Sabbatical

So my sabbatical now feels like it has truly begun. In November I was still working part time, then I was in Australia for 4 weeks, then I had exams. But now I'm properly in it and rarely if ever going in to work. Off until June, I have this feeling of wanting to try new things, do them differently, and to think differently. (After all, if everything I’ve ever done is wrong, the opposite must be right).

One of the things I'm doing is to start my family tree, in a joint project with my Granny. Although it isn't exactly rock n' roll, it’s great to think about Granny’s life in a bit more detail.

The more I think about Granny, the more I realise how much has changed in her lifetime. She was born in the year the Treaty of Versailles was signed and Prohibition started in the States. The picture below shows her as a school girl in around 1933. She has her school uniform on (note the gloves), and I have no idea what she is doing. Has a dog escaped from the car and run off? Bizarrely, she tells me that this was half term - they had to wear their school uniform pretty much all the time it seems, apart form in the evenings when they changed into their 'velvets' (velvet skirts).

Granny became a typist in the Bank of England because her family refused to allow her to be a florist for some reason. She soon left to become a nurse so that she could do her bit in the War, and that’s how she met my Grandfather as he was sent home with a shrapnel wound and damage to his lung.

Married in 1944 she moved to Liverpool and had four daughters, one of whom, Rowena, later died in a car crash. She loves sunshine and complains about the lack of sunshine in the Wirral. So I always tell her it's raining in London, even when she knows it's a heatwave. She always laughs at my jokes (see below)and loves it when I put on silly accents.

She's not religious, but sets a great deal of store on good manners and standards, and always talks about how at her school they had to speak to their neighbour at dinner - no sulking was allowed and they had to pass their neighbour the salt and pepper without being asked.

I think the most amazing thing about her now is one of the most subtle. That is, she has remained interested in the world, and curious about things. It's so easy to forget how much is new to her. So not only can she can e-mail, and even use Skype, she also sends little words of encouragement over text, in this weird sort of Granny / text language. She’s basically from the hood.

On a day-to-day level she still tries to understand what’s happening in her Grandchildren’s lives. She took my cousin’s coming out completely in her stride, and now loves his boyfriend. She counsels on girlfriends, and offers stern advice on the rights and wrongs of re-heating food but understands that people have less time than they did to roast dinners and iron underwear. She's pro-microwave, pro ready meal.
She rarely talks about the old days, because she still wants to understand today. That’s amazing to me because I reckon I’d be one of those boring old twats that only talks about the old days. It must be exhausting trying to keep up with all the changes going on in life, especially when so much of modern life seems vain and stupid.
So this project is about me thinking about her world for once.

And that’s why today, I salute my Granny.