I'm Back

Rowan9

So lovely to see you back Jackie O!!
x

RosyRed

I haven't been on the forum today until now,and was delighted and surprised to see you back JackieO. I think you can see by the number of posts how pleased we all are . It's great to see how well and happy your DGC are too.Welcome back !! xx

topsyturphy

Lovely to see you back Jackie O

Blackcats

What a lovely surprise to discover that London-1 is the fabulous Jackie O.  Welcome back

pollyanna_26

Sp many things in your latest post resonate with me Jackie. I can not stand waste of any kind and will find another use for something. One thing I mentioned on OS recently was mum and her sisters keepig the same tea leaves going long after the first pot until rationing was finally ended some years after the war. It was like very pale water eventually but they'd had their brews and could face the days ahead.

I was an early reader like yourself. My mum used the local library further along the road and from the age of three I pestered the staff for a library ticket onsisting on reading from my book to prove I could read. One librarian was lovely gently telling me I had to be five to get a ticket but the one in charge not so lovely. In the end I must have worn them down and got one on my 4th birthday. Then I discovered my mum had four tickets so ever hopeful I started another visiting every day campaign. I did get another one but was five when I had the same as my mum.

My happiest days were sitting on a little leather toppped stool in a sunny window reading a book, That continued in to my teens and beyond and when we were allowed to go in to Liverpool to study at the old Picton Library when we were in sixth form by a dubious very severe headteacher we did sit in there studying in sunny windows but also discovered the Kardomah cafe nearby and felt very grown up as we counted our pennies to see if we could afford a cup of coffee.

I wasn't very fond of coffee then but would have felt odd asking for a cup of tea. We got to know the later to be famous Liverpool Poets there which helped our education. I still have their book which was published some years later. We learned to debate things and discuss all sorts of subjects so although we were slightly bending the rules re only visiting the Picton Library we were adding to our knowledge.

In recent years I watched the series a House Through Time. For the Falkener St house David was sitting in my beloved old Picton doing his research for the story beginning with the history of the cotton trade in Liverpool a trade we now know based on slavery and greed. We have walked past all those slave knots on the way to the Pierhead that bear witness now to a terrible history.

I do believe all the different houses and the history of those who lived there through the years should be used in schools as they show real lived history over all the years to the present day.

My beloved library has been enlarged and altered but the Picton I sat in so many times is preserved at the heart. We used to visit often but not since the pandemic. It is no 1 on the list of where to go things if we get back to some sort of normal.

I do believe we need to learn from the past both good and bad.

Also be aware that someone wailing on FB about a broken nail is not a disaster. Families unable to feed their children or provide a warm bed for them is an outrage.

Your mention of night school all those years ago has reminded me of reading the books by Helen Forrester a child born to feckless parents. Wealthy but more concerned with large dinnner parties and splashing their cash until the Great Depression when the money was gone. No life skills and moving their family to slum housing - usuallly one run down room no heat or means of heating a room or water. No knowledge of cooking , cleaning or caring for children as they always had staff to do that.        they left young Helen to do all that while mum sat chain smoking and dad sank in to depression. It was left to Helen to do everything including trying to find something to eat but she often went hungry herself.

Above all she yearned for an education. It took many years and arguments with her mother before she stood outside night school. Aware she smelt, skinny as a rake and weak from hunger she had tied her unwashed- no hot water or even a towel- in a shoe lace,and began to climb the steps.

I still have Helens books. Many years after leaving the UK she was granted the freedom of Liverpool and more recently a blue plaque was placed on the house over the water she always longed to go back to with her beloved Grandmother who'd long lost patience with the parents, her first book in the story of her life was Tupppence to Cross the Mersey and she'd often take the youngest child born just before the flight to Liverpool to escape creditors down to the Pierhead often shoeless herself and gaze across the river knowing she lacked the Tuppence she needed to tell her grandmother of her plight and ask her advice.

Night school saved Helen and many others unable to access the basics in life.

OS is more relevent now than ever. Those skills and sharing of knowledge are useful tools and knowing you are not alone is very helpful/

I never lived in Liverpool but further out but visiting there was aware of the deprivation. My mum would take us there to shop at the indoor and street markets and some of the family were living in dire poverty due to a lack of life skills. She would take food when we visited but they were too deep in despair to listen to advice or make an effort.

Now we are in another time of have and have nots. I moved to what has always been considered a prosperous area in the mid seventies but we now see a lot of poverty. We have a volunteer soup kitchen. Not on the streets but run from a former shop to feed all those in need and they can sit with others in a warm place for a few hours . Also a volunteer foodbank along with the famous ones. There are families living in one room and a big mental health crisis for many reasons which became obvious when the soup kitchen couldn't operate safely during lockdowns.

It shouldn't be like this in one of the richest countries in the world. A footballer shouldn't have to take on a Govt twice to get food on the table for children.

I recently started a thread Goin' Back which is sadly neglected due to other things taking place in real life. It was prompted by remembering the Dusty Springfield song about going back to the things she learned so well in her youth and I began to think we need more than ever to go back to what we learned when we were young enough to know the truth. I ended up ordering the CD not really moneysaving!

It took ages to arrive and when tracking came on was at customs in Madrid. We got a lot of the fallout from the Liverpool v Madrid football match at the start of the Pandemic so poor Dusty had to self isolate on the doormat in the hall for a while.

There is valuable life experience on OS and goin' back may help someone who hasn't learned some of those coping skills.

Most things i know I learned from parents grandads aunts and uncles. Those things went from knitting  sewing and many other things including how to plaster a wall. My dad was the only one to figure out how to teach this left hander how to knit when everyone else had failed, Instead of sitting opposite me he sat next to me and said watch what I do. Many years later i did the same with my youngest dd who had tried the normal way and she was knitting a short while later. Knitting has got her through tough times as it lowers her anxiety levels and she aquired much of my wool stash near the start of the pandemic to help her through.

For anyone with a bit of land or even a window box what I learned from my dad and grandads with their allotments and gardens had given me a love of growing my own. Even a few micro greens in pots on a window ledge will provide additions to salads.

Growing your own herbs will jazz up the plainest food and is cheaper than the shops.

Gardening and Crafting is my sanity in difficult times and i am thankful to the generations before me for what I learned. i've never needed to get out a shoe last to mend everyones shoes as my dad did on a regular basis but would know what to do should the need arise.

pollyx

London_1

Thank you for the lovely reply and I shall search for Helen Forester books in my local library. I adore libaries and have a local one I go to, and a very small one near to where my eldest DD lives which I go to their book club once a month, and always loan a couple of books from there as without regular footfall the council will close it.

I can't imagine my life without books, and read for a minimum of 1-2 hours a day.Probably my secret vice as even on holiday I will mooch around the charity shops, and I always seem to bring something new home .

About 15 years ago I was in the USA with my friend touring, and out there they have a great system if you borrow a book you don't always have to return it to the library where you borrowed it from, just drop it off at the next library  .

When we drove out of Washington we came across a library in Kent County which was really off the beaten track, I said to my friend we must go in as we both live in Kent .
We went in and used their computer to email home, and the lady librarian and us got talking and when she found out we were visitors touring from England she was so pleased .Within half an hour there were about a dozen or so other ladies turned up out of nowhere to chat to us. They were so nice and the Mr Coffee pot was put on and we spent a good couple of hours telling them about our corner of Kent in the UK. They wanted to know about the Queen and how sad they were about Princess Diana and some of their questions were a bit peculiar
I think their idea of two elderly ladies driving round their country went against their ideas of what UK tourists want They were surprised that we want to see and talk to ordinary people and had no interest in Disneyland at all. great holiday and I would recommend it to anyone .we stayed in a different motel every night and saw so many fantastic things and met some amazing people .

Dusty in Memphis is a CD my DD bought for me ,she had a great voice and sadly died far too young I remember seeing her at our local youth club with her brother singing before they became the Springfields. I was impressed with her voice even back then The supporting group that night was a very scruffy bunch of lads with very long hair who (bearing in mind most lads had a short back and side ) when we came out to go home I said to my friend 'I can't see them ever making much money they are far too scruffy and hairy We had paid 2/6d entrance and I thought that we had been over charged but said at least the girl singer was pretty good. But the lads were rubbish the group was The Rolling Stones and to think it only cost me half a crown to see them Jagger was like a string bean and they all looked like they needed a good meal

The Dusty song is beautiful, and so soulful, and her diction is so clear. great CD though.

Well I'm off up the wooden hill, so Night, Night, God bless all hear
 JackieO  xxx

weenancyinAmerica

JackieO - on every trip I take anywhere I end up in the library. I have special sections I check to see if there is any book I want want to order on Interlibrary Loan (mostly home economics and personal finance). I also just sit and read them sometimes. When I was in the British Isles taking people on tours while they went shopping or to a museum, I spent it sitting in the local public library. Have been in over a hundred in the British Isles alone. You never know what you might find in the sale section of some of them either. When I was in Switzerland, my friend and I went to the public library and found a box of books they were giving away. Found a couple in English too. One of my favorite places to visit is Hay on Wye for all the book stores. Any place am I check out all the charity shops for books to buy to bring home. Last time I was there, Coleraine had 13 charity shops and I went to all of them. My favorite was the Oxfam book store in Oxford. 

nannygladys

Love hearing all your stories, your knowledge is invaluable and much needed these days I think.
Nannyg

tiddles

What a beautiful post, Pollyanna - thank you xx

pollyanna_26

Helen Forrester books in reading Order.

These are the books about Helens early life.

Twopence to cross the Mersey.

By the waters of Liverpool.

Liverpool Miss.

Lime Street at Two.

She went on to write fiction books based where she knew so well and most set in those times.

Her only child Robert Bhatia who did live in Liverpool for a while until they sailed elsewhere wrote a book in 2017 telling the story of Helens life when she finally left Liverpool behind.

It was good to read she found the love and happiness she'd always hoped for.

I'm not someone who cries easily but many times I did reading her story. At one point it was described as the clearest description of absolute poverty and deprivation.

It reallty did make me count my blessings.

If your library doesn't have the books they may be able to obtain through the inter library lending scheme. They are still available  on the big river site new and used and other online sellers but like you Jackie I like to keep the libraries open.

They were important to me as a child.  My parents could not have afforded all the then hardback books I read as a child and the library was my haven.

I would always have a book of my own on my birthday and at Christmas and my favourite Auntie would also buy me one at those times.

Things were slightly easier when I had my children and I'd pick up paperbacks during the year and put them away for future gifts.

It has been very sad to see so many lovely libraries close in recent years never to return. We had quite a few in this area. The town centre is beautiful Edwardian and Victorian architecture and the main library was nearly as lovely as my beloved Picton.

When the cuts came the council closed that saying it would be relocated . it was to our local arts centre and the first time we visited proved to be a few measly book shelves stuck in a corner with old books I remembered from years back.

Lots of tech everywhere but couldn't be called a library.

They closed all but that over the years when we originally had six scattered around the various villages. There was a little one in the next village I'd walk the children to to change their books after school small but good and we used to take the pupils there in school hours. That was knocked down and never replaced.

I think such things have robbed a lot of children of the things earlier generations had available. Learning to be quiet was a life skill if you were in a library. No running around but behave yourself.

All the gadgets in the world can't replace that.

It's lovely to come across fellow lovers of libraries here. My username is from Pollyanna Whittier the little girl who always played the glad game. My beloved dad nicknamed me that after I got the book as a present and decided to be Pollyanna. There have been times in life I've had to dig deep to play the glad game but it's served me well through the years and when I joined MSE after lurking for years it was the name that came to mind.

pollyx

ETA I forgot to mention among other honours Helen was granted an honory doctorate from Liverpool University some years ago. Not bad for a young girl who'd tied her dirty, greasy hair in a shoelace and set off to climb the steps to night school and an education.