Oggbashan Stew Pt. 03

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I was enjoying a Knickerbocker Glory. The four of us were sitting in an Italian named Ice Cream Parlour marvelling at the 1950s decor of brightly coloured plastic. Every time we came to this seaside town we came to this place to enjoy Knickerbocker Glories, even though we knew the sugar content was massive.

It was a ritual we had carried out for decades. Our deceased aunt had owned a holiday bungalow in this town. She let us use it during school holidays because she preferred to visit when the town was quieter. We had brought the children here for years. Now they bring our grandchildren.

Dave and I had married two sisters. His wife is Irene. Mine is Dawn. They were both nieces of Agnes, the aunt who had owned the bungalow. Agnes had died six months ago. Her husband Harry had died a decade ago. They had no children so had left their house and the seaside bungalow to Irene and Dawn. We had sold Agnes' house but had decided at least for the time being to keep the bungalow.

Selling the house had taken priority. Dave and I had worked on it to get it in saleable condition. We had rewired it, installed a new bathroom and kitchen, and decorated it inside and out. We had been delighted that it had sold at the asking price.

All four of us were retired so we had time to work on Agnes' house, and we had started on the bungalow. Inside it seemed like a 1950s time warp, left just as it was when Agnes and her husband had bought it. It was an illusion. Although it looked as if it was still in the 1950s it had been kept up to date with modern equipment that looked like 1950s. The kitchen was as brightly coloured as this Ice Cream Parlour but the wiring was modern. Behind some of the kitchen cupboard doors were 21st Century appliances. The bathroom looked antique but the plumbing and fittings were only a few years old.

We had finally cleared out all of Agnes' personal belongings and tested everything. This Sunday evening we were celebrating. The bungalow could be used for holidays now. We could even let it as holiday accommodation because we had certificates of electrical, gas and other safety. But we wouldn't. We'd keep it for use by the extended family. It was close to a sandy beach and a short walk to the town centre facilities, ideal for the children and grandchildren.

"Irene?" Dave had finished his ice cream.

"Yes?"

"Do you know why Agnes kept the bungalow looking like the 1950s?"

"Yes, Dave. She explained it to me once. They bought the bungalow when they had won a large sum of money on the football pools. That win set them up financially for life. When they bought it, the bungalow had just been renovated but not equipped. Irene and her husband chose all the fittings, the best available at the time. They wanted to keep it looking like that to remind them of how happy they had been here. If they had had children she would have modernised it. But it was a souvenir of a massive change in their lives."

"If so, why..."

"Why did they keep it up to date except visually? It was a conceit. They wanted the look but not the inconvenience. The fireplace works but the bungalow has central heating. The twin tub washing machine would work but she had a concealed automatic. The ancient cooker works but there are a ceramic hob and a slide away oven. It looks old but isn't. It was their idea of a joke to amuse visitors."

"It was an expensive joke."

"Yes, Dave, it was," Irene replied. "But they could afford it. The bungalow was only used for a few months a year even when we started using it too."

"They helped us with our first homes, Dave, remember?" Irene added. "Neither of us needed mortgages. Our Dad said that the money they gave us was from that year's income, not capital. Long before Agnes died she had given money to us and to her other relations to avoid death duties. Even so you know her estate was over a million pounds after taxes."

"Agnes once said to me there was another reason for keeping the bungalow as it had been," I said.

"What was that, John?" Irene asked.

"In the mid 1960s your family were going through difficult times..."

"Difficult! They were impossible!" My wife Dawn interrupted.

"I know. So did Agnes and Harry. They kept the bungalow as it was to provide a safe and familiar place for the children. You and Irene, and Agnes' other nephews and nieces spent most holidays here, away from the turmoil at home."

"Turmoil is an understatement," Dawn said. "All three fathers lost their jobs and got into serious debt. Our parents nearly divorced over the stress. "

"Harry and Agnes tried to help. They did financially as far as they could. At that time they couldn't support three families completely but they kept the mortgage payments going. Taking all the children at half terms and other holiday times gave the parents time to work through the problems. When your father and his brother had to move house to new jobs the children stayed with Harry and Agnes until the parents were settled in new homes. While you were at school you were in their house. At other times you were here. They kept this bungalow as the sole unchanging thing in your lives."

"That and the Knickerbocker Glories," Irene added. "Agnes was right, John. We needed stability at a difficult time. This town still has wonderful memories for me."

"We had Knickerbocker Glories on Saturday afternoons." Dawn said. "During the week we might get an ice cream cone. Whenever I have a Knickerbocker Glory it reminds me of Aunt Agnes - and Uncle Harry. They were there for us whenever we needed them. They left us alone when we didn't."

"We've renovated their bungalow," Dave said. "We need to celebrate that. How about a family Christmas - here - staying at the bungalow?"

"There are too many of us," Dawn objected. "As children we had bunk beds. One bedroom for the girls, another for the boys. Even so we were crammed in like sardines in a tin. With our children and grandchildren we'd need three bungalows, not one."

"That's not what I meant," Dave said. "Just the four of us. We could have a 1950s themed Christmas in a 1950s house."

We finished the Knickerbocker Glories and had coffee from the gleaming expresso machine. While we continued to sit in that old-fashioned Ice Cream Parlour we discussed Dave's suggestion. Last year we had had a large family Christmas in our house. We hadn't been able to put everyone up for the night so it had been a lunchtime event. By five o'clock those travelling some distance had left. By six thirty Dawn and I were left alone with the pile of washing up and recovering from an invasion.

This year some of our children and grandchildren were going to EuroDisney for Christmas. We might see them in the New Year but in manageable numbers each time. The four of us would be alone as couples for a few days at Christmas unless we came to the bungalow.

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By the time we left the town we had agreed to spend a 1950s Christmas in the bungalow. We husbands didn't appreciate what we had started. For the next few months Irene and Dawn were dressmaking, buying things on line, and spending hours on the telephone to each other.

They told us we needed to go to the bungalow a few days early to get decorating for Christmas. When we left home, their suitcases were stuffed with the results of their activities. Our wives had made Edwardian jackets with bootlace ties for Dave and I to wear. We had objected to the idea of winkle-picker shoes. At our ages we preferred comfort to fashion.

Irene had suggested that we should drive down in my 1950s car. I had a suitable historic vehicle. Dave thought that was taking the re-enactment too far. Dawn wouldn't travel that far in my old car. Most 1950s cars are unsafe in 21st Century traffic. They are too slow and take too long to brake. We would be travelling after dark and 1950s lights are inadequate. We compromised. I would drive my car down during the short daylight hours. Dave would bring the two wives and most of the luggage in his modern people carrier that evening.

My old car is an Austin Hereford. It is large enough for six adults but it rolls on corners. It bounces over potholes. Unless I drive very carefully and sedately Dawn gets car sick in the Austin. She can manage for a quarter of an hour but any longer is awkward. Once at the bungalow Dave would put his vehicle in the bungalow's garage and we would use the Austin around the seaside town. Irene had given me a small shopping list of essentials for the first night. I would get them at the supermarket on the edge of town before arriving at the bungalow. I would start the central heating so that we had a warm house with hot water available.

The drive was mainly uneventful. Once the engine is warm the Austin Hereford is fast enough to keep up with modern traffic. It takes some time to accelerate to 70 mph but once there it will stay at that speed. As long as I left a large gap in front of me the brakes would cope. I had a fright when an idiot cut across in front of me from the third lane of the motorway to reach an exit. But he was gone before the Austin's brakes had started to work.

The shopping didn't take long but I spent several minutes explaining to a small boy and his grandfather what the car was. The boy waved as I drove away. I put the milk and butter in the fridge, set the central heating, and made myself a cup of coffee. I like my Austin but unlike modern cars it needs driving. There is no power assistance for the steering or brakes. I knew I had driven a long way by 1950s standards.

I had been surprised how lonely I had felt as I drove. Since we had retired Dawn and I had been together most of every day. We had loved each other for decades. Both of us had been worried that we might not adjust to being retired and together. We had enjoyed it. We had been doing things we had been putting off for years. We belonged to various community groups, some as individuals and some as a couple. We went to museums, to stately homes, to historic gardens, and ate out often. We had rediscovered the friendship we had had before we got married. We liked each other, enjoyed being with the other, and we were still very much in love with each other. We knew our faults and failings and didn't care. They were unimportant compared with our love. Several hours' driving without Dawn by my side had reminded me just how close we are.

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Story 053

Reverse Penelope

"What's Samian Ware doing here?" Penelope asked.

I peered over her shoulder. The rain was beginning again and was washing the earth off the shard of pottery she had just uncovered.

"If it was Samian Ware," I replied, "it would be unusual here. But it isn't."

"It's not? Are you sure, Andy?"

"I'm sure, Penelope. I might not be the world expert on Samian, but I know enough to recognise a cheap local copy. The colour's slightly wrong and the detail is crude. It was probably produced only a few miles from here."

We had to stop work and cover our trench with plastic sheeting as the rain became harder.

We were post graduate students working part-time as amateur archaeologists on a rescue dig in a city centre area that had been a car showroom. I was an electronics engineering graduate. Penelope was a history graduate with archaeology as a subsidiary subject. In theory she was better qualified in archaeology than I was. I thought I had more practical experience than her because I had been helping archaeologists as an amateur even as a schoolboy. I was wrong but Penelope was shy about revealing details of her experience.

The owners had sold the land for redevelopment when they relocated to an industrial estate. It was to be a new shopping mall, but before the builders could move in, the site's archaeology had to be recorded - at speed.

The site was obviously an area of poverty in Roman times. There were no high status finds, only the evidence of minimal existence. Samian Ware, expensive imported tableware, would have been out of place. But even a crude copy of Samian was a sign that some people had more money than others. Penelope's find was important.

As usual with rescue digs there weren't enough people or sufficient time, and the weather was appalling. We were allowed on site late in January and had to have finished by the end of March.

I owned a small rusty Volkswagen motorcaravan. It was dry inside and I could produce hot food and drink. I had erected a toilet tent with a chemical toilet next to the Volkswagen. At first the toilet tent was just a roofless modesty and wind shelter until I moved it under the Volkswagen's retractable awning. Using the toilet was cold but dry.

Penelope discovered my luxuries on her first day. She decided that the facilities were good enough to be worth cultivating me. She was one of the few diggers allowed inside tiny space provided by the Volkswagen instead of standing under an awning or one of the flimsy gazebos. At first I wasn't sure that she should be one of the privileged, until she started cooking on the two-burner gas rings. She produced basic food, in quantity, that was far better than anything I could do.

I became her cook's assistant and washer-up as she proceeded to feed everyone on site with great tasting and filling hot food at a very low cost.

Neither of us were looking at our best. We were caked in sticky clay, cold, miserable and frantic to get on with the archaeology every minute that it wasn't pouring with rain. If we had met each other in the street looking as we did, we would have passed by without a second glance.

I appreciated Penelope as a cook and meal-provider before I knew her as another enthusiast for Romano-Britain and becoming a respected authority on Roman Mosaics. My growing expertise was dating Samian pottery and recognising potter's work from their designs even if no potter's marks were available on the pieces we had.

I was living in the motorcaravan as the night-watchman on site. We didn't really expect site robbers, but some of our equipment might be worth stealing. I was over a hundred miles from home and couldn't afford even a basic hotel. Penelope's parents lived about two hundred yards from the dig. The third week after we met she dragged me, faintly protesting, to their house to have a bath, to take my dirty clothes to their washing machine, and for a proper meal.

The bath was welcome. I put on my last set of clean clothes. I had been intending to visit a local laundrette, but never seemed to have had time. I walked into their living room and met Penelope's father who introduced himself. I had noticed several Roman artefacts around the room. Penelope's surname was a common one, but his first name was unusual. I knew exactly who he was, and that he was a world-renowned expert on the Roman occupation of Britannia.

I had read his books and studied his academic papers. By the time a clean and well-dressed Penelope joined us, her father and I were deep in discussion about the significance of the Vindolanda tablets. We were enjoying ourselves with reference books and papers scattered over the coffee table, and spreading across the floor.

Penelope accepted this as normal and she became as involved as we were. Her mother had to shout several times to get us to come to dinner. The conversation continued there, with her mother an active participant. She said something as if she was a definite authority on archaeology that made me stop eating.

"I recognise that statement," I said. "Are you...?"

All three of them laughed at me.

"Yes," Penelope's mother said, "I am..." and gave her maiden name, which I knew as a Professor of Archaeology at the local University.

Penelope had been helping her parents on archaeological digs since she was a toddler trusted to wield a paint brush gently.

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That dig, and meeting Penelope and her parents, had been ten years ago. Within a year Penelope and I had married. She had worked as an archaeologist. I was employed as a trainee electronics engineer in a research laboratory. Neither of us were paid much. We barely survived financially for the first few years of our marriage. Except for some capital towards the deposit on our small house her parents couldn't help. They might have been respected specialists in their fields but they didn't earn much.

Five years after we had married Penelope gave birth to twin girls. They were hard work as babies but delightful as toddlers. My income had improved when I became a team leader at the research laboratory. Two years after the twins arrived the company was bought out by an American rival. Our site was closed down and I was made redundant. I was a specialist in a discipline that apparently no one in the UK wanted. We survived as I took a succession of temporary jobs that didn't pay much. Our finances didn't bear examination.

That had changed when I started working in the garden shed on a specific development of ground-penetrating radar. I had intended to improve it for use as an archaeological tool but my work helped utilities locate pipework and cables underground. The commercial licensing of my system, as developed by a major electronics company, turned us from impoverished amateur archaeologists into comfortable, even well-off, capitalists. We moved into a larger detached house with outbuildings and a few acres. Importantly we had no mortgage. At 35 years of age I didn't need to work. I did. My garden shed in the pocket handkerchief garden of our first house had become a fully-equipped laboratory converted from the original coach house.

I invented several more versions of the ground radar devices including one that could work in sea water at depths of 200 metres, scanning ten metres into the sea bed. Again I had intended it for archaeology for buried ship wrecks. It earned me money for finding submarine cables. I had a contract with the American company that had made me redundant years earlier. It was a good deal for them and me.

Last year, ten years after our marriage, the twins started school. We were expecting to have slightly more time together. We already had more free time because we had been able to afford an au-pair to help look after the girls. Penelope had returned to semi-professional archaeology, often working with her parents while I was working in my laboratory. After a year the first au-pair went back to her country to start her degree.

Penelope's parents were still serious academic archaeologists. Her mother had presented several TV programmes on developments in archaeology, initially for universities and later for mainstream TV documentary channels. She was starting work on what would be several programmes about discoveries in Saudi Arabia's so-called Empty Quarter. She had invited Penelope to go to Saudi Arabia with her, leaving me to care for the twins. They were in their second year at school and enjoying it. I would have to take them to and from school and look after them in the mornings and evenings but we had Britta, our new au-pair, who would help me.

Britta was older than the original au-pair. She was doing a part-time Masters but needed better English skills than she had. She had thought that doing her Masters at an English university and working as an au-pair might help her English. I'm not sure the twins helped Britta much. They are very talkative and have a wider vocabulary than most six year olds. But, like many identical twins, they have a means of mutual communication that is unique to them. Their parents and relations often can't understand what the twins are saying to each other. Britta certainly can't.

If asked, the twins will explain what they are saying. Their expression usually means 'it's obvious to us'. It isn't to someone who is not one of the twins. The result is that Britta spends more time talking to Penelope and me than we had expected. We don't mind. Britta is intelligent and good company but it did mean we had less free time than with the previous au-pair.