The busy oven

I come from a big family. Yes, I only have the one brother, but on the day of my communion, the aunts and uncles who surrounded me since birth, still got along, and arrived in droves the day before. I can look back on the day fondly. There were about twenty people who slept in the three-bedroom, semi-detached house, the night before, but the physics as to how illudes me. I know I slept on a folded duvet as a mattress at the foot of my parent’s bed, giving up my room for another family to camp under, but as to the rest, I’m guessing a lot of them slept on whatever empty floor space they could find.

The morning of the big day was chaotic to say the least. All of the aunts had a job and all the kids were banished from the kitchen, as they were only small at the time and a kitchen can be a very dangerous place for toddlers, especially that day.

As the oven opened for the second batch of rashers and sausages to be taken out, everyone leaned back as the steam filled the tiny room. We had, and still have the same grey wooden, oblong table, with a thin plastic wooden effect layer on top. It was pressed tightly against the only wall that wasn’t taken up by any part of the built in kitchen. This left only a narrow path for the aunts to brush against each other as they cooked up a storm. We only had four grey wooden chairs with fabric cushions built in, as that was all that was needed on a day to day basis, a wooden, rickety stool. That meant there was only room for five people to sit at a time. Because of that, breakfast was eaten in shifts, but as people sat at the table, the kitchen shrunk and there was only room for one aunt to bypass a chair at a time, putting pressure on them to keep the food train running.

I represented the oldest of the cousins, and since it was my day, I was put on the chair at the top of the table, overlooking the steps down to the garden. I remember that as my mother was torturing me, trying to get my hair right. It took her three attempts at trying to do a French braid before my aunt, who was like a sister, took it upon herself to abandon the toast and take over.

Firstly, I was asked to look at the steam stained, white painted ceiling, and, as she progressed with the braid, she tilted my head downwards until eventually I was gazing at the black and white tiled effect linoleum floor. She had such a different approach that was far distant from my mother’s. When she was finally finished with my long, brunette locks, she landed herself back on toast duty, none of the others having the same timing that meant the bread was evenly brown on both sides. I stayed seated and was witness to the chaos of literally too many cooks in the kitchen!

Each time the oven door was opened, everyone stood back, pressing their bodies against those sitting, praying the steam would go either up the extractor fan, out the window which was next to it, or through the back door which could only be partially open or else it would have hit off the oven door. The door to the grill that was toasting the bread six slices at a time was hindering the operation. It needed to be closed for the oven door to open, risking the consistency of the toast which was stressing out the aunt who did a fabulous job on my hair. Even with the back door open, its glass collected condensation from the heat of all the bodies working and eating away.

As the kettle boiled for what must have been the tenth time, its steam adding to that of the ovens, I could see the sweat starting to show on some of the aunts brows. It was a good idea to get breakfast out of the way before they applied their make-up, otherwise there would have been foundation dripping into their eyes.

My mother disappeared for a few minutes and when she arrived back in the tiny kitchen, she had curlers in her hair that were supposed to give it a little bit more bounce. It was a rare sight, one we only ever got to see a few times in our then short lives. She triggered a domino effect as two more aunts vacated the room, abandoning the all important breakfast, to copy her.  

I distinctly remember tray upon tray of sausages being cooked. They were being inhaled by those sitting at the table as they were coming out juicy and golden. Mom had almost half a shelf in the fridge dedicated to uncooked sausages as she expected that we would eat them all. Whichever of the aunts who was in charge of them was doing a fabulous job. As there were four rings on the hob, the aunt in charge of the eggs was literally juggling four frying pans, desperately trying to get each egg a little bit runny in the middle so the toast, which was piling up, would be able to mop up the yellow ooze that came out of them.

As the kids, the eldest apart from me being only five were hungry, the decision was made to feed the five of them together. Once their bellies were full they retreated to the second sitting room / play room and fought over what they watched on the tv. The two younger ones wanted to watch Barney the dinosaur, whilst the three older ones wanted to watch Power Rangers. They came to a compromise and watched The Lion King. The three older boys were rough housing and had to be chastised with a warning that they would watch nothing if they didn’t settle down. They must have been imitating the karate they saw the Power Rangers do during the unrelated film, as they were heard over the hustle and bustle of the kitchen.

Next to be fed were the men, the proud fathers of the rowdy children, one with one on the way, which nearly cleared the kitchen out of food. I say nearly because, as it turned out, the aunts were eating their way through the cooked food on forks, one sausage at a time, so as per usual, they left no room for that last tray of sausages and the last runny eggs. That was when the men returned for second helpings, not wanting any of the food to ‘go to waste’.

After the kitchen was clean, everyone retreated to their stash of make-up and applied it at every available mirror. As there was only one bathroom, with only one shower, it took a while for everyone to freshen up and get the greasy smell of the fry off of them.

Once eleven o’clock arrived, my mother insisted that she bypass everyone in the line for the bathroom to take out her rollers and brush her teeth, my father doing the same, minus the rollers. I was told that was the time I was to get into my dress, ready to be paraded around the estate to collect money and keep it in my little bag that was made out of the same material, and by the same seamstress who made my dress.

I was always a heavy child, and because of my size, and the fact my mom didn’t want a store bought dress for me, she commissioned someone from the next town over to make it from scratch. I had had four fittings with her, my mom basically telling her all that she liked and disliked about her swatches of samples she was shown. She had picked one detail off of the four that were presented to her and told the seamstress where to apply each particular aspect. It wasn’t until I put on the finished product did I feel like a princess. Being honest, I think that was what my mom was going for. It had a lacey bodice with millions of buttons on the back to fasten it. With help, it took twenty minutes for them to tie me into the beautiful dress, the one that is sitting in my wardrobe thirty years later. (It was just so beautiful I couldn’t part with it!)

The ceremony itself was rehearsed by the teachers and the priest, Father Pat, several times beforehand to make the church part of the day go smoothly. We weren’t the only school getting our First Holy Communion that day. In total, there was four schools receiving the Body of Christ for the first time. It just meant that parents only could sit next to their little darlings, the rest of the family stuck in the back. I didn’t care either way because of all the money I had made that morning alone, knowing there were other houses to hit afterwards.

Outside the church, the family congregated to celebrate me. I really felt like a true princess! All I was missing was the tiara! I think though it would have been too much with the veil. I guess I looked like a mini bride more than a princess, but whatever it looked like, I felt celebrated.

I was put standing beside the church wall for the people who begged me to take a picture with them. I, on the other hand, just wanted to know how much others from my class had collected, which came from the competitive jean my father had passed down to me.

After the church, we went back to the house to take even more pictures. As the front door opened, cards that had been sealed were there sitting on the hallway floor. They all had money in them and that was when my mother suggested I leave the cash I had collected so far in one of her dressing table drawers. I was up to £285, which was a lot of money in 1994!

We went out to the back garden, the top half of which had been levelled off and concreted, the bottom half left with the grass still intact on the steep descending slope the house had been built on. We had a swing set on the grassy, lower level, the place where all the pictures were taken. All nine sisters attended, and one uncle, which for a family of twelve was good going! The only event that had gotten all twelve together was to come years later at an aunts wedding. Seeing as there are only eleven siblings left and one who has excommunicated himself, my communion photos are cherished. You can clearly see in them who had the rollers in when the fry was in the making, as those had the hair with the more volume.

We were booked into a restaurant for 4pm. Mom had booked the venue months in advance as we needed the whole upstairs floor to accommodate the whole clan. I remember everyone in their Sunday best, all huddled together as that was the only way we all fit. It must have cost my parents a fortune! I can’t remember a time where we all looked so happy, laughing and joking and shouting those jokes over others to get the biggest laugh.

I know the glorious event took place on a Saturday, as I was allowed stay up much later than my bedtime. After the cousins, and my brother of course, went to bed, I was handed a small, narrow sheet of paper. It turned out that, between them all, they had organised a scavenger hunt for me. They didn’t want the little ones awake whilst I was doing it as they would have just gotten in the way, and that made it extra special. I went upstairs and downstairs, only to be sent upstairs again for the next clue. In the end, the prize, which was a Nintendo game boy game, was found in the once busy oven. I had no clue I was going to receive a gift from my parents, thinking that feeling like a princess for the day was their gift. I was ecstatic to receive the game, having just finished my previous one the week beforehand.

Its ironic how the day started with a busy oven, and finished with that same oven, busy once more but for a different reason. I never looked at it in the same light again. It had given everyone who stayed in the house breakfast, and then brought me a new game which I began to play immediately, twenty people looking over my shoulder, all smiling as I did so. No smile was greater than mine, however, as I had one of the best days of my life, but I’m now wishing I had taken pictures of the chaos of the morning, not just the posed pictures, because who would believe how that little kitchen and that one oven gave so many people such fond memories.