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I'm going through a difficult time at present, as a couple of friends are splitting up. I have known Judy for many years,
and when she and Alice got together, it seemed like the ideal match, and I grew friendly with Alice in her own right, not
just as Judy's other half. Now they are splitting, I feel caught in the middle, and feel disloyal to each for talking to
the other, even though I know they don't expect, or want, me to take sides.
Difficult as the situation may be, it pales into insignificance compared to what I went through when my parents got divorced.
I've never talked about this before, preferring to pretend that my childhood was normal and sunny, but it's time to open up.
Everything was going well until my Dad had a brief affair, and Mum never forgave him. Back in 1949 it wasn't easy to
walk out of a marriage and set up house as a single parent, but Mum wouldn't stay with a philanderer, so she uprooted me and
my sisters and took us to live with her parents in Wakefield, leaving Dad to cope on his own. "I'd never be able to
trust him again," she ranted, "And don't you go sticking up for him. He should have thought of you before he went
with THAT woman!'"
We loved Dad dearly, so Jen, Laura and I took the separation badly, though our love for our wonderful grandparents went
a long way towards easing our pain. We spent long hours with our granddad, a retired miner turned cobbler. He had a shed
across the street where he repaired shoes and boots and tinkered with his old motorbike. He smelt of pipe tobacco which we
loved, and we were always fascinated to watch him shave, as he used an old cut-throat razor which he sharpened on a leather
strop.
He had a yellow budgie named Mickey, who talked a lot, though my uncles were never able to teach him to swear. He was
free to roam the house, and would sit on the ledge of Granddad's shaving mirror, bringing his audience up to three for the
daily shave. I remember Grandma's mortification when Mickey paddled through the gravy on my dinner plate, but I thought it
was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
Grandma was a great cook, and she had a long pantry with whitewashed stone shelves which always smelt of fresh baked bread.
No shop-bought rubbish for her! She was round and grey with an almost permanent smile, and I gained a lot of comfort on her
ample lap, wrapped in her loving arms. "You come up here love," she'd say. "You shouldn't look so sad at
your age."
It had been difficult leaving all my friends behind in Bradford and starting at a new school, Boothroyd Primary, where
the local kids made fun of my Bradford accent. Jen and I were very quickly given the nickname of Parkinpig, and for much
of our first few weeks there, I was always glad to escape their teasing and return to the sanctuary of our grandparents' old
house, with 2 rooms downstairs, 2 bedrooms on the first floor and a large attic room, where Jen and I slept. By the time
Laura started school, she'd gained the Wakefield twang, so she missed out on much of the teasing, though she still got Parkinpig!
Mum was eventually granted a divorce on the grounds of adultery, whereupon Dad moved his girlfriend into our old house
to live with him, very scandalous at the time. They lived together for a few months before they got married, and she was
known locally as the Scarlet Woman, even after their marriage. I don't recall Mum ever using her name, Marjorie, always referring
to her as THAT woman. The court granted dad access visits, though he was never allowed to bring THAT woman with him, so we
rarely saw her, except for the one week a year that the court decreed that we could spend with Dad during the school holidays.
Mum was very bitter about that, and I realise now that she was afraid that Marjorie would supplant her in our affections,
and she never lost an opportunity to make derogatory remarks about her, and about Dad too. She would frequently complain
that she had to manage on a pittance of maintenance while Dad and THAT woman lived in luxury. If you consider a one up, one
down house without electricity to be the lap of luxury, then she was right. And Marjorie's bread and dripping tasted just
like Mum's, so we weren't about to be seduced by the high life!
Mum was blinded to the reality though, and remained bitter until the day she died. We weren't allowed to say anything
nice about Dad, and daren't even mention Marjorie for fear of a good thick ear, so Jen, Laura and I were definitely the meat
in the sandwich.
When I got married, my Dad wasn't invited to the reception, though he did lurk at the back of the church while my granddad
walked me down the aisle. Walking back up the aisle with my brand new husband, I let go his arm and hugged my Dad, and we
cried all over each other. Mum didn't speak to me at the reception, but it was my day, and I wasn't going to ignore my Dad
just to spare her feelings.
Things were much easier for me after that, as I could visit Dad any time I wanted, without recriminations from Mum. What
she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. My husband Adrian and Dad got along very well together, and even after we eventually
divorced, he still kept in touch with Dad.
Family gatherings and celebrations were very awkward, because Mum would not attend any event when Dad was invited, so
the rest of us had to be careful to check out who had invited whom! Adrian and I would spend Christmas Day with Mum and the
grandparents, then we went to Dad's for Boxing Day. When Jen was 17, she left Wakefield and went back to live with Dad and
Marjorie in Bradford, so that made yet another rift in the family, but Jen just couldn't take Mum's bitterness any longer.
In total rebellion against this awful situation, when Adrian left me for another woman and I him divorced some years later,
we were determined that our children wouldn't be the ones to suffer, and we were both scrupulous in never saying a bad word
about the other in front of them, and access visits were never restrained in any way. To this day, when my kids ask me why
we got divorced, my only reply is, "Because your Dad thought there were only two things wrong with me, everything I said
and everything I did!" And they'll never hear anything else from me. I will not have them caught in the middle like
my sisters and I had been. Life's too short.
© Sandy Parkinson 12th September 2006. Word count: 1180
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