Life's Pathways

My father, with his parents, probably taken about 1912-13

The pathways of life are hard at times. Yet suffering is not a requisite input, we can learn to live without it. Childhood should be a time of exploration, love and joy. Too often we subsume the joy of exploration and the confidence that comes from knowing you are loved, without question, to push our children towards adulthood.

Children often seemed deprived of those precious years, when their imaginations soar, and all is a delight. Instead they are fed an endless diet of commercial pap, much of which is unsuitable for developing minds.

Too much is made of education. It has become ritualised, and is now in the hands of administrators. I use this word in a derogatory sense, meaning someone that conforms to set standards, and ensures compliance. For the young child such a system is disastrous. Rules and regulations are imposed, the child is told: ‘No, you cannot do that’ or ‘Yes, you must pass that test before being allowed to move forward to the next stage’. Education has been turned into series of hurdles that they child must jump over, instead of being a time of joyful exploration.

It is easy to get carried away with the euphoria of memory. My childhood now seems wonderful compared to the pressures, even torment, that some children seem to suffer. Not that pain and anguish is anything new to me, but I’m at that pleasant stage of my life that allows me to reflect upon my past with a certain fondness.

I spent much of time alone, often out in the fields around my house. Trailing through the tall grasses on a hot summer’s day was always a delight. Today I would collapse with hay fever but then it posed no such problems. I was constantly enthralled at the variety of grasses and wild flowers to be found in the field beside our house, and looked forward with pleasure to the new crop each spring.

The field was used for stock grazing later in the year with the heifers not considered suitable for milking being sent off to slaughter in late autumn. Not that I ever realised that was their fate. I remember asking one stockman as I helped him load cows on to the back of his lorry if they were going to a new field. “They be doing that alright my boy,” he said, with a wry smile. I didn’t know what that expression meant at the time but I did know he was not telling me the truth. It was years later that I understood the fate of those animals. That was a special year for me as I had befriended one cow, which would come and stand against the gate and allow me to sit on her back as she strolled around the field.

Once the winter was over the field burst into life. The field was soon covered with little clumps of bright green shoots, as the grass shot towards the sun feeding on the cowpats left behind by the beasts. As I watched these would develop into distinct communities, with one species of grass dominating a small area, perhaps spreading out to cover a larger area of several yards. Within that five acre field there would be any number such areas, dominated by a particular grass species. I could track my way across the fields using these as markers.

Life should be for fulfilment and joy, and be a process of development. Within my childhood there was little suffering, although we were surrounded by deprivation and sorrow of various kinds. My sister, Janet, was a constant reminder of the way in which my parent’s lives had been fundamentally altered by her arrival. My mother had German measles during that pregnancy, not that anyone ever linked that condition with Downs Syndrome.

Mum had been a successful painter, a commercial artist, talented and looking forward to a promising career. She’d trained at the Ipswich School of Art, and worked for Tuddenham’s, specialist furniture makers, working on Chinese lacquer paintings, some were used in the state rooms of RMS Queen Mary and the Dorchester Hotel. She was specialist, an expert in working with gesso, gold leaf and oils. That was all left behind when Janet was born, as she needed constant nursing care and the NHS had not yet been formed.

My father worked for the gas company for over 40 years. He was a gentle, amiable man, philosophic in an unassuming way. He was the product of an Edwardian house, the only son of a matriarch, who was not far away from cruelty in her lack of compassion for her son, or her husband. They lived in a small house at 19 Geralds Avenue, Ipswich, with my grandfather, Arthur Lockwood, working at County Hall in a mediocre job for much of his life.

In earlier years they had both been in service. All this is still a hazy area but I believe my grandmother, Clara Hunt, had been a parlour-maid in Holbrook, working for a barrister, with my grandfather shown as a 16 yr old under-butler in the 1901 Census. My great-grandfather, Clara’s father, had worked in the Telegraph Office at Brentwood, Essex, but how Clara moved to Suffolk is as yet unknown. Possibly because her employer, the barrister, had a house in that area, and the Holbrook residence was just his place in the country. Arthur, my grandfather, was born in Bramford a village just outside Ipswich, the son of Frederick.

My grandfather walked to work every day of his life, living frugally, looking forward to his retirement. He worked at County Hall, in Ipswich, for Suffolk County Council. Within a few months of his stopping work his wife, Clara, died, leaving him a lonely old man who lived alone for the next fourteen years.

I tried to visit him as often as I could, seeing him in hospital a few days before he died, but I was then a young policeman in London and had very little spare time. I wish I’d spent more time with him, he was a lovely man, gentle and reserved, just like my father. Strangely enough they had never seen eye to eye, I’m not sure why but suspect my grandmother’s influence remained long after her demise. My father had not enjoyed his restrictive childhood, only finding relief when he met my mother, who, with two younger sisters and an older brother must have lived a wild and exciting life when compared to his own childhood. I mirrored that in my own life, arriving as a country yokel in London and meeting Sue, the eldest girl in her family, with an older brother and two younger sisters, and a younger brother. That household seemed noisy and turbulent compared with the peace and quiet I had known as a child.

My parents loved me, but neither was openly expressive in their love. I was rarely touched, and often left to my own devices. My early years were spent at North Street School in Colchester. Most of that is a vague memory, except for Miss Leach, my final year teacher whose dedication managed to find me a place at Earls Colne Grammar School. I can also remember daily tests. These were simple exercises that reinforced our knowledge. No great fuss was made of these exercises but we were made to respect, and to take pride in our results. In truth they were very easy, and most of the class managed to get the questions right. Clever psychology from Miss Leach, who normally gave some hint before posing the questions. The trick was to listen to the teacher, and all of us did.