Well, I'll never know now but to say I'm upset, disappointed and yes, angry with my Mum, wouldn't be an understatement. No matter how well you think you know somebody there's always something that is a mystery and makes you realise that perhaps you never really knew them at all.
Mum was always very 'proper' and houseproud with everything having it's place and the house was always really neat and tidy so the first thing that surprised me was with what she'd 'collected' (said very tongue in cheek). I always knew that she had an awful lot of clothes in various sizes (stored immaculately and a lot were under suit & dress covers) so that didn't come as a surprise at all but I've been trying to figure out, ever since I went through the house for Dad, why she would have wanted 23 rolls of bin bags (dustbin bags, pedal bin bags, swing bin bags, rubble bags, wheelie bin bags etc. etc.). Then there was the collection of freezer bags, sandwich bags, greaseproof bags, chewing gum, toothpaste (several opened tubes and squirreled away in odd places), toothbrushes (ditto), balls of string & twine (a dozen or more of them)...... breathe ..... telephones (every one they've ever owned by the look of it), washing up bowls, wooden spoons (more than anyone could ever need in a lifetime), hooks (screw-ins, stick-ons, suckers, big, small, indifferent) and so the list goes on. Puts a new slant on the 'My Favourite Things' song that was one of our choices at her funeral - lol!! but .........
........ all that makes it even harder to understand and, I guess, doesn't help my disappointment/upset/anger - whatever you want to call it - in finding that she'd destroyed most of the photographic family history! I've been waiting to tell Dad's story because I knew there was a photo of him in his Army tropical kit, taken from the time he served in India during WWII. I thought it would make a lovely illustration to go with his story and it would have done (especially as there's a little story about that photo as well), if it still existed but it doesn't! It's gone, disappeared, vanished ............ destroyed! It's not the only photo that no longer exists either. There are less than a dozen photo's left that were taken before 1950 and there is only one that was taken before 1940 (one of my great-grandparents). I've found only one photo of my paternal grandparents (looks as though it was kept as the token photo and taken in 1963). There are no photo's of me and my brother through our teenage years, with the exception of a few of me taken in my NTC* uniform- it's as though we didn't exist after the age of around 10. I know there were photo's of us 'cos I remember one that I loved of me at around the age of 14 - in my first 'grown-up' shoes and looking all 'mod' (well, I thought I did at the time). There's a few of my maternal grandmother and a couple of my uncle but my maternal grandfather has been cut out completely, other than in Mum & Dad's wedding photo's. Mum disowned Grandad a year after my Nan died and never made up with him before his death 4 years later so - he didn't exist! There are, however, loads of photo's from the birth of my eldest and onwards - most of which I've got already 'cos it was mainly me that supplied them - lol!
Why did she do it? I have no idea and, as said, will now never know although, I have my theories ....
Thanks for dropping by .....
* NTC = Nautical Training Corps ... which I belonged to from the age of 8 to 19
Mum was always very 'proper' and houseproud with everything having it's place and the house was always really neat and tidy so the first thing that surprised me was with what she'd 'collected' (said very tongue in cheek). I always knew that she had an awful lot of clothes in various sizes (stored immaculately and a lot were under suit & dress covers) so that didn't come as a surprise at all but I've been trying to figure out, ever since I went through the house for Dad, why she would have wanted 23 rolls of bin bags (dustbin bags, pedal bin bags, swing bin bags, rubble bags, wheelie bin bags etc. etc.). Then there was the collection of freezer bags, sandwich bags, greaseproof bags, chewing gum, toothpaste (several opened tubes and squirreled away in odd places), toothbrushes (ditto), balls of string & twine (a dozen or more of them)...... breathe ..... telephones (every one they've ever owned by the look of it), washing up bowls, wooden spoons (more than anyone could ever need in a lifetime), hooks (screw-ins, stick-ons, suckers, big, small, indifferent) and so the list goes on. Puts a new slant on the 'My Favourite Things' song that was one of our choices at her funeral - lol!! but .........
........ all that makes it even harder to understand and, I guess, doesn't help my disappointment/upset/anger - whatever you want to call it - in finding that she'd destroyed most of the photographic family history! I've been waiting to tell Dad's story because I knew there was a photo of him in his Army tropical kit, taken from the time he served in India during WWII. I thought it would make a lovely illustration to go with his story and it would have done (especially as there's a little story about that photo as well), if it still existed but it doesn't! It's gone, disappeared, vanished ............ destroyed! It's not the only photo that no longer exists either. There are less than a dozen photo's left that were taken before 1950 and there is only one that was taken before 1940 (one of my great-grandparents). I've found only one photo of my paternal grandparents (looks as though it was kept as the token photo and taken in 1963). There are no photo's of me and my brother through our teenage years, with the exception of a few of me taken in my NTC* uniform- it's as though we didn't exist after the age of around 10. I know there were photo's of us 'cos I remember one that I loved of me at around the age of 14 - in my first 'grown-up' shoes and looking all 'mod' (well, I thought I did at the time). There's a few of my maternal grandmother and a couple of my uncle but my maternal grandfather has been cut out completely, other than in Mum & Dad's wedding photo's. Mum disowned Grandad a year after my Nan died and never made up with him before his death 4 years later so - he didn't exist! There are, however, loads of photo's from the birth of my eldest and onwards - most of which I've got already 'cos it was mainly me that supplied them - lol!
Why did she do it? I have no idea and, as said, will now never know although, I have my theories ....
Thanks for dropping by .....
* NTC = Nautical Training Corps ... which I belonged to from the age of 8 to 19
2 comments:
I can fully understand your anger and disappointment there Pam. I have similar questions regarding my dad now and its horrible having questions and they`re not around any more to answer them x
Can sympathize with you Pam my mum did a similar thing with a lot of old photos that I would have loved to have had. Her and my dad moved quite a few times in their latter years so can only think they got lost or was thrown out by mistake. I started, a few months back, a family history and lots of questions have come up but now they are not around to answer them. Sad and frustrating. x
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