Penny for Her Thoughts: Where, Oh Where? Part 2 [of 3]

Me (L) as a midwife

Where I Came From

By Penelope Griffiths

My life in the UK was great. I had a job I loved and was very well paid. I had a lovely house and great social life. My job afforded me comfort and travel all over the world, both for work and for fun. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting and working from Japan to Russia to Africa to the Middle East – all at 5-star billing. I would “pop” over to Paris or Le Touquet for a cheeky day or weekend of shopping and drinking fine wines and champagnes. Very often my two children would accompany me; one can say I was the example for their own wanderlust.

    As a girl of 15, I had realised I didn’t fit in to the industrial Welsh town where I was born. Indeed, my first feelings of this were when I was only 7 and in school and we were reading Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. I was Mowgli! I should have been born in the jungle! This sense grew stronger when we read Around the World in 80 Days. Why, oh why, was I stuck in Wales when this big old World was waiting for me?

My best friend (Julie) and I decided we needed to spread our wings, and, as the USSR had recently launched Sputnik, we decided we were going to be astronauts!
    Now, neither of us had a clue what that entailed, because all we’d seen being splattered into space was a dog and some chimpanzee or other. But Julie and I knew they’d eventually want people to go, so we were set – astronauts we would be. We both studied hard and got into Grammar School, where we’d be able to sit exams and then go to University to study “astronauting,” go to America, and get shot to the Moon or Mars.

Me (L) & Julie at age 6

    But fate was to take a twist for us two buddies. During the very first year in Grammar School, the wheels came off our plan. It was discovered that Julie had spondylitis of the spine and needed a major operation and a year off from school to recover. I was devastated and scared for my bestie, who herself seemed to take it all in her stride – I was distraught for both of us. That second year was hard without her, and I have to confess that I got the other three wheels off that wagon all by myself. I never found school work hard. Indeed, I was bored by the slowness of the lessons to accommodate the slower pupils. I was disruptive, especially in Maths and Sciences (the most important subjects I needed if I was to become an astronaut – duh!). I spent many a day outside the classroom or in the front of class or worse – in the Head Mistress’s office. Despite all of this I did sit exams, but by age 15 I’d discovered boys and rock and roll, so the only “space” I was going to travel to was that between me and my town.

First year Grammar – Julie on the left

    School was one of the happiest times of my life and I kept in touch with many, many school chums, including Julie, as well as several teachers, amongst them Miss Jones, who taught Maths. Julie did go on to study Sciences and became an Astro Scientist. She couldn’t be an astronaut because her spine was held up by a steel tube.

55^th reunion from our Grammar School

Dad and Mom’s pub

Eventually, when I was 18, I moved away to the City and train as a nurse. That was a whole other story full of ups and downs, drinking, partying, loving, engagements, etc., etc. For the first six months, I went home once a month but after that in-person visits were infrequent, though I continued to telephone home every week, sometimes more than once. I wanted to “keep the parents happy” so I could live my life large! 

    I had a whale of a time, but tragedy was about to pull the rug out from under me. My father, who was already elderly, suddenly died. No warning, no illness, just got up one Sunday morning, had his bath and shave, got dressed to go down and join my mother to watch The Beverly Hillbillies before they needed to open the pub, and dropped down dead – a great way for anyone to go, but, as with all deaths, a shock for those left behind.
    I came back to the industrial town to comfort my mother, intending to help in the pub for a short time. Like all traumatic events, my dad’s death brought unforeseen results and, to cut a long story short, at age 21 I stayed and took over the running of the pub. I just went through the motions, numb, living but not living. Looking back, I was clearly suffering depression, but as my mother had taken to her bed and “turned her face to the wall” in grief, and my brother was married with his own life, it all fell on my shoulders. I really don’t remember much about those first few months, other than that my previous life was over and a new, different chapter was starting. Little did I know what that entailed, which was probably a good thing, because otherwise I wouldn’t be here to write about it.
    Before I’d left town at 18, I’d been “courting” a boy. He was nice and good, but I wanted excitement and fun. We did have fun but not as much as I wanted. He was level-headed and employed, so my mother thought he was perfect! I dated him for several years, and I’m not proud to admit that I cheated on him several times. But either he didn’t know it or, when he did know it, he forgave me. When I moved to the city it seemed over for him and me, and I didn’t see or hear from him the entire time I was away. But after I returned and got my affairs in order and brought my mother back to the land of the living, she took matters into her own hands and contacted the ex-boyfriend, who responded, although I don’t know to this day why he did. So, one night, while I’m behind the bar serving, I hear a familiar voice behind me from the hallway. And there he is, my old boyfriend…and future husband.
    “I’m sorry about your father,” he said, and that, as they say, was the start of my future. Within a year we were married, after which we lived in the pub for the first six months, before buying a house.

Me and Mom at my wedding

    The wedding had been great. We got married on my birthday (so he would never forget either), planning to go to the church up the road for the ceremony and then back to the pub for a party. Even better, the Wales national rugby team were playing England that day, so it was going to be epic. My mother invited everyone – relatives, customers, and all of our friends – 280+ people. We did a lot of the catering ourselves – remember, this was the 70s and finger buffets were the rule – but also used the contributions of local eateries.
    The wedding was mind-numbing, not only because the church had standing room only crowding out the doors, but also because we used a car – a white Rolls Royce, of course – that I knew exceeded what we should have been using. I kept thinking – no, praying – that at the moment the vicar said, “Does anyone know, etc., etc.,” at least one of our friends would call out something, and I’d realize that I couldn’t do this and I’d run out. As it happened, no one uttered a whimper. You could hear a pin drop and, crap, I was married!
    The best thing about the day was that Wales pummeled England 21-9 and won the whole tournament. Happy Day!

Now, to be fair, my husband was a good guy and I liked him, but, shoot, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with him. However, I was a loyal gal, so if that’s what “the gods” had in store for me, then I’d be a great wife. And I was – even he has said it.
    After just six months and having bought our own house, I nevertheless left him and went back to the pub. But my mother was a very persuasive woman and convinced me to go back and try. Which I did, and somehow we made it work for five years. It helped that we worked opposite shifts, him at the Ford Motor Company and me as a nurse at the local hospital. Absence makes the marriage work sort of thing.
    In the fifth year I decided I couldn’t carry on living – no, just surviving – like that, even though he never complained about anything. He would just sulk for days, so we never really argued.
    But once again, that fickle finger of fate had other plans for me. The biggest and best, but most shocking, thing happened: on New Year’s Day I learned that I was pregnant. Having been told two years before that because I had to have an emergency appendectomy involving an ovary, I probably couldn’t get pregnant, I bloody well was. [Part 3]

At Kim’s christening

Copyright © 2021 by Penelope Griffiths