As you get older, time flies by dramatically. Seasons come and go in a flash and you start counting years instead of months or weeks. Friends move on, kids are born, bodies age, faces wrinkle and people pass away. That is when the past catches up on you, memories randomly float in your mind and nostalgia kicks in.
This week, my grandmother Barbara died, putting an end to an existence that marked part of my childhood. Once a wartime nurse, she was a kind and generous woman who always looked out for us and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind in public, even if we sometimes felt embarrassed by her ticking someone off.
The last few years of slow decay should not mar the memory of a decent person whose common sense and generosity live on in my mother and my uncle. The same goes for her husband, steady old Jim Douglas, who almost made it to 100 with a weekly dose of golf, a daily drop of Scotch whisky and the constant devotion of his wife.
When we were children, my sister and I used to spend our summers in England. During one month, we would catch up with the eccentric characters in our family –especially on my father’s side- and discover the pleasures of city and country life.
The holidays usually started and ended in London, where we experienced first-hand the excitement of a big bustling city: jumping on double-decker buses, visiting all the museums and landmarks in town, walking around ageless parks, observing the tide-changes of the Thames from our Great Uncle’s houseboat, venturing into the West End for a musical or simply playing up and down the staircase in Granny’s old house in Chelsea.
After the furore of London, where excitement and hassle often become one, there was nothing more welcoming and relaxing than a trip to Kent. The Channel winds that sculpt the magnificent White Cliffs of Dover would wipe away any remnants of city stress. That is where the Douglas family came into the picture. Jim and Barbara never failed to pick us up at Dover or, to my Dad’s delight, Martin Mill, a picturesque little station caught in a time between Constable and The Railway Children. That is where the summer really began.
I remember the ticking sound of the turn indicator as my grandfather’s car approached a crossroad. I remember the plastic box of toys my grandmother had collected from car boot-sales and second-hand shops. I remember the smell of polished carpets in a bland flat that overlooked a much more inviting garden. I remember my first bike ride on the sloping village green at St Margaret’s at Cliffe. I remember throwing pebbles from the Deal prom and picking blackberries in the country with my dad. I remember the fresh smell of rain after a morning at the Tides waterpark. I remember playing on the Mitchells’ farm from dawn till dusk. I remember admiring acres of wheat fields, which would turn into Weetabix and Shreddies for breakfast. I remember tucking into fresh lemon sole bought from the local fishmonger and buying bangers from old Mr. Hubbard…
My grandparents will always be a part of these memories and I am eternally grateful to have had a taste of this idyllic and innocent world which, I am afraid, doesn’t exist anymore. At least not in modern England.
Jim and Barbara were a consistent presence in my early life and they were the image of good old-fashioned decency and serenity, even in their last fragile years. But it is precisely this human fragility which worries me most about the future. We are creatures of experience and I am fully aware that life is all about savouring those magical moments that merely occur. One dreaded day, however, memories will slowly fade away. Until then, let us continue this epic journey without forgetting those we leave behind but also without being bogged down in the slippery sands of nostalgia.
Barnaslava 