Families

Preface: if you came from a ‘bad’ family or had no family at all please accept my deepest condolences.

But I did come from a ‘good’ family, NOT perfect but reasonably good! Back in those days I lived in close proximity to maternal and paternal grandparents and took it for granted – what a rare gift perhaps now?

But as “progress” marched on, as they say, so those family bonds stretched and finally severed. I left home at 18 [late by modern times] to find my fortunes and moved away from families – 200 miles away – I am now thousands of miles away! But I digress:

I married and visited family a few times a year often at Xmas time which was good. An old aunt, the sister of my fathers’ mother travelled alone in her 70’s by bus to spend 2 weeks holiday with me and my family – I don’t think she asked; just said she was coming!  That was the last time I saw her ever.

I never attended any grandparent funerals. Finally I took the big leap of faith [ha ha] and left the country twice – once for a trial run and secondly for good to OZ. I have attempted to keep in touch with as many ‘old country’ family members as is possible but this has dwindled down to none! But I am fortunate to have a son and his family only 2 hrs car drive away – a drop in the ocean out here and a daughter a 2 hr flight away – another ocean drop.

The point I am coming to in my old rambling way is what I now realize is the value of families – I see it played out on TV each day in war torn Syria and Iraq – the stories of broken and lost families taken by ideologies and hate – the drowned children off the Italian coastline, as they almost make it in their overcrowded rubber dinghies.

The family unit must be one of the strongest if not the strongest unit of humankind and yet can be cast aside so easily without much thought.

As I sit typing and contemplating I now regret casting aside my own family relationships – relationships that could have and should have been nurtured frequently and constantly forever! And now of course there can be no going back – once gone – gone forever!

We were a very 'nuclear' family Davo. Just me, my mom and my dad. Although both my parents had a sibling, neither of them had children so I don't even have cousins. Up until I was 12 we visited the grandparents only during school holidays. I spent a couple of after Christmas holidays at my maternal granddad's farm in Norfolk and we also visited (but I don't remember staying over) my paternal grand dad's in Chelsea where he was custodian of a poish block of flats inhabited mostly by diplomatic staff from several embassies. He was a retired London Met copper and was very honest and  caring but rather humourless.  My dad was also a London Met policeman until he managed to get into the navy about 1941. It wasn't easy to swap during the war because the police were in effect part of the war effort. Hitler eventually gave up trying to hit mom and I with V1 and later V2's and then dad put in for an overseas posting to Bermuda where we spent 2 years then nearly a year in New York before returning to the UK where dad was based at Harwich in the Reserve Fleet ship HMS Tyne. During this time I went to a boarding school in Colchester and only came home at weekends. Dad was absolutely bored out of his brain on Tyne! He reckoned it was aground on gin bottles, so he proceeded to apply for overseas posts and New Zealand came up and here we are still, well I am but there's nobody else left. Only my kids ! The grandparents popped off within 3 years of us leaving except for maternal granny who came here in 1955 with my uncle who remained a bachelor all his life.

interesting story CM  I have a mate living in a posh block of flats around Chelsea which once sported its own swimming pool and cafe - you can't remember what it might have been called back then can you?

davo

It was called Meriden Court, Davo.

thanks for that CM will check it out with me mate