Remembering the past

So I'm listening to my favourite and oh so dated 1955 recording of the Marriage of Figaro with the Glyndebourne Chorus and Orchestra, and principals Bruscantini, Sciutti and Wallace,Stevens and Calabrese. Of course I'm remembering all the times I went to Covent Garden in the 60s as guest of a colleague , and continued my Musical Appreciation and Education started in Hull. Music, aroma ,objects trouve , and more recently Facebook Groups of Old Photos all may spark some Happy or Sad remembrances from the recent or distant past . I look at pictures of the Locarno in Hull and the Gondola Club and can still feel the upset but relief that my parents wouldn't allow me to go to either .

Last week Susanne offered me some plants from her allotment for mine , as she moves away from Filey to a huge garden . I have  a new Gooseberry Bush,  an intriguingly named Blackberry Sage (I think!); spouse enthused at my new neat bed of  Globe Artichokes , but loved more the Tea Trolley made by Susanne's Father in 1946 . I love it too as we had one just like it in Saltshouse Road during my childhood. Afternoon tea was wheeled into the lounge every Sunday . There would be bread and butter, sandwiches , maybe scones . maybe Flapjack , often cake and always a pot of Tea, a hot water jug , and china cups and saucers, never ever mugs, they were just for soup . Heavily embroidered tray cloths sat top and bottom, beautifully laundered and starched . Mother had some special ones of worked Lilacs made for her as a wedding present in 1946 . They dropped to bits eventually as post war fabric was very thin , not best linen , Mother would say . I wonder if my sisters remember those beautiful cloths, more embroidery than cloth . 

My Grandparents also had an identical trolley which was wheeled from the breakfast room to the Sitting room (known as 'the Room') every single day . It was a long way along that dark hallway , and children were not allowed to wheel it on the bumpy floorboards. When my aunt became infirm in Old age she used to use the trolley to help her to walk .

#Hull 2017
My Hull sister reminded us of the exhibition in the  Hull Truck Theatre last week to accompany the  production of Janet Platers homage to the city's fighting spirit in Play 2 of the Hull trilogy, simply called Gaul   after the factory trawler FVGaul lost with all 36 hands in 1974. A fellow Hullensian living in Filey has written of her memories of the Gaul .

It brought back many memories as the first mate on the Gaul and his family lived in the same avenue as my parents..... I invited his father to Eastfield Junior School to talk to the children about his life at sea. They enjoyed it very much-so did he. I introduced him as Mr Spurgeon  and his friends called him 'Spud'!After the tragedy the headmistress invited Mrs Spurgeon to the school as a classroom assistant to perhaps take her mind off it a little.

I remember that in my Secondary School , Greatfield High School , (1959 to 65) we sometimes  had to stand for a minutes silence during Assembly as a mark of respect for a former pupil who would have died at sea.