My grandmother was my rock, my mentor and meant the world to me. My loving grandmother taught me to detach myself and how to survive. For 14 years I watched an elderly man with a felt hat pulled right down over his eyes and a woman next to him with a kind face and a big smile. In the corner sat a small pitiful child. We lived in a small typical centre leaning, cottage.
Life was unbearable and I watched myself clinging to my grandmother while my grandfather would hurl the most hateful abuse at me. I don’t remember having any extreme poverty. My grandmother’s children had all grown up by the time that I came along. They had all gone abroad to work. They went to the Ascension Islands and England.
They would all send money back to St. Helena which would help my nan. My nan was always wonderfully dressed with earrings and a pearl necklace. She also had a sparkling brooch that was attached to her dress. I remember the brooch as clear as day and it was every so pretty.
I always had nice clothes that my mother would send out to St. Helena from England from me. I do remember storied about extreme poverty. I recall my grandparents speaking of their younger days.
My grandmother always told the story of when she had her youngest daughter Mary. Apparently, my grandfather’s cousin Marion Henry took their baby, the late Marvin Henry home from the hospital. They then sent Marvin’s clothes back to the hospital so that my grandmother could have clothes to bring my auntie Mary home in. Until the clothes arrived she had Mary wrapped up in a white sheet. My grandmother never forgot Marion’s kindness
People were very kind and patient in those days. In fact people were always helping each other with fruits and vegetables and fish. I was an only child but there were some families with 10 to 12 children. There were also single mothers with just as many children and times were very difficult for them. Because of this, it was a great relief when the pill was introduced to St. Helena. It helped to reduce the many mouths to feed and it gave power to the women, much needed power.
I never knew the true identity of my father. My grandmother would look at me and wondered who I looked like. It didn’t really bother me who my father was and I was too interested in finding my mother.
There was a man named Cyril Thomas who paid maintenance who I always thought was my father. His mother came to St. Helena from working in England and took one look at me and decided that her son wasn’t my father. I was quite sad as I had an old faded photograph of Cyril that I kept under my pillow.
Oddly enough, I moved to Portsmouth in 1987 and lived just a few doors away from Cyril Thomas but I never got to meet him as he died before I found out his address. Cyril Thomas had a nickname Jewbie Thomas and his mother was named Lilian Thomas.