Back to the Beginning

I changed the title of my blog to the name my sister called me.. Bengala. At a guess, it is a cross between Bengal and Svengali, I didn't ask.

It was also my sister who encouraged me to start writing again, she feels I have a real talent for it and it is true, I have always wanted to be a writer, there, I said it. And it isn't just because I hope it would make me enough money to buy my own island, although that would be nice.. goes off into a dream world for a moment to an island populated almost entirely by Bengals and Cocker Spaniels.

Seriously though, when Charles Dickens penned that little tale called A Christmas Carol did he ever think of a time when that book would be almost as famous as the bible and spawned a considerable number of movies starring some pretty big names? Nope. I can tell you what he did. He sat there, in a dimly lit room, paper before him, likely a pen and quill and an idea came to him. What if there were a man who was so stingy, so cynical, that even the spirit of Christmas could not bring light to his soul? Ahhh.. spirit? Hmmm.. a ghost? How about three? Christmas presents! Christmas present.. the ghost of Christmas present!! For in such a way a writer's best works are born.

I was born near Christmas, Mum said I was supposed to be born on Christmas Day but I wanted to hold on for Christmas dinner, I used to think that was THE most yucky thing to think about, now she is gone I suppose it brings me comfort. From that point forward I spent my life right up until I met the tall, dark, handsome one in a mix of a fantasy world and a real one.

I have a photo I won't publish here.. yet.. of my Great Grandmother Martha taken in 1915 in Dublin, Ireland, it is an old black and white of course, her grandchildren, my uncles and aunt are with her wearing pinafores to keep their clothes clean. There they are in front of a house on a street, probably their own terraced town house. At that time my grandmother Ellen was approaching her mid twenties, she would have 13 children in all, the youngest my Mother and she would watch seven of them die.

As I looked at her photo it struck me. This is my Great Grandmother but I don't know anything about her. Did she like to read? Could she read? Write? Did she love animals as much as I do? What were her passions? And finally....

I go forward many years to the year that we all went to the Ironbridge Gorge where the world famous Iron Bridge and Museum sites are. We are at the foundry, outside, I am with my ex husband, Mom and Dad and my two children. I am yet to be a grandmother, I don't have a thought that I will be divorced. We all realise that Dad, who was a bear of a man in every sense, is crouched and bent over with his hand on the wall, he almost looks like he is listening to something. Suddenly he says.. I wonder. Then.. louder.. I wonder.. we wait, silent, knowing that he will complete the sentence when he is ready. I wonder.. he repeats... what he had for breakfast and he turns and looks at me smiling. The man who laid this brick all those years ago, a hundred years ago.. what did he have for breakfast?

Everyone laughed but me. It hit me, almost knocked the wind out of me. It was magic. Dad had made history come alive for me, vital, living, a man had indeed simply gone to work one morning and he had laid this brick, he was long gone, but here was this brick, still there, a testimony to what he was. A simple bricklayer and yes.. what did he have for breakfast?

As I looked at the photo of Martha I wondered, what did she have for breakfast? What did she like? And that was where the idea was born to write about my life and our family. Perhaps some day I will have it bound for the children to come after me so that they will know my Mom and Dad, whatever I can remember about the people and happenings in my life, historical events.. anything.. that would not only bring history alive, but bring our family to life for them.

Otherwise... how will they ever know what I had for breakfast?