Decades

1950

It is nice here and they’re very kind. Miss Marshall the headmistress is strict but fair the other girls tell me, and she gave all of use new girls a special talk in her study, with tea and buns. I would have preferred lemonade but of course I didn’t say so. After all I’m a big girl of 11 now. I knew I was going to come to St Anne’s Academy. Mother and Father (I’m doing my best to remember to call them that at least in front of the other girls, rather than Mummy and Daddy) told me last year. There’s only a little primary school in the village and it just wouldn’t be practical (that’s Daddy’s – Father’s) word for me to travel over 30 miles there and back each day to the girls’ grammar school in town. “We’ve thought about a governess,” Mother said, “But since the war, they just seem to have died out as a breed, and anyway, you’d be frightfully lonely.”

     I don’t think I would have been. But I also knew that though they seemed to be talking to me like I was a grown-up they’d made up their minds.

     I know I’m lucky. Some of the girls have parents in the forces or abroad for other reasons and are thousands and thousands of miles away from them and mine are only 40 miles away which is not much further than the school in town. They’ve said they will see me on the first exeat. That is a new word I’ve learnt. It means when you’re allowed to go out with your parents, or I suppose somebody else for the girls whose parents can’t come. They’re normally every 3 or 4 weeks but at the start of term we have to wait 6. Miss Marshall thinks it’s best for us to settle in.

     A massive parcel came with my uniform. I like the dark maroon colour of the gymslips, and the maroon and cream striped scarves. I don’t like the itchy knickers and I know I will NEVER get used to the swimming hats we have to wear. I’ve tried it on a couple of times and it’s horrible and smells of rubber and the dentist. 

     It will be lights out soon. I can’t believe we have to go to bed so early as if we were little girls!

     After all I’m supposed to be a big girl now. So I won’t cry. But I miss my Mummy!

1960

So that’s that. I’ve graduated from university and been in a parade wearing a gown and a mortarboard, and now I can put BA after my name as I have an Honours Degree in English Literature. Some of the other students say things like it doesn’t seem real. Well, it seems real enough to me, and I didn’t do all that hard work to entertain any notions it’s all my imagination.

     Mother and Father were so proud. But they didn’t make fools of themselves like some of the parents did, thank Goodness.

     To tell the truth, I don’t quite know how I feel. I’m relieved to finally be out of the classroom, so to speak, where in one form or another I seem to have been for the last ten years. And I’m glad that as long as I live I’ll never have to read anything I don’t want to again. No matter what anyone says, some of the classics can be downright boring. I have half a notion of spending the vacation reading nothing but detective thrillers just as an act of rebellion.

     Except of course it’s not the vacation, is it, because I’m not going back! That’s a thought that’s both liberating and frightening.

     I knew from the start that unlike many of the girls (and the boys too, I suppose) I had no intention of being a teacher. Oh, it’s an easy path to tread, an easy progression, and I fancy I’d be quite good at it, and have mainly fond memories of my own teachers (though Miss Waters, who took over for my last 2 years at St Anne’s after Miss Marshall retired had some very strange ideas). 

     “You think it over then, Marigold, old girl,” Father said. I’ve decided that I want to be known as Marie and not Marigold but I expect it’s unfair to expect them to change the habits of a lifetime and they thought it was a pretty name when they gave it me. “You deserve a rest. But do you have any ideas?”

     I hadn’t until then, or thought I hadn’t, but it popped out. “I want to be a journalist,” I said.

     “Do you now? Well, why not? I’ll have a word with old Cecil Carruthers at the Argos – sure he could find something to keep you busy!”

     I love father dearly but I still have the impression at times that for all he’s proud of my education he doesn’t quite take it seriously and thinks reporting on baby shows and amateur dramatics will keep me happy and occupied until I find a nice husband. I have other ideas!

1970

     This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had worked wonders at the Argos though I say it myself. Fair enough, it’s not like I’ve been working for the Guardian or something like that. But as Cecil (who proved to be surprisingly unstuffy) said, I gave it the kick up the backside it needed. I was careful not to strip out the old standbys – we continued to report on fetes and dog shows and the rest – we also gained a reputation for campaigning journalism (we were in no small part responsible for the maternity unit at the hospital staying open) and won awards. And when Cecil retired he said, with a wry smile, “I think it’ll be safe in your hands, Marie, though knowing you, not too safe!”

     Oh yes, I can see the irony about the maternity ward now. I’ll be needing it myself. Hal said at once he’d do the decent thing and marry me. Mother was so relieved. Oh, she and Father would have stood by me, but as she said, “Even nowadays, Marigold, it’s not easy being a single mother. And though both of you were rather foolish, and should have been old enough to know better, he’s a very nice young man.” And you are desperate for your first grandchild, Mother, I thought, and I’m your only child, so you’re more than prepared to be tolerant about us – as you put it yourself – jumping the gun a bit.

     Actually Hal IS a nice young man. When it comes to the young, he’s a couple of years younger than me, still in his twenties, which of course isn’t enough of an age gap to signify, though some people still cling to the notion that it’s set in stone the husband must be older than the wife. But everyone will think he is, anyway. I console myself with the thought that he has the kind of looks that mean when he’s fifty he’ll probably look younger than he is. Somehow that’s not much consolation. 

     But the fact remains I did see something in him, and now I suppose we ought to resign ourselves and make the best of it.

1980

Vicky is still sulking because I’ve put my foot down and said no she can’t go to St Anne’s Academy or any other boarding school for that matter. She’s going to the comprehensive in town and that’s that. “It’s not a bit like your school stories, you know,” I told her.

     “I KNOW that. But you were happy enough! And have you seen the Flop House?” The comprehensive is actually called Floss Howes, which I admit is a pretty silly name, making it sound like a guest house in the Lake District and the nickname is rather amusing. So I didn’t correct her. But I DID when she said, “All those concrete blocks – it’s like a concentration camp!” I was probably sharper with her than I should have been. It’s just something she’s heard others say, and though she’s precocious I doubt she has much real idea of what a concentration camp was. Maybe I ought to ask her. 

     “She does have a point,” Hal said quietly, later on, when Vicky was at her Girl Guide Meeting. “I mean of course it was out of order to call it a concentration camp but it is pretty ugly. Couldn’t we compromise and send her to Helsdon House?”

     No, I informed him, we could not! I would even prefer her to go to St Anne’s where she would at least get a decent education, than to that jumped up private school in town. But she’s going to neither.

     It’s not our first row about Vicky, though we both love her more than life itself. 

     Mother, surprisingly, is at least half-inclined to agree with me, though she’s uneasy about the Flop House. “I know you were happy at St Anne’s, and I don’t feel guilty about sending you there. But I did miss you, you know. Like I said at the time, we probably had no choice, but there’s something not natural about it.”

     After a spell of estrangement we’ve grown closer again. I don’t think she’ll ever really get over Father’s death. She is suddenly an old woman.

1990

     Dear God, what a year! Those things that we never thought would happen in our lifetime have happened. But the truth is that though of course it’s marvellous and still unreal that Germany has been reunified (our old friends Helga and Rudi are over the moon, though they see some problematic times ahead, but as they say, that wall has fallen and after that everything else seems manageable) and Nelson Mandela has been released, it’s not always been easy to keep my focus on world affairs. 

     Vicky (who got an impressive clutch of A-levels and reluctantly admitted that she could have done worse than the Flop House) announced that she wants a year out before university. Well, I can see her point. I wish I’d done the same. Unlike me she does (which still surprises me) want to teach, and is spending her year out – amongst other things – teaching at an English language school in Romania. I suspect sometimes there might be more “other things” than teaching, and still can’t help worrying – I mean – Romania? While I doubt many folk would mourn the Caucescus, the manner of their execution – is that the way to launch democracy? But I know better than to try to dissuade her. 

     Especially when we’re talking to each other quite amiably at the moment. I am sometimes shocked at just how little I miss Hal sometimes. Oh, of course I mourn him, and he died far too young, and if I could have him back by saying every word he said was scintillating and his company was an unalloyed joy, I would. But I can’t.

2000

Others will look back on the dawn of the new millennium with memories of fireworks and Auld Lang Syne and the bubbly flowing. Not for me. I suppose there are far more serious illnesses than gastric flu, but I doubt if many are more unpleasant. I’m over it now but still feeling a bit frayed about the edges and there are some foods I couldn’t face. After all, I’m not as young as I used to be. That’s one of Hannah’s favourite phrases but she says it with an air of pride as if it’s a wonderful and praiseworthy matter. And a classic case of sod’s law. I never went in for school reunions, but Hannah and I met quite by chance in the bank and it transpired that she was a St Anne’s girl, too, though a year ahead of me, and though we did, broadly speaking, know each other by sight back then, we were certainly never friends. We are now, or at least Hannah thinks so.

     It grates on me that she calls Vicky and Karel’s children the Balkan Bambinos – it seems vaguely racist, though I suppose it isn’t and anyway, as the youngest, Katrina, is seven now, they’re hardly bambinos. Irritatingly, Vicky and Karel seem to have no problems with it at all. 

     Have made my own laughably futile attempt to turn back time and to feel useful by starting to edit the parish magazine. 

2010

I called Katrina Karen yesterday. I don’t know why. She’s a laidback young woman and didn’t make a big deal out of it, but I never used to have much patience with people who got names mixed up as if they couldn’t be bothered. And when it’s my own granddaughter! I said “people” – may as well be honest, I meant old people. And it’s no good coming out with things like “You’re as old as you feel” because there are days I feel ancient.

     But I tell myself I still broadly speaking have my health, and have a family that isn’t one of those storybook ones, but have done well for themselves and are decent people who tolerate my foibles and fancies. 

     And I have my own home and my books and my cat. It could be much worse.

2020

It’s nice here and they’re very kind. I can’t remember all their names but there are so many of them aren’t there? That doesn’t matter doesn’t it? I mean does it. My words get a bit jumbled at times. I said I hoped somebody was looking after my cat Jenny then I remembered that my cat was called Penny not Jenny and the lady in the nurse’s outfit said gently that Penny had died five years ago. I got quite upset and said it couldn’t be so, I was only stroking her this morning. It’s hard to read my own writing and I used to be proud of my writing. 

     Vicky and Karel had a talk with me about how it was for the best.

     They are good children. 

     But they don’t understand.

     I don’t want to be here.

I want to go home. I want my Mummy!