A sailor’s trousers…

Last week I read a lovely and thought-provoking post on the Daily Echo blog…

http://scvincent.com/2013/03/14/without-words/

There was a phrase which triggered off such memories of my own childhood, and Sue, the writer, and I had a happy little exchange of views about it, “My grandmother always said it was going to be a fine day if there was enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pair of trousers.”

I remember my grandma saying that to me, and as I remembered it I was flashed back to being a child and walking with her, holding her hand and being towed along as little children are by their grandparents. Maybe my sister was in the pushchair, maybe I was with my cousin Jackie, who seemed such a big girl then, probably only six years old herself!

My grandparents were always called by their first names by their own children, and although we called her grandma, we also called her Maudie, and Jackie and I always call her that when we reminisce  about her. She would often take us to the duck pond on the River Cam, although I can’t quite work out where it is now, I must ask Jackie. We would take stale bread to feed the ducks, and always hope to see the little white duck among the mallards. I seem to remember a wooden rail, and a white building, and a willow and a muddy path leading down to the water… it always seemed cold but bright, and the ducks would flap about and quack and tussle over the crusts we threw for them.

Sometimes we were taken along Mill Road, and we would stop on the railway bridge and look over, and sometimes there would be the little green engine, shunting things backwards and forwards  I always hoped a train would go under the bridge and we would be enveloped in steamy, smelly, smoke full of gritty smuts… it seemed so exciting to have that noisy monster roaring beneath us.

Maudie died when I was six, and yet I remember her so well… thank you Sue for setting me off on a wander down memory lane!