You are a product of your surroundings, your schooling, but most of all your parents, well in my case my grandparents. I’m not really sure when I began living with them full-time, I suppose it had to be pretty much as a toddler, I do remember the odd distant blurry memory of a night or two at my mum and dad’s before they split up, but not much. No for me the foundations of my personality rest firmly with my grandparents. I also don’t really know why I ended up with them, other than I somehow annoyed my mother so much that she could be sent in to an insane fury, complete with full on gargoyle faces a Kiwi full back would be proud of after us spending just 30 minutes in the same room. I would so love to recite endless pranks pulled on this poor woman by a pint sized little ‘artful dodger’, but alas no she’s just bloody useless with kid’s, unless they’re other peoples, or she’s trying to impress a new bloke. Which reminds me of ‘Alec’, a scouse she married shortly after splitting up with my father; insisted I called him ‘Pa’ and covered my bedroom wall in Liverpool FC posters. Well at least it didn’t last long, one Saturday a little after they married I was dragged down to the common in a new Liverpool football strip, a very fat small child with curly blonde locks dangling from a 6 foot plus oaf, sliding around on new football boots like a drunk camel on roller skates. Past all the other kids in their Saints kit, Christ was I going to get a battering on Monday morning at school. 20 minutes later we’re back, “bloody useless” from his back as he retreats to the lounge to watch ‘Grandstand’ with a beer or two, OK five or six.
I never had to wear that kit again thank god, mind you I did get a shoeing on Monday for wearing it, and shortly after that I never spent another night in their house, the spare bedroom was redecorated in neutral tones as a guest room and I settled into life with Nan and Gag. But before you get any ideas about a sob story coming let me tell you life with them was great. The house always full, they both came from large families, having 22 brothers and sisters between them, there didn’t seem to be a week go by without their bungalow ringing with laughter as yet another family get together was in order. Nan was only 40 when I was born and Gag 43, still more than young enough to enjoy life to the full, and as with all of their generation who had been through the war they were determined to do just that.
One long-term feeling I’m left with is that we never really had much money, but it didn’t seem to stop us, or make us feel sorry for our selves. Nan worked her whole life in school meals running the same kitchen in Ludlow till the day she retired, Gag he worked at a local lumber yard his whole life, apart from his time in the navy during the war. Neither earned much at all, but we were happy, I never complained about eating left overs from the kitchen, Gag making do with bread and cheese for lunch. Both of them threw their change in a pot in the lounge and we some how managed to make this stretch to a week away each year. Nan was always larger than life, and had the largest group of friends I’ve ever known anyone have, she was always popping out, or late home from work after seeing a friend in need, what ever the problem she’d try to help. It seemed half the people working in her kitchen or at the school somehow got their job through Nan; mind you she could also be an awful gossip. As an adult I’ve often commented on the fact that she had a spy network running in Southampton that MI5 would have been proud of. Gag, well he just had the most amazing common touch, especially when it came to kids, all the children in our road loved him and our garden as it bordered the woods behind was always full of them, with Gag more often than not holding court from the doorway of his shed.
The only fly in the ointment was whenever mum and Alec came over, it always went the same way, they’d come in and take over the house, Alec going on about his latest get rich scheme on the boats, mum showing off the latest outfit she’d got. Nan somehow running around trying to keep the peace, Gag sat quiet and somber in his chair, me hiding behind. Regardless of the time of day they’d start drinking, then the criticism would start, “what’s he wearing, you’re feeding him too much, bloody hell mum he needs a haircut...” and so on, I’d get quieter as they got drunker, Gag would some how disappear, and Nan would be brought to tears trying to calm mum down. And my god was Christmas bad; I never enjoyed a Christmas until I was into my mid-teens when mum and Alec decided to start going to away for the holidays. You know I don’t ever remember Gag ever talking to mum in all those years save for the pleasantries and the odd two syllable answer, it took Nan to be on her death bed for the truth to come out, but that’s a story for another day.
There’s one thing mum wasn’t lying about though, god was I a fat kid, I always remember Nan buying me my first pair of jeans in Plumbers, I must have been about 12 I suppose, size 36 waist from the adult section, you could have made another pair from what was cut off the legs. Lets just say school PE sessions were a nightmare, football crap, and cricket, LBW every time, they couldn’t see the stumps for my ass, and I couldn’t hit the ball for toffee. From the age of about 8 I went to a local judo club with the lad next door, Steven, I was truly awful; every time we went to local competition I’d take my trunks in the sure anticipation of being knocked out in the first round, and so spend the rest of the day splashing around in the pool whilst I waited for Steven and the other kids to pick up their medals. It never bothered Nan though, off she’d troop to all the competitions, packed lunch and knitting in hand, every defeat would be greeted with “well done, don’t worry every dog has it’s day” what ever that meant. The trouble was Judo is fought in weight categories, so if your as fat as I was you fought kids 3 years older, 2 foot taller and already sprouting enough facial hair to warrant shaving every day.
Other school lessons weren’t much better, not only was I utterly crap at any and all sports I was also horrifically dyslexic and incredibly shy, when I wasn’t being bullied by the other kids I was being called stupid by the teachers. All of which pushed me further in to my shell, well that is until I got home of an evening, then the other side of Nan and Gag would take over. Gag’s answer to bulling was simple,
“fight back”
“I’ll get battered!”
“It doesn’t matter, fighting back is what’s important, let a bully have an inch he’ll take a mile”
“I’ll get battered!”
“Yes you will at first, and again and again, but one day you wont and from that day on the bully wont bother you again, and he’ll think twice about tackling other kids”
“Nan Gag wants me to get battered, and get in trouble with the teachers, just to stop other kids getting bullied, he’s mad!”
“No Brent he’s trying to teach you an important lesson, life is hard and the world is mean, there are two sorts in this world, those who’ll fight for themselves and others knowing they’ll go down time and time again, and then there’s those who’ll just walk away hoping it won’t be them next time.”
“You’re both MAD!”
I stump off to my bedroom.
Our school was like a million other inner city schools, as was our estate, you learned to look after yourself from an early age, or you just went under.
I suppose the real changes came when I was about 14 and about to sit my mock ‘O’ levels, I’m in the lounge and Gag asks what I want to do with my summer, I told him I was going to try and find my dad, the look on his face told me everything, he was dead. It turns out that he’d died 5 years previously and mum had threated Nan and Gag that if they told me she’d take me back, that old chestnut, you know when ever mum wanted to hurt Nan she’d threaten to take me back, like that would ever happen. I shrug my shoulders and for the thousandth time think Nan is right life is hard and you’re going to get knocked down again and again, you’ve just got to keep on getting back up. Just one of the many things they taught me. Well school started to change as well, the teachers still treated me like a retard, but it just somehow made me all the more determined to succeed, quitting was no longer a word I knew.
That summer we had the school sports day and as usual I was left to run the 400m last with all the other fat and asthmatic kids, only I wasn’t fat anymore, over the winter the puppy fat had at last fallen from me, I grown to full adult height of 5’8” and had inherited Gag’s broad shoulders. The gun goes and I’m off like a thunderbolt, I should also point out that in his day Gag was a more than useful sprinter, something I’d also inherited. As I stroll back from the finish line, school record in the bag I pass the bain of my school life, a lad called Carl, local thug about town whose only claim to fame at school was as the captain of the football team and the, now former, school 400m champion, He was still sporting the split lip and black eye I’d given him the week before, Gag was also right about that one, keep on fighting back, coming up swinging every time you go down and one day you’ll end up the last one standing.
One of the teachers, Mr. Herford-Jones, a short stocky Welshman, asked if I’d like to have a go at rugby as he was trying to set up our first team, something unheard in comprehensive schools in those days, and so begun a life long love of the game. I only played for 2 years at school as my college didn’t really do sports of any sort, but I really enjoyed it for those two short seasons. In those days the only teams we could play were from the private schools and the local grammar and it was here that I was to learn the next of Nan and Gags lessons, for all the crap you read we still have a social system in this country where the rich look after themselves, and where the private school system still thinks it creates tomorrows leaders, regardless of talent, but most of all don’t be fooled into thinking a posh accent equals a gentleman.
I remember Mr. Herford-Jones threatening us with everything from expulsion to prison if we resorted to using our fists just once during our first game. We came off after losing 50 plus to zero, bruised, battered and full of complaints about being belted every time the ref wasn’t looking, insults about council estate louts and far worse had flown our way throughout and after the game, Mr. Herford-Jones just seemed furious, walking off kicking water bottles to his left and right, and muttering away in welsh. Gag was watching from the sidelines, smiling as we walked back to the car, nursing a black eye I can’t help but ask him what he finds so bloody funny.
“What did I tell you about defending yourself?”
“But Mr. Herford-Jones told us he’d kill us if we started anything!”
“Exactly, he rightly told you not to start anything, but he didn’t tell you all to just lay back and take a hiding now did he? A real man never starts a fight, but he’ll always defend himself and those weaker than him, these toffee nosed little gits have been taught from day one that they are better than YOU, been taught to make sure YOU know your place in life, and Brent that’s NOT the way we brought you up. All men are equal in life, we all should have the same rights, and should have the same chances, no it’s not always like that in the real world, but it’s something that’s ALWAYS worth fighting for!”
I’d rarely seen him so angry, but I did get the lesson, and the next game proved that I wasn’t that I wasn’t the only one.
The game was with the local grammar school and as in the last game the slating started even before the first touch of the ball, none of us said a word, a minute or two in and in the first ruck a fist is thrown, we all pile in, fists flying. The referee desperately blowing his whistle wades in trying to separate us; the ball bounces off to the touchline where Mr. Herford-Jones picks it up. After order is restored the referee runs over to him.
“If you don’t keep those animals in order I’m going to call the game off!”
“Who started it?”
“What?”
“I said who started it”
“Well…”
“Exactly, it’s a mans game is rugby, invented by you private school poofs and dominated by the welsh working class, now if you want to forfeit the game that’s fine, if not piss off and play with that little bloody whistle of yours!”
Running backwards back onto the pitch ball in hand the ref seems to whimper
“I’ll report you to the league…”
“I’m sure you will boyo, and what are you lot of idiots grinning at, there’s a bloody match to win!”
Grinning we all move off for the line out. We didn’t win that day, but we also didn’t loose by much, and over the next 2 years we pretty much held our own. We became a team most knew as hard to beat, and all knew we’d never start a fight, but could be relied upon to fight back with everything we had if provoked.
Although I did, and still do, love rugby my first love has always been Judo, as someone once said an odd sport played in pajamas, understood by none other than those who practice it. Again it was an overnight change that occurred in my abilities, and as usual Nan was there to see it, she followed me all over this country of ours, Gag always at home cooking a roast for our return. The coach who ran our club in Southampton was keen, hardworking and to be honest a really good teacher, but he did have his faults, the worst of which was his blatant favoritism. Ron would go out of his way to help kids who showed talent and the rest were ignored and left by the side. Over the years so many kids I knew left because of this, but Ron just couldn’t see it. Every competition he’d sort out a couple of cars to take all his little stars, and the rest of us would be left to make our own way. So why did I, the little fat kid, keep going, well that would be again down to Nan, she would always somehow get us there, tottering up the motorways in her old Escort, hardly making more than 50mph, or struggling with the complexities of the rail network to venues further afield, and then there was her encouragement. It really didn’t matter how badly I did, she could always be relied up on to find something to be positive about with every defeat, and there were plenty of them.
I suppose it all happened at the Sussex Open, 14 years old, broad shoulders and suddenly fighting kids my own size, I walked away with the gold, beating 2 of Ron’s little stars in the process, as Nan said every dog has it’s day. Well all of a sudden I started to win far more than I lost, by the time I was 16 I was a black belt and on my way to Japan for the summer to train at the Kodakan in Tokyo. And Ron, well he didn’t change really, all of a sudden he wanted to know if I wanted a lift to competitions, to which Nan replied that we hadn’t needed a lift in the last 6 years so why would we want one now? By the time I went to Japan I’d left Ron’s club and now trained all over Hampshire as well as London whenever I could. Japan? Well it was a fantastic trip and I’ve got to say something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, but it also made me realize that national squad at schoolboy level doesn’t equate to adult judo, the simple fact is that my trip taught me that I just didn’t have what it would take to make it to the top. And I’ve never ever felt sad about that, I always have and always will love this odd sport played in pajamas.
By the time I got back from Japan my childhood was over really and Nan and Gag’s work done, I was a product of all that was good about them. Yes there have been plenty of times over the years that I’ve envied those richer, more successful than I, times that I’ve strayed into trying to be something I’m not, but here I am in my late 40’s liking the me they made and proud of the values they installed in me. Gag sadly died when I was just 20, he never even got to retire, but I can still see his grin now. Nan died about 5 years ago and writing this prompted me to re-read the eulogy I wrote for her funeral, and I can’t for the life of me think of a better way to explain this extraordinary lady to you than to re-produce it here.
Nan, I Remember
Some called her Mrs Hensford, some called her Mrs H, for some she was Rose and for others she was Rosina, for one she was Mum, but to me she was Nan. Over the last couple of weeks I have had a flood of memories, as I’m sure many of you have also had. Some of these I wanted to share with you.
I remember her often talking about her childhood, She was born in Southampton in 1924 the youngest of 13, a hard but happy childhood. Her falling in love with Gag and the beautiful letters he wrote to her during the war. How happy they all were in the prefab. All the great times she had with her brothers and sisters, as well as all the life long friends they made over the years. All the dinner parties and lunches she loved to throw, her door, and more often than not her fridge, always being open. “Live life to the full” she would always say, right up to the end.
I remember often going into Ludlow school, catching Iris and Betty making a train cake for my birthday, being spoilt rotten by her ‘ladies’, not her girls or her staff mind you, no her ladies, ladies she was always so very proud of you.
I remember always being made to walk in front of her, being poked in the back if I hung my head, “ when your short stand upright and use every inch God gave you!” she would say. Her walking at a horrific pace, a pace I still walk to this day.
I remember watching her dance with Gag, others stopping to stare at this elegant couple, her teaching me and us in fits of laughter trying to work out who should be leading.
I remember the two of us travelling all over this country to Judo competitions, her sitting in the stands all day long with more and more kids bags around her, cheering everyone on, always a ‘well done’ at the end of every fight no matter what the outcome.
I remember getting angry at her saying well done when I was about 17 and I had just lost, and her gently reminding me that failure was just a word, and giving it your all this time and every time was what life was about.
I remember long after she stopped going to Judo with me her still going and helping out, manning the tables and looking after a whole new generation of children.
I remember her loudly cheering and jumping up and down in excitement in front of the TV whenever England were on, no matter what the sport, from tiddly winks to football it didn’t matter to Nan! Calling me the next day to relive the moment, whether I’d seen it or not.
I remember her always looking so smart, her cloths always coordinated, her hair just right, her make up perfect.
I remember taking her to London for a Christmas shopping trip when I was in my late teens and us being in Oxford street as an IRA bomb was found in a Wimpey bar, the police moving us all on, away from the area and people starting to panic and run, not Nan. “Walk” she firmly said to me, and we did. All around us people stopped as well and started to walk, I don’t think I have ever been so proud of her.
I remember her calling the Times in London and talking them into giving me an interview even though I wasn’t on the list, mind you I don’t think I was the only one she did this for over the years!
I remember when Gag lost his battle with cancer thinking that this just may be the end for her, her head low her spirits even lower, then the dreadful news that she too had cancer, breast cancer. Watching as she treated the fight in her usual way, head on. Meeting and helping other suffers, always worried about those worse off than herself, never once ever complaining or thinking she would loose, counselling others after she was cured.
I remember all the wonderful years of friendship she went on to have with Fred and all their friends, the cruises and holidays she still had right up until last year. I just wish Fred could be here today, but I’m sure his thoughts are.
I remember that up until the last few months I had almost never had a week where we didn’t have a roast dinner together, piled high even when I tried to mention that at 40 I was starting to grow outwards not up!
I remember taking her with my children to the Aviation museum in Southampton and watching as she was lost in her own thoughts looking at their pictures and stories of Southampton during the blitz, her turning to me with a tear in her eye and saying how proud she was of her city.
All my life I remember her wading in to fight mine, and others battles from the school bullies in infant school through the lousy referees in Judo competitions to the British army and beyond, Nan didn’t care how big the fight was, or how long the odds were if she thought an injustice had been done in she would wade, never rude, just determined, as she often said “good manners cost nothing”.
I remember all the jokes we shared, all the bad times we fought together, side by side, She was always there, and she was my staff, my rock. I remember the moment last winter when hand in hand we sat in the hospital in Southampton and found out that after fighting off pneumonia in the summer the breast cancer was back.
I remember the call a little later from friends and the rush up to Southampton to find her slumped on the sofa, this little old lady, so frail and ill.
“Darling what shall I do, I’m so tired?” she said
“Nothing Nan, now it’s my turn”
Posted by Brent Meheux - 2/2/12 - Tags - nan, gag
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