Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue (29 page)

The arrival of the gypsies seemed part of the unreality of that summer. One weekend, the publican's field was empty, the next, it contained two gypsy wagons, proper old-fashioned vardos, with canvas stretched over their circular frames and puthers of smoke rising from tin chimneys. Two horses grazed nearby, while a dark patch on the ground showed the remains of a recent fire. It was a proper gypsy encampment. Dick knew all about it. Mr Simms had given them permission to camp in his field.

My mum knew gypsies from her storybooks and songs. She also knew Gypsy Smith, an ancient Romany who called at the corner shop for the bacon bits and cheese parings Betsy and Eva would otherwise have thrown away, and for tobacco shavings which she tamped into a long clay pipe. On Gypsy Smith's death, Romanies cames from miles around to attend her funeral.

Romany camps and lone wagons were still relatively common
sights during Cora's childhood. She grew up with a fascination for gypsy ways. In part, this came from her grandparents, Dick and Betsy, but also from the people she met.

Over the coming months, Cora saw the gypsy family most weekends. Its matriarch, an elderly Romany my mum knew as ‘Grandma', dressed in black from head to foot. Her lined face suggested a thousand stories which she seemed to be recalling while sitting on the topmost step of the farthest wagon, looking out towards Bluebank Wood. The younger woman was so slim and fragile-looking you would think a gust of wind would knock her down, but even in the harshest weather (the family stayed until the following spring), she knelt outside to bathe her little boy; up to her elbows in soapy water, bare arms exposed to the cold. Her son had a nursery-rhyme name, Johnny Shafto, which suited his rosy cheeks and thick, dark hair. Finally, there was Bud, ‘Uncle Bud' to Cora, a tall, imposing man with a weathered face. Bud's hair shone like the darkest jet: hedgehog oil was the secret, he told Cora. Whenever he found a dead hedgehog at the roadside, he brought the animal home and baked it on the fire, before draining the carcass of its oil. Far better than any shop-bought potion, Bud assured her, showing Cora his current jar.

The family said hello if she passed them in Station Road, but mostly kept themselves to themselves. Years of suspicion had made them wary, no doubt, though no hostility was expressed within my mum's hearing. The Great Central Hotel supplied the family with water, which Bud and the younger woman carried to the field in heavy flagons. Betsy and Eva saved the remnants of pressed meat, heels of cheese and similar trimmings they had once donated to Gypsy Smith. The family also ate rook pies, courtesy of Dick's wood.

Bud was the exception to my great-grandfather's rule. In all the years he owned the land, Bud was only person outside the family whom Dick allowed to enter the wood by himself, and the only man he gave permission to shoot there. He always spoke of Bud and his family with immense respect and concern for their welfare. I hardly need to invent gypsy origins for Dick: he contributed to the mythology himself.

The gypsies returned the following year and, towards the end of their stay, invited my family to visit their wagons. Betsy and Cora went first, and then Dick and Eva, so there would always be someone minding the shop. (Annie was Providenting, as usual.) Conscious of the honour bestowed upon them, they walked very carefully up the steps. Inside, all was polished brasses, patterned rugs, cushions and soft chairs (the softness of the chairs a particularly memorable feature, compared with Betsy's horsehair sofa). To my mum's delight, their wagons were every bit as colourful and comfortable as anything described in
Mr Galliano's Circus
.

A further occasion to see gypsies – or the promise of them, at least – was the annual Feast on Stand Road. This was an early-evening excursion for Eva and Cora; Annie disliked fairgrounds and Willie preferred to visit after the pub. (Pub or no, he was a crack shot with a wooden ball and nearly always brought home a coconut.)

If Cora hovered near the edge of the fair, tiptoeing as close to the caravans as she dare – hardly close at all, though it felt dangerously close to her – she might, just might, spot a gypsy. The half-light rarely revealed anyone, but there was never anything disappointing about the Feast. A bombardment of noise and excitement, swingboats flashing colour out of darkness, raucous voices adding to and clashing with the hum of generators and the
medley of fairground tunes. Penny rides and penny fortunes, merry-go-rounds and helter-skelters, a whirl of noise and gaudy paintwork, the smell of sweat jostling with that of spun sugar, frying onions and sixpenny scent.

Some Feasts had sideshows; one year, a flea circus, a pitiful attraction in which fleas the size of house flies navigated miniature bridges and other obstacles placed in their path, and walked round and round an oversize table. Larger crowds (no less curious than their nineteenth-century cohorts) queued to see the Freak Show, approached via a walkway raised like a gangplank, but with handrails. Two pelicans, snapping sentries, stood either side of the entrance; one sharp beak clipped my mum when she and Eva reached the tent. A further rope penned them, forcing all spectators along a narrow path designed to channel their excitement for what lay ahead. A waif-like girl with a delicate face and long fair hair sat waiting in a white muslin gown with a blue sash. Her sleeveless dress revealed that she had tiny hands and fingers, but no arms; a tiny silver wristwatch emphasised the delicacy of her tiny wrist. The crowd slowed down to stare, examining her on all sides and from all angles, before disappearing into the night to get their money's worth on something else. The poor girl remained there, roped off, marooned in the middle of the tent.

Popular children's hairstyles of the day were the pudding-basin haircut or the bob with a side parting, and strands of hair caught up in a slide or bow (the bow half-mast come playtime). My grandma favoured neither style for Cora. She took her lead from Royalty.

You could follow the lives of the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose in newspapers and women's magazines. The first
royals to truly grow up in the eye of the press, they were snapped whenever possible and fed to an eager public whose fascination with the little royals (and girls too, how charming) meant their lives, clothing and hairstyles were well documented.
Modern Home
promised ‘Princess Elizabeth's Life Story';
Home Chat
invited you to save coupons for a child's cut-out frock ‘like Princess Elizabeth wears'.

The Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose wore their hair slightly longer than the fashion and it curled in natural waves. My mum wore her hair slightly longer too, and she had curls, soft ringlets, although hers had to be created overnight. No matter how tired she and Annie were, Cora's hair was dampened and twisted on to the cotton rags she slept in to produce loose ringlets the next day. Cora enjoyed the effect as much as Annie. She also wore her hair in a fringe, a style favoured by some of the toffs, and which was, I suppose, entirely appropriate for a child chosen by Princess Alice.

My grandma's generation was steeped in pageantry and flag-waving. Born in an age of deference, Annie was drilled in the Kings and Queens of England, and taught them in her turn (a parting gift from one grateful school was a history of the monarchy, bound in suede – purple suede, of course). Royalty always fascinated her. Deference informed my mum's childhood too. Her infant years were chequered with school holidays for royal occasions. School closed for royal weddings (and George V's funeral); pupils regularly saluted the flag. A whole week's timetable was given over to the 1935 Silver Jubilee, with a day off for the actual event. Annie and Eva both ordered Jubilee picture books (one between two households wouldn't do).

Buoyed up by this general enthusiasm, Willie bought a Silver
Jubilee flag, not a little tu'penny-ha'penny flag to wave in a deferential gesture, but a large Union Jack which he hoisted outside the landing window. If he thought to curry favour with Annie, it was another poorly judged scheme. Annie had better uses for a shilling and no desire to make a show of the house.

Even more elaborate celebrations were planned when, in 1937, the Duke of York ascended the throne. The Coronation medal Cora received at school was as nothing compared with the cut-out Coronation game Annie bought her, complete with crown and sceptre, liveried footmen, carriage and courtiers, not to mention tiny cardboard princesses. It was all such a relief after Edward (another topic for Sunday afternoon debate: the family loved Edward because he talked to the Derbyshire miners and was a
friend of the common man, but – that woman! While Annie and Eva discussed the Abdication, Cora drew a picture of a figure with corrugated hair and wrote underneath it: The Woman He Loved.)

Chesterfield fêted the new king and queen with bunting, banners and streamers. Flags flew from the roof of Eyre & Son's; Woodhead's Grocer and Café (which could always be relied on for decorum) favoured window boxes with red rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas and marguerites. Eva's
Coronation Souvenir Book
, with its bright gold boards and colour images (plus a surprisingly cordial press for Wallis Simpson), was far superior to her Silver Jubilee volume. The
Daily Sketch
promised Annie the Best Royal Pictures Ever (one penny).

But it rained like the devil on Saturday, 12 May. By lunchtime, Chesterfield's High Street was a vision of soggy bunting and drooping flags. The town's main celebrations were deferred for a week, but numerous children's teas went ahead, including the one Cora attended at Wheeldon Mill, a squall of sticky buns and weak orange squash in the hangar owned by local businessman Joe Pass.

All manner of children's treats took place during my mum's childhood; countless buns were consumed at trestle tables and sack races run, with a colliery band oomphing in the background, but the most memorable, as far as Cora was concerned, was organised by the
Derbyshire Times
.

On alternate years, the
Derbyshire Times
provided a Christmas Treat for the children of Chesterfield's unemployed, and made an appeal for donations. Benefactors' names were printed in the paper; in 1936, the proprietors kicked things off with £10. All surplus money supported a fund which, since its inception, had provided nearly 10,000 pairs of boots for the borough's poor and destitute
children. While weighing up their charitable instincts at the breakfast table, readers could turn the page and observe those with far deeper pockets than themselves: the Marquess of Tweeddale, the Viscountess Massereene and others of their party, photographed shooting in Derbyshire's Alfreton Park.

The ‘ladies of Chesterfield' dressed more than 800 dolls for that year's Treat, which were put on general display before being distributed. The 2,300 children invited to the event (which included the children of widows) necessitated parties on two consecutive afternoons.

My mum was entertained by Punch and Judy, conjuring tricks and knockabout clowns. There were sweets as well as cakes for tea; a tinsel headdress for each girl and paper caps for the boys, but the whole thing was quite overwhelming. A thousand-plus children enjoying themselves in a cavernous hall make a terrific din. Cora's chief memory was of the community singing and of the helper pointing out each phrase on a vast scroll of paper, panto mime style. Though she did not know ‘It's a Sin to Tell a Lie' (someone's idea of combining a moral lesson with a party song?) when she arrived at the Treat, she was word-perfect by the time she left. My mum was one of the girls who received a doll (other gifts included pencil cases, books and tea sets), a pretty blonde doll in pale pink net. She swapped her for a dark-haired doll in a silver lamé jacket, which at least looked a bit more like her.