Our formative years are important because – as the term implies – they shape our outlook for the life that awaits us. We learn from those with whom we associate and establish much of our personal philosophy based on what we see, hear and discuss as we develop.
May I relate a lesson well learned in my young life…
Our great-grandmother’s name was Hannah Maria, too great a mouthful for the very young to manage, so Dad coined the term Granny Annie, something much easier for us to say. It was a name that stuck.
Granny Annie lived across the road from a cemetery. A woman who’d been widowed half a century before, she dressed ever after in black. Her husband had gone away to the land of the Boer, to fight for king and country, only to be returned in little pieces. She stayed on the small farm and raised their brood of fifteen on her own.
We used to visit our elderly relative every second Sunday, sharing a grand meal that always included dessert, prepared in a pair of camp ovens hung on irons in a huge sandstone fireplace. The tastes were sublime. I doubt there is any way to recreate the same flavours using modern ingredients and methods.
We were always nervous making our fortnightly visit. Many local kids reckoned our great-grandmother a witch. Early in her life, an untreated virus attacked her throat, leaving her with a high-pitched, gravelly voice. That, along with her stooped bearing, her habitual black clothing and the fact she lived alone adjacent to a cemetery was reason enough to create such an impression – with some of the locals, at least. Sadly, despite parental admonitions to the contrary, at least part of this rubbed off on my two sisters and me. I mean, if you’re told something often enough, might there not be some essence of truth in it?
A woven wire gate on a tubular frame opened inwards over a white gravel path. The top hinge was badly worn and the gate hung low on its outer edge. A witness mark, a perfect quadrant, scored the gravel and showed where those too lazy to lift the gate simply pushed it open.
A knock on the back door (nobody ever used front doors when visiting), then in we’d go – but always with a certain trepidation. Granny Annie would be seated in her rocker by the fire. We’d all go to her and offer a peck on the cheek before being bid in her crackling voice to wash our hands.
A crazed enamel basin, white with a blue band, was set in a pencil pine benchtop scrubbed and scoured over time to a soft, satin finish. The basin always contained a couple of inches of hot water; we’d slosh up suds using a soap saver, then wash. Oh, and the towels we used. Soft from boiling at every wash, they always bore the smell of the rose and lavender bushes on which they were dried.
I recall one particular Sunday. We went to the table, said Grace and sat down to a meal that comprised a roast with baked and boiled potatoes accompanied by an additional three or four steamed veges. As we sat, Granny Annie did and said something that set me wondering, something I’d have to check later with my father.
On our return home, I spoke to Dad,
“Do you know that some of the kids think Granny Annie’s a witch?”
“Yes, son. It’s an awful thing but says more about them than it does your great-grandmother. Why do you ask?”
“When we sat down to dinner, Granny Annie cut the shape of a crucifix in the potatoes, then put clotted cream on them.”
“As always…”
“And then she said, ‘They’re a fine Christian food, potatoes.’ Daddy, she can’t be a witch. Can she…?”
We sat for a long chat, that day. Being different may have been a heavy cross to bear for my great-grandmother but it’s just the way she was; the person behind the outward appearance was a good, kind, warm and generous human being. Granny Annie was no witch.
How many people in life are different? Pretty well every one. That’s what makes life interesting… and a whole lot more enjoyable if we don’t form false opinions about them.
Do you remember misunderstanding or misconstruing something when you were younger? What was it? Share your memories in the comments below…
