Pitfalls of Memory. Peter Milward
front door I particularly remember as the point of departure for my father every Monday morning and the point of his return every Friday evening. As a school agent, for J & J Paton, it was his job to visit private, mostly primary schools up and down the country, to interview the headmasters, and to collect the prospectus of each school for publication in an annual volume entitled Paton’s List of Schools and Tutors. It was a job calling for use of a car, an Austin, provided by the firm. In it my father (or Dada, as we knew him) would travel all over the country, spending the night at different hotels, mostly the so-called “Trust Houses”. Thus he had an unparalleled knowledge of the country, and of private, primary schools everywhere. And every night at 6 o’clock he would phone us from wherever he was staying. Then we would line up before the telephone in the dining room, with my mother (or Mama) to answer first, followed by each of us with a “Hello, Dada!”
In many ways it might seem that this was an ideal job for my father for getting to know the ins and outs of dear old England, the situation of private, primary schools and their children, not to mention himself and his philosophy of life. For he was possessor of a philosophy of his own, of which I only became aware when I left home and received his weekly letters. At the same time, I can easily imagine a critic blaming him for leaving his wife and children all week and only coming home for the week-ends. Indeed, my poor mother often used to complain about having to put up with so many noisy little children. But her complaints were directed only against us, never against him. In any case, I may affirm, such a regular absence of my father from home made for a happy family, considering the truth of the saying, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Just consider. Every Monday morning we would all crowd to the door to say “Goodbye!” to him. And every Friday evening, as soon as we heard the sound of his key in the door, we would crowd there to welcome him home. Also, I may add, there was less time for marital quarrels between my parents. Their mutual love – so far as I could see – remained unchanged, without any observable “variation or shadow of alteration”. Even while my father was at home, he quietly left my mother in charge of the house, while recognizing his rightful place outside in the garden. Such is the wise Japanese saying, “Fuku wa uchi, oni wa soto”, The wife inside, the husband outside – as is also the case with the cat and the dog.
Now is the time for me to leave my father outside and to step into the hall, with all its doors giving onto different rooms. And each of those rooms is charged with several memories of childhood. The first door was on the right, giving onto the dining room, which we hardly ever used, except for special guests. For us it was chiefly the room for the telephone. And near the telephone was the desk my father used for all the papers connected with his job. But on one special occasion we received a visit from Grandma, Mama’s mother, who had come all the way from Cork. And what I will never forget about that occasion was when she took out her teeth after dinner and put them in her glass of water. I was so astonished. I had never thought that one’s teeth could be removed in such a manner. So I tried to take out my teeth, but they wouldn’t move. It was a real mystery. I couldn’t help envying Grandma, and regarding her as a kind of magician. After all, as I later came to realize, no one in all Shakespeare’s plays, not even the magician Prospero, had the ability to take out his or her teeth.
Then there was the door facing us from the hall. It led to another room which was usually off limits to us children. This was the drawing (or withdrawing) room, which we also kept for special visitors. Such was my uncle Bun and my two aunts Cissie and Nancy, all Dada’s siblings. We always looked forward to their coming, not only because we were able to sit with them in the drawing room, but also because they always left us with a half-crown coin. And that was much more than the weekly allowance of “pocket money” we received from Mama. So the welcome we gave them wasn’t unmixed with “cupboard love”. We were, I am ashamed to say, thinking as much of our pockets as of their persons. This was also the room with our piano, and Mama would sometimes treat us to her party pieces. Again, I have to admit our enjoyment was as much for the opportunity of sitting in the room as of listening to her music. Little children are so selfish!
Then again from the hall there was a short passage leading to the kitchen, which was also our living room and dining room combined. Especially in winter it was the only warm room, with a stove in one corner. So my memories of childhood all come crowding into this small room. In particular, however, I think of it as a classroom, in which Mama as teacher would instruct us in table manners. Children, especially boys, are natural barbarians, and we have to learn the arts of civilization at the dining table. “Don’t put your elbows on the table! Don’t eat with your mouth full! Don’t speak while you’re eating! What do you say? Please… Thank you.” It wasn’t enough for Mama to utter these words of instruction just once or twice. Again and again she had to repeat them. We were so forgetful! Her words, however forcefully uttered, invariably fell on deaf ears. Or if they entered at one ear, out they would go by the other. She was fighting what seemed a losing battle. Yet it was just the way Jesus himself had to teach his disciples. After all, isn’t that the meaning of education, according to the proverb (which hardly calls for translation), “Repetitio est mater studiorum.”
All this time my thoughts have been moving from indoors to the back garden, which we could see through the kitchen window. We could also see it from the drawing room, beyond the verandah, but that was no option for us. Mostly we had to go out by the kitchen door and the concrete area beyond. That, as I have said, was Dada’s original preserve, looking after the garden on week-ends when he was home – with due allowance for the ever changing English weather. As Shakespeare puts it somewhat pessimistically, “For the rain it raineth every day.” Originally, as I have said, it was his preserve, and he was a born gardener. So when Mama came out to help him, she was for once under his orders, though it was the other way round once he came indoors. Only, as we grew older, we gradually took over. Our interests were not in the garden but in cricket. And the back garden was just the right size for a cricket pitch – though not (of course) for a cricket ground. So the garden, or what was left of it after all our cricket matches, had to be handed over to us, while Dada, ever the obliging father to his children as husband to his wife, turned his practical skills to carpentry in the form of a pavilion at the back of the garden. And then we, I mean Richard and I, could play to our heart’s content, especially during the summer holidays.
As for the second floor, up the staircase – which we also appreciated for the chance of sliding down the banisters – there were the various bedrooms, the bathroom, and the nursery. The large bedroom over the dining room was the boys’ room, where my bed was parallel with that of my elder brother Richard. (He never allowed anyone to call him “Dick”, any more than I allowed anyone to call me “Pete”. But my younger brother expected everyone to call him “Tiny”, never “Gervaise”.) Here I specially remember introducing Richard to the mysteries of Aristotle’s Ethics. Not that I knew anything of Aristotle, still less of his Ethics. Only, I knew that my brother had a strong dislike of philosophy or any kind of generalization. And I happened to find a copy of Aristotle’s Ethics in the public library. As usual, I got into bed first, after having taken my bath, and I waited for Richard to come. And then I began reading. At once he stopped his ears and would listen to no more. But I went on reading the book for myself, and then I found it unexpectedly interesting, on the subject of the Golden Mean. So from that time onwards I may be said to have become a little Aristotelian.
Also in that room there was a large picture of the Good Shepherd seeking his stray sheep. The shepherd with his crook was standing on the summit of a craggy mountain, while the sheep was caught in the thorns below. Up above in the sky there was a vulture circling and waiting for the time to stoop on his helpless prey. It was so impressive! The shepherd was (of course) Jesus, and I was the stray sheep. Then who was the vulture? I didn’t dare to think, but he spelt danger. Then, too, I couldn’t help thinking of Dada as also represented by the shepherd. A little further away there was another picture of an Italian peasant woman holding her child, in much the same manner as one of Raphael’s better known Madonnas. Thus as Jesus was the Good Shepherd in the one picture, Mary was the Madonna in the other. And if I was the sheep in the one picture, I liked to think of myself as the child in the other. And then Mama would be the Madonna.
Lastly, there was the nursery, or play-room, around which my memories cluster even more than around the kitchen