Learning to Tie a Bow

Sarah Hampton

Description

The events of 1939 change Julia's life. Passions, loyalties and misunderstandings divert her down unexpected paths as she moves from childish innocence to adulthood against a backdrop of momentous political and social change. It is only in old age that she returns to her roots and discovers her true self. This is is a haunting tale of constancy against the odds in an unstable world. "It is evident from her writing that Sarah Hampton has led a full and adventurous life, and still does. That she is in her eighties makes the publication of her first novel an even more impressive achievement, and I applaud the fact that she is still pursuing her dreams and ambitions. Sarah Hampton is living proof of the joys of old age, writing and, most importantly, the research possibilities provided by a decent broadband Internet connection! I hope others will be inspired to emulate her." Rory Stewart, MP for Penrith and The Border.

Informations

• Publié par: 2QT Limited (Publishing
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910077412
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

LEARNING TO TIE A BOW


Sarah Hampton





2QT Limited (Publishing)

First ebook edition published 2012
2QT Limited (Publishing)
Settle North Yorkshire UK
ISBN 9781910077412
www.2qt.co.uk


Copyright © 2012 Sarah Hampton. All rights reserved.
The right of Sarah Hampton to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This ebook is sold subject to the condition that no part of this ebook is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

Cover design - Hilary Pitt

Images supplied by Shutterstock.com

Learning to Tie A Bow is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.


Paperback Edition - ISBN 978-1-908098-48-1



For Alex, Issy, Philip and John




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


My gratitude to Gwenda and Steve Matthews for introducing me to John Murray; without his encouragement I may never have written this book. My thanks to Lesley Atkinson who has patiently dealt with my IT problems. To the kind helpful team at 2QT, to Zoe Dawes and Karen Holmes for their indispensable editorial guidance.

Most of all, thanks to my husband and family for their unfailing support.


POEM

I am not what you see,
a rough-barked tree, roots too deeply buried,
trunk split
life pierced
bent
shaped by a wind in axial time,
gnarled,
pumping still a weary sap through risen purple veins
silver lichen crowned

I am a sapling still,
spring leafed supple
swaying in a gentler breeze
bending to winds that change
yielding to a different rhythm

A whip late planted,
slipped into a spade’s crevice
heeled down by man,
filling the space of one early withered
to sprout again through shell hard husk
shouting faith



Chapter one

T he post was late that day. Julia finished the outdoor chores, feeding and checking the remaining livestock, and sat down at the kitchen table for her guilty mid-morning whisky. However often the children and grandchildren mentioned sheltered accommodation, she was not giving in yet. Initially she did not notice the postcard wedged between the sheets of junk mail which assailed her every morning. How on earth did she get on their lists? Numerous girlie fashion catalogues, nubile models blatantly reminding her of the passage of time. Canvassing blurb for the European elections, the usual avalanche of profligate bureaucratic edicts from English Nature and Defra, which she never read but kept just in case. She still had an agricultural holding number, was still on Defra’s hit list.
The postcard was one of those dog-eared relics found in cardboard boxes in bric-a-brac shops. ‘The Beach at Sandsend’, a communication from her younger brother, kindly sent, meant to evoke happy shared memories of childhood family holidays. Instead it had unleashed a raw shame, long forgotten.
The vintage sepia photo, a Yorkshire coastal resort, its miles of pristine sand winter empty, captured on film when the river still flowed its original course to the sea, before the storms of 1939 changed its direction and the estuary became a confusion of shallow tributaries. The place where, from the age of six, Julia and her three elder brothers had been taken by their parents in August to join other comfortably-off middle-class families with their minions, entourages of parlourmaids, cooks and nursemaids.
The large red sandstone house was taken for a month, linen not provided, a mini-version of Julia’s real home, requiring the same level of maintenance and domestic help. Mother drove the bull-nosed Morris, number plate BRM 777, her passengers father’s black Labrador, christened Ponto by his previous owner – an unsuitable name for a gun dog, and Buster, a brindled Staffordshire bull terrier, mother’s bitch, plus Nellie the cook and Thelma the housemaid. Marjorie the kitchen maid, who didn’t live in, was not included. Nanny had been tearfully dispensed with when Julia reached the age of seven. Mother, born in an era when passing a driving test was considered unnecessary, drove with total disregard for others, rules of the road interpreted by her as: ‘You either have common sense or you don’t.’
James, her father, drove the follow-up car, a square, dark maroon Rover, with the children. Crossing the North Yorkshire Moors, the plum-purple, early emerging sea of heather stretched as far as the eye could see, fleeting glimpses of the real sea between the trees, the edge of Julia’s world. There was the uneasy metallic grind of double declutching, the gnashing of gears reluctant to synchronise with each other at the top of Lythe Bank in readiness for the one-in-five long steep incline down to the coast.
The challenge for cars and drivers was an adventure in itself. Shuddering reliance was placed on brakes, the descent hazardous, the weight of the huge wicker laundry basket containing four weeks’ supply of linen perched precariously on the grid, taking over the steering wheel, making the car unstable and Julia anxious. She always wanted to get out and walk, give the excuse that her bare legs were hot and sweaty and needed a break from the burning heat of the sticky leather seat and the squabbling of her brothers, but that might have been seen as chicken. Julia’s mistrust of anything mechanical had tormented her for the past eighty years.
Julia loved Nellie and Thelma ‘Live in, all found, 12/6d a week.’ They were her equals, surrogate sisters, her confidantes, dependable; they didn’t tell tales. In their early teens, they had come into domestic service straight from school, contemporaries of her eldest brother David, worldly-wise, with authority and responsibilities beyond their years. Nellie was short, plain and shy, kirby grips attaching listless straight hair to her cook’s hat, a purposely hidden smile which, when allowed expression, lit up her eyes and exposed a mouth of rotten teeth. Mother had insisted upon a visit to the dentist. Thelma, flighty, attractive, happy-go-lucky, full of fun, glancing in mirrors to titivate and preen, her predisposition to underarm perspiration leaving dark stains on her maroon afternoon uniform, taking the eye away from the crisp white apron, collar and cuffs and lacy headdress. Thelma, the purveyor of naughty, not understood songs and jokes. Mother explained the significance of Thelma’s version of ‘Hark the herald angels sing, Mrs Simpson stole our King’ during the abdication crisis of 1936; Julia kept quiet about other songs, mainly about bodily functions.
Mother was known in the neighbourhood as a good employer, a just disciplinarian with a reputation for not expecting anyone to do a job which she was unprepared to do herself. Local fourteen-year-old school leavers and their mothers lined up in the hall to be interviewed for any job going, counting themselves lucky to have seen the advertisement in the newspaper. They were chosen because Mother knew what she would make of them, teaching them how to cook or run a home; her two priorities that they were cheery and had common sense; sullen looks were dismissed. The interviews took place in the large oval dining room with its confusion of doors, a trap for the less observant. Leaving by the wrong door once, Mother put down to nerves; make the same mistake twice and it was goodbye.
To be taken on at the big house was a good apprenticeship and training for life, staying warm and well fed in a happy home. Local farmers’ sons, looking for a capable, hard-working wife, kept their eyes open and Mother had to restrict followers to weekends.
Julia and Nellie were pupils together in the kitchen, taught how to skin, joint and cook rabbits, the boys shooting for the pot, excellent marksmen with their 4.10s by the age of ten, bringing a constant supply of warm rabbit seething with fleas to be dealt with in the kitchen by the novice cooks.
Decapitate the rabbit with a cleaver, both having a go, missing and giggling until confidence overcame squeamishness and the look in the rabbit’s eyes less reproachful. Cut off the legs, slit the tough furred belly and undress the smelly reality beneath, pull off the pelt, like taking off a tight-fitting glove inside out, reveal the shot-peppered flesh beneath, only the hind legs and tail still attached, then the final tug. The carcass simmering with home-made stock, nutmeg and an Oxo cube until the tender flesh fell away, leaving a multitude of pellets, hazardous fragmented rapier bones and a delicious smell.
As preparations for that annual pilgrimage to the seaside began to disrupt everyday routine, Julia’s excitement did not match that of her brothers. She had no need to exchange the private happiness of her rural childhood for a large expanse of sand amongst strangers and rainy cold days, confined in unfamiliar surroundings. She was content with her own company, happiest alone with her imagination, a blessing which had accompanied her into old age. The only companionship and friendship she sought, other than that of her brothers, was her Exmoor pony, Betty, her warm velvety muzzle against her cheek a substitute for mother’s physical aloofness.
As a child Julia hadn’t been good at humans, hated children’