bread and butter and a currant bun. Supper – bread, butter and cheese – was at seven o’clock, after the men had come in from the fields and milked the cows and attended to the horses. This routine never varied and the food never altered.
But on Sunday afternoons everything was different. After dinner the girls would help their grandmother fill up the tin bath in the scullery, and the menfolk would wash and change out of their rough working coats and soiled breeches into their Sunday clothes. Then they would disappear into the barn after donning thick hessian butcher’s aprons and work on ‘clean’ jobs for an hour or two. On the arrival of any visitors they would leave the aprons in the barn and stroll in a few minutes later with their pipes alight, as though they had been taking the air after dinner.
It had taken Polly some years to understand that this act of apparent ease and relaxation was for her mother’s stepbrother’s benefit, and his alone. Frederick Weatherburn always arrived at or about the same time as her Aunt Eva and the lads and, like them, he rarely missed more than one week in a month. He was big and jolly and smelled of good tweed cloth and cigar smoke, and he was rich – or so her mam maintained anyway. Her grandda and da were always hearty and loud when Uncle Frederick was around, and Polly didn’t know if she liked that – it made her feel uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed somehow, although she didn’t know why. But she did know she liked Sunday tea.
Baked jam roll, cheese scones, fruit loaf, seed cake – they usually had the lot on a Sunday, along with slices of her granny’s delicious white bread and butter, and a big plateful of their home-cured ham cut very thin.
Sometimes, when the farm had been going through a harder spell than usual and Polly had noticed her granny’s stews and broths consisted mostly of taties, and that the flour was the cheaper kind – dark and with bits in it – which made the hard bread she didn’t like so much, she thought they wouldn’t have the white bread and plateful of ham on a Sunday afternoon. But they always did.
‘All ready, me bairns?’ Alice was smiling as she walked into the kitchen, but when Polly looked at her grandmother she saw it was her granny’s Sunday smile.
This smile went hand in hand with her grandda and da being different, the elaborate tea, her mam coming downstairs and perching herself on the saddle near the fire, and her granny’s face sometimes when she looked at Aunt Eva. But Sunday meant Michael too. Polly hugged the thought of her cousin to her and skipped across to her grandmother, burying her face in Alice’s apron and holding her tight round the waist as she said, ‘Look at the table, Gran. Isn’t it bonny?’
‘Aye, pet. Right bonny.’
‘An’ the rain’s held off. I told you it would, didn’t I?’
‘That you did,’ Alice said heartily, too heartily. Bad weather sometimes meant a respite in this weekly torture, although on more than one occasion she had known Eva drag the lads through a foot or so of snow on the two-and-a-half-mile walk from the tram stop. At least now the bairns were grown Frederick couldn’t give them all a lift part of the way home in his horse and trap. She’d suffered the torments of the damned every time that had happened, although Walter had assured her Eva had more sense than to open her mouth to anyone. But Alice wasn’t so sure. Seeing Eva sitting there week after week with her hungry eyes fixed on her brother’s face ... No, she wasn’t so sure what Eva would do if the mood took her.
And then, as though the thoughts of her daughter had conjured her up, she heard a familiar voice call, ‘Yoohoo, anyone at home?’ seconds before the kitchen door opened and Eva stepped into the kitchen, closely followed by two youths and a young lad. And it was this young lad who ran over to where Polly was now standing by her grandmother
But on Sunday afternoons everything was different. After dinner the girls would help their grandmother fill up the tin bath in the scullery, and the menfolk would wash and change out of their rough working coats and soiled breeches into their Sunday clothes. Then they would disappear into the barn after donning thick hessian butcher’s aprons and work on ‘clean’ jobs for an hour or two. On the arrival of any visitors they would leave the aprons in the barn and stroll in a few minutes later with their pipes alight, as though they had been taking the air after dinner.
It had taken Polly some years to understand that this act of apparent ease and relaxation was for her mother’s stepbrother’s benefit, and his alone. Frederick Weatherburn always arrived at or about the same time as her Aunt Eva and the lads and, like them, he rarely missed more than one week in a month. He was big and jolly and smelled of good tweed cloth and cigar smoke, and he was rich – or so her mam maintained anyway. Her grandda and da were always hearty and loud when Uncle Frederick was around, and Polly didn’t know if she liked that – it made her feel uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed somehow, although she didn’t know why. But she did know she liked Sunday tea.
Baked jam roll, cheese scones, fruit loaf, seed cake – they usually had the lot on a Sunday, along with slices of her granny’s delicious white bread and butter, and a big plateful of their home-cured ham cut very thin.
Sometimes, when the farm had been going through a harder spell than usual and Polly had noticed her granny’s stews and broths consisted mostly of taties, and that the flour was the cheaper kind – dark and with bits in it – which made the hard bread she didn’t like so much, she thought they wouldn’t have the white bread and plateful of ham on a Sunday afternoon. But they always did.
‘All ready, me bairns?’ Alice was smiling as she walked into the kitchen, but when Polly looked at her grandmother she saw it was her granny’s Sunday smile.
This smile went hand in hand with her grandda and da being different, the elaborate tea, her mam coming downstairs and perching herself on the saddle near the fire, and her granny’s face sometimes when she looked at Aunt Eva. But Sunday meant Michael too. Polly hugged the thought of her cousin to her and skipped across to her grandmother, burying her face in Alice’s apron and holding her tight round the waist as she said, ‘Look at the table, Gran. Isn’t it bonny?’
‘Aye, pet. Right bonny.’
‘An’ the rain’s held off. I told you it would, didn’t I?’
‘That you did,’ Alice said heartily, too heartily. Bad weather sometimes meant a respite in this weekly torture, although on more than one occasion she had known Eva drag the lads through a foot or so of snow on the two-and-a-half-mile walk from the tram stop. At least now the bairns were grown Frederick couldn’t give them all a lift part of the way home in his horse and trap. She’d suffered the torments of the damned every time that had happened, although Walter had assured her Eva had more sense than to open her mouth to anyone. But Alice wasn’t so sure. Seeing Eva sitting there week after week with her hungry eyes fixed on her brother’s face ... No, she wasn’t so sure what Eva would do if the mood took her.
And then, as though the thoughts of her daughter had conjured her up, she heard a familiar voice call, ‘Yoohoo, anyone at home?’ seconds before the kitchen door opened and Eva stepped into the kitchen, closely followed by two youths and a young lad. And it was this young lad who ran over to where Polly was now standing by her grandmother
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