20 Alice's Schooldays

Alice's Schooldays

Alice says:
"I loved my schooldays. I went to a boarding school in Wales from 1942 to 1946. My cousins were there. And I made lifelong friends."

“I travelled home six hours on a choo-choo train. 

"I stood waiting on Leeds station. I'd been at a private school, a girls' public school, and I had become accustomed to hearing people speaking very posh at school. My father had come to meet me at Leeds station. It was a shock to hear the station master say to my father, in his broad accent, "Have ya coom to meet ya daughter then?" Bradford was a terminus.

Alice mimics the station master in a low voice and a strong accent. Followed by a peel of laughter. You can see why she enjoyed being in amateur dramatics. She leans forward conspiratorially:

"I had learned to sew at school and my mother asked me to patch a white sheet. In those days everybody had white sheets - and white linen or cotton handkerchiefs." 

Loudon agrees and nods, "That's right. No paper tissues!" He shakes his head. "No. They came in later.”

Alice recalls:
"My school was a girls only school. Boarding schools were all like that in those days. I met my friend Joan on my first day at school and we were best friends from the age of 13 to 17, when I left. Joan stayed on another year.

"She married in 1956, the same year that I married Loudon. She had two children, but her husband died four or five years later, about 1960. He had a brain tumour. So she was left with two young children. Fortunately her parents were wealthy - and she was an only child." No sisters. So Alice was like a sister to Joan.

"Joan became a teacher, of English and all subjects to a pre-infant's kindergarten, ensuring children knew everything they needed to know to start school.

"Later Joan took me back to visit our old school. It was called Castle, a Tudor building with turrets, and sections added in stone. Some of the dormitories were in the old castle and some in the annexe buildings. Now the property a holiday resort, Bodelwyddon Castle, in the Warner group.For details of the history read:
http://www.warnerleisurehotels.co.uk/hotels/bodelwyddan-castle-hotel/hotel-history/index.aspx

19 Why No Photos? Loudon's Ancestors' stories: A murder, a pub and Auld Reekie

Why No Photos? Loudon's Ancestors' Stories: A murder, a pub and Auld Reekie

One thing which puzzled me, and muddled me, was that Loudon's family name was Parkin, which is a Yorkshire name, but although Loudon's wife Alice is from Yorkshire, he is Scottish.

Loudon's Mother Winnie Parkin
Loudon's mother Winifred Gladys Parkin, was called Winnie.

He recalls, "At one stage she didn't like me, but had more affection for her first born, my older brother Ian Robert Parkin. He's just celebrated his 90th birthday!  I was born 10 months later, so he was always 10 months older than I was.

"My mother threw away all the negatives which showed the family."

Of course, her married name, Parkin, came from her husband, as was usual in those days.

Loudon's Father
"Our father, Robert Parkin, known as "Bertie" was in Hong Kong in WWII - he was moved to Singapore when the Japanese war started, as the Japanese were allies of the Germans.

Loudon's Maternal Grandparents
Loudon says, "My maternal grandmother and father were from Kent. They lived in Gravesend and he worked in the dockyard.

"Their neighbour murdered his own family. With a hatchet. Then committed suicide."

"They were so upset, they went to Scotland. There were plenty of jobs in the Rhosyth shipyard, a dockyard outside Edinburgh. It's over the go Firth of Forth bridge. There was only one bridge then, before the rail bridge there was a ferry.

"My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Barker.

"The name Parkin comes from my paternal grandfather who lived in Bridge of Weir, a village in the West of Scotland. It was a small place. My grandfather, Ernest Parkin, ran the village's only pub. he used to go regularly from Edinburgh to Bridge of Weir to help at the pub, every other weekend, taking me and my brother and sister.

"My father worked for the Civil Service on the accountancy side, stationed in Edinburgh. He was posted there and probably had digs in a tenement and went dancing and met up and married.

"The Edinburgh tenements were roomy - bigger than your three bedroom bungalow. They had high ceilings, and a big kitchen range, like an Aga, with an open coal fire, a cooker on top to bake bread and boil a kettle. The Kitchen range was originally coal but later converted to gas. Coal - that's when Edinburgh was called Auld Reekie - because you could see smoke above the houses. They converted to gas when I was 7 or 8. The baths were galvanised steel in metal colour, not white or coloured like today. Steel would rust, so it was dipped in zinc.

18 Australia on a £10 ticket - Loudon's sister Heather and brother-in-law Terry's changed name

Australia on a £10 ticket - Loudnon's sister Heather and brother-in-law Terry's changed name

Loudon's sister-in-law Heather went to a dance and met a boy she danced with, but soon found out that his brother Terry Mackenzie was a better dancer. Terry got interested in her and at last asked her to marry him. Heather said, "I'll marry you but You'll have to change your surname. I can't be called Heather Feather!"

"So he changed his name to a good Scottish name, Mackenzie. It suited her. She was born in Scotland.

"Unfortunately our mother, Winifred Gladys, known as Winnie, didn't like Terry's family and she didn't like Terry. Despite that, they married, here in Harrow. However, the wedding was not a happy occasion for Winnie, and everybody else for another reason. A good friend died on the way to the wedding.

"Winnie had been a housekeeper to Mrs Gurr, who had remained a good friend. The wedding ceremony and reception were delayed whilst we all waited for Mrs Gurr to arrive. She never arrived. She had had a heart attack. She died on the way to the wedding. The wedding went ahead.

"However, to get away from it all, they eventually went to Australia, on a £10 ticket. They went to Adelaide with their children, all boys, who settled in well.

"Later they adopted two girls, sick, unwanted oriental children who needed good homes. Children who had been abandoned. The would-be adoptive parents were given lottery numbers.  They received one Chinese baby, and one Vietnamese.

How did that work out?

"It worked out very well. The girls recovered their health and did well. Alice and I want back to Australia specially for the wedding of one of the girls."

(See earlier post about Terry reading Angela's book on wedding speeches.)

17 Cynthia's Two Husbands

Cynthia's Two Husbands

Cynthia Horsley's first husband was a travel agent. After he died, widowed Cynthia went on holiday to South Africa with a girlfriend.

Alice remembers: "When the ship was in port in South Africa, the two ladies were back abroad in the evening, sitting having a drink together, at a small round table near the bar.

"Perched on a stool by the bar was the Harbour Master, an important man. He sat watching the two ladies. He eventually sent over the chief barman with a note, his business card and a request.
The barman showed them the business card."

How very correct. Not chat-up lines, a proper introduction, from a man of status. He had sent his car so they could verify his identity, and assess his his status, his credentials, and good intentions.

Alice continued, "The barman said, 'The gentleman wishes to know if you would permit him to buy you both a drink and come and sit and talk to you.'

"They agreed. Cynthia went back to England and continued to correspond with him. He came to visit her in England. Eventually they married.'

Loudon adds gleefully, "She saw two husbands off!"

Cynthia developed Alzheimer's and died in 2014. Alice speaks frequently and fondly of Cynthia.

16 The Doctors Who Missed The Ball - how Alice and Loudon met and married

The Doctors Who Missed the Ball - how Alice met and married Loudon

How did Yorkshire nurse Alice meet Loudon the Scotsman?

Alice says: “I was working at the sick children’s department of the St Mary’s hospital, not in Paddington. I was the staff nurse of the baby unit. The Ward Sister said to me, 'Matron wants to see you.'

You never went to see Matron unless it was extremely serious. 

I went to see Matron and asked, “What have I done wrong?”

She said, ‘Nothing sinister. Do sit down, nurse.’

You never sat down. You stood

She said, ‘Nurse, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to find some suitable young men for the hospital dance in Kensington Palace hotel, suitable young men, to dance with the nurses. If you don’t mind.’

"Unfortunately, the only chap I knew had friends who were actors and dancers. I thought she wouldn’t approve of them. However, I knew a chap who was a medical student, so I asked him to bring along his pals. 

"But nearer the date I got a phone call. A voice said to me, ‘I’ve got mumps. We’re all banned from seeing anybody in case we’re infectious.’

" ‘I knew one other young girl in the hospital, who worked in the pharmacy. I told her of my plight. She said, ‘My brother works in Kodak. I’ll ask if he can bring some people along.’ ”

Loudon says:

Loudon says:
"Alice was working as a nurse in the hospital.

"I was working at Kodak. I went around with a group of fellows of roughly the same age. One got married. Then the others got the idea and one by one got married. Until finally I got the idea that I ought to get married.

"One of the fellows lived near Kodak and we used to walk back to his mother's for tea and sandwiches. Victor's sister was Cynthia Horsley, who used to work at a hospital in Ladbroke Grove and she was a pharmacist. Her friend Alice was a nurse.

"Alice came into the picture because the hospital had parties every year, organised by worthy people for all nurse to literally 'have a ball', a proper ball, with drinks like champagne and dancing with two bands, at places such as the De Vere Hotel, sometimes a big event for more than one hospital.

"Alice was asked if she knew any suitable men who could be invited. She knew doctors from Cambridge and one of her friends arranged for 8-10 to come. But unfortunately about ten days before the event they all got mumps! They were kept in quarantine.

"So Alice went to ask Cynthia if her brother knew anybody from Kodak. So the boys all agreed to come. We met up a few days earlier, in the evening, at the pharmacy in the hospital, to escort the girls. We were thirteen people on Friday the 13th."

Thirteen at table is supposed to be unlucky. (Because of associations with thirteen around the table at The Last supper - Jesus and 12 disciples.) But it turned out to be lucky for Loudon. And Alice.

Loudon said:
"In those days coffee houses did not have separate tables but long tables. Beside me was Alice who was quite a good talker. We exchanged numbers - and our next meeting was at the ball! The rest is history. We went out together and got engaged and married."

All because the young doctors caught mumps.

Cynthia remained a lifelong friend, one of Alice's closest friends.

15 Loudon's Childhood Dramas and Education

Loudon's Childhood Dramas and Education (1927 - the Thirties and the Forties)

Loudon, who was born in 1927, says: "My earliest memory was being circumcised. People were standing around me, peering down at me. I was crying.

Alice, a former nurse, comments, "In those days people thought it was cleaner."

Loudon continues: "The next alarming incident was by the edge of a Loch, probably Loch Ness. I was running along a shingly beach when, suddenly, I fell into a watery hole. Everybody was screaming and shouting.

"I was shocked. My Aunty Ivy picked me up. She took all my clothes off and dried me. It was very humiliating. Then we drove home.

"My third memory is my first day at school in Edinburgh in the 1930s. The Royal High School, Junior School, Jock's Lodge. It was a big school - with a running track."

I asked, "A state school or a private school?"

"A private school. Edinburgh has lots of fine schools but this was the oldest, originally in Carlton Hill where the Greek Temples are.

"At school we did English, French, Latin, Chemistry and Physics, Lowers and Highers, the Scottish equivalent of O levels and A levels.

"Loads of boys who went there went on to become famous in Edinburgh and the world. But after I left, the Scottish government turned the school into offices, with no plaque because they are against privilege. I believe it's now a Council housing estate with houses and what have you.

"I used to travel to and from school on the tramcar. One day, when I came home from school on the tramcar, as I got off at the stop I met my father. He had come home from work early and was in a hurry to get onto the tramcar to go and play golf.

He was wearing plus fours, which was what you wore golfing in Scotland, a tweed jacket and short knee-length trousers, also called knickerbockers. I said to my father, 'You shouldn't be wearing a bowler hat!' He'd been in such a hurry he'd forgotten to remove it, so he had to rush back to the house again.

"At Edinburgh I did a degree in Technical Chemistry, like chemical engineering, but more on chemistry. You have to be able to read scientific German, after a 6 month course.

"After I graduated my degree enabled me to get a job. I went south to London to work at Kodak in Harrow and Wealdstone, where I worked all my life (and later our son Robert worked there). And through my friends at work met Alice, my wife-to-be."

14 Learning the piano (to be completed later).

13 The Generous Mill Owner and hundreds of children

The Generous Mill Owner and hundreds of children

Alice's father's good friend was a wealthy mill owner called Reg Sherd. His mill produced angora, the only factory in the world making angora wool. Angora looked beautiful but was dreadful stuff to work with all day. The owners and staff all had to wear masks and cover their clogs.

In those days children went to primary school and had to learn to read by the time they left. No secondary schools. (Remember the 1944 education act.)

Most people working in mills didn't have children able and willing to study to university level. But he heard his employees talking about one boy who was a diligent student and would have liked to have gone to university if his parents could have afforded it.

The mill owner paid for the boy to go to university, all three years. When the student graduated, the mill owner looked for another deserving candidate to be sponsored.

Alice remembers fondly, "He was such a generous man. You didn't dare admire anything because he'd insist on giving it to you. He had no children of his own, but was like Mr Chips, the schoolmaster, in the book which was made into a film. Mr Chips was a schoolmaster in a boarding school who had no children because his beloved wife had died in childbirth. His last words, when asked if he'd had any children, were, 'I had hundreds of children'."

12 The seaside house with one tree

The seaside house with one tree
Alice's Scottish mother-in-law, in her seventies, phoned and asked Alice, "Will you come to Bexhill (on sea) to look after me because my housekeeper has gone to Scotland for the summer holiday?"

"But I've got three children to look after," protested Alice.

"Bring the two girls; I'm sure they'd like to stay by the sea. But don't bring the boy. He can go to his grandfather."

Alice sighed and shook her head and phoned her father, Robert's granddad who lived on the Yorkshire moors. The old man said, "That would be champion!"

Nana, the girls' grandmother, lived an a large 3 bedroom detached 1920s house.  The pretty garden had a patio with steps leading to a sunken garden with roses, a lawn, but only one tree. People on the coast didn't like the wind blowing tall trees. A gale might blow over. Besides, salt from sea was not good for trees. Admittedly you get trees, palm trees on the promenade at Torquay.

"Not tall trees, short shrubs," says Alice.

11 WWI and the Brits and Conscription - Who Joined Up?

11 WWI and the Brita and Conscription - Who Joined Up?

Alice's father Albert Douglas was born in 1900, named after Prince Albert of course. Queen Victoria didn't die until 1901. Alice's father went to Leeds university at 17. His elder brother Charles Raymond, known as Raymond, studied medicine. Albert Douglas, known as Douglas, went to study textiles but World War one, then called the Great War, brought an end to his studies.

Alice says, "He had to join up - everybody did. Some were conscripted but many volunteered. Why. They wanted to. Even his father aged 50 did so."

 Loudon says, "Life was drab, nothing to do. They thought it would be exciting."

Alice objects, "Life was not drab for my father. He was working. Have you seen the play 'The Accrington Boys'? It was shown on TV? last year (2014) for the commemorations of WWI. I cried all the way though it and all the way home. The whole village joined up and they everybody died." 

10 Chocolates in England and the USA - A British view

10 Chocolates in England and the USA - A British view


Alice's father was named Albert Douglas Thornton. Thornton like Thornton's chocolates.
"When I was a little girl they manufactured toffees, but now they've reinvented themselves."

Loudon remembers: "Thornton's Duncan's chocolates, small companies as well as Terry's."

Alice says, "Rowntrees and Bourneville, we've sold to the Americans. I remember in 1966 Loudon being me a Cadbury's chocolate and it was sickly sweet, the company have a different recipe for every country. Loudon spoke to the lab or research department and they explained Americans have it made by Hersheys, the recipe modified for Americans who like it sweeter. To us it seemed sickly.

On the East coast they travel long distances by car and sit all day. You never have chocolate in California. They are all slimming and doing exercise. Going West you get the Thais and Malays."

9 Sleeping Beauty and The Acorn Players Amateur Dramatics (to be completed later).

(Alice said the story was too long to tell and she would tell me later. Unfortunately when I went back in November 2015, she said she could not remember any great drama. Post to be completed) if I can find out more.)

Alice was a founder member of the Acorn Players amateur dramatic society. Because Alice and Loudon moved into Hatch End in 1965, this must have been in the 1960s. The Acorn Players put on plays in the church hall at the corner of Hillview Road.

Loudon did not act. But he helped paint sets (scenery).

The church hall held many community events, such as the annual summer garden show where you could exhibit plants and win prizes, and buy plants. Everybody in the street was very sorry when the church sold the hall and it was converted into a nursery school.

8 The names Adeline, Alice, Albert, Loudon, Malcolm, Robert, Parkin

Adeline
Alice's mother was called Adeline, like the song Sweet Adeline.

Alice
Wikipedia says:

Alice is a feminine given name used primarily in English and French. It is a feminized form of the Old French female name Alis (older Aalis), short form of Adelais, which is derivation from the Germanic name Adalhaidis (see Adelaide (given name)), from the Germanic word elements adal, meaning ″noble″ and haid-, meaning ″heath(land), heather″.^[1]

Alice was the most popular female baby name in Sweden in 2009 and has been among the top 10 names given to girls for the past five years.^[2] The name ranks in the top 100 most popular names for baby girls in Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland. It ranked as the 172nd most popular name for baby girls born in the United States in 2010. Alice ranked as the 51st most common name for women in the United States in the 1990 census.^[3]

The name was most popular in the United States in the Victorian era and at the turn of the 20th century. It has been popularized by Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. It was also popular in the Victorian era due to The Princess Alice, a daughter of Queen Victoria.

Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria.

Loudon was named after the doctor who assisted at his birth.

The name Malcolm is Scottish and in Shakespeare's Macbeth the king has a son called Malcolm.

Robert

According to Wikipedia:

The name Robert is a Germanic given name, from Old High German Hrodebert"bright with glory" (a compound of hruod "fame, glory" and berht "bright"). It is also in use as a surname.^[1][2]

After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form Robert, where an Old English cognate form (Hrēodbēorht, Hrodberht, Hrēodbēorð, Hrœdbœrð, Hrœdberð) had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto.

Three Scottish kings were called Robert:

Robert I was known as Robert the Bruce.The other two kings were Robert II and

Robert III.

Parkin
Parkin or Perkin as a family name comes from the Middle English as a pet name for Peter, used in the Yorkshire area.
Parkin or Perkin is a gingerbread cake traditionally made with oatmeal and black treacle,^[1] which originated in northern England. Often associated with Yorkshire, particularly the Leeds area,^[2] it is very widespread and popular elsewhere, notably in Lancashire. Parkin is baked to a hard cake but with resting becomes moist and even sometimes sticky. In Hull and East Yorkshire, it has a drier, more biscuit-like texture than in other areas. Parkin is traditionally eaten on Guy Fawkes Night,^[3] 5 November, but is also enjoyed throughout the winter months. It is baked commercially throughout Yorkshire, but is mainly a domestic product in other areas.

7 The Finnish Wedding and The Paperweight (to be completed later).

(Post to be completed.)

6 The Finnish Nurse With The Money (to be completed later).

Alice trained to be a nurse.
(Post to be completed)

5 The Lost Cat Who Stayed For Dinner

Alice's ginger cat was a stray. It used to follow her. One day she visited a friend who lived in a house in the next road and the cat went missing.

She called at all the houses in the road and told them, "He's got discharging eyes and bandy legs, which sounds dreadful, but he's a lovely cat and we love him dearly."

She was nearly home when he jumped over a nearby fence. He was fat. He'd been fed.

Next door to Alice and Loudon was an elderly nurse who had a cat. Alice laughs: "She used to go the the front door and shout for her cat by name, 'Mikey!' "

"Over the road lived John Morgan's sister who also had a cat. She would ring a dinner gong for her cat. Sometimes the dinner times would coincide and you would hear one women calling her cat and the other woman ringing the gong."

So who had fed Alice's cat?

"We'll never know. Maybe the cat had sneaked in through a cat flap and stolen or shared another cat's food. Or maybe just looked hopeful, the way cats do."

I remember having lunch with Alice and a friend of hers. Looking out of the kitchen window at the back garden, I saw a cat approaching a bowl of food in a saucer on the ground outside.

I asked, "Is that your cat?"

"Yes," said Alice.

Her friend looked out and gasped, "That's my cat."

"He's my cat," insisted Alice. "He always comes here for lunch."

"Well I never," said her friend. "He always comes to me for dinner."

In late afternoon, Alice's friend's husband called to collect. "Thanks, Alice," she said. "I have to go home and cook my husband's dinner."

I didn't dare make any comment, for fear of causing embarrassment. But after she'd gone, I joked to Alice, "Is her husband that stray homeless man you've been feeding at lunchtime?"

4 The Dog Which Saved The Family

Alice's father had a family dog called Betty, a brindle Staffordshire bull terrier. This breed of dog only likes one family.

The dog was never allowed to sit in the back of the car. It was driven to the family house in the boot of the car of one of the father's rusted members of the father's workforce. Putting a dog in the boot of a car is probably illegal in most places nowadays.

Alice's father ran a coal merchant business. He as kind to his workforce and this man was appreciative of being hired.

When Alice was a child there was a fire in the cellar of their Edwardian house. A maid put the clothes horse too near the fire. The apron strings were set alight by a spark from the coal.

The maid had already gone to bed early. The children were asleep and the parents were out. Luckily they had told the maid they had gone to visit the next door neighbours of the house where they had previously lived.

Luckily when the fire started, the bull terrier sleeping in the basement was able to get out. Fortunately the door was ajar, and the the dog shot up the stairs. It ran up and banged and scratched on the maid's door and whined until she woke and opened the door. The dog then grabbed the skirt of her night dress and pulled her down the stairs. When she head the roaring fire below, she fled the house and ran down the road to another maid's house.

Their father's friend, whose house it was, asked where the parents had gone. He knew the old neighbours. He ran first to the house with the fire to put it out.

Only that day, Alice's father had put a big fire hose by the downstairs kitchen window. The friend kicked in the window and poured in a torrent of water. The fire went out.

Then he phoned the parents and went to fetch them.

Alice's brother was told about the fire. However the parents did not tell her in case it upset her. They made her brother promise not to tell her.

Only years later, when Alice and her brother were adults and living elsewhere, did he tell her what had happened, and how the dog had saved them.

In later life, when Alice and Loudon moved to Hatch End, they had a cat. Let us go back to the tales of the cats' tails.

See next post/section.

3 The Cat, Claudipus And The Mouse For Alice's Birthday

Alice knew that a field mouse was brown and a house mouse was grey because she saw field mice at Three Choirs Vineyard and a grey mouse in the house at home.

"Didn't your cat catch the mice?" I asked.

"Only once a year," said Alice. "On my birthday. Each year for three years, Claudipus caught a mouse and brought it to me - on my birthday!"

"How did the cat know it was your birthday?" I asked. "Did it see the cards and people giving you gifts?"

"I don't know," replied Alice. "It was uncanny."

"Why was the cat called Claudipus?"

"After the TV series, I Claudius, starring Derek Jacobi."

Claudipus is no more. But Claire, the daughter of Alice and Loudon, who lives in California, has a sophisticated cat called Zak and a feral ginger cat, just a moggie. When Alice speaks to Claire on Skype, the two cats are sometimes having a friendly spat, but sometimes they sit next to eat other.

Alice likes cats - and dogs. A dog once saved the family.

(See next post)

2 Garden Vines Making Wines - Or Vinegar! Three Choirs - A Proper Vineyard

Loudon grinned as he recalled, "We planted our first vines when we moved to Hatch End in the 1960s and the vines grew like fury. We bought a red one."

Alice smiles, "It was wonderful ..."

Loudon enthuses, "I counted 300 bunches, after only a couple of years."

Alice concedes, "Prolific. Although the grapes were inedible. And the wine was undrinkable."

Loudon, "The vine grew on a rooftop. so it had plenty of places to cling onto, like a very big bramble. I then cut the end off which hung over the top of the door. We got lots of grapes ..."

Alice nods: "Which were foul."

Loudon beams, "I managed to make a bottle of wine."

Alice adds, "The worst sort of vinegar. The grapes were minute. All skin and a lot of pips and not much material but they looked pretty."

Loudon, "It was well watered."

I asked, "By you or the rain?"

Alice replied, "By everything. Our son Robert was looking at wines in Tesco in Watford and saw the name of the vineyard Three Choirs on the Welsh Border. He bought the wine for us and it was delicious. So on a summer day we thought we'd visit the vineyard.

"When we arrived the car park was full of Bentleys and smart cars, because the County set were having lunch in the vineyard restaurant. We went into the shop, asking if we could have something to eat maybe in a coffee shop or cafeteria. The assistant said only the restaurant, but they could find a table for us in an hour's time and meanwhile we could walk around the vineyard.

"The sunshine was wonderful and we walked in and amongst the vines, up a gradually sloping hill. We saw rabbits and mole holes. And field mice - little ones with long tails, brown earth colour, house mice are grey."

I asked, "Have you ever seen a house mouse?"

(See next post on cats and mice.)

1 Soup and Sympathy: Snippets from Alice and Loudon's Lives - Introduction: Parkins and Singapore

2 Blurb Introduction to Alice and Loudon Parkin
May I introduce to Alice and Loudon, as I see them, and as they see themselves.

Here is my caricature showing them leaning over the wall talking to me in the summer sun in Jun 2010. Mirror image poses. Loudon is wearing his sunhat.

Alice Parkin is a retired nurse, originally from Yorkshire, where biscuits called Parkins come from. The surname Parkin comes from Yorkshire and originally meant son of Peter. More details on names from:
https://www.houseofnames.com/parkin-family-crest

 I bought the Parkins a packet of Parkin biscuits from the Wine society for Christmas and gave it to them on Boxing Day in 2014.

Wikipedia says of Parkin cakes:
Parkin or Perkin is a gingerbread cake traditionally made with oatmeal and treacle,^[1] which originated in northern England. Often associated with Yorkshire, particularly the Leeds area,^[2] it is very widespread and popular in other areas, such as Lancashire. Parkin is baked to a hard cake but with resting becomes moist and even sometimes sticky. In Hull and East Yorkshire, it has a drier, more biscuit-like texture than in other areas. Parkin is traditionally eaten on Guy Fawkes Night,^[3] 5 November, but is also enjoyed throughout the winter months. It is baked commercially throughout Yorkshire, but is a mainly domestic product in other areas.

You can read more on the Wikipedia website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkin_(cake)

Alice's husband, Loudon, is Scottish and on Burns Night, or any night, would welcome a wee dram. "Whisky, wine - whatever you like," Loudon offers affably. They travelled to the USA in their eighties, to see their grand-daughter, Amy, get married at a winery in California's wine country.

Loudon's sister Heather/Helen lives the opposite side of the world, down under in Australia with her husband Terry. When Alice and Loudon visited Heather, Alice saw her brother-in-law reading a book, Wedding Speeches & Toasts by Angela Lansbury. Alice said to him, "Angela Lansbury is my next door neighbour!" Alice had a hard job convincing him that she wasn't joking. It was true. Alice lives next door to an author.

Alice was 85 at the start of 2015, and will be 86 in the middle of May. She says, "It's a lovely month to be born because it's spring like. When August comes along I feel sad because we're nearing September, then it's October and winter."

Alice and Loudon married in June 1956 on a sunny Saturday in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the bride's home area, as is usual in the UK. Alice explains, "Yorkshire is the biggest county, divided into ridings. A riding is a Viking name for a territory, in Yorkshire a portion of three, north west and East. There's no south riding in Yorkshire."

Loudon adds, "A riding is a distance that can be covered by a horse and rider, in a day."

***

3 Introduction To This Book
How did I come to be sitting in the Parkins' lounge recording their family history? I remember peering cautiously through my front door. I beamed when I saw the smiling face of my white-bearded neighbour of over thirty years, Loudon. He was standing by the steps leading to my the front door. He leaned on his stick, grinning back, "I wondered if you would be so kind as to help Alice record some of her stories from her childhood - and her whole life?"

"Delighted!" Alice and Loudon have provided soup and sympathy in every crisis. You can call on them in times of trouble. Minor ones were like my gardener needing a ladder to trim a shared apple tree.

Major disasters were like Virgin Airlines at Heathrow sending me home for having the wrong passport for a trip to New York. Whilst Alice made me coffee, Loudon phoned the passport office for me, made the appointment for first thing next morning, and phoned me at dawn to ensure I was up in time to get the passport and the next day's flight.

When my mother was taken to Watford hospital after having a stroke in the night,  and I wanted to know how to get blood out of the mattress, Alice told me, "You can use bleach." It worked.

Then Alice and Loudon came to my mothers funeral, half-smiling sympathetically, or listening, as required. After the funeral Alice told me, "Your mother, Netta gave us the money for the gardeners whilst you were away in Singapore. Because of rain, the gardeners didn't call. When I tried to return the money to your mother, Netta said, "No, you keep it. Buy something for your grand-daughter."

I was very grateful to hear that memory of one of my mother's last kind acts.

Now, it was my turn, to repay a debt of honour and listen to Alice's stories about her family.  I could postpone it to a more convenient day, but my late mother used to say, Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Besides, my mother, Netta, is dead. My mother-in-law, Pearl, has survived until 97, but has Alzheimers and can't remember anything.  Luckily I wrote my mother-in-law Pearl's life history for her 90th birthday. Alice is already in her late eighties. No time like the present. So, I hurriedly washed and dressed, and rushed round to see Alice.

***

"I'm in the lounge - come in - I can't get up - my back's broken," shouts Alice. Soon I am happily sitting in the lounge on Alice's sofa, facing their piano. In the daytime I often hear Alice's laughter from their garden, and in the evening I hear Loudon playing the piano, joyful dance music echoing across the back gardens.

On the shelves and tables are props to remind us of family stories. "This paperweight from Finland is a souvenir of a wedding where I was Best Man before I married Alice," says Loudon. Family photos show Alice and Loudon with their three children, Claire, Robert and Laura, and grand-daughter Amy , Claire's daughter, marrying at the Wente's Vineyard winery in Livermore, California.

Another photo shows Amy is cuddling Alice's great-grand-daughter, Olivia Alice Semmens in California. I am ready to hear about the souvenirs illustrating more than eighty years of family dramas, covering both World Wars.

Whilst Loudon limps to the kitchen to make coffee, Alice confides, "Loudon was a wartime kid. In World War Two his father, a lovely man, was in Singapore - when it fell!"

I am very interested in Singapore. I am a Singapore resident and I gave a talk on radio broadcasting from Singapore to London (which I did for several weeks) about the museum with a diorama showing the Japanese Surrender and a bookshop where I bought a WWII memoir.

Alice has copy of a book written by one of the founder members of Harrow Writers' Circle, Barbara Arden-White, who writes under the pen-name Josie Arden. When I asked Barbara what she knew about the fall of Singapore, she said, "
Barbara suggests, "'Read The Forgotten Highlander, about a man whose ship sank. He swam in oil to shore, through oil  and debris and blood and salt which made him sick. Even so, anybody who got out was lucky. My first husband, Bill Norways, was amongst 80,000 troops kitted in shorts for the Western Desert in North Africa, sent on a ship via Newfoundland to confuse the Germans, then diverted to Singapore.

"They were half way to North Africa when Churchill heard that Singapore was in trouble and diverted them there. After three weeks of bitter fighting in the streets, which were left in rubble, they were captured by the Japanese and made to clear the streets, which was heavy work. Many of the men were taken ill from malnutrition, but when my husband discovered some jars of Marmite he insisted that every soldier had a spoonful, and it cured their skin and all sorts of problems. It contains meat extract."

Ray grins, "The parts of animals nobody else wants to eat. Like sausages. You don't want to know - or you'd never eat it."

Barbara tuts, "Whatever the subject, Ray has a knack for finding the unsavoury. I have marmite in my kitchen. It contains vitamin B and is very good for you."

"Barbara, what happened to your husband, if he wasn't on a ship out?"

"He was taken prisoner, sent first to Changi. Then on the Burma railway for five years.

"My husband was moved through 13 prison camps, as they built the railway which the British were bombing. As fast as the prisoners of war built it, their compatriots bombed it. The Japanese were using the railway to move equipment to Kohima, a small border town, trying to get from Burma into India to attack the allies."

Kohima is famous as the place where the monument to the allied dead is inscribed, "For your tomorrow they gave their today". Variations on that are on monuments all over the world.

Ray smiles, "It was touch and go but the Japanese were starving. The Japanese surrendered on the ship Missouri."

So the war ended, and eventually the troops came home. What happened after that?

Alice told me:
"Loudon lived at home with his mother. Loudon's father never said anything about the war to his wife nor his son, just bottled it all up. After I married Loudon, ten years after the war in 1956, his father came to see me on Saturday morning and told me about the drama, without his telling wife, asking me never to tell her.

***

4 Alice's Stories From Singapore
Ray said, "the trigger for the Brits to leave might have been a despatch rider on a motorcycle, who'd been watching Malaya (now called Malaysia, through binoculars), who told the officers, "The Japs are already crossing the Causeway!"

Alice said: "When Loudon's father left Singapore, he pushed his car into the harbour. He wasn't having it helping the other side. Anybody with any wit, even if they were going to be killed, tried to stop the enemy having any resources."

"In Singapore he'd been on the last ship of three which left. Two of the ships were sunk. His ship was badly damaged. The troops were machine gunned on their arrival at the port (of Sumatra, Indonesia, then called the Dutch East Indies). (Possibly shot at by the Japanese from the air.) It was very hard for him to tell me what happened. He was playing bridge and went down below decks to the lavatory. When he came back all his friends were dead.

"I never said a word to Loudon. I thought he knew.

"Years later when Loudon's father was terminally ill, he told his wife about it. When she later told me, I had to pretend I'd never heard about it previously. I thought that was sad.

"He knew I'd never tell anybody. I am very chatty but I never disclose other people's private stories. He had never told his sons, not anybody.

"In the war he was a Major - went up the ranks. He was a captain. He was in the army audits, in charge of pay.

"In the Second World War he was too old to be a combatant, over the age of 40. He was in the first World War - got injured."

"Limbs or body?" I queried.

"I don't know. I never asked."

"He had something which erupted, I reckoned. He was in a Tropical Diseases Hospital. I asked his wife what was the matter but she had a closed door, on anything except herself. I reckon it was something they didn't want to talk about. Maybe a bad worm, a tapeworm, or something major wrong. When you are out East living on rubbish there's no food, or very little."

Tapeworms are curable. Although you might not want to tell others, nor think about it yourself. At my Writers' Circle Ray has written a book about WWII including his own knowledge and research. I asked, "What else do soldiers get in WWII in the tropics, or anywhere? Malaria?"

He grins, "VD!"

Yes, Ray can always find you a gruesome story or a ghastly joke."

But let us return to Alice and Loudon.

 ***

Loudon returns with the coffee but no sugar bowl, "No sugar,'' he says, 'because Angela no longer takes sugar." He tells Alice, "You already have sugar. The way you like it. Not too much."

"How much?" demands Alice.

"A spoonful."

"How much is that, half a teaspoon, a flat one, a heaped one?"

I suggest, "With granulated sugar you can't tell. Nor with misshapen lumps or clumps. But if you used cubes, you can tell exactly."

Alice concedes, "I have a large cube. Small ones are silly, just made small to look ladylike. Everyone's giving up sugar because of the fuss about it. You put on weight reading about dieting. It's so stressful.

"(Where our daughter Claire and her family live) on West coast America, they don't take sugar or alcohol. They eat fruit and healthy food. They run around all the time exercising and don't get fat. East coast everybody sits and eats sugar and they get fat. How much sugar have you given me, Loudon!"

"Yes, on the East coast the Americans drive everywhere ...," adds Loudon.

"How much sugar did you put in this!" demands Alice.

Loudon protests, "I don't know what you're making such a fuss about."

"Just tell me how much!" retorts Alice. "You're so stubborn. It's ridiculous. Dear, oh dear."

She winces as she leans towards the cup.

To turn attention from this time-wasting, energy-sapping confrontation over the sugar cube, or lack of it, to happier thoughts, on a neutral subject, of general interest, I ask, "When did you start growing vines?"

Footnote
If you have received a printed copy of this, you will find the latest version on
http://aliceandloudon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/soup-and-sympathy-from-alice-and-loudon.html
I have written this for the Parkin family, saving it on blogger to make it easy to read and find and correct and update because my computer is full.
(See next post/snippet 2.)