This is the time of year when you think of people who played an important part in your young life. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens played a big part in my life. offering suport, comfort and morals. They were a loving family that my grandmother and I would visit every Sunday. We would have fresh baked cakes, jam sandwhiches and tomatoe paste sandwiches.
I loved Mrs. Stevens so much that I secretly wished that she was my mum. She had a daughter the same age as me that I would play with at school. If ever I did something wrong I would worry that Mrs. Stephens would get upset. So when I became a young single teenage mum I worried that I had let Mrs. Stephens down. I did go back to St. Helena for a holiday in recent years and Bob and I went to her house for tea. She hadn’t changed in 20 years. She was as beautiful as ever.
My grandmother had a friend Mrs. Doris Williams. whom we called Fifi. She would visit our house to help us with the chickens. I don’t know the correct medical word for the condition but our hens would sometimes
develop a hard spot on their tongues. Fifi would cut out the hard lump that we called a pip. Although Fifi didn’t have any vetinary training she saved a lot of our hens that were very poorly.
My grandfather had four sisters Lilly, Chrissy, Beaty Scipio andy Aunty Cathy. He had three brothers an Edward, David and Arty Crowie. Arty’s wife was a pleasant woman called Minnie. I didn’t really get to know my grandfather’s family except for Uncle Edward Chief. He visited us nearly always holding a can of Guiness. He was a tall lanky man loved by everyone. I quite liked his wife Molly.
My grandmother’s family were a close family. We all got on and would go to each other houses. We would go to Auntie’s Sara quite often. Auntie Sara loved Christmas and her house would look like Santa’s Grotto. Auntie Sarah was a small woman, very clean and tidy, however she did have a fierce temper. She chased me once for biting her Grandson Christopher. She did catch me but was too out of breath to box me around the ears.
I really liked my grandmother’s brother Uncle Johnny Yon. We would visit him and his wife Zuky every week for tea.
Nights were very dark on St. Helena and darkness comes in quickly, as early as 7PM. One night we heard someone frantically knocking at the door. I opened the door to find my cousin at the door. It was my cousin Lily at the doorstep. She asked if I could go out with her to the poilice station to get help as her grandfather had collapsed. Lilly and I ran all the way to Longwood Police Station to ask for help. We ran all the way in the black of night falling over bushes and fences. We finally arrived at the Police Station they gave us a lift back to Lillys grandfathers house but Lillys grandfather Dick Clingham had passed away.