I was looking forward to catching up with some correspondence, but the ringing phone distracted me.
“Gordon residence,” I sang.
“Brenda Ashford?” came the unfamiliar and serious voice.
“Yes, this is she,” I said quietly, a sinking feeling creeping over me.
“I’m calling from Kingston Hospital. I’m afraid to say your mother, father, and sister have been in a car accident.”
I froze and gripped the hall table for support. “A-are they okay?” I stuttered.
“We need you to come in immediately.”
“Are they okay?” I begged, my voice rising.
“Please come in and speak to the doctor immediately,” replied the woman.
The phone slipped from my hand and in a daze I replaced it in the cradle.
This could not be happening. This simply could not be happening.
The phone rang again and I grabbed it. Perhaps it was the nurse again, ringing to tell me it was all just an awful, dreadful mix-up.
I would have done anything to turn the clock back just five minutes.
“Nurse Brenda,” said Mr. Gordon’s voice. “Is everything okay?”
Why he chose to ring remains a mystery to this day; perhaps he had a hunch all was not well.
“Not really,” I whispered. “I’ve just been notified that my parents have been in a car crash.”
“I’m on my way home now,” he said calmly.
I stood rooted to the spot until he and Mrs. Gordon burst through the door.
Gently, he put a coat around my shoulders and, still wearing his dinner suit, he led me to his car outside. “The twins …?” I said, snapping out of my daze.
“Will be okay,” he said firmly. “They’re with Mrs. Gordon.”
I stared out the window in a trance and watched the rain-splattered streets of London speed past in a blur of neon light. Everywhere people went about their business.
Elvis Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender, had just opened, and queues of giggling girls stretched down the street. Courting couples ran shrieking with laughter to shelter from the rain. Friends drank and chattered in bars. London was alive and throbbing.
With every mile that passed, fear clutched my heart. I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
At the hospital Mr. Gordon made an imposing sight as he strode down the corridors in his dinner suit. The hospital was his world, a place where he felt confident and in charge.
“Dr. Gordon, consultant obstetrician and gynecologist,” he boomed when we reached the reception desk. “I demand to see a doctor.”
Saturday nights were obviously a busy time at Kingston A&E, and the receptionist didn’t take kindly to being bossed about.
“Take a seat,” she snapped.
“No,” he said, irritation rising in his voice. “This lady’s parents have been in a car crash and we need to see a doctor immediately.”
She slunk off and two minutes later returned with a doctor.
“Please, follow me.” The doctor beckoned gently to a side room.
My heart sank. I knew without him telling me, I would go into that room and never come out the same again. I wanted to run screaming from the hospital.
Instead, I felt Mr. Gordon’s arm on my shoulder, guiding me to my fate.
“I’m afraid to say the car accident was serious. Your mother didn’t survive and your father is terribly ill. We don’t know yet whether he will pull through. Your sister, Kathleen, was also in the car and has also sustained injuries.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
Suddenly, I felt quite small, and all alone in the world. “I want to see my father,” I squeaked. “I need to be with him.”
“Of course,” said the doctor. The room was filled with the sound of scraping chairs, and my body seemed to move of its own accord.
As we walked I could hear a strange voice and muffled sobs, and realized in surprise they were my own.
The tears were still streaming down my face when we reached Father’s room.
Father lay as still as stone in his bed. He had a tracheotomy tube in his neck so he could breathe and his face was a sickly gray.
Wires snaked over his body, pumping oxygen into him.
The blood in my veins turned to ice. “Oh no …” I choked. “No … no … no.”
There was an awful stillness in the room that turned my heart over, the only sound the beeping of machines. I clutched Father’s cold hand in mine and cried until I thought my heart might break.
Mother was gone and my father was fighting for his life.
Already I felt the loss of my mother to the bottom of my soul.
A mother is the linchpin, the heart and soul of a family, and now ours had been ripped out. She had only been sixty-eight. Far too young to die.
Who would I confide my hopes and fears in, over a cup of tea in the kitchen?
Mother was a permanent fixture in our home, as central to the house as a stove is to a kitchen.
Her loss was simply unimaginable and unspeakably horrific, not just to me but to every member of my family.
Little did I know it then, but the tragic events of that day were to shape my life in ways I couldn’t yet imagine.
Eventually, the doctor pulled me to one side.
“Your father is very weak. He has broken every single one of his ribs and lost a lot of blood. It’s imperative when he regains consciousness that you don’t tell him of your mother’s death. That could push him over the edge.”
I nodded dumbly.
Next I visited Kathleen. She was conscious and wearing a patch over her right eye.
“They think I’ll lose my sight,” she whispered.
“Oh, Kathleen,” I sobbed, hugging her. “What happened?”
Her voice was barely above a whisper. “We were driving up to some traffic lights and Father was slowing down, when suddenly there was an almighty smash. The lorry in front had turned his lights off and Father didn’t see him until too late.”
I choked back a sob.
Please God. Don’t let Mother have suffered.
Eventually, Mr. Gordon drove me home to Kensington. I didn’t sleep that night, just kept turning the awful events of the night over and over in my mind.
Thoughts whirled round my shattered brain at breakneck speed. But they always came back to the same dilemma. What should I tell Father?
The next day I visited the minister of a local Baptist church and confided in him.
I drew strength from the quiet and stillness of the darkened church.
The minister said nothing as I shared the whole story.
“Please, minister, what do I do?” I sobbed. “I’ve been brought up to never tell a lie. How can I lie to my father?”
“Just tell him that she’s happy now,” he said softly.
The next two weeks passed in an exhausted blur.
The Gordons were beyond magnificent and Mr. Gordon in particular so kind.
“Please don’t worry about us,” he said every time he drove me to the hospital.
On one visit the doctor pulled me aside. “Your father has regained consciousness and it would appear he is on the mend, but remember what I told you. This is a vital time in his recovery.”
My heart sank and the minister’s words rang in my ears.
Just tell him that she’s happy now.
Father managed a weak smile when I walked in to see him.
“Oh, Father,” I cried, rushing to his side. “You gave us quite a fright, you know.”
His tracheotomy tube had been removed, but he struggled to speak.
He fixed his kind blue eyes on mine and gave me a look so bewildered it broke my heart.
His mouth was dry and his first word when it came was rasping and barely above a whisper.
“Mother?” he croaked.
I closed my eyes and summoned every ounce of my willpower and strength.
I smiled. “Mother is happy
now,” I said softly.
A light went out in his eyes. He folded his hands slowly and leaned back heavily against the pillow.
I squeezed back a tear. He knows.
Weeks later Father was to recall that he knew she was gone the instant he came round, and in many ways I wasn’t surprised.
“You sense these things,” he confided in me.
They had been married for thirty-eight years and in all that time had never spent a day apart. They thought the same, felt the same. In many ways they were the same person, their souls so tightly entwined after years of love and companionship.
A fierce love like that burned so brightly. It was almost inconceivable to have one without the other.
None of my brothers or Kathleen dared voice our fears, but we all felt it the day we buried Mother.
How would he breathe without her?
At the crematorium we all stared dumbfounded at Mother’s coffin.
As it started to slide toward the red velvet curtains and disappear, I closed my eyes.
I didn’t want to remember Mother in a coffin vanishing behind a set of curtains. I wanted to remember her for the kind, vibrant, loving woman she was.
With my eyes closed I could picture her clearly: with her knitting on her lap, her family gathered around her, humming along to Henry Hall on the wireless or laughing as Father made her close her eyes.
“For you, Bobby.” He’d laugh as he popped a bag of sugared almonds in her hand and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek.
I conjured up a wonderful afternoon we’d had, where as a treat for being accepted into the Norland, Mother took me to London to buy some smart shoes and had even bought me an ice cream sundae at a fancy tea shop. Hadn’t I felt grand, sitting in such a smart establishment, where the waitresses wore black-and-white uniforms, each table was covered in a linen tablecloth, and an orchestra wearing tuxedos had serenaded us? I’ll never forget the look of pride that shone in Mother’s eyes as she delicately sipped her tea. What a memory to cherish always.
But most of all I remember the sweet sensation of her kisses, the softest down on her cheek that tickled as it brushed against mine.
I touched my cheek as if trying to bring the memory to life.
“I love you, Mother, and I always will,” I whispered.
When something as awful as that happens, you wonder how life will ever return to normal, but somehow it does.
Poor Bambi, Mother’s dog, who was also in the car, had to be put down, as he never recovered from his injuries. In some ways it was a small comfort. Mother would at least have her beloved dog by her side.
Father and Kathleen recovered from their injuries. Kathleen regained the sight in her damaged eye and went back to delivering babies, but from that day on she never spoke a word about the accident.
She pretended it was the concussion, but I knew she remembered everything. I never pushed her, though.
The trauma of that fateful day had affected her in ways I would never know. She and I made a pact to take it in turns to spend weekends with Father back at the bungalow he and Mother had shared in Surrey.
My time at the Gordons had come to an end, too. “I will never forget your kindness in my time of need,” I told them as I packed my bags.
“We should be thanking you, Nurse Brenda,” replied Mr. Gordon, a little less gruffly than usual. “You have been the most wonderful help.”
I left Kensington an older, sadder woman than when I had arrived.
But the mission I was on burned brightly, if not brighter than before.
My own home life had had the heart ripped out of it, but I owed it to Mother to carry on as before. After all, had it not been for her love and wisdom, where would I be now? No, I couldn’t crumble. I had to remain strong.
As I gathered every ounce of my reserve Britain rose from the ashes.
“You will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime—nor indeed in the history of this country,” said the then prime minister Harold Macmillan. “Indeed, let us be frank about it—most of our people have never had it so good.”
In my darkest hours I never felt lucky. I felt consumed with grief. I missed Mother so much it was like a physical pain in my chest.
But my siblings and I kept our pain hidden, for Father’s sake.
I went about my business in my own quiet way. Traveling from home to home, Scotland to Essex, Hampstead to Chelsea. Rarely staying longer than three months but usually just a few weeks. Just enough time to get the mother on her feet and a good routine established.
Then my feet grew itchy and I became restless.
I daresay, some of the mothers wanted me to stay—many offered me permanent positions in their homes—but I had no interest in putting down roots. I just wanted to pack my bags and be on my way.
Months turned to years, but still my energy never waned.
“Many more houses to help,” I told myself.
Did I miss not having a home to call my own? Not being able to settle in one place? Get to know the area, the community, make permanent friendships, or even establish myself within the local church community? Perhaps a little. But the stronger urge within me, to help as many mothers as I could, drove me on.
Was I running from my pain? Keeping myself busy to ignore the dull ache left by Mother’s absence? Maybe I was, but I also owed it to her memory to keep going, to replicate the home life she had given me over the length and breadth of Britain.
“But you’re Norland trained,” one nanny gasped when we got chatting in the park. “Why don’t you work for royalty or diplomats?”
“I don’t give two hoots for that kind of world,” I replied smoothly. “I’d rather stay here on British soil.”
By 1960 I realized I had been troubleshooting for five years and had even managed to pay back my bursary to the Norland.
I had traveled many miles, yet still the road felt less traveled to me. I was exhausted from waking every four hours the majority of the time but a long way from being burned out.
I was approaching forty and laughter lines had crept over my face, but I still felt full of stamina and open to learning. And what rich experiences!
With every home I passed through I learned something new about the complicated job of caring for little folk and balance within the home. Keep the mother happy, and the home will always have harmony. Listen, really listen, to a child by getting down to his or her level. As for the babies? Keep them to a four-hour-feed routine and lavish them with plenty of cuddles and they should flourish, too. It’s not so complicated.
The arrival of a baby into a family is a momentous occasion and for siblings not always a happy one. All children bar none experience jealousy driven by their extreme love for their mothers when a new baby arrives on the scene.
“I can’t stop him clinging to me when I’m feeding the baby,” wailed one desperate mother about her three-year-old.
“Gentle persuasion,” I replied calmly. “Your older child will need a lot more attention in these coming weeks than your baby, believe it or not.” And with that I got down on my hands and knees to talk to the put-out toddler.
“I see you’ve been having a tea party with your teddy.” I grinned. “Who else is coming to tea?”
The toddler’s face lit up. “Well, mummy teddy and daddy teddy, too.”
“Oh, how marvelous,” I cried, clapping my hands.
Tantrum diverted, we had a perfectly lovely game after that. Children love to be with adults who understand play at their level. It doesn’t have to be a teddy’s tea party either. It can be pretending a cardboard box is a train and going on a marvelous adventure to painting a picture or simply reading a book.
The more attention and love you lavish on that child, the less he will feel isolated from his new family unit. But if diversion tactics didn’t work and the older child still insisted on clinging to his or her poor mother’s knee, then I would try to get the child involved.
“Why don’t you hel
p mummy feed the baby her bottle?” I would say, helping him or her to feed the baby.
“Aren’t you doing wonderfully, you clever thing.”
Soon the aggrieved child would have quite forgotten her jealousy and be basking in the glow of praise.
I passionately believe there is no problem that can’t be solved by immersing yourself in a child’s world. Get down to their level, see the world through their eyes.
This works particularly well in my opinion with children prone to tantrums. We’ve all been there and seen the red mist that always descends before a good old wobbler.
Often tantrums can be avoided by changing the way we speak to our children. Don’t just say no without offering explanation. Intelligent children will always need to know why they can’t have more sweets, go on the highest slide, or not run when they should walk. Don’t automatically say no; talk it through instead. If no really does mean no, then try not to use the word all the time. You’d be surprised how many times the word no is said to a small child.
Instead of saying “No, you can’t watch television,” just think about it and rephrase: “Yes, when you’ve tidied up your toys.” Instead of “No, you can’t go and play with your friend,” suggest: “Yes, of course you can, but at the weekend so you have something to look forward to.”
If that doesn’t work and a full-blown wobbler develops, never, ever raise your voice. You will have lost control if you do that. My mother never shouted at me, and I hope I have never shouted at a child in my care.
Instead, remember to breathe deeply, count to ten, and give your child a cuddle. If the tantrum continues, then explain that his or her behavior will not be tolerated and he or she will be removed.
If the screaming continues, then the child must be taken to his or her room. Not a naughty step—which is a designated step, chair, or area nearby—where he or she will continue to be seen and heard, which is surely exactly what he or she desires, but out of sight and earshot in his or her bedroom, until he or she has calmed down. And when he or she is sufficiently calmed down to return to the room, reward him or her with a hug.
Things I will simply never tolerate are bad manners, fussy eaters, and untidiness. If you can’t get a child to put away his toys completely at the end of the day, at least get him to tidy up.
A Spoonful of Sugar Page 29