A period in time

It was Christmas Day, 1990 at 'Mount Farm' in North Cornwall and thirteen-year-old Jemima was sure she had heard her parents stir from their slumber. She always knew it was her dad going into the bathroom because he had a knack of letting the whole household know. He couldn't do anything quietly including lock the door. He was a champion wrestler taking on ‘The Lock’. He had a multitude of other opponents including furniture which hadn't done anything to him, gadgets, even DIY projects usually lost the fight. Then the familiar sounds of farting, flushing, taps whistling as they were set free. It didn't help that they lived in a sixteen-century farmhouse which had its own in-built sound system: the creaking floorboards, the noise of the air in the pipes, the banging doors, the whistling windows. When anyone had a shower, the pipes started rumbling and the Neighbours must have thought Mount Farm was about to blow.

Jemima heard her dad blow his nose and head downstairs, to make mum her first of three cups of tea that she’d need to summon the energy to function. They would then slowly come round listening to the news headlines on repeat. Jem saw this as her opportunity to see her mum on her own before her siblings rose and the juvenile behaviour started.

She always knocked on the door before entering her parents' bedroom as a few months before she had witnessed a very unfortunate scene. On charging into her parents' bedroom one Sunday morning, she had found her dad on top of her mum with some very disturbing sounds coming from them both. Mum had immediately pushed him off and on seeing her mums flush face and chest exposed , Jemima had left the room as briskly as she had entered.

This had then promoted the second of the embarrassing ‘chats’ that her mum felt the need to have with her. Her first 'chat' at the age of ten was prompted by her return from primary school with a pack including a sanitary towel and a leaflet showing the inside of a woman and what happened when she menstruated.

Looking back on it, she wasn't sure the school had handled the topic that well. The girls were taken into a class and a lady talked through what to expect when your first period arrived. By contrast the boys were given a sort of horror story version with a short video on childbirth. Maybe the teachers could see just how feral some of the children were back then and how a shock tactic may help to save the human race from their spawn.

‘Morning mummy, happy Christmas’

Jemima’s mum was curled up under the covers and slowly came to. ‘Morning darling, happy Christmas. It’s so early darling, why don’t you go back to bed for a bit?’

‘Oh, I can’t sleep now. Is it ok if I switch on the TV?’

‘Of course, maybe just keep the volume down in case it wakes your brother and sister.’

‘Ok’ Jemima switched on to BBC One and found a Christmas episode of the rugrats. Although it seemed quite childish, she still enjoyed watching some of these cartoons. A strange feeling came over her which she struggled to understand but it was definitely a sadness at the thought that she shouldn’t be watching these cartoons anymore.

Her dad came charging through the door, ‘morning darling, happy Christmas.’ He handed mums cup of tea to her and gave Jemima a huge hug and kiss.

‘Has Father Christmas been?’ 

‘Dad!’

They all then heard what sounded like a baby elephant running across the landing,

‘Happy Christmas everyone’ Jemima’s little sister, Sally appeared or ‘Nelly’ as Jem referred to her when they were having one of their squabbles. She looked like a cherub in her pink towelling onesie but those thoughts soon disappeared as with no warning she lunged onto the bed and started jumping up and down.

‘Careful Sal you’ll knock mums tea.’

‘Saareeee, Father Christmas has been! Can we open our stockings?’

‘Shall we wait until jimmys awake?’

‘Wake him up, wake him up!’ barked Sally.

‘I’ll go and get some more drinks and then maybe after those we can think about stockings.’ Dad suggested secretly wanting to escape to the kitchen for quiet.

‘Ok, hurry up.’ Sal demanded.

As dad returned up the stairs, he was not carrying drinks. Attached to his face was a video camera which had lots of lights on indicating that it had started rolling.

‘And as Paul enters the boudoir of Paul and Debbie Smith, the scene is of absolute chaos possibly caused by some very cheeky monkeys.’

’oh Paul you’re not going to have that David Attenborough voice all day. That’s going to wear thin.’

‘Well your mum and sister did say that they had rented this camera for us so we could film the WHOLE day.’

‘Oh, Paul put it away, it’s so early’. Mums tone started to move into that annoyance phase the children knew well.

Dad acted like the cat that had the cream. ‘Maybe we can go and greet little Jim.’

Jemima got up and tried to intercept dad waking up her little brother with the camera.

‘Don’t be so mean. He’s still asleep.'

‘Daddy what’s that? I don’t like it.’ Said little jimmy stirring.

‘Come on Jim, let’s go to mum and dads' room to escape the meanie.’

With that Jemima held up a hand to the camera trying to block the filming while her dear little brother looked blearily towards his older sister and reached for her hand in a plea to escape.

With all the children piled on top of mum and dads’ bed along with their bulky stockings, the volume certainly increased. They all had their own approach to opening presents which mum and dad frequently commented on. Jem ripped everything open with no appreciation of the wrapping or the time taken to deliver such a beautiful gift, Sal was the slowest of the lot and loved to accompany each element of the wrapping process with a ‘mmmm, I wonder what this is? Is it the Barbie I really wanted? Oh no, not long enough. Is it jewellery?’ With her older sister thinking get the feck on with it, you attention seeking freak and her brother who was only a mere seven years old and the sweetest boy in the world, was more than grateful for the cardboard covering the present than the gift itself.

Dad would then end the stocking opening session saying ‘right now here is a little something for your mother.’

‘Oh Paul, we said we weren’t giving gifts. Can you turn that camera off for a second?’ 

‘Oh, I know sweetheart, but I thought you deserved something.’

As mum opened her tiny packages in a little stocking, she was pleased to have a mixture of perfume, jewellery, chocolates. 

Jemima felt slightly irritated at this point as she just wanted to head downstairs and open presents from under the tree so she grabbed the last package from mum and said looking at the camera.

‘Ok let’s see what dad has got mum...maybe something sexy?' slowly opening the tissue paper she was mortified to find it was a set of lacy underwear which she threw at her mum. ‘Yuck, let’s go downstairs!’

Lots more tea and bacon butties were consumed downstairs while opening pressies under the tree. Jemima found herself feeling more irritated by the second and felt the start of a slight headache. On receiving a beautiful gold wishbone ring, she was so excited and put on her best received pronunciation accent taking centre stage in front of the camera ‘I absolutely love my wishbone ring’.

Her brother and sister were completely catatonic by this stage having opened the best presents ever: a Barbie kitchen and James had received a wonderful green bike. When her sister kept saying ‘oh thank you Father Christmas, I love you. You have been so generous’ Jemima found herself wanting to smack her sister but instead gave an awkward smile and headed to the bathroom as her tummy felt quite sore.

Her mum noticed and said ‘Jem, are you ok? You’re looking quite pale.’

‘Yep, fine mum, I’ll be back in a bit.’

As she headed to the bathroom, she noticed some sort of red liquid in the middle of her pajama bottoms. Oh no, not this today. She’d been waiting for this day since her thirteen birthday in June. Her best friend Jo had started at the start of term and Jen felt she was so slow to keep up. She kept saying to her aunty Cath ‘everyone at school has started. Why haven’t I?’ and cath would smile and say ‘you’ll certainly know when it’s arrived, just enjoy not having them.’ It wasn’t how I thought it would be. I hate Christmas, I hate my stupid family and now I’m bleeding all over my favourite pyjamas.

Moments later she could hear her mum on the landing ‘are you ok darling? Shall I go and get something?’

Jemima instantly welled up and sobbed ‘yes please mummy, I’ve got it all over my trousers’

‘Don’t worry sweetie’ she came into the bathroom and helped her daughter out of her pyjamas. When she was cleaned up she gave her a hug and said ‘my little girl is now a woman.’

‘I don’t want to be a woman’ Jemima unleashed her tears. I still want to believe in Father Christmas like the idiots downstairs. 

She gave her daughter a huge hug and as they came downstairs, dad still glued to his new toy, mum said ‘all is fine, Jemima just got her period.’ 

And that line was forever captured and the video was brought out each year for all their relatives to enjoy and her siblings to laugh at.