A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Inventing My Childhood - Softcover

Wood, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1469791218 ISBN 13: 9781469791210

Verlag: iUniverse, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Mary Dobbs was born on the same day as Peter Sutcliffe, the notorious serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Instead of murdering adversaries who cross her path, however, she resorts to more subtle acts of revenge. Even so, these actions do not always provide the expected results; hilarity occurs at least as often as vengeance. In her memoir, Mary shares her amusing coming-of-age journey to overcome religious dogma in post-war London during the ever-changing 1950s and 1960s. From an early age, Mary chronicles how she always fancied herself as a trailblazer who nurtured a strong desire to become the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. A self-proclaimed lover of words, Mary made up many of her own to overcome the boredom of her restricted life, in which she was expected to mimic the behavior of her namesake, the mother of Jesus. Determined to change her life, Mary waits until she is a teenager to dye her hair orange, attend a Beatles concert, discover Soho, and splash in the fountains in Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Inventing My Childhood offers a witty glimpse into one woman's entertaining journey as she fights to hold onto her identity, discover her passions in life, and ultimately achieve her true destiny.

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Inventing My Childhood

By Mary Wood

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Mary Wood
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-9121-0

Chapter One

Magic

From an early age, I always fancied myself as a trailblazer and wanted to defy the odds by becoming the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Climbing was a passion of mine though I mainly learned the skill by scaling the household furniture and ascending trees.

I'm an early Baby Boomer who was born in 1946 and that will probably be my only claim to a pioneering feat. Not that I had any say about my appearance into the world, of course. I was the predictable result of a post-war frolic when Dad returned from serving Great Britain overseas with the Royal Air Force. Actually he had a rather enjoyable war, if there is such a thing, spending most of his time in the Bahamas servicing aircraft at a training base on one of the islands.

The fact that I was conceived in the first place never ceases to amaze me. My parents were so devout; I wonder they didn't consider the reproductive function a sin. As members of the local Baptist church, it seemed the pleasures of the flesh; indeed, any pleasure was fraught with the possibility of a hot appointment in hell. Life was to be endured not enjoyed. And so far, that was how it had been though I was going to be the trailblazer who tipped that idea on its head.

My parents, Freddie and Lily Dobbs grew up in close proximity to each other in the London borough of Lambeth. But by the time I came along they lived in a two-bedroom council flat in the suburbs of the capital city. The Purcell Estate contained over twenty blocks of dirty brick buildings built with three or four floor levels. Each block contained six or eight flats of low income housing with basic amenities. There was only one sink and that was situated in the kitchen and although there was a tub in the bathroom, along with the toilet pan, there was no hot water on tap.

If you wanted to have a bath you had to fill the copper boiler in the kitchen with cold water and wait while it took hours to heat up from the burning gas jets positioned underneath. Then the water had to be pumped into the bathroom. Our pump had seized so I rarely had a bath just a strip wash at the kitchen sink which suited me just fine.

The flats had small concrete balconies leading off the kitchen but these were never used as a place to sit in sunny weather. Since the bunker in the hall didn't hold much coal, spare coal for the living room fire was stored out here. One of my favorite past-times that did not endear me to my mother, was sneaking out onto the balcony to have a game. I would pretend I was climbing the Himalayas by scrambling over the piles of coal. The wash-tub that Mum needed to scrub my filthy laundry hung on a hook by the balcony door.

There was a huge housing shortage in London after the Second World War. So, although my parents had to share their bedroom with their offspring, they were grateful to have a roof over their heads. And at least we didn't have to share a bed as many of our overcrowded neighbors did, sleeping top to toe. Fortunately, there was enough space in the main bedroom for a double bed, the bed-chair that I slept in and my younger brother, Jimmy's crib.

There was a second bedroom in the flat and the third and most influential grown-up in my life occupied this room for we lived with Granny Bean, my mother's mother. In May 1941, Granny lived with Grandpa Bean and my mum, an only child, in a small house near Waterloo Station. At the height of the Blitz, as Londoner's refer to the intense German bombing raids of the time, an explosive destined for the railway line hit the house next door to theirs. These were row houses so my family's home collapsed as well as the bomb target.

Fortunately my mother and grandparents were down an air raid shelter at the time and after a spell in a government rest center, they were offered the flat on the Purcell estate. Dad, when he wasn't capering around the Bahamas lived there too. I never knew Grandpa Bean for he died two months after I was born. I may have been wrong but I always felt that Granny considered it was my fault that he was no longer with us. She was very fond of saying, 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. But He doesn't always give value for the taking.' I thought she was referring to my untimely entry into the Dobbs family. She believed I was the devil incarnate, an opinion she expressed often with religious fervor.

New age philosophy suggests that thoughts materialize. If so, I like to think that this belief was partly responsible for the mayhem and destruction that the devil and boredom between them helped me to create. When not praying for my salvation, Granny constantly reminded me that I should act like my namesake, the mother of Jesus. Unfortunately my sins included a lack of grace and decorum that Granny considered were the very least of holy Mary's virtues.

Many children only have to contend with two adults in their lives but I had to cope with three. This was a strange triangle. At five foot six inches, Mum and Dad were the same height. But that's as far as any equality in their relationship went. Mum's word was law and, being outnumbered by strong females, Dad tended to stay calmly in the background. He may have had a deeper philosophy but to my child's mind his motto appeared to be: anything for a quiet life.

If it hadn't been for his beautiful singing voice, I could persuade myself that he was hardly around at all during my childhood. Many mornings I awoke to the sound of him singing while shaving at the kitchen sink. It was always the same tune, Wher'er You Walk from Handel's opera Semele. I never tired of hearing it for his rich tenor tones emanated through the flat to brighten up the day; a day in a life that was mapped out for him by circumstances and never seemed to vary. From Monday to Friday and on Saturday morning, he went to work without comment. Between you and me, I think he was glad to escape the confines of the flat with its woman's woes.

On Saturday afternoons, Mum insisted he take his children on an outing. Usually it was to a park in the vicinity but sometimes we hopped on the 137 bus and went to Crystal Palace. Initiated by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, the palace had been a large building of iron and glass, originally erected in London's Hyde Park in1851 for the Great Exhibition. In 1854, it was dismantled and rebuilt on Sydenham Hill one of the highest points of the capital city that had the added bonus of splendid views.

Crystal Palace burned down in 1936 leaving a large area of parkland that was dotted with sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. These were created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, a contemporary of Charles Darwin. Crystal Palace was an exciting and scary place in which children could let their imaginations run wild.

On special occasions, we might catch the train to Battersea and go to the Festival Gardens on the banks of the river Thames where there was a funfair. With enough money for one ride, I always chose go on the roller-coaster known as the Big Dipper and leave my stomach behind on the sensational down dives that followed the slow climbs.

Often in the summer months, Dad would take us to cricket when he played for the church team. So his Saturdays, like the rest of the week, were taken care of. On Sundays, there were various church services, prayer meetings and Bible studies to occupy the whole day. There was a predictable and, in my view, a monotonous life stretching ahead of him. I never knew...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: iUniverse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1469791218
• ISBN 13: 9781469791210
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 360
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland