It looks as if my family was having a good time before I arrived. They were out and about and enjoying life and being no more grown up than today’s group selfie posers, with their “careless” posing amongst the bracken

That’s not to say that they didn’t go in for more formal photos…..

I’ll have more to say about the Fordhams and Falkinghams the next time I post some family photographs.

Today I heard of the death of the oldest man in the United States. He was 112 years old.  Today is also my father’s birthday. He would have been 111 years old but, sadly, he died in 1956 aged only 49.

I’ve decided that I would take a look back to the days when he and my mother were a young couple “courting”. I realised that I’ve never looked at these photos in that light. I just remember my parents as busy people looking after our shop and keeping my grandma and I entertained. They met in the mid 1920s, when he was 17 and my mum was a mature lady of 19. They were introduced by my father’s friend Pat (who wasn’t a postman but a printer from Ireland), whose girlfriend at the  time was my mum’s sister, Jessie.

• 

• 

I’m not sure that the “Plus 4” was ever a great fashion statement but my father was seemingly besotted as he was still wearing them when I was a little girl in the 1950s! Happy Birthday Dad!!

And here are my parents as I have never really thought of them before, young and in love!

Dad’s older sister, Doris, was married to a merchant seaman and I know that she regularly accompanied him, so I think this must have been one occasion when mum and dad went to meet them when they were berthed somewhere on the east coast.

I’m so pleased that I found these photos of Mum and her sister, Jessie, as I never met Jessie. She died in 1939 aged only 35, from breast cancer, I believe. If so, she was the first of the four sisters who all died from this awful disease. I wish I had known Jessie because, from the number of photos I have seen of them together, it looks as if she and my mother were close. They were certainly close in age, with only about a year between them.

When I checked the 1911 census, the older sisters, Emmie, aged 20 (Mum’s half sister from my grandmother’s first marriage) and Bessie aged 15 were both working as weavers. I know that Mum and her other sister, Violet (born 1901) also worked in a mill prior to their marriages.

Sarah and Louise – can you see a family likeness between Mum, me and the two of you? I can!

I am getting such a lot of pleasure from looking through these photos and studying the faces of my family more closely than I usually do. It is almost Christmas and today the whole family, plus my cousin, Susan’s family will be gathering at my house for tea. The people who won’t be seeing each other on Christmas Day will be exchanging presents. (I hope that we are allowed to keep them for opening on Christmas morning!) I will be looking at my children and mentally comparing them to the photos.

Unlike Dad, I have no photos of Mum when she was a baby or small girl. This is the earliest one I can find of her. She is standing outside the house in Eccleshill which became so familiar to me when we visited her sisters every week. A two-bedroomed house with no bathroom (the lavatory was at the bottom of the garden), the whole family, except possibly Bessie, who may have already been married, must have lived here. That is grandma, grandpa plus Mum and three sisters!

So, if you haven’t read my posts on 16 and 20 September, where I introduced my parents, this is Phyllis Annie Fordham, born 21 August 1905, the youngest of four sisters.

As far as I was concerned, she had all the qualities that a great mother should have; kind, gentle, supportive and very diplomatic. She had great inner strength and I aspired to be like her. There was just a short time, after my father died, when she became very ill (due in part to having to deal with the sale of our shop, I’m sure) and had to be cared for by my auntie.  But when she was becoming very weak as her cancer returned, she showed such a determination to carry on as normal. I once saw her appear round a corner after she had walked into Bingley and back. She straightened her body and put a smile on her face before coming into the house. It’s hardly surprising, then, that when our doctor said to me, “She’s going to die soon, you know”, I found it hard to believe!

She was my guide until I was almost 21 and I so regret that she was not there for all the wonderful times, the hard times and just every day when I became a woman myself. I wish she had met her son-in-law and her grandchildren. They would have adored her and she would have adored them.

Oh, and her lovely smile, of course. That’s where I get it from!

But it is! This is my dad, John Cuthbert Falkingham, born 28 December 1907. He was my grandparents’ only child, but had 3 older half siblings. Auntie Dodo said that she just came home from work one day, aged 15, and “the baby” was there! There had been no discussion about my dad’s imminent arrival.

He’s dressed in the gender neutral (or is it girls’?) clothing, typical of the time. He looks about 2-3 years of age I think.

He’s obviously a bit older here. Perhaps this is where his love of cars started!

And finally, here he is riding the penny-farthing which I remember was often a feature in one of our shop windows. It looks like he was riding on the cobbled street which ran down the side of the shop.

I never saw him riding it myself but, instead, I used to love it when the “stick-man” was put in the saddle and the power switched on so that it looked like he was pedalling.

I can see you, Jonny, in his face

I’ve been looking through my family photographs, newly liberated from my loft. So I’m going back to the start of my story to put some faces to the people I’ve been talking about.

This is the only photograph of my paternal great-grandfather, James Bradley Johnson (1831 – 1907). He was a headteacher at a primary school in Bradford. I think he must be surrounded by his teaching staff here and that the young woman on the far left of the back row may be my grandmother. Unfortunately hers is one of the faces which is very unclear.

Here she is again, much later in life, with my grandfather. Although her face is still not perfectly clear, I see the “family face” and where my two aunts got it from. I hope I will find some clearer photos of her soon.

Today, children, it is 50 years since I met your father. So it’s a very important day for all of us!

Richard and his friend had planned to go out with every girl who worked in the Bradford Central Library. I was Richard’s second girl. Enough said!

These are the earliest photos I can find of the two of us in the months after we met; probably in the spring of 1969. We just didn’t take so many photos in those days (no selfies!).

Anyway, it’s not yet time for more about the two of us, I have four more years of teenage angst to tell you about!

Arriving by air in Paris in the summer of 1964, I was met by Françoise, whose first word to me was “Goodbye”. I said “Hello” and we became firm friends.

Françoise and I had been penfriends for around two years when she invited me to go and visit her. Well, this caused a frenzy at home. I wanted to go so much but was worried about how much it would cost. Mum thought that I wouldn’t cope with going so far away from home, as I had never been anywhere on my own (not even a school trip). I found out many years later that my auntie had persuaded mum to let me go. I offered to contribute my pocket money of 6/- (30p) per week but was told that was not necessary. Mum insisted that I flew, as that would provide less chance of getting lost! There were no direct flights from Leeds/Bradford to Paris, so I still had to circumnavigate Heathrow. I had a suitcase which was almost as big as me!

Françoise guided us from the airport to the Gare de l’Est and onward to Troyes where her father was waiting for us. Very few details remain of the journey but I do remember that we were turned out of second class into third class on the train and that, trying out my schoolgirl French, I told her father that I had a 65 year-old cat (he was actually 15)!

We arrived at their house in a tiny village called Balnot la Grange and I sat down for dinner with grandmother, mum and dad, Françoise, her brother, little sister and cousin (who was her dad’s apprentice). We had yoghurt! It was so different from our little group of three at home, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Theirs was a big house but without an inside toilet or an inside staircase. There was large yard and Françoise’ dad had his workshop at one side. He was a craftsman in metalwork of all types. Françoise’ mum ran a shop from her kitchen and provided a telephone which most of the village used. People called in on and off all day to use the phone or buy cigarettes and sweets. Across the road was a long garden which ran all the way down to a stream.

It was hot. Even in the north of France it was consistently warmer than in the north of England. We wandered around the village, cycled and just enjoyed the sunshine but I was terribly homesick! We didn’t have a phone at home and the only way to get in touch was to write, so I sent mum a postcard telling her how homesick I was. It confirmed all her fears!

At the weekend we went out with the whole family for a picnic. I’d never seen anything like it! No tired sandwiches and a few buns for the Hugerots; we sat down at a table for a full meal. We had other trips, including the “village day out” by coach to Fontainebleau. By the time Françoise and one of her schoolfriends delivered me back to the airport, I was able to declare that I had a new family here in the heart of France. And I had developed a passion for yoghurt and crusty bread.

And, above all, during the trip to Fontainebleau, I invited Françoise to visit us in Bingley next summer.

Next time….. Photographs. I can’t wait to start looking through them to see who I shall find.

I always seem to start my Christmas letter with “20whatever has been a year of ups and downs”. Well, 1964 certainly was one of those.

I’d had my 17th birthday in January and been given my Beatles album. I’m pretty sure I could listen to it in my own bedroom. After sharing a room (and a bed) with mum for several years after our move to Bingley, I was desperate for a place of my own. Eventually, I admitted how miserable I was about this and mum managed to find sufficient money to make half the attic into a bedroom. I loved it. It was perishing in the winter and like an oven in the summer but it was the first time I had space of my own.

Academically things were not going too well. My three ‘A’ level subjects had gone down to two (biology instead of botany and zoology) but I still wasn’t on top of them. Some of my classmates were aiming for university and some were aiming for teacher training (3 years but no degree at the end). I wanted to be a librarian and I wanted to go to a library school. There was one in Leeds but I applied and didn’t get in. I didn’t want to go away because I didn’t want to leave mum (or maybe I just didn’t have the bottle to go away from home!)

I had great friends at school. We had good times during the school day and we loved to go walking during the holidays – across Ilkley Moor and the moors around Haworth were two that I remember. Other than that I didn’t have much of a social life. I went very occasionally to folk concerts but mostly I stayed at home.

But during 1964, something dark came into our lives again. Mum became the third sister to be diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and, I believe, some crude radiotherapy. I can remember going on the bus to see her after school. Still, she seemed to make a good recovery and we were hopeful.

My ‘A’ levels came and went. It was time to leave school. But before I started work I had a most exciting holiday! It was my first visit to France. The first of at least twenty!

I’m going to write about my expedition next time. Afterwards I am going to take some time to search through my collection of photographs.

A kind person who sometimes reads my blog said that she likes my stories but would like to see some photos. So my grandson has been sent up into the loft and has brought down several boxes. They are very disorganised but I hope to be able to piece together an illustration of the story I’ve told so far.

(“That Was The Week That Was”, was one of the first satirical TV programmes. Starring David Frost, Roy Kinnear, Millicent Martin among others it was one of my favourites. I had thought I would have been watching it in 1964 but, in fact, it ran from 1962-1963. So there you are!)

I blame EltonJohnLewis for this. I’ve been thinking about my interest in music ever since I was whizzed backwards through my lifestory by this Christmas advert. Of course, by the time it was 1963, I had a very definite taste in popular music but this had developed slowly over many years. Grandma had a very definite interest in music. We had a piano at home, although I never remember it being played. I was supposed to learn to play but it never quite happened! We did have a gramophone though; one of the wind-up types with needles you had to change regularly. These things were so far removed from the way we listen to music now that I suppose most people won’t be able to even imagine what it was like. The records (no, they weren’t ,”discs”) were made of shellac; hard and eminently breakable! Our record collection consisted mainly of selections from musical films and shows. My favourite was “Annie Get Your Gun”. I was taken to see this by my dad, when I was very small. I’m not sure whether this was a show at The Alhambra theatre in Bradford or the 1950 film. I’ve recently bought (and downloaded) the soundtrack and find I can sing along with almost every song! I can also join in with the theme tune of “Desert Island Discs”, another of my favourites. I’m embarrassed to say that my cousin and I created a “dance experience” to this tune, which we imposed on any visitor who would stand still. Grandma loved Mario Lanza and Richard Tauber, so I was treated to their records too. There was a lot of singing along together, especially grandma and I. Anyway, over the years, our collection progressed to include some popular music. The records were still made of shellac when my mother stepped out of the shop with a record by Tommy Steele, whose title was “Butterfingers”. It smashed to pieces! Around this time, vinyl records started to appear in the shops. They required new equipment and we bought a small record player come radio which would play the new 45rpm singles and then the 33rpm LPs. (I should say that we had already upgraded our windup gramophone to an electric one). Our favourites included Adam Faith, Harry Belafonte, Nina and Frederik and Pat Boone. I don’t quite remember when the changeover came but, by 1963, I had moved on to bands that I liked, rather than the singers that we all liked. As 6th formers, we were allowed to bring records to play in the hall at lunchtime. The Beatles were being played more and more and, as has been the way teenage girls for many a year, we began to obsess over them. At the start, Paul was my favourite but, as time went on and I began to realise that he was a bit more edgy, John took over. As 1964 dawned and I turned 17, I was given my first vinyl LP. “Please Please Me”, with a song especially for me, “She Was Just Seventeen”. The era of songs your elders don’t like was really beginning.