Secrets My Mother Kept (4 page)

Although Mum occasionally walked us to the park in Goodmayes, we didn’t go out very often. So when I thought about our school trip, back came all my usual anxiety about having the right kind of lunch, the right kind of clothes and whether I would need the toilet. I would guess that over the next few days Miss Jones told the class about where we were going and what we might see, but I stayed at home for the rest of the week planning for the outing. I had to make sure that everything was ready.

On Saturday Mum took us to the shops in Green Lane.

‘Do you want cheese spread or Spam for your sandwiches?’ she asked. I wanted cheese spread, I never did like the sweaty, bland flavour of Spam. I was also allowed to choose a special cake from the baker’s and on Sunday evening helped Pat to pack my lunch up in some greaseproof paper ready for the morning.

Bright and early on Monday I was beside myself with a mixture of happy anticipation and growing dread, especially when I arrived at school to see a big coach parked outside. As I went in to class, Christine turned to me. ‘Where’s your coat?’ she asked. ‘Miss Jones said we have to bring a coat in case it rains, so you probably won’t be allowed to come.’ I looked anxiously around to see if anyone else had forgotten their coat, but no, even though it was May I was the only one in just a cardigan.

To my utter relief a boy called Stephen burst into class. He went straight to the teacher and said, ‘My mum says to tell you I ain’t got a coat.’

Miss Jones turned to him, ‘Don’t worry, Stephen. The sun is shining; I don’t think it is going to rain today so hopefully we won’t need our coats.’

With that, I let out an inward sigh of relief and let myself enjoy the day – a day of dappled sunlight, warm orange squash and the sort of wild freedom that would never pass a health and safety checklist!

Later that year my Godmother Julie had announced that she was getting married and I was to be a bridesmaid. Julie was the same age as my sister Pat and they were very close friends. She was an only child and her Mum was my Aunty Maggie, one of my mum’s older sisters.

One Saturday as the time of the wedding drew nearer, Julie came over to pick me up. ‘We are going to get you fitted for your dress today’. I was a quiet, shy and subdued child, so I didn’t dare to ask the questions that were buzzing round in my head. Would my dress trail along the floor like a princess’s? What colour would it be and would I wear a tiara?

Julie’s friend was making my dress and my tummy did somersaults as we approached her front door. I hadn’t had any breakfast and it was well past lunchtime. Julie didn’t realise that I hadn’t eaten, and as we went inside the house I began to feel headachy and nauseous.

‘Come on then’ said Julie kindly. ‘Jump up on the chair so we can get you measured.’ I tried to do as I was told but I wobbled and nearly fell.

‘What’s the matter with you then’ said Julie’s friend catching me with one hand.

‘Oh she’s probably over excited’ said Julie oblivious to the fact that I was dizzy with hunger.

My dress was made from shiny pale green satin and had little puffed sleeves. It sat just above my knees, and had a flouncy petticoat, which wasn’t particularly flattering as my legs were rather short and quite plump!

A few weeks later Julie arrived to take me shoe shopping.

‘We’re taking you to meet Carol the other bridesmaid and you can get your shoes together,’ Julie told me as she picked me up.

Carol? I thought, who is Carol? No one had mentioned another bridesmaid.

‘You can get to know each other and have a little play.’

We drove for what seemed like an age and finally arrived in Hayes where Carol lived. Her Mum welcomed us in and said kindly ‘Carol, why don’t you take Kathleen up to your room to play while Mummy and Julie have a chat, we’ll call you down for lunch when it’s ready.’

Carol had a room all of her own and didn’t have to share it with anyone. I looked around me in wonder. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen. It had pink flowery wallpaper and clean crisp white paintwork. At the window hung curtains full of white daisies like the ones I had seen growing in the park, but best of all, there on the floor, was the fluffiest, pinkest, softest rug I had ever seen! It was glorious, and I wanted to sit on it forever and run my fingers and toes through it.

‘Do you want to play babies? Or we can play with my dolls house? She pointed to the shelf at one side of the room. I looked at the toys on the shelves, the assortment of teddy bears on her bed and at the rows of books neatly stacked on a tiny bookcase, and thought that she must be the luckiest little girl in the whole world.

After lunch we walked to the shoe shop. My eyes fell on a pair of shoes that sparkled. They were covered in glitter and sequins. I crunched up my eyes and wished with all my might, but at the same time was too timid to make my preferences known to the grown ups.

‘I think these ones will look best next to the green’ said Carol’s Mum picking up a pair of dull cream satin shoes that had a small bow on the front, but Carol said ‘Oh no please Mummy, the sparkly ones are the nicest, please, please, please.’ The adults exchanged looks and smiled. Julie picked up the sparkling shoes and said ‘Do you know Carol I think you’re right, the sparkly ones are definitely the best, do you like them Kathleen?’ I nodded so vigorously that my head almost left my shoulders and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling broadly.

I knew then that wishes could come true. With my new green satin dress, sparkling starlight shoes, shiny flicked up hair and green feather headband, I would look like a princess and this time when people looked at me, they would be thinking I looked beautiful.

5

Michael

From the end of the Second World War to the early 60s, all young men were conscripted into the armed forces, as long as they passed a medical examination. My oldest brother Michael was no exception. He was called up for National Service when I was about three so I don’t really remember him much before he was in the army. It would not be the first time he had been away from home. In fact, as I later discovered, he was already a veteran at living apart from our family.

As the second oldest in the family, he had been born just before the outbreak of war. He was a very beautiful baby with golden curls and a chubby face, but did not have a particularly happy childhood. Mum had already given birth to Sheila a year before, so they were very close in age. Mum and Ron Coates, their dad, had a house around the corner from Granny and Granddad. It was still on the Becontree Estate but was a bit smaller than mum’s childhood home. Things started to go badly wrong. They were both quite young, still in their twenties when Mum became pregnant for the third time. War broke out and Ron was working long hours at Ford, and Mum was lonely.

Aunty told us many years later that Ron Coates was a ‘womaniser’, but we never knew if that was true. It was while Mum was pregnant with their fourth child, Josie, that they finally separated. Michael was five at the time. Today the idea of a single parent bringing up children alone doesn’t surprise, shock or horrify anyone, but in 1942 in a Catholic community Mum was stigmatised.

After Michael’s ten weeks basic training for National Service, he was shipped over to Gibraltar – ‘the Rock’, as it was known then. He was just over nineteen years old and had already been bringing a wage home. He was trying to help to keep the ever-growing family’s head above water. Now all that had changed and he wasn’t sure what chaos and calamity he would come back to. Despite his worries about Mum and us, he loved army life and soon metamorphosed from a chubby, shy, anxious teenager into a tall, slim, confident young man. After he had been in Gibraltar for about two years his letters home started mentioning a Spanish girl named Isobel. He sent us photos of her. She was so beautiful; with her dark hair and smouldering eyes, she was the most exotic looking person we had ever seen. Then another letter from him arrived.

‘Your brother’s getting married,’ I overheard Mum telling Pat and Josie. They were in their late teens and had been working since they left school at fifteen.

I was so excited but wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.

‘Is our brother really getting married?’ I asked Pat.

She nodded.

I knew all about weddings since I had been a bridesmaid.

‘And will he be coming home now?’ I added. The only memories I had of Michael at that time were as a brief visitor when he had occasionally come home on leave.

Pat gave me a look. ‘I don’t think so; not yet,’ she said and changed the subject quickly.

They were married in Isobel’s home village near to Malaga but none of our family were able to attend. The fare to Spain would have been as out of reach to us then as a flight to the moon would be now! They did send photos though, and when I looked at them I thought they were like characters from the pictures.

In the same year that Michael and Isobel got married, our class began to be ‘prepared’ for our First Holy Communion. This meant learning lots of things by heart, which I was quite good at. It also meant making our first confession. We had to confess our sins first so that we would be free from sin when we went to receive Jesus in the communion bread and wine. The problem was we were only six or seven. We didn’t have any sins to confess so we made them up. We knew that telling lies, being unkind to our sisters and brothers, swearing and murder were all very bad sins so we confessed them. Apart from murder that is; I don’t think any of us confessed to that one!

When the big day came we lined up in the church pew and knelt down to remember our sins and to pray for forgiveness. When it was my turn to go into the confessional box I was quite excited. I pulled the door that was already slightly ajar and slipped in. I could remember the words we had to say to the priest who was in the other side of the box. He couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see him.

‘Bless me Father for I have sinned. This is my first confession,’ I began.

The priest said some prayers and then asked me what I had done.

‘I have lied, I smacked my sister and I was cheeky to my mum.’

None of this was true, of course, but I had to say something and these sins sounded along the right kind of lines.

The priest forgave me. ‘Say two Hail Mary’s and one Our Father and don’t sin again.’

I left the confession box feeling ten feet tall. I was a forgiven sinner at last!

I was to make my Holy Communion in June. For Catholics, making your first Holy Communion is really important. For a start you get a new white dress and a veil and everyone looks at you and gives you presents. I was so excited.

However, the question of my dress was posing some problems for my family. One afternoon Margaret and I were looking through a big thick catalogue imagining the clothes we were going to buy.

‘That white one’s nice. And it’s not too . . .’

Mum looked over our shoulders. ‘Hmm. We’ll have to wait and see.’

I bit my lip. What would I do if I didn’t have a communion dress? It wasn’t mentioned again for a while so I tried not to think about it. Then one day a letter arrived from Michael. That afternoon after school Mum had some news for me. My dress was on its way! Michael’s new wife was a dressmaker, and a Catholic as well, so understood the importance of the occasion. She was going to make my dress!

Over the next few weeks she made me a beautiful, simple white dress that she hand stitched and embroidered. It wasn’t fancy or frilly, but was made from fine white cotton with narrow white ribbon threaded through it across the bodice, round the sleeves and the hem. It also had a little Peter Pan collar, which I loved. She also made a replica dress for my little sister Margaret to wear so that we would look alike. But Margaret wasn’t having a veil; that was special for me.

The day it arrived in the post, carefully packaged in tissue paper, my fingers were trembling with excitement.

Once I had made my Holy Communion it meant that I was old enough to walk in the May processions. These were very big events where all of the little girls and boys who had made their first Holy Communion would process through the streets along with the older children. All would be dressed in white and many of the girls would wear a little veil. I wore mine and felt so proud as we walked past the houses. People would come to their gates and stand watching us as we walked and sang hymns to Mary the Queen of Heaven and Queen of the May. There was very little traffic on the roads in those days so we must have been quite a spectacle.

Afterwards I carefully put the dress away. We didn’t get many new clothes. Aunty sometimes bought us a few bits and pieces home from Plessey’s where she worked. I think they must have ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’ and were sold on the factory floor. The other major source of our clothes was a kindly woman called Mickey. She worked in the United Dairies depot near to our house and sometimes Mum would say to Mary or one of the twins, ‘Go into the dairy will you? Mickey’s got some things for you.’

Mickey worked in the servery. That was the office section in the dairy that kept a record of the milk and other things that the milkmen would take out on their daily delivery rounds. Every now and again she’d send word to Mum that she had some things for us. One day Marge, Marion and Mary were sent into the diary and returned with a suitcase.

‘That’s huge!’ I exclaimed, excitement rising. ‘What’s inside?’