katie’s; mother hated that. She never stopped complaining about what she called my greediness in Aunt Katie’s kitchen and my lack of appetite at home.

“Let the child eat if she’s hungry,” Aunt Katie blustered in her forthright manner. “Food in other people’s houses is always tastier than food at home, that’s how it is. Everybody knows that.”

By and by Aunt Katie dished up and we all ate her nourishing soup and a piece of good country bread to mop up the last drop and wipe the bowl clean.

Soon other members of the family arrived and grandfather’s cottage began to feel very small. It was time to wrap up again and walk to the cemetery, which was a mile out of the village. We children were not excused the trek, honouring the dead was a duty we learned to perform early.

Once out of the village, a forbidding reddish brown brick wall rising to more than two metres loomed out of the mist. It was breached by equally tall wrought iron carriage gates which rarely opened. The only other entry into the nunnery and convent school, for that was what lay behind the wall, was a much smaller gate let into one wing of the carriage gates. To the villagers the nuns were mysterious creatures, who  never left the convent but allowed services to be held in their chapel on special occasions and, if you paid them, for funerals and weddings. No village child attended the convent school in those days. Cousin Gisela and her friends thought it a spooky, frightening place; they told each other gruesome stories about little girls being whipped and kept prisoner within the high walls. Whenever we visited grandfather, I refused to walk past the gates without holding on tightly to a grown-up, for fear of a hand reaching out and dragging me inside.

The convent was the last building we passed before we left the main road and took the turning towards the cemetery, an avenue of mighty horse chestnut trees, the candle decked branches a picture in spring, but now dark and bare, shiny brown conkers freed from their prickly wrappers sprinkled in the thick layer of dead leaves underfoot.

The cemetery itself was enclosed by low stone walls, with wrought iron gates, wide enough to allow entrance to a hearse, in the side facing the road. There were no other buildings, no chapel, no trees, just bare open fields in all directions; only the dead safely tucked up underground could escape the bitter East wind and its spiteful, bone-chilling whistle. I kept close to the larger adults, their bulk affording my skinny little frame a small measure of protection.

It was the custom in our family that Aunt Katie and her husband, my mother’s brother, my Uncle Peter, ordered wreaths and flowers in the village and that the others paid for their share on the day. Uncle Peter had only very recently returned from a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia, and his little barber shop barely earned him enough to feed his family. Grandfather, whose savings languished untouched, didn’t like to advance him the cost of the wreaths, which meant that the flower seller didn’t get his money until after All Souls Day.

Traditional grave decorations were bouquets and wreaths of asters and chrysanthemums, interwoven with ivy and holly and ferns and backed with fir twigs. The men had been carrying them and now they were fussing over their position on the graves. Mother’s family had three plots, all in a row, one large family grave reserved for couples and two narrower ones for single men and women, much like the large wooden sided double beds and the narrower cots in the bedrooms at home.

When each man was satisfied that his contribution had a prominent enough place on the graves,  the women lit everlasting candles, which burned from the afternoon of All Saints’ day until the morning of the day after All Souls. The candles were placed in small lanterns, heavy based to stop them toppling over in the wind, and set on flat stones, each of which denoted the final resting place of an ancestor or sibling. Great grandparents lay there, grandmother too, and uncles and aunts who had died young. There was room for grandfather and a few more awaiting their turn.

“The graves are looking good this year, the cemetery gardener has done well. " He always did, he was conscientious about performing his task. “Very orderly the way he’s raked the pebbles;  zigzags are so attractive."

If you owned a grave, you paid a small annual sum for general maintenance to the cemetery authorities.

“We must do something about the headstone, is it leaning to the right, do you think? And what about the moss, shouldn’t somebody clean it off?” There was always someone finding fault. Making a fuss made the complainant look concerned.


to be concluded tomorrow.

A Family Reunion - All Saints’ Day - Part I

In November the wide and fertile flatlands of the Northern Rhineland cower in the path of angry storms, which travel unimpeded for thousands of miles across the North European plains from as far away as the Urals, mercilessly sweeping a never-ending army of lowering clouds before them; when they arrive, trees in the woods huddle close together, bending their crowns and weeping raindrops into muddy puddles; October’s fireworks are dead and gone. Fallen leaves rot underfoot, the air is dank and in the lanes, along the banks of hidden brooks and by secretive ponds, in the copses and clearings in the woods, where timeless mosses grow deep and soft, the smell of mould is all pervasive.  Grey days lean heavily on the bony backs of black and white cows, listlessly standing in damp meadows, yearning for shelter, while white mists rise from the ground like shrouds abandoned by the long dead.

November wears a mourning band.

The feast of All Saints on the first of the month is followed by the feast day of All Souls, the day when tradition demands that we remember our dead. It is the day when families get together at the graveside of those they have lost.

In my childhood, we travelled to my mother’s home village;  Allerheiligen or All Saints was a solemn public holiday.  Early in the morning of the feast day, before daylight had fully woken, we stood out in the open on a draughty station platform, stamping our feet and rubbing mittened hands curled into fists to keep warm, clouds of breath visible in the morning chill. The station consisted of a wooden hut, where the stationmaster sheltered from the worst of the weather, and a pair of wooden benches for the convenience of passengers, one each on the down line and the up line. Here we waited on the edge of the down line for the train to transport us from St Toenis, the small village where we lived, to the sleepy little hamlet crouching among aspen lined streams and mist shrouded fields, where grandfather’s house stood. Muehlhausen was no more than one long street, a continuous row of houses lining it on both sides; occasionally a farmyard interrupted this line, leaving a broad strip of muddy, grassy verge free between it and the road. Wherever a break occurred, a ditch ran along the side of the road, nearly always half full of stagnant water. In winter the ditch froze over and children, their feet shod in clogs, skated upon the run of ice. Halfway along the village street stood a chapel dedicated to St Vitus. Every time we passed the tiny chapel, which was really more a shrine than a chapel, I expected to be smitten with St. Vitus’ Dance and start jerking uncontrollably. I had been warned not to get too near the Saint’s statue and certainly never to touch the icon or remove the flowers devout villagers had placed in his niche. Grown-ups always assumed children would do damage and needed dire warnings to stop them.

A long slow whistle pierced the gloom of the station platform, announcing the arrival of the smoke plumed train, the engine showing its displeasure at being forced to stop by hissing hot steam in all directions. We were usually the only people embarking; knots of people alighted, pulling their coats close about them as they stood for a moment on the platform; the men settling hats more firmly and women fussing with children’s shawls and woolen caps and securing their own scarves more tightly under their chins, before they started the cold walk down the Chaussee into the village and thence the cemetery, bound to perform the same offices for their dead as we were.

The stationmaster held aloft his red signal disk, and put the whistle to his lips. Doors slammed shut, a short blast on the whistle sent out a shrill warning and the disk slapped down. The locomotive hissed once more, the train chug-chugged into motion. The smoky plume renewed itself triumphantly above the carriages.

Black and white cows floating on deep cushions of pure white mists briefly looked up as the train drifted past and an occasional avenue of poplars marched into the distance. Farmhouses, embraced by barns on three sides, lay low, broad and solid among them, sheltered from the prevailing East wind by a stand of oak or beech.

Inside the stuffy carriage with its wooden seats you could smell the smoke snaking back from the engine; the fug and regular rat-tat-tat of the wheels induced a light doze. “Don’t fall asleep,” father chided me, “you know it takes you forever to shift yourself.” Father had to stay alert, it took less than an hour to reach the small market town where we had to change to a branch line which would take us to just one village away from the hamlet where mother’s family home stood. The train’s destination was Kaldenkirchen, a town on the Dutch border. Up to now it had been slow, with frequent stops at villages along the way, but once past the junction with the branch line, where we would have to change trains, it would gather speed and make for the border without further delay.

Although it was fully daylight now, I found it hard to alight into the cold, damp, air at our destination. The open road from the station to grandfather’s house was the part of the journey I liked the least; the wind blew across the fields, the mist clung in cold droplets to my nose and eyelashes, blurring my vision. I constantly wiped my sleeve across my face.



to be continued tomorrow

Tables

I am from a poor people’s kitchen with a large table . . . . . . 

What has happened to tables? In particular kitchen tables? What has happened to the idea of sitting around a table for meals, for work, for conversation? A place for families to sit at the end of the day and exchange the day’s news, to air small hurts and share happy moments, at eye level, as equals. The anchor that provides a safe place, a place where body and soul find nourishment.

We had supper at a friend’s house not long ago, six of us sitting around a large kitchen table. There would have been room for at least two more, but as it was, we could  spread ourselves and when wine and conviviality loosened our tongues, there was plenty of space for elbows leaning on the table and hands gesturing to make a point. I remember how happy this expansiveness made me feel. I was also aware that there are now very few houses where sitting in such comfort is possible. Many younger people go without tables and eat their food from a plate held on a tray, even in company.

Am I just showing my age again, lamenting the demise of shared meals round a table? In my childhood and my children’s childhood the kitchen was the centre of the house. When I was small we had what was called a live-in-kitchen, a large room with a table and chairs in the middle, a cast iron range to one side and a dresser to the other. Lifestyles have changed and I am not advocating a return to the ‘olden days’, far from it. I am very grateful I no longer have to work as hard as my mother did early in her marriage.

If the kitchen was the centre, the table was the heart of our home. We had our meals at it, father spread his newspaper out on it and I did my homework. Extended family discussions were held here, fists banging the table for emphasis when the talk became heated. The few visitors we had were invited to take a seat, and uncles and aunts had their own regular places. I took my books here, from colouring and picture books to  reading books. In the evenings mum and dad and I played cards or board games, and after I had gone to bed they would still be there, finishing off their day. When we moved from the country to the town and the old table had to go because there was no room for it in the new home I missed it terribly.

We have five tables now, too many you might say. If ever we decide to downsize, several will have to go. But three at least have a history and losing them would mean the loss of that history.

Where I’m From

Thank you Karen and Pauline for recommending me,

and thank you Hilary  for agreeing to let them.

Molly of The Molly Bawn Chronicles posted a wonderful post about Where She Was From and at the end of the piece suggested that those of us who had not been around when the meme first appeared  in 2003 might like to give it a go. It’s interesting what comes up; there’s even a kind of template if you want to try it.

This is what came to mind when I mulled it over:


I am from the banks of a river which travels halfway across a continent, South to North,  starting out fast-flowing and angry in youth, slowing down and settling into a broad expanse before meeting and marrying the waters of the ocean and thereby losing itself.

I am from vineyards, craggy castles, black bread and Sauerkraut.

I am from a land monotonous in its repetitions of fields of wheat and cabbage, copses of beech and oak, silent bogs and waterlily-strewn ponds, peaceful behind curtains of tall poplars. 

I am from sleepy villages with low church towers, four-square farms with sturdy gates, and black and white cows under  big-bellied clouds.

I am from deep blue cornflowers and red poppies, from hedgerows of hazel and hawthorn and country lanes, dead straight, dissolving into shimmering horizons.

I am from a poor people’s kitchen with a large table, a range to one side, and a bed in the attic, heat and ice flowers, summers and winters.

I am from weavers and dyers, from men called Peter and women called Katharina and Anna, from hard work and long hours,  from dogged endeavour, leavened by laughter and song.

I am from aunt Kathy with the twinkling eyes and warm heart, who fed me and hugged me, when others wouldn’t, from aunts who disapproved and uncles who smiled forgivingly.

I am from people who survived hardship and trouble, and stayed true to themselves; people whose determination and courage overcame great danger; afraid, they yet clung to what they believed to be right.

I come from people with roots in other countries, whose ancestors were blown across borders by the winds of many wars, who came to rest in the fertile plain by the banks of the great river.

I am from the teachings of all religions and none, from black-robed nuns and angry-eyed, loud-voiced firebrands, who took for their religion the well-being of all mankind in the face of greed and injustice.

I am from Linden trees lining avenues, mists rising from verdant meadows and pollarded willows stretching out their ghostly arms. 

I am from windmills, bicycles, chestnuts and herbs gathered in high summer, from apple pancakes and pickled roasted beef, from christmas trees and Silent Nights.

From grandfather Peter who buried his young wife and brought up his children by telling them stories of ghosts and goblins, from uncle Gottfried, the black sheep, who fell into the ditch and died of TB, from uncle Johann, club-footed and lame, thrown into prison, again and again, because he wouldn't stay silent, from uncle Peter, POW in Russia, who met his child for the first time when she was seven years old and frightened of him.

I am from two sides of a family riven by ideology, war and religion, black and red, the colours of deep conviction.

I am from boxes of photographs of people long dead, whose bitter arguments and life-long feuds are like wisps of smoke in the wind, blown about into nothingness.  

I am from people who left me a heritage valuable beyond rubies, a mind to question and probe, eyes to observe and ears to hear and dismiss the meaningless bluster of voices calling me to follow the herd and a heart unafraid to stand alone. For that I am truly grateful.

Creative Writing - Progress Report 2

Not easy, this writing lark. In fact, it's downright hard. For years I've translated other people's words, written reports for conferences, political tracts, articles and polemical essays. I've written long letters and journals. But I've never written anything which is entirely about myself. This blog is my first experience of writing in the first person singular.

First thing to admit is that I've written several half chapters, but have completed none since Progress Report No. 1. I am floundering. I have several excuses, (I'm very good at excuses): I was unwell before Christmas and hardly able to think straight. Then came the festive season which always throws me. Since then it's been really hard to motivate myself. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the shape this memoir should take, how to get into it; I have drawn up outlines, copied some of the reminiscences posted on this blog to use as a basis for chapters to be fleshed out and mentally paraded the characters I intend to include.

I find it hard to stick to a schedule; there's always something else that gets in the way of writing. Should I opt for early mornings, before the day proper begins? But then Benno hears me moving about and wants attention; 'feed me and let me out', he whines. Should I opt for late evenings? I often blog late at night, or read. Reading is, of course, part of writing. Without regular and varied reading there is no writing.

After breakfast jobs need doing around the house, there's laundry and tidying up, there are meals to be prepared. After lunch it's dog walking, shopping, etc., you all know the score. Being retired should mean that the days are entirely at my disposal. Fat chance! On at least one or two days a week I am not at home at all.

Another problem I've come up against, is that blogging is entirely different from reading or writing seriously. I enjoy blogging, I've made friends I would never otherwise have made, but the blogging and writing mindset are different. I know some of you disagree, but I find writing requires me to concentrate fully, for hours, on the same subject; it requires focus. With blogging I can stop and start, read a few posts, write one, comment here and there; it doesn't matter how often I am interrupted, I can always go back later. Once my writing thread is interrupted, it's hard to get back into the flow. Beloved is a problem here, he thinks I might like a cup of tea, or he comes and asks me what he should do about vegetables for supper, say.

Then there's research. As this memoir is set in a different country from the one I live in, research is something I can't do by looking up the local records. Not everything is available on the internet. I may have to employ somebody to dig up names and help me with exactly pinpointing dates and events. Historical facts need checking; although this memoir is about my own memories, they need to be placed in context, otherwise the whole thing makes no sense.

Ideas and advice, please, from all you writers and wannabe writers out there who read this blog, and if there are writers amongst those of you who remain in the shadows, who neither comment nor join, but read (I know you are out there, Google has told me), I'd be grateful for your input too.  How do you/did you overcome lack of motivation and discipline?

Progress Report on Writing - 1

Thank you everybody for commenting on the previous post about my intention to write a memoir. I'd like to say right away, that I won't stop blogging,  I am an addict. I will also try and visit my followers' blogs and anybody else who leaves an interesting or constructive comment. Perhaps it would be of general interest if I post an occasional progress report; there are a number of people in the blog world who are delving into their history and writing about it, we might learn from each other. It would also force me to continue writing as I'd find it hard to admit defeat publicly.

I am consumed with this idea of writing a memoir at the moment - no half measures for Friko, there's that 'bald-headed' streak coming through again -; I had a dream last night which was a textbook example of the subconscious dealing with daytime thoughts. My very confused and frightening dream told me how hard and strenuous the work will be and that I will have to rely entirely on my own recollections, and do some serious research.

I have already learned the difference between my own blogging and serious writing: a bit of waffling does no harm on a blog, facts don't need to be seriously researched, context doesn't matter and a blog post is best kept short, whereas a story will not come alive unless you add colour and detail and get the chronology right. I can write a blog post in twenty minutes flat, whereas the first draft detailing the events of just one day took me the best part of three days.

One chapter of Two Thousand Five Hundred Forty Seven words written  -  how many to go?