The children playing in the streets used to rise over the sound of that rough cough that father brought home from the coalmines. Though the hard coughs coming out of the black lungs were apparent, the rhymes from my neighbors in tune with the rhythm of the circling jump rope always seemed to be louder.
Thinking back I think this only applied to me. I don’t think my mother even knew that there were children outside. They say you hear what you want to hear and you see what you want to see. Maybe my young imagination saw happiness where my mother’s worried eyes saw the hopelessness of our situation.
It was 1930 in Liverpool. My parents and I lived in a tiny house. I wouldn’t even call it a house… more of a shack. But nonetheless, it was still a home. There was no bathroom, instead we had a makeshift toilet. Although, I am too embarrassed to admit what it was, though I encourage you to imagine the worse. Our kitchen consisted of an area that had a holding capacity of 1 person. This was a huge inconvenience seeing that the entrance and exit to my home was in the kitchen. We often squeezed our way through there when arriving home into the bedroom. The bedroom was just through the archway in the kitchen. The bedroom consisted of a comforter and one stained pillow laid neatly in the corner where my parents slept, and a nest of thin blankets with my dirty comfort stuffed animal.
Ah, my giraffe Henrietta. I remember once Tomas, one of the neighbor boys, stole Henrietta from me. He grabbed her and ran into the streets teasing me. He was yelling to one of his friends, Gerald to run her over with his bicycle. I plopped down on the ground and cried and screamed as Gerald ran over my precious giraffe. He rode on and the mischievous smile on Tomas’ face disappeared. He picked up Henrietta and wiped her off. He walked up to little me crying on the sidewalk. He turned his head and handed Henrietta to me and apologized in shy muffled words.
My father was young, but he sure was aged. Even though he was only in his mid-thirties he looked late forties. Coal outlined every crease in his face, so every worry-line appeared to be a deep wrinkle. He used to be a very strong man. He was an all star rugby player in high-school and was very sociable among the other students. He was always very young and bright looking with much ambition. As soon as we were forced out of our city home, he immediately aged 20 years.
