Jackie Pilgrim

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Recollections of a Kentish idyll.
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Jackie was born in 1899.....Near Clare in Suffolk

Flo was born in 1901...A Cockney Kentish lass

Jackie was my maternal grandfather

Flo my maternal grandmother

Despite my ignorance of their history, I have nothing but warm and cosy memories of them...Darling buds of May memories...

We would visit as children, three or four of us at the time as I recall...catching the starlight express train from Glasgow Central to the Marylebone in London...our idyllic Summer holiday looming like the sun, tapping tiny, impatient feet.

A 50 year old memory rears like a serpent; emerging from our steam-cased carriage, we stepped out into London with my Mother's guffaws ringing in my ears....I must have been looking out of the carriage window as we sped into the City (a predilection I still indulge to excess, given the opportunity) and my face was covered in soot from the steam engine's backdraught...my Mother curled around the platform, speechless with laughter...my Dad joined in ~~~~ my ignorance of the problem and my indignation at their mirth merely served to feed their appetite.

I really can't remember how we travelled from Marylebone to Bexleyheath ...it would have been the late 1950's and who had a car then? ...but, arrive we would; at a gorgeous little Art Deco bungalow nestled into the top of a hill.

Quaintly Edwardian, it sported stucco rendering and toothed red-brick surrounds with brick arches to the doors and windows. Baby peg clay tiles on the bonnet-hipped roof, with tiny dormers squatted halfway up its slope. Stunning coloured glass panels were set above the transom of the narrow sash windows. The glossy blue front door boasted 13 panels, 4 of which formed a semi-circle of leaded floral red and yellow glass. Mock Queen Anne chimneys with completely beautiful flower-cut pots stood at either end of the ridges, which themselves were ornamented with cock's comb finials.

Dark blue morning glory scampered all over a trellis at the portico, wallflowers, London pride and chrysanthemum borders softening the edges with a coppiced archway of fruit trees coaxing and beckoning a visit to the back garden.... Grandma Flo would hug us with jowly arms and kiss our heads and faces and haul our unresisting little bodies into the kitchen. She was plump, blousy and Cockney to the core.

Although a child, I was blessed with a photographic memory and snapshot morsels of my childhood are etched like engravings within my brain...I feel at liberty to confidently express them.

We would traipse through to Grandma's kitchen in a little crocodile, giggling and skipping excitedly through the parlour..."come on me' ducks" she would say as she led us to Nirvana. Jimmy the huge white cat would tag along optimistically - his size entirely due to his capacious appetite - omnivorous as a bear, he would devour anything organic which crossed his path.

To reach the kitchen you passed through the Parlour with its Oak dado panelling, pictures of Kent & Suffolk life, a brick-built inglenook and an enormous American Oak table. We grew to love this place ...playing card games, Escalado and dominoes in this warm and wonderful space, light years away from our 20th century experimental existence in Glasgow.

Grandma would sit us around the Kitchen table and ply us with Kent's bounty...slices of apple with damsons, black cherries and gooseberries...little trays of beechnuts and blackcurrants...sherry trifle, ginger beer, cider laced with cinnamon, strawberries with saffron ice-cream...faerie cakes, gingerbread men and sugar mice...saccharin-sweet, homemade lemonade ice-lollies ...we were in heaven.

Jackie Pilgrim glowed like a diamond in the rock...dapper, confident and wise, with a stubbly little white beard and moustache, he would join the throng, tossing children around like chaff, blowing raspberries, squeezing cheeks and feigning horror at our resistance, he would scuffle us into the garden...his modest Shangri-La, teasing us in his broad Suffolk twang.

Jackie was a hospital porter by profession and a ducker and diver by inclination...astonishingly, he owned this little house, apparently outwith his means, but his Pa Larkin qualities were obviously sufficient to pay his way - he had 3 daughters - my Mum and her sisters Olive and Violet - and ultimately 12 grandchildren. I latterly discovered that he would pay for these holiday trips himself...in advance - buying the tickets and sending them to my parents to guarantee us all a holiday, they never flinched, they loved these trips as much as us.

The garden was moist as a jungle; this sub-tropical, orchard paradise clawed 40 metres to the Southern horizon...fertile and prolific, spewing colour, scent and sound across the compass. Walnut, Passion fruit, Apple and Cherry trees canopied the flanks, with an enormous aviary / apiary, overgrown with vines punctuating the Western wall.

The aviary held birds of every hue...budgerigars and canaries, finches, doves and a tame Jackdaw roosted in sublime indifference. Ponds of Koi and Crucian carp with water lilies, bulrush and crocus margins embraced the place like lovers...It has become a benchmark for Eden - I hunger to mimic its perfection.

Grandad (as we called him - even Grandma called him Grandad) would whistle through his teeth at the birds and they would flutter around and about him like adoring angels...we would share this confident intimacy and feed them seed and mealworms ...they would land on our heads and shoulders and feed quite happily from our tiny outstretched palms. I revelled in this contact - we had no pets at home and I would quiver with delight to be amongst them, it has never left me - to this day my love and protection of birds is secure ...I am certain that Jackie watches and smiles from beyond.

In the evenings, when supper had been cleared and we had exhausted ourselves on tree swing, hopscotch, marbles and penny toss, we would all sit around the table until bedtime playing games...Grandma Flo was no slouch at cards - she taught us Misere, 3 card brag, blackjack, rummy and whist ...we would gamble with a pot of pennies and ha'pennies kept in a jar on the mantel, wager on the Escalado horses ...Grandad had provided us all with those green bookies peaks, so we all looked the part - hilarious in retrospect, we would sit like a scene from "The Sting" serious as you like, talking the talk like veterans - they must have howled with laughter when we had gone to bed as they sat around drinking cider and port, playing whist in peace...

Mum often reinforced my memories many years later, endorsing and confirming those idylls we shared before the world changed...my nostalgia comes in living colour, unblemished by time - I count myself blessed in this respect.

Laplappapillon

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AzPilotAzPilotover 14 years ago
Wonderful memories, well told.

Thank you, sir, for sharing a few moments from your memories with us. Your word pictures were excellent, I could visualize it very well.

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