Short Stories

Fleeting Memories.
When I have fleeting memories of my Grandmother’s home it always brings a smile to my face. You see, Tunstead House was in our family for more than 300 years and is situated on the foothills of the bleak Yorkshire Moors of England. As a young child my visits to Grandma’s home would be a mixture of fear and trepidation, for she was very strict and it was almost a case of ‘Children are seen and not heard’. This was mingled though with excitement because it was also a place of great adventures both inside and outside. A great place for hide and seek, sometimes one was never found! Let me just say the house was like a museum, not that I was aware of that then, as it was the norm for the houses to have the Victorian look. Now as I remember back, I see it was a museum! Tunstead House was struck in a time warp. It was an 18 roomed house with three /4 levels from basement to attic rooms for servant’s quarters .When I visit museums anyway now and they have Victorian stuff on displayed I smile and say, “My Grandmother had one of those in her house!!!! Bronze Bed Pans and Stone hot water bottles warming our beds!!!! Then there were the Silver topped glass biscuit jars that sat on the side table full of invitingly delicious looking biscuits. Did we raid it, never; we knew all too well they would be soft and musty from being there too long!!! Just like the cereals, the HP sauce, the Ketchup and the jams that came out of the side board and onto the lazy Susan at meal times. I was sure they were the same ones from the previous year’s visit. Then there were the ornate china bowls and jugs beside each bed complete with toiletries, towels on beautiful wooden towel racks and nasty cold water filled the Jugs .Where we really expected to wash ourselves with that? Yes, we were every mornings! Baths happened at night times. Huge, great deep porcelain baths. The chamber pot sat beneath the mahogany wash table just quietly waiting, ready for use, if needed, during the hours of darkness. I was inclined to make sure I made it through until all shadows of the night faded away then make the mad dash down the length of the hallway to the throne room up the steps and onto the huge wooden seated, porcelain, flat decked toilet. Followed by the hurried scramble to reach the chain, just out of my reach, flushed the contents away and get out fast but not before stopping at the little basin in the tiny adjacent room to wash hands.
Oh yes, then the morning ritual to make the toast in the kitchen using the two sided toaster. While the kettle on the wood burner stove boiled and a pulley full of laundry hung high above us catching the heat from the stove. It was my job to watch and be quick to flip the toast over before it burnt. Then place it in silver toast racks ready to go through to the dining room.
I remember the early morning cup of tea and plate of biscuits for the postman as he made his rounds on his bike being allowed to sit at the kitchen table on cold wintery mornings. I wandered how much tea and biscuits he must have consumed in a morning. I am sure my grandmother was not the only one to supply him with refreshments.
The hours in the Billiard Room playing all manner of board and card games as this was considered to be the best indoor activity for us. Canasta was our favorite card game despite the fact it was best to let grandmother win if you wanted to stay in her good books!
The house was full of interesting things from a collection of wooden bears that keep me well amused to collections of Edwardian and Victorian class, silver and china ware. Portraits of server looking members of the family adorned the walls. There was one I remember, it was a large painted portrait of my grandfather whom I had not got to know as he had died before I was born. This hung on the wall right opposite where I sat at the meal table which became one of my secret fears. It was indeed a brilliantly painted portrait for his eyes followed you where ever you went in the room. I only had to make a fuss or not behave with proper manners at the meal table and I would get reminded that Grandfather was watching me! I really did not need reminding as I was well aware of the fact he watched me all the time! I have a smaller print of the portrait; it hangs in my lounge right beside the dining table. Now years later I find it quite comforting to have him follow me around.
The fleeting memories that made me fearful were to run the gauntlet at night down the long hallway to the toilet always wandering what might jump out from behind the book cases or from one of the corners! Then there were the ‘dares’ my brother or cousins would dare me to run through the cold store pantry and down the stairs, open the door to the cellar and see how far I would venture in. Not a nice place to be but I was being brave, Then there was the attic. How brave was I then to be able to run up the steep stairs and not only open the attic door, but also the door across the tiny landing to what in past years had been the housemaid’s quarters now a spare bedroom. What would we find in these places considered out of bound to us? This as you can imagine made it all the more necessary to scare ourselves! What would be there? What was behind the doors that we were not to see! Not sure really! Neither room had anything much in it. Still our young imaginations made up all sorts of exciting theories. It was however the outdoor, the ‘Wendy House’ that got most of my attention and the garden shrubbery captured my imagination and gave us hours of fun and games. The Kitchen Garden, what a place that was but then, those are other memories to be told another time.