Off On A New Tack

This morning I've decided to leave the weather behind; sun, rain, wind, or snow and ice - be gone! Instead, I intend to embark on the calmer waters of childhood memories. Did I say calmer? Probably not the right word for one born in 1941 in wartime Britain. But the mind is able to muffle the 'Whumpf!' of dropping bombs and the wailing ululations of those horrific sirens, as they had no real meaning in a small child's world - were simply 'noises off' in act 1, scene 1 of my life.

Mum and I lived at Granny Ada's while my Dad sailed the seas with The Royal Navy, so my memories are entwined with the extended family who managed to squeeze into that tiny house: Auntie and Uncle: two cousins (their daughter's): a maiden Aunt: Gran: Mum - and yours truly.
For the best part of three years that was my home territory, although my parents did have a flat in a large, three storied house a short walk away, I have no particular war time memories of living in it until my brother was born in 1944 .

With the unavoidable stresses and strains of living through a war, tempers were lost, family feuds waxed and waned, laughter, tears and love always providing a strong enough glue to repair any chips or cracks in the whole structure of family life as I knew it then.

With such a selection of grown ups around to play with, who needed toys? At least, of the conventional variety. I know I had a small, stuffed panda, made in a gingerbread man shape, that my eighteen year old cousin gave me for my first birthday; to this day, I have his 'remains' in my chest of drawers upstairs. He's flatter than ever, and a hole in the bald, plush fabric of his once glossy head will still leak a little sawdust -or was it straw?- if he's handled too roughly. But apart from that, I had more down to earth, every day items to serve as playthings, when the cousins weren't entertaining me, of course.

One of my favourite 'toys' was my Auntie's button box - presumably once I got beyond the baby stage of putting extraneous objects in mouth - so here is the resulting memory wrapped up in the guise of a poem, for you to join me in my game.

The Button Box

When I was a child and went to stay
with my Granny and Auntie, I loved to play
with the large box of buttons they kept on a shelf
and allowed me to take down and open myself.

I'd sort them by sizes, or colours, or feel,
wondering what each new scrape would reveal
as I dug for the depths of the box full of treasures.
Their slip-sliding movement afforded such pleasure,
reminiscent of pits dug in sand on a beach,
where a base, tantalisingly, stays out of reach.

I had special favourites: one silver and white,
that looked like a seagull in soaring flight:
one like a posy of flowers in grass,
painted so carefully on transparent glass
that sparkled, as slowly it twisted and turned
beneath my enquiring fingers. I learned
of the stories attached by a thread
of time and memory to the buttons that fed
my dawning imagination.

Now, many years later, I too have a tin
full of various buttons, right up to its rim.
Amongst their number is one silver and white
that looks like a seagull in soaring flight
and one like a posy of flowers in grass,
painted so carefully on transparent glass.