Grannymar

About two months ago I was buzzed on Skype by a gentleman from Italy. He asked if I had a few minutes to talk to him. It was a dull, boring wet day so I agreed to talk for five minutes or so. He told me his name, where he lived and what he did for a living. Then he asked several questions which I answered without giving away any information.

“Now it is my turn” I said, “Why did you pick me?” He said he looked for an English speaker in the UK and my name came up top of the list. I had a go at that one, I tried several countries, and the list showed up each time in alphabetical order. Now on Skype I do not use either my own name or Grannymar, let me just say the one I use would come after the word Skype on the list! (One day all these names will be a problem as I won’t remember who I am supposed to be!) Again I queried this with Romano Italiano. He assured me he was genuine and asked if I would help him with his English! Now my father always warned me about fellows inviting me to see their etchings, but never anything about helping them with their English! Anyway Romano Italiano was over there in Italy and surely no harm could come to me at this distance. He asked if I had a Webcam, which I don’t, and then he asked and wanted to be assured I was over 18 years of age. He had a webcam and used it so that I was able to see him speak. He has a good voice, pleasing face but seems a very serious chap who seldom smiles!

So what do I do? I was never a teacher. My spelling and grammar are woeful as you all know, so how do I get round this one?

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are chocolates or toffees while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

What hope have I when there is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is “UP?”

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the politicians UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, queue UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is bunged UP. We open UP a shop in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! If you wish to be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost ¼ of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP

I could go on and on, but I’ll finish UP, because my time is UP, so……….. it is time to shut UP….!

Oh . . . one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?

U-P

My father worked in the Rag-trade. That for the uninitiated is Dublin slang for the clothing business. He had agencies for several Irish, English and Continental Fabrics manufacturers. It was a world of great colour. Fabrics of all kinds were to be seen in our house because that is where my dad had his office. I was always aware of the ‘New Colours’ a year ahead of them being available. Twice yearly when the new ranges were introduced, each sample had to be numbered and recorded in his ‘little black book’. It was way before Pc’s and laptops. My mother and I were always roped in to help with this work. At times it took three or four evenings to complete the task.

The samples were packed in suitcases that dad delivered to a customer, a couple of days later he collected the cases and hopefully an order. That night the cases were emptied and the samples were refolded and sorted before passing them on to the next customer.

His customers were many and varied, from top Irish Designers to more household names in the Clothing Business. When my father was out my mother or I manned the phone. I became very familiar with the names, voices and characters of designers and manufacturers. I seldom needed to ask them either their name or phone number. Occasionally my father brought me with him on his calls. I had the opportunity to meet many creative people in those years. They were pleased that I remembered them on the phone and made me very welcome.

On occasions they might want to show my father how a fabric looked when it was made up into a garment. Since I was a size 8UK/6US, the size used to make up samples, I was asked to try an outfit on and ‘walk up the floor’. I still remember trying on a brightly coloured trouser suit in a ‘Raj’ style. The trousers were lined and had the zip to the front like men’s slacks. I was more used to buying trousers with the zip at the side. I remarked on these things and was told in a lovely gentle way that a zip should never be inserted in a side seam because it would upset the balance and look of a ladies hip line. The lining was so that the fabric would not rub a lady’s tender legs. That was long before jeans became a regular fashion item.

From those early days I was particular about how clothes fitted and when I brought home a purchase, my father was the one to look it over and pass comments about it. Regularly I was told to ‘Put it on and walk up the floor’. He often teased me about how much they paid me to take an item off the shelf! Mostly he agreed that the clothes that I picked suited me.

I was always comfortable in trousers and have been known to turn out for work wearing them with a shirt and tie. Forty years ago dinner dances were all the go. The men wore ‘Black Tie’ and ladies wore long dresses. I was fond of sewing and made a new dress for each dance.

I remember one particular occasion in the months before I met Jack. The Company I worked for was having a large formal bash. I was undecided whether to go or not, when a colleague and I were asked if we would make up a party with some chaps on secondment from Scotland. A blind date, it would be a first for me, so why not. We made arrangements for all our party to gather and meet at a friend’s house. On the evening in question we girls arrived early to have a drink, a giggle, apply the paint and get dressed for the evening.

The invitations said ‘Black Tie’ and I arrived so dressed! Well I wore black trousers, with a white silk shirt and a bow tie. Over this I had a tailcoat that had belonged to my father. It fitted me well and suited me, even if I say so myself. I had a small weekend case with my dress in it. The girls were so surprised to see what I was wearing that they forgot about my case. I had them convinced that I was dressed and ready and each time the doorbell rang I went to open the door. My garb was the best ‘ice- breaker’ ever and a real talking point. When we were ready to leave I excused myself and quickly changed into my dress. It was just as well it was a crease free fabric!

The whole party were disappointed that I had changed into a dress and they told everyone at the function of my earlier outfit. I was almost sent off to change back into the tailcoat.

Now at sixty I have watched fashion come and go over five decades. The first 10 years do not count as I was a child for most of it and wore the clothes my mother provided and told me to wear. Unlike nowadays we were not given a choice and indeed wore items for several consecutive days.

I love to sit with a coffee or a drink and ‘People Watch’. On a fine day it is something I can do for hours. The world is a wonderland of colour shape and diverse styles. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but fashion is certainly in the mind of the wearer! Nowadays we live in a world where ‘Anything goes’ seems to be the mantra. It is not something I am comfortable with. To quote a line from The Mountains of Mourne, a Percy French song – “You could not in truth say if they were bound for a ball or a bath” When this song was written it referred to the ladies in London, nowadays it might refer to either sex of any age, in any place.

I suppose I would divide people into the following groups:

• Those who drag themselves out of bed in the morning and clamber into the creased bundle they dropped on the floor the previous night.

• Those who dress because they have to, but with no interest of how they look or if colours clash.

• Those who take pride in how they look.

• Those who dress to draw attention to themselves.

For a moment compare it to two presents on a table. One roughly wrapped in wrinkled newsprint and the other carefully wrapped in gift-wrap finished with a nice bow. If you were given a choice which one would you choose?

Men have no problem is showing interest in how ladies look as they walk along the street. They show appreciation in wolf whistles, smiles and long lingering looks. In fact on occasions they have been known to bump into a tree, lamppost or someone walking towards them because they have become so enthralled or distracted by a vision of desire walking past them.

Over the years I have watched from the sidelines:

• The women who slavishly follow fashion whether or not it suits them. They are prepared to spend a fortune on this season’s look, even when it makes them look, bigger, fatter and older or like mutton dressed as lamb.
• Those ‘larger’ women who think that anything black and unstructured makes them look thinner, when a tailored outfit would cut the pounds in seconds.
• Those who spend some time in dressing, doing make-up etc., forgetting to give the back view a glance. If you get a split down the back of your hair while sleeping, it will NOT go away until you wash your hair!
• The women, who have found their own style, are comfortable and stick with it, always looking well, whether they are thirty or eighty.
• The women who think that showing off all they have is sexy, when in fact it is actually a turn off.

Now that I have joined the Third Age it does not mean I have lost interest in how men look. Like women’s fashions men’s have changed beyond all recognition from when I was growing up. In my young days men wore a suit, shirt and tie. I know because I grew up in a household with five men and washed, starched and ironed plenty of shirts. The suits in those days were all dark and the majority of shirts were white.

I still think a nicely fitting, well pressed suit looks sexy. But please remember to polish those shoes, the heel as well as the toes. Casual slacks and a sports jacket with an open necked shirt, looks good too. But please, please make sure the trousers are the correct length and not full of concertina folds where they meet your shoes, that just kills the whole effort.

Now I have a major gripe! If you are a well fed guy and show signs of a liking for the beer, avoid at all costs the long- shorts or cut-offs, you know the ones, they reach below the knees, worn with a tee-shirt pulled down over them. These are the fastest turn off ever! They do not hide the paunch only emphasise it. I have even seen them worn with shoes and socks!!!! And these men expect us to find personality behind that lot, forget it guys. It is a major No-no.

My final point is about fashion for pre and pubescent young girls. I know that the fashion industry and peer pressure weigh heavily on what they wear. While in a shop attached to a busy petrol station one day towards the end of term, I saw a young school girl with her uniform skirt hitched up to within inches of modesty. Her mother was in the queue to pay for petrol and sent the young lady to pick up some items from the far end of the shop. This young girl nicely formed and a beauty in the making was completely unaware of the effect she was having on several men in the queue. One of the men was obviously mentally undressing her and taking pleasure in the exercise. I thought for a brief moment of saying something to the mother, I decided against it as I might be considered as an interfering old woman and a prude, and if she became aggressive it might draw even more attention to her daughter.

While reading Baino’s Banter today I smiled at all the items in her treasure trove. For years I collected small items that reminded me of people rather than places. I would never be considered a ‘Hoarder’. In fact Jack told me that my mother warned him before he married me ‘Not to stand in the one place for too long or I might throw him out!’

I returned from a Wedding in Cape Cod a few years ago on a cold November day. When I unlocked the front door I was met by a stream of paperwork, clothing and belongings stretching right through the house. The back door (Aluminium Double glazed) was lying open and the frame was damaged and hacked to bits. It was not something that could have been done quietly or with speed.

The thieves were selective and took only items that were of value including jewellery, several pieces that were antique, and for me priceless & un-replaceable. They all had a story attached to them and brought loved ones close to me when I touched or wore them. I have not replaced them and decided that the jewellery I was wearing would be my signature tune from that day on. After all we can only wear one item at a time. Why leave things around for someone else to steal.

It took a couple of months to sort things out with the insurance company, but much longer to get over the fact that someone had been through my clothes and personal items. I still have to stop myself walking from room to room when I come into the house on a dark winter’s day.

My enforced holiday in hospital recently has made me reflect and think about my life. I have decided to yet again sort out my belongings and clear out anything that is not needed. The loft area was done years ago and is now only custodian to the Christmas tree and decorations. There might be one box of ‘Elly’s early life’. One school book from each year and several projects she worked on, a school crest etc.

So what is this about emigrating? Let me explain. Some years ago a friend called while I was doing a big clear out. “What are you up to” she asked. I told her I was immigrating to Australia and therefore clearing out all the things I no longer needed. She almost believed me. Since then when I need to do a clear out, I tell myself that I am on the move.

So now Elly is married and beginning a new stage in her life. It is only right and normal that she should be allowed to do so. As I have said so often, I gave her life and not a life sentence, therefore I move back a few steps from her and allow her to get on with marking out her new role. My life is also beginning a new phase, with the realisation that once again I stand alone. There will be many new challenges ahead for me and I look forward to discovering what they are.

Meanwhile would anyone like this tuning fork…

Grandad and Granny went away for a few days last month. He told us they went to a small comfortable hotel in the west. Part of that story was true, they did go to the west but it was a camping holiday.

After they got their tent all set up, both Granny & Grandad fell sound asleep. Some hours later, Granny wakes Grandad and says, “St James’s Street tonight, look up to the sky; what do you see?”

Grandad replies, “I see millions of stars.”

“What does that tell you?” asked Granny.

Grandad scratches his head and ponders for a minute then says, “Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What’s it tell you, Granny?”

“You are dumber than K8’s dog. Someone has stolen our tent.”

Mr ‘O’ owned the local newsagents on the avenue where I grew up. The actual shop was very small; in fact eight customers were about all it would hold at any one time. Mr ‘O’ was super efficient and nobody had to wait very long to be served. In the evenings and at weekends he was joined by Mrs ‘O’. She helped to look after the customers. When they retired about five years ago the other shopkeepers and most of the older, by which I mean long time, residents threw a street party in honour of his long and faithful service.

The shop was once half of a double fronted establishment at the end of a block of about 10 shops with a Cinema half way along the row. It had been divided before Mr ‘O’ bought it. The other half became Mr Mc’s grocery business. That’s a story for another time.

The window was about waist high with a narrow shelf on the inside. It was closed on the inside to the customers and could only be viewed from the outside. It was not a window to linger over as all the goods and personalities were inside the shop. Window dressings 50 years ago were few and simple. Crepe paper lined the shelf and on it were displayed Bars of Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate that in fact were blocks of wood, covered in the foil and wrappers. Boxes of Chocolates such as Mackintoshes Double Centres, Black Magic, Milk Tray or Fruit Jellies were on show. These boxes were only empty cartons; it was just as well because the shop was on the sunny side of the street.

There was a counter 3ft (91cms) high and about 7ft (214cms) long. It ran the length of the shop with a small gap to allow the staff to come out onto the
shop-floor or go into the miniscule store at the back. The first 18 inches from the window end was the children’s corner. You could stand here and look over the counter for an hour or longer with your large old penny burning a hole in the palm of your hand deciding what to spend it on.

Displayed on shelves along the wall behind the counter were what seemed like a wonderland of dentist’s delights from different toffee bars, gob stoppers lucky bags and various sweets including Fruit Salad, Blackjacks, Lollipops, Dolly Mixture, Bubblegum, Liquorice Allsorts, Midget Gems, Liquorice Sticks, Aniseed
Balls, Sugared Almonds and Wine Gums.

Next to this space stood a weighing scales. Along the front of the remainder of the counter were large jars of colourful sweets like a row of soldiers standing to attention. These raised the counter level and the newspapers of the day were placed on top of them. The old fashioned Cash register was tucked in behind, out of sight. Rows of cigarette packets were along the wall at a level out of sight of the children’s corner. Pipe tobacco, matches, pipe-cleaners, cigarette papers, lighter fuel all had their place. You could buy papers, magazines, comics, notepaper & envelopes, cards for all occasions, stamps, sheets of brown or gift paper and string. Large Picture boxes of Chocolates, usually with beautiful girls or cute animals on the front were placed high up on the walls. They sold well at Valentine’s & Mother’s day. The only trouble with them was that they were all box and very few chocolates.

Mr ’O’ also stocked milk in glass bottles, cream and eggs, ice-cream and ice pops – they were like a frozen drink on a stick, bright orange or deep red in colour. Fresh bread was delivered daily and he also stocked lemonade, Coke and Pepsi were not in our vocabulary never mind Mr ‘O’s shop.

At the far end of the counter was a mobile oil heater. It was the only heat in the building. The front door was open from morning to night so when the shop was quiet Mr ‘O’ was to be found working away near the heat source. On the shelves above it were an assortment of items not usual for a ‘paper’ shop. He had plasters, cards of sewing needles, sheets of pins, combs, razor blades, sachets of shampoo, fuses and batteries, sometimes you would see him disappear into the store and return with an item of his own to oblige a customer.

I remember once as a child going up with my saved pocket money to buy something for my parent’s anniversary and when I told him I wanted to buy a present he gently asked how much I wanted to spend. I told him how much I had and I know that what I came home with was well worth more than the cash I gave him. He even wrapped it for me and gave me a card to go with it.

On another occasion years later a friend and neighbour was having a party for her 18^th birthday. It was to be rather special and for the first time her parents had allowed her to have wine. When it came time to open the bottles they discovered they had no bottle opener to do so. Up they went to Mr ‘O’ and for once it was something he did not stock. Not to be outdone he left his wife to look after the shop and drove home to get his own corkscrew which he brought to the house of the party and opened the first couple of bottles to make sure they knew how to do it, before leaving the opener with them overnight.

Mr ‘O’ remembered everyone’s name, knew where they lived and who lived next door to them. As we grew up and moved on he got to know the names of the new additions to our families and always asked how we were doing and sent good wishes. We in turn always paid a visit when we went back to visit our parents. The younger generation loved to go to see Mr ‘O’ and buy sweets they usually came away with a sweet in their mouth that he had slipped to them.

I know he managed to have a half hour away from the shop to see me walk down the aisle 30 years ago and he was also at the graveside for both funerals of my parents.

We are constantly told how modern times are better. Modern technology means we can actually buy items without uttering a word or seeing a smile. Nowadays in shops when asking about certain items we are told “If it is not on the shelf, then we do not have it”. The Mr ‘O’s’ of this world are fast disappearing and the world should mourn their passing.

The local minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon last week.

Four worms were placed into four separate jars.

The first worm was put into a container of alcohol.

The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke.

The third worm was put into a container of chocolate sauce.

The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil.

At the conclusion of the sermon, the Minister reported the following results:

The first worm in alcohol - Dead.

The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead.

Third worm in chocolate sauce - Dead.

Fourth worm in good clean soil - Alive.

So the Minister asked the congregation -

What can you learn from this demonstration?

Maxine was setting in the back, quickly raised her hand and said,

“As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t have worms!”