My Brother Terry

This is Terry my Middle Brother, he is 10 years older than me 

Terry has not been well the last few years he has kidney Cancer and he was free of it for nearly over a year, but it came back in his lungs and spread to his liver and he just had a tumour removed from his neck.

I thought I would include him in my Memory files as him and Philip have been a big part of my growing up, he was the older brother a mod and into Scar music when I was little, he used to be in the front room playing his records and dancing in front of the mirror.  He was not home for long when he met and married Rose I was bridesmaid at his wedding.  He got married back in 1970 I was about 12 and when they were courting Rose used to come and stay and shared my little single bed in the little box room, we used to be all squashed up together but I liked it.  She was like the sister I never had.

Sadly a little into their marriage Rose got MS and was not very well most of their marriage   They had a little boy called Elliott before Ells she had one baby taken away the doctors thought she was not strong enough to bare a child.  When she fell pregnant the second time she argued with the doctors that she was going to have this one.

Sadly when Ells was 7 Terry met someone else and left Rose; mum and dad were not pleased because Rose having MS was in a Wheelchair and Ells was left at the age of 7 as Rose's sole Carer.

Rose passed away when she was 47 and it was a sad time she was like my sister and poor Elliott lost his mum.

Now Elliott is facing his dads illness and Terry has not got many days left in this world, God Bless him.

The other day I found all the old Black and White photos of Terry as a child with Jim as a teenager, some of Terry in a cowboy outfit sitting in a tree in the big Garden of the house we lived in down Park Lane Tottenham.  When I first looked at this photo's many years ago I always thought that they were playing in the park there were so many trees but it was the back garden at the back of the shared house we all lived in.  I was born in that house and when I was just under three years of age in September 1961, we moved to Stamford Hill in the house that I still live in to this day nearly 52 years later.

I am going to sort out some of those old photo's and put them on this blog so Watch this space.

“Never go thru life never telling the people you love that you love them because one day it just might be too late”

My memories have been flooding back to me this morning, and remembered the day my mum died. It was so unexpected and so sudden, I remember me and dad leaving mum in the hospital and going home on the bus and both of us thinking they will make her better now, we left full of hope and misguided relief.



A couple of hours later around midnight we got a call from the hospital asking us to come down as mum as taken a turn for the worse, I phone Terry and we waited for him to come in the car, we got there and there was mum unconscious she had had a heart attack and they had resuscitated her but we could not talk to her, I sat by her bed full of remorse and watch my mum die as I did with my dad 8 years later.


I guess the point I am saying here that she left with me feeling lots of things undone and unsaid, mum and I had a real weird relationship not close I guess her with lots of pain in her life and me with so much resentment. When dad and I got home we sat in the front room me on his Bed and him on the recliner next to me, we were both in shock and dad said something to me that I only understand now he said, “your mum did love you” it has taken many years for me to understand this statement and now I do believe these words, I never had to doubt my dad’s love for me because I was his favourite and he loved me sometimes too much and some times that was the ruin of me, but mum, I went thru life thinking she did not want me, she did not love me, but what I did not know and do know now that she just could not show it in the way she should have.
“Never go thru life never telling the people you love that you love them because one day it just might be too late”

Catalytic

This is something I wrote to a member of my family as I wrote it I found it catalytic and healing as I went along.


“I have been thinking in the memories of Christine hehe and looking back at my mum and dad and how I used to get upset with my mum and dad when they were 'telling what to do' as you get older and you learn about life you see things in a different light. I never thought my mum loved me but I was wrong she did very much. We as young people only see the telling off but do not have the insight to see what really is going on.


Our parents love us very much and can see the paths we take and fear for us and sometimes say and do the wrong things we react the only way we know. It’s all the lessons in life and we realize at certain points in our life that it is not always the way we see it; at that moment when we are in it. I guess what I am saying is mum and dad does love you very much and are full of emotions, maybe do not go about it the right way we are all on a learning curve in life.”

More photo's

I had one of these too and I loved it, what did I do? I left it in the front room one day came back a little while later and all was left was a metal shell, I had left it in front of the fire see my one was plastic and it had melted. AWWWWWWW I was so upset. It’s funny how these memories come back to you!

More Memories from the Museum of Childhood

As I was walking around the museum I saw another toy I use to have.

Now when I was at school before dad had to give up work he used to work as we called it in them days a Dustman not like the wimps of today where they have to pick up plastic bags or just put the plastic bins in a lifter and the cart does all the hard work. Dad use to have to collect the metal bins carry then on his shoulder and lift them up onto the van where a machine use to come down clamp the bin and then turn it upside down and empty it. Those days’ dad used to come home really smelly but he did a good days hard work.

We were poor in them days and I did not have all the new toys that were out I had to make do with whatever mum and dad could afford I was by no means spoilt in any way, but dad being a dust man use to find all sort of things he use to bring home to us and one day he bought this dog home to me on wheels and I loved it. So today at the museum I saw the dog hehe and remembered this story.


Here is the dog I am not sure if I gave him a name I can not remember.

The Museum Of Childhood

Today I had to go to the motor bike shop to have a new back box and mirror fitted on my scooter so that left me with a couple of hours to spare. I was down the road from Bethnal Green in the East End of London so I though let me go and visit the Museum of Childhood.

It turned out to be a memory provoking experience so many toys and childhood memories. I saw this 3 wheel bike and that reminded me of a story about me when I was very young and dad got me a bike I loved it but Philip once again spoiled my fun. I used to ride it up and down the garden but Philip had to ride it out in the street like he was some kind of motor car racer he was speeding down the road without a care in the world and nearly knocked some lady over with a pram, dad got so annoyed with him that he smashed up my bike and that was it gone. Not fair I know and that’s how I felt. Back to the present, today I see that same sort of bike and the same colour and thought I would post the photo on here. So there’s another memory for the files of Chrissie.


Watch this space more to come.

Philip The Bad Boy

Some of you might have already seen this post but I thought I might include it as its a couple of my memories from when me and Philp was School age. Philip is 17 months older than me and is included in this photo.

Philip was about 14 and I was about 12 somewhere around that age. Dad use to put the radio above the grill on the cooker I know a strange place but we only had one electric socket in the kitchen those days and the kitchen was so small well, still is but it was the only place dad could put his radio so he could plug it in.

Hehe one day Philip wanted some toast and the next I knew was Philip was running up the garden with dad chasing him to where Philip jump over the back fence and off he run, dad was so angry and I am sure he wanted to kill my brother. He had forgotten to take the radio down off the grill and cooked the toast and also the radio, hehe, I am not even sure if Philip got to eat his toast.

Then there was the time I was really young in this story now remember I was the good little girl and Philip was the bad boy he was a bully and use to get up to so many things, well I remember hiding in the front garden with Philip one day while Terry my middle Brother was Tearing down the bedroom curtains and jumping on them with his bover Boots what Philip had done was set fire to them playing with matches he was such a bad boy.

3 Years Old

This is Chrssie at 3 years old, standing by the apple tree.  The Apple tree is no longer there in my garden. after years of the dogs we have had doing there stuff up the tree it died and the council chopped it down.  I remember mum used to make some lovely Apple Pies and Apple Crumbles from the apples that fell from this tree.  I look quite podggy here my friend Terri who has known me all my life says I always had a popped out tummy must have been all the fagots that dad used to feed us when he was the mother of the house and that's another story I will tell you one day!

I have just remembered another story from the files of Chrissie heheh

You have to see this photo to get the story:

Dad and Philip use to sit in the front room with all these instruments with a Sony Tape To Tape Recorder and what they use to do is make recordings of songs but making malty tapes so in the end it sounded like they had a big band sound going on, this used to take hours and hours the music they use to play was Glen Miller sounds, they would get to the final tape playing all the instruments one by one and be so please with them self's. Dad and Philip use to have the same bullying, domineering, personalities so they clashed and was always heard screaming at each other because they were always right so you can imagine how long this took. Then there was my mum pottering about in the house doing her own thing in her own little world in them days I never really knew my mum me and her were not close but that's another story.


So, they would get to the final tape and hehee my mum would open the door and say ' Dad' or what ever and that was the whole tape ruined.