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.
***
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.
***
"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.)
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