Motherhood has changed. While doing some background reading
for my next novel, I came across Alan Garner’s memoir of a wartime childhood, Where Shall We Run To? and this charming
(!) recollection of his parents’ routine:
My father finished
work at dinnertime on Saturday each week. And after dinner he nearly always
went to watch football in Manchester. Then he came back for his tea, washed and
shaved, put on his suit and went to the pub. Then he came home, went to bed and
slept until dinnertime on Sunday.
On Sunday morning my
mother got up and cooked the Sunday dinner. She roasted a joint of beef with
potatoes in the oven, and she boiled more potatoes, and cabbage and carrots and
Brussels sprouts. And she made gravy and Yorkshire pudding, and a rice pudding
with a brown skin on top.
Twenty minutes before
dinner was ready, my mother knocked on the beam below the ceiling with the
handle of the carving knife and my father thumped back on the bedroom floor
with his foot. My mother served the plates to the table, which had a clean
white cloth on it, and my father came downstairs, sat in his chair and ate his
dinner. He mixed the rice pudding with the gravy and it looked horrible. I sat
with him and had bread and jam, and my mother sat on the arm of a chair by the
fire with her plate on her knee. No one talked.
After dinner, my
father read the News of the World in his easy chair by the fire and went to
sleep until teatime. My mother cleared the table, took off the white tablecloth
and put on the blue sateen one with tassels, and washed up the dirty pans and
dishes. Then she went to bed to lie down, and I read my comics because I wasn’t
allowed to play out on a Sunday.
After tea my father
went to the pub and my mother and I listened to the wireless and played cards.
Whatever we’re doing this Mother’s Day, I hope it is less
exhausting than this and that there will be absolutely no mixing of gravy and rice
pudding.
 |
| Rice pudding, without gravy. |
