Snapshot: My gran with the doll she later gave to me
My grandmother, Joan, had been overjoyed when her father had given her the gift of a beautiful china doll. She lovingly cared for her and took great pride in pushing her around in her doll’s pram. One particular day, while playing, my grandmother accidentally let go of the pram. It raced away, tipping over and threw the doll unceremoniously out on to the pavement with a loud cracking noise.
My grandmother was distraught; she had broken her precious doll and she faced having to tell her father. As wine butler to King George V, looking after things and abiding by the rules was of prime importance to my great-grandfather. My grandmother was fearful of a stern telling off, but her father adored his only daughter.
When he came home one afternoon with a new doll, though, from the look in his eye, she knew that this time there really wouldn’t be another chance.
The doll survived until my grandmother had children of her own: three boys and three girls. With so many youngsters around, the doll was stored safely away, too precious to be played with. My grandmother wanted her to be an heirloom to be handed down over generations to come.
She came over one afternoon and handed me a package wrapped in newspaper. I had seen the photograph of the doll (taken in the late 1920s/early 30s), but I hadn’t imagined my grandmother still had her, let alone that I would be the one she wanted to leave her to. She told me that, as my father was her eldest child and I was the first granddaughter, she wanted me to have it. The shock must have shown on my face when I parted the paper to see the clear eyes staring back at me. The doll’s clothes had worn away over the years and her hair was matted. Apart from that, she was perfect.
I saw tears in my grandmother’s eyes and knew what this meant to her. I had to show my grandmother how much this also meant to me.
I contacted a doll’s house specialist to see if there was anything they could do. They made the doll new clothes from authentic materials of the time. My grandmother had given me a description of the colours and materials used for the original clothes. They also made new hair. I’ll never forget my grandmother’s face when she saw her doll restored to how she was in that photograph taken so long ago. Sadly, she died not long after. The doll now sits in my dresser – a wonderful reminder of a wonderful grandmother. Esther Newton
Playlist: Beautiful minutes with my new baby
Budapest by George Ezra
“My house in Budapest / My hidden treasure chest, / Golden grand piano / My beautiful Castillo”
They were long nights – and days – in December 2013. We’d just brought our baby son Harry home from hospital and were shellshocked by it all. Why wouldn’t he sleep? Why did he cry so much? Why did I seem to be permanently glued to the sofa breastfeeding? It was all too much. I couldn’t put him down for a second without him screaming. Making a cup of tea suddenly seemed an impossibly huge task. Having time to take a shower or bath – just a dream.
I remember walking into the kitchen one afternoon and hearing the pipes clanking from the central heating and George Ezra’s Budapest on the radio. I started gently swaying Harry in my arms and singing to him. He didn’t fall asleep but he did stop crying and look up at me. Whether it was the song or the motion, I’m not sure. But as I danced around the kitchen, whispering the words to Harry, we shared a lovely moment. We could forget about the overflowing nappy bin, the pile of dirty babygrows that needed washing, the trauma of birth, the fact that my brain didn’t know what day it was because I hadn’t had more than two hours of interrupted sleep at a time for weeks.
I was here with my brand new baby and George Ezra. For a few beautiful minutes, all was right with the world.
Now when I hear this song on the radio, it always reminds of those early days of motherhood. I was a wreck but George was one of the people who helped me through it. I’ll always be grateful. Linda Harrison
We love to eat: Chilli pasta
Ingredients
Open a bottle of red wine and pour yourself a glass
Olive oil for frying
One onion, roughly chopped
A clove or two of garlic, sliced
One to two chilli peppers
One red pepper chopped
Four rashers of bacon, chopped into small pieces (or pancetta)
One tin of chopped tomatoes
Squeeze of tomato puree
Grated parmesan
Basil leaves
We dropped the grandchildren off and paused for a chat in my son and daughter-in-law’s kitchen. Andrew and Danielle are a busy working couple.As I glanced behind them, I could see they had chalked the week’s menus on the blackboard. Thursday was going to be chilli pasta and it took me back to our own kitchen when our four boys were growing up.
Chilli pasta’s origins lie in a decision my wife, Maria, and I made to equip our boys, in preparation for them leaving home, with a few basic survival recipes. There’s nothing complicated about chilli pasta of course; it’s merely a standard spicy tomato sauce. You just heat up some olive oil, soften the onions, garlic and chilli, then add the bacon and cook for a few minutes. Add half a glass of wine and reduce by half and then stir in the tomato puree and add the tomatoes. Rinse out the tin with about a third of a tin of water and add to the sauce. Leave to simmer for 30 minutes and add grated cheese and torn basil towards the end. Cook your pasta and pour sauce over it.
Fragments of repeat conversations ripple through the years. “You might want to tuck your fingertips in when using that knife. You might never play the piano again.” “I hate piano,” was the predictable reply. It is permissible to top the wine glass up at points like this. I recall saying that you can big up this recipe for your university friends by calling it penne all’arrabbiata. Or you can add olives and anchovies and call it puttanesca, concocted allegedly by ladies of the night, I added.
The beauty of the basic recipe is that you can embellish it with fresh garden herbs and additional vegetables such as courgettes or aubergines. Andrew, David, Robert and James all survived the training and produced fine palatable family meals, adding their own side salads and warmed ciabatta. Each meal of course was subjected to rigorous peer review by hungry siblings. They left home with a few recipes tucked under their belts and variations of chilli pasta still do the rounds a couple of decades later.
Early this year, Maria and I were in a cafe in Melbourne. Our son Robert was preparing us a healthy salad. He’s the one who has taken the cooking to heart and earns his living from it. The thoroughly modern menu was paleo-inspired and contained some ingredients I had only a passing acquaintance with. When no one is looking, I said to Maria, I’m going to add to that board: “This all began with chilli pasta.” Ian Goodwin
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