Grannymar

I was sorting through some old papers at the weekend and came across a couple of copies from the census forms from 1901 and 1911 in Ireland. They were so simple compared with the 24 page forms of the present day. Alas they are far from what is considered politically correct in this day and age.

The 1901 Form had one page with 11 columns to be completed.

RETURN of the MEMBERS of this FAMILY and their VISITORS, BOARDERS, SERVANTS, ETC., who slept or abode in this House on the night of Sunday, the 31^st of March 1901.

Columns 1 Name & Surname

The Name of the Head of the Family should be written first; then the names of his Wife, Children, and other Relatives; then those of Visitors, Boarders, Servants, Etc.,

Column 2 - Relation to Head of Family.

State whether ‘Head of Family,’ or ‘Wife,’ ‘Son,’ ‘Daughter,’ or other Relative; ‘Visitor,’ ‘Boarder,’ ‘Servant,’ Etc.

Column 3 – Religious Profession.

State here the particular Religion, or Religious Denomination, to which each person belongs. [Members of Protestant Denominations are requested not to describe themselves by the vague term “Protestant,” but to enter the name of the Particular Church, Denomination, or Body to which they belong.]

Column 4 – Education.

State here whether he or she can “Read and Write,” can “Read” only, or “Cannot Read.”

Column 5 – Age

This is divided into two columns. A) Age last Birthday & b) Months for Infants under one year.

Column 6 – Sex

Column 7 – Rank, Profession or Occupation.

State the particular Rank, Profession, Trade, or other Employment of each person. Children or young persons attending School, or receiving regular instruction at home, should be returned as Scholars.

- Now ladies take a deep breath as we look at this one.

In the 1911 Census the following note is added to this column:

[No entry should be made in the case of wives, daughters, or other female relatives solely engaged in domestic duties at home.]

Column 8 – Marriage

Whether ‘Married,’ ‘Widower,’ ‘Widow,’ or ‘Not Married.’ The latter becomes ‘Single,’ in the 1911 version.

Column 9 – Where Born

If in Ireland state in what County or City; if elsewhere, state the name of the Country.

Column 10 – Irish Language.

Write the word ‘Irish’ in the column opposite the name of each person who speaks Irish only, and the words ‘Irish & English’ opposite the names of those who speak both languages. In other cases no entry should be made in this column.

Column 11 – This abhors me!

If Deaf and Dumb;

Dumb only;

Blind;

Imbecile or Idiot;

Or Lunatic

Write the respective infirmities opposite the name of the afflicted person.

I notice in this column in the 1911 Census, entered next my grandfather’s name is: Right leg amputated

Where do you write a list?

How do you spell Constantinople?

Yesterday I was on about my difficulties with the English language.
Here are some more examples to mull over:

1.   The bandage was wound around the wound.
2.   The farm was used to produce produce.
3.   The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4.   We must polish the Polish furniture.
5.   He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6.   The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7.   Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to    present the present.
8.   When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
9.   I did not object to the object.
10.   The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
11.   There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
12.   They were too close to the door to close it.
13.   The buck does funny things when the does are present.
14.   A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer.
15.   To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
16.   The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
17.   Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
18.   I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
19.   How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
20.   A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

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…

Being human we seldom realise or recognise our own talents. I often look at the work of photographers and marvel at the amazing images they produce. Gingerpixel is one and Richard M, who I mentioned in a previous post, is another. I point a camera and if I am lucky I manage to produce something that is almost recognisable.

Praise was not something my parents served up very often in my young days. It was usually “What are you at now? You know you will never finish it.” I suppose those words made me more determined to complete whatever I was at, usually some sewing, and prove I could do something.

I remember hiding away in my bedroom one afternoon to find some peace and quiet to read a book that a friend had given me. My mother called up to me to know what I was up to. “Nothing, just reading” I said. “Well stop wasting time and come down here and do something useful!” she said. I came down as asked and the useful task assigned to me was to peel ½ stone of potatoes for the dinner. Seven pounds of potatoes were consumed on a daily basis in our household, that was when we were small in number, my parents four brothers my sister and myself. When we had visitors, which was a regular occurrence the mound of potatoes grew even bigger. Of course we had plenty of vegetables to be scrubbed, peeled and chopped to go with the potatoes and they just appeared at my side as I was about to finish the spuds.

There were days when Mammy might exclaim “I have nothing for dessert, would you ever whip up a sponge cake. Now this was before we had an electric mixer or a food processor. My only aid was a hand mixer and it took an eternity to beat up the eggs until they were stiff and left the mark of the beaters in the mixture. All that work to see the cake arrive on the table where it was cut in eight slices and devoured in ten seconds!! What is it with eggs? I made the sponge cakes, pancakes, and scrambled eggs. They were about the only things I was praised for.

Mary my father’s eldest sister is the person who fostered my love of a needle. She taught me to crochet and to read a sewing pattern properly. I had lessons on her old treadle sewing machine and she helped to make my first dress. To this day I still see it in my minds eye. Being the early sixties it was simple sleeveless fully lined and had two fringed patch pockets on the front. Auntie Mary was a teacher and had a love for her craft and passed on her knowledge with love and gentle dedication. I have never forgotten anything that she taught me.

Over this past year while working on Elly’s special outfit I thought of Auntie Mary many times. So when I make a quiet toast to Absent Loved Ones on the big day Auntie Mary will be high up on that list.