TASHY DID - A LIFE
1952
The high spot of this year was my first seaside holiday. In June 1952 we took the train, I have no idea why we didn’t use the car although bearing in mind what
I know about next year this may have been a good thing, and set off for Westgate-on-Sea. We spent 10 days there, staying in a hotel and, I suppose because we had
no transport, don’t appear to have gone out much beyond Westgate. Apparently one of the waiters/staff at the hotel was especially nice to me and, as the staff all
wore braces over their white shirts, I called him “braces”. Not much sense of imagination in my formative years. I would love to know if the hotel still existed but
there is no record of where it was and, of course, no one left to ask; the very reason I am writing this stuff.
This holiday started a tradition that has been handed down through the years. As you can see from the photo I am sitting, indeed signalling a right turn,
no flashing indicators in those days, in a sand car. The rubber ring is the steering wheel, rather loosely held, while I do not look too happy with things
to be fair. The vehicle was made by my father. It appears to be a two-seater and lacks wheels. On future holidays I would always ask him to make one, although
on our next holiday on the shingle beach at Winchelsea, it proved an impossible task.
Jumping ahead some 60 years, this is the latest model, created by my eldest children for their own kids and built, at Frinton-on-Sea, in the summer of 2012.
I have to take credit for changing from a two-seater into an F1 lookalike when I began making these sometime in the late seventies. My father’s favourite sand
sculptures were as close to his heart as the F1 cars were to mine but you will have to wait a few years to discover what they were.
Traditional sand castles were also available. It appears, judging by my hair, to have been a trifle blowy on the Kent coast that June, while my style of dress
can best be described as embarrassing. I have always shuddered at older men (yes, there are some) who seem to delight in hitching their trousers somewhere
just below their armpits. I was, until seeing this photo, unaware that was an accepted style amongst the trendy of 1952, unless of course I am mistaken about
when I first became trendy.
My relationship with photographers still seems to be troubling as I do not look particularly happy in either of these, taken professionally, in 1952. There
is another one, which will appear in 1956 when, as I have some company, I seem happier.
I also have a vivid memory of sitting in my parents’ bed one Sunday morning, I think as they were both there, and seeing a centre spread in a newspaper,
probably the Sunday Pictorial, showing pictures from the funeral of George VI. Once again, no one to ask, but I have the memory. The reason I said I thought
it was a Sunday was because, in those days, most office workers worked a five and a half day week and I would often be waiting near the gate at lunch time on
Saturday for my father to return. Oh and no shops opened on a Sunday as far as I remember and our milk was delivered daily by the milkman.
And now, finally, the fourth of my grandparents and the one who lived to the oldest age, my paternal grandmother. Again, sadly, I have no photos. She was born on
27 September 1874 in York, the seventh of ten children, having the same number of siblings as her future husband. For some years she celebrated her birthday on
the 14th, having forgotten the correct date. Her father was an upholsterer as well as, possibly, being a choir master at York Minster. My aunt thinks her mother
was born in Minster Gate. If that is true then this is Minster Gate today, all of it. How it was nearly 140 years ago I don’t know but there aren’t that many houses
to choose from for my grandmother’s birth.
She started her working life as a pupil teacher, which I think means she wasn’t qualified to teach but I believe, over some ten years or so, she did take
classes. I only learned from my aunt in 2014 that, on marriage, women were no longer allowed to teach so, in 1905, my grandmother’s working life came to an end.
My father, of whom more soon, was born in 1906 and he had three sisters. Here, though, tragedy enters the story, as the next born died at an early age, after
falling from a table where my grandmother had briefly sat her. According to my aunt, the death certificate actually said meningitis, not something you would get
from a fall, and not something from which you were likely to recover in the early twentieth century, especially if under a year old.
However, it would appear that my grandmother, not unnaturally, took the death very badly and my father was sent off to live with an aunt for a while. In
the modern world we would probably say my grandmother had a breakdown. Fortunately she recovered and my father had two more sisters, one born in 1913 and one
in 1918. Grandmother’s life appears quite normal until they moved to Harrogate in the early forties and then she spent much of her time looking after my
grandfather, following his stroke.
My grandmother, like my maternal grandfather, will appear quite often in my life as she lived to the ripe old age of 91 before dying, in hospital after
a fall, on the 8 February 1966. Suffice to say here that she taught me all I know about playing patience and licking plates; an explanation will appear in later years.
The high spot of this year was my first seaside holiday. In June 1952 we took the train, I have no idea why we didn’t use the car although bearing in mind what
I know about next year this may have been a good thing, and set off for Westgate-on-Sea. We spent 10 days there, staying in a hotel and, I suppose because we had
no transport, don’t appear to have gone out much beyond Westgate. Apparently one of the waiters/staff at the hotel was especially nice to me and, as the staff all
wore braces over their white shirts, I called him “braces”. Not much sense of imagination in my formative years. I would love to know if the hotel still existed but
there is no record of where it was and, of course, no one left to ask; the very reason I am writing this stuff.
This holiday started a tradition that has been handed down through the years. As you can see from the photo I am sitting, indeed signalling a right turn,
no flashing indicators in those days, in a sand car. The rubber ring is the steering wheel, rather loosely held, while I do not look too happy with things
to be fair. The vehicle was made by my father. It appears to be a two-seater and lacks wheels. On future holidays I would always ask him to make one, although
on our next holiday on the shingle beach at Winchelsea, it proved an impossible task.
Jumping ahead some 60 years, this is the latest model, created by my eldest children for their own kids and built, at Frinton-on-Sea, in the summer of 2012.
I have to take credit for changing from a two-seater into an F1 lookalike when I began making these sometime in the late seventies. My father’s favourite sand
sculptures were as close to his heart as the F1 cars were to mine but you will have to wait a few years to discover what they were.
Traditional sand castles were also available. It appears, judging by my hair, to have been a trifle blowy on the Kent coast that June, while my style of dress
can best be described as embarrassing. I have always shuddered at older men (yes, there are some) who seem to delight in hitching their trousers somewhere
just below their armpits. I was, until seeing this photo, unaware that was an accepted style amongst the trendy of 1952, unless of course I am mistaken about
when I first became trendy.
My relationship with photographers still seems to be troubling as I do not look particularly happy in either of these, taken professionally, in 1952. There
is another one, which will appear in 1956 when, as I have some company, I seem happier.
I also have a vivid memory of sitting in my parents’ bed one Sunday morning, I think as they were both there, and seeing a centre spread in a newspaper,
probably the Sunday Pictorial, showing pictures from the funeral of George VI. Once again, no one to ask, but I have the memory. The reason I said I thought
it was a Sunday was because, in those days, most office workers worked a five and a half day week and I would often be waiting near the gate at lunch time on
Saturday for my father to return. Oh and no shops opened on a Sunday as far as I remember and our milk was delivered daily by the milkman.
And now, finally, the fourth of my grandparents and the one who lived to the oldest age, my paternal grandmother. Again, sadly, I have no photos. She was born on
27 September 1874 in York, the seventh of ten children, having the same number of siblings as her future husband. For some years she celebrated her birthday on
the 14th, having forgotten the correct date. Her father was an upholsterer as well as, possibly, being a choir master at York Minster. My aunt thinks her mother
was born in Minster Gate. If that is true then this is Minster Gate today, all of it. How it was nearly 140 years ago I don’t know but there aren’t that many houses
to choose from for my grandmother’s birth.
She started her working life as a pupil teacher, which I think means she wasn’t qualified to teach but I believe, over some ten years or so, she did take
classes. I only learned from my aunt in 2014 that, on marriage, women were no longer allowed to teach so, in 1905, my grandmother’s working life came to an end.
My father, of whom more soon, was born in 1906 and he had three sisters. Here, though, tragedy enters the story, as the next born died at an early age, after
falling from a table where my grandmother had briefly sat her. According to my aunt, the death certificate actually said meningitis, not something you would get
from a fall, and not something from which you were likely to recover in the early twentieth century, especially if under a year old.
However, it would appear that my grandmother, not unnaturally, took the death very badly and my father was sent off to live with an aunt for a while. In
the modern world we would probably say my grandmother had a breakdown. Fortunately she recovered and my father had two more sisters, one born in 1913 and one
in 1918. Grandmother’s life appears quite normal until they moved to Harrogate in the early forties and then she spent much of her time looking after my
grandfather, following his stroke.
My grandmother, like my maternal grandfather, will appear quite often in my life as she lived to the ripe old age of 91 before dying, in hospital after
a fall, on the 8 February 1966. Suffice to say here that she taught me all I know about playing patience and licking plates; an explanation will appear in later years.
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