We Lived with my Grandfather until I was six, when after a family row we moved. I really do not know a lot about it all but I believe it was because my mother kept running away. Now as an adult I can understand possibly why. After my grandmother died my grandfather used to go of every weekend to Kent where he eventually married Jess. My mother was left to look after her grandmother(and me) not only all week while grandad was at work but weekends as well.All I remember of that time was Grandad sitting me on his knee and giving me a silver spoon with a bumble bee engraved in it,which I still have all these years later. Several times in the intervening years as I got older and was in Bexleyheath I saw him get of the bus, but was never brave enough to go and speak to him,probably because he had been"painted black" by my parents.
When my mother was in hospital she asked my father to get in contact, I am sure she must have known she was dying as both Grandad and Jess came up on the Sunday and Mum died on the Monday.
After that until 1963 when Grandad died I regularly spent some of my holidays down in Kent and had great fun. I have always prefered the country to the seaside. I had company as Aunt Jess had a niece who lived with them who was just a couple of years older than me.
After my grandfather died and Brian and I had the children, we used to go and visit until Jess died in 1985. Unfortunately we did not find out until after her funeral as we had lost touch a little as the children grew and we moved and it was on our way back from Folkstone after Kevin's passing out parade that we called in only to find she had died the previous week and although they had tried to trace us had not been able to.
This year we intend to take a trip back "down memory lane" and I want to try and find Jennifer, the niece I spent time with all those years ago.
Funny some of the things you remember,Grandad always brushed his hair with a brush in each hand and always kept it short. Jess always had a cigarette in her mouth so she had a brown streak in her hair and lit one from another. Always when she was standing talking she would be pleating the edge of her apron. Where they lived was out in the country and everything was delivered to the house. So there was a continual flow all day long.All of them came in all had tea and homemade cakes and all the news from the village was told. It didn't matter if I dropped crumbs on the floor or got dirty raiding the hen house or tramping across the fields all in all I loved it there.
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