Lost memories and found cousin

Lost memories and found cousin

17th January 2005

I've got a cousin, well I already knew that, but have no real lasting
memory of meeting her. When I was in Sussex recently my mother gave me
her address, she lives in the village where my mother was born. I wrote
to her, she replied and we are now speaking on the phone. In the
conversations we have had we are attempting to place the other in our
individual memory banks. I have no memory of her or her sister or
brother, and none at all of her mother or father. I know the names of
her parents, but little else. She has little remembrances of her
childhood; all this has impressed me with the need to record some of my
memories, no matter how faulty they might be. Actually and factually
does not matter, telling the story does. What is important is the
memories are mine and that they are put into written form.
My cousin did not know about the history of my family and I know
nothing of hers. My mother refuses to let me know her own birth date,
saying that she is quite old enough, and she becomes unsure when
questioned about the heritage she has.
I'm reading a book about folk singing and the collection of music and
tales from Sussex in the late part of the 19th and most of the 20th
century, this has bought to focus how quickly we lose the past, how
buildings wipe out horizons of physical history, how quickly we forget
and how little we tell to the next generation.

It was hard to remember, when I looked at houseboats on Shoreham
riverbank, a few weeks ago, how they had looked in the sixties. They
seemed, then, somehow glamorous, but outrageous, smart but simple. They
certainly did not look that two weeks ago. One or two of them looked
fantastic and inviting, but in the main they looked sad and as though
the days left are numbered.

Crossing the footbridge from the town, the boats huddle on the left and
the right of the bridge. They are a variety of characters. Some saw
active service in the Second World War and came to rest in the mud of
the River Adur; some arrived from whence no one knows and settled in
the shadow of some larger craft. A mixed bag, but then so were the folk
that dwelt on them.

In the sixties the inhabitants were mainly arty folk, seeking cheap
housing and less restrained environs for their creativity. I am not
sure that we fitted into the category of "arty" when we arrived,
however by the time we moved out we did.

March 1969 saw us moving lock, stock and no barrel into a tatty,
leaking 120-foot motor torpedo boat, called the Anzac. Reputedly she
ran ball bearings up and down a foreign coastline and saw no sight of
action. Her name came from the entry into the Second World War of the
Australians and New Zealanders. She was still pretty much as she had
been when decommissioned. A deckhouse had been added at the prow and
the engine room, which was massive, had become the main lounge,
(engines had long gone). We bought her for ?200, loaned from a friend
and from a family member. The boat had some lovely furniture on it and
this was left for us. I still have an oak sideboard and a lovely carved
table from that time.
My mother, father and sister, lived on the "Pelican" a motor launch,
which was moored next to us.

Who is "we"? Well obviously me, at the tender and confused age of 21 ?,
my husband, who had reached 22 the previous summer, two small sons, a
guy from Rickmansworth, (who, bless him, believed he was in love with
me), and a few of my husbands' friends.

The boat was enormous, and we all soon became lost in the myriad of
rooms, I believe that some of his friends stayed until it was no longer
a novelty, and returned from whence they came. The guy from
Rickmansworth worked in the week as a greengrocer and came down each
weekend. The boys loved the freedom and the space and several times
frightened us running around the deck sliding to a halt at the edge.
They played on the beach, grew brown and healthy, appearing totally
oblivious to the tension in the relationship between their dad and I,
oblivious to the rain that came in when the skies opened, oblivious to
the cold, what little heating we had was provided by a small log type
fire in the main living area, which belched and smoked and occasionally
provided a semblance of warmth.

My eldest son started at the local primary school; we had to cross the
footbridge into town to get there. He had a pet dog which only he could
see, and, most mornings would see me, bleary eyed and stressed, leading
one child by the hand, who was holding onto an invisible lead, dragging
an even smaller child, who wanted to stop and examine everything. As we
reached the far end of the bridge, my offspring would stop, tie the
invisible dog to the end of the bridge, pat it on its invisible head,
tell it that we would collect it on the way home, and, off to school we
would go. On the afternoon trip back, my son would solemnly untie the
dog from the end of the bridge and he and my youngest would take turns
holding the invisible lead until we got back to the boat. This ritual
continued for a fairly long time, certainly for that spring and summer.
I was that one drinking and yet both of my sons appeared to be seeing
things. When I went to Shoreham recently, I stopped at the end of the
bridge and remembered and felt the warmth of the childhood of my sons.
I might have been a mess, but I was there, and I did remember.
The Anzac sank, not when we were living on it, in fact by that time, we
had all left, in dribs and drabs. My husband sold it to a woman who did
not empty the bilges, that is technical speak for not letting out the
water that gathered under the floorboards, the weight was too much and
the boat split. All most sad. There is a boat on the mooring now, a
lovely well-kept vessel, that is clean, tended and caulked. I wanted to
go on board and tell them that I used to live there, but accepted that
this is not the truth; I lived on the spot, but not on that boat. The
Lady Jayne pub, behind which we moored, is now called something else.
This called for me to close my eyes, metaphorically and cast my memory
back to memories of then.

The rain lashed, the wind blew, and there was a force 10 gale forecast
for October 1969. We of the good ship Anzac carried on doing what we
were doing. Which, in this instance, was my husband and our regular
weekend visitor building a new deck house, they were assembling the
staircase to this in the lounge, the wind blew and the rain lashed, I
carried on being pregnant, felt sick, and, the wind blew and the rain
lashed. I commented on the fact that there was a small craft sailing
around us, the men in it were waving and shouting, my husband and our
friend smiled at me and carried on assembling the staircase. I put the
Sunday dinner into the oven feeling more sickly than I had done
recently, the boat seemed to be moving up and down more than usual and
I could not understand why my mothers boat seemed to be in a different
place than normal. I commented on this to the two men assembling the
staircase and they smiled at me benignly saying that as I was pregnant
and not too well I was maybe feeling a little disorientated. The wind
blew and the rain lashed. Feeling very queasy, I decided to go out, or
at least get some air. Using the old stairway I went up to the deck. I
could not open the door, the wind blew and the rain lashed, but I did
manage to see that my mother was waving furiously at the Anzac and that
we were moving away from the shore. This time, with the conviction of
the dying I went back and got the two fellows to listen to me.

After a time we managed to get onto the deck, with the boys held firmly
in our arms. We had broken a mooring, were straining against the one
remaining and looked as though we were heading for the harbour. The air
sea rescue had been called out, they were circling above, and the
police were on the bank trying to throw us a line. We were not able to
catch it, one or two policemen had to wade in the not so welcoming
smelly river mud. People were standing around watching and calling
their advice, none of which we could hear through the lashing wind or
the falling rain. Finally a guy came out of the Lady Jayne pub, tied
his diesel Bedford van to the nearest lamppost, and persuaded a
policeman to wade a little further with the line. This line was thrown
to my husband, who was stating that he would go down with his ship and
other such over the top statements, (he could not swim by the way). The
line was secured at the aft, the policemen formed a chain and the
children were thrown, one at a time, to them, taken to dry land and the
welcoming arms of the other boat dwellers. The policemen were more than
concerned when they discovered that I was six months pregnant and were
not too happy for me to be launched at one of them, but as there was no
other way to leave the boat, this was the tactic taken. The one
allotted the task of catching me closed his eyes as I was thrown, but
caught me. My husband was still declaring he would stay on board. This
he did, several other men clambered on as well, whilst the fellow with
the diesel van began to slowly pull us back into the jetty, the
lamppost acting as a capstan. The boat slowly and resentfully drew
back, almost as though she had relished the idea of some free sailing.
Reporters arrived, cameras blazed, photographs were taken, showing two
children, and husband with wife, (no mention of friend), The photograph
showed a smiling couple, hugging two boys. No sign of fear, cold or
misery. We made the Evening Argus and The Times newspaper. The article
told of our near escape and the rescue, which ensued. My parents in law
found out about the event from papers. We forgot to tell them.
All this crisis and pandemonium, all these wet policemen, frightened
parents and helpful folks, all this and more, and still the lunch I had
put in the oven cooked, the rain lashed and the wind blew.

What of some of the other folk who dwelt on the riverbank, sounds like
a story from Wind in the Willows. A few of the personalities come back
strongly and vividly. There was the couple that lived in a small craft
with a totem pole in the living area, she was a sculptor and designed
and built the playground of the local school as well as the concrete
cows of Milton Keynes, (I believe one of these was stolen). I cannot
remember what he did, teaching I think. Then there was the incredible
woman with five children who lived on 115ft motor launch and made
patchwork quilts, painted and made the most amazing soft dolls. Her
boat was always full of people; she lived with a guy who was stunning
to look at and who became a model for the hand puppets I used to make.
There was a writer, who was related to Brendan Behan and was far too
deep for me to understand. There were singers and songwriters, a guy
who lived on a Dutch barge looked like Marty Feldman and painted
enormous canvases, there were hippies falling out of boats as well as
hippies falling into them. The population was close and wacky. All the
forty or so dwellers knew each other as well as the attendant
offspring. They were gentle, funny and caring. I got to know some of
them and appreciate now the support they offered. I was difficult and
probably fairly defensive. I was in a rocky and unstable marriage,
rushing about trying not to feel anything and thus made it
uncomfortable for people to get to know me.

However some good things did happen. I was part of a clutch of adults
who formed a steering group and successfully opened a youth workshop in
an old tithe barn in Shoreham. As a result of this, we fund raised and
employed a chap to run theatre projects from there. Loads of young
people used this project and I know for a fact that some of them went
on to earn their living in the theatre or musical world. I learnt to
crochet and cook, I learnt to live on a very small budget and make food
creatively. I made my children's clothes and discovered how to make
them without a pattern. I watched the painters and learnt to paint,
albeit walls. I watched the woman with the patchwork, copied her and
found out I could do it as well. I discovered from these wild and wacky
people the art of being a writer, a storyteller and an artist and what
is more I have only just realised that.
Unlocking some of the memories of Shoreham has allowed me to see that
out of the ashes of my sadness and loneliness, great and wonderful
gifts have grown.