North East Post Adoption Service - Adoption Narratives - Jean

dad lives even less, to us, bless him, I mean he’s, he’s like in his eighties now erm, very active man up till five year ago erm, when we lost me mam.  Well, actually two days after we lost me mam, me dad was in hospital erm, problems ……… Unbelievable really but erm, like he sold his businesses and he decided to be a postman cause I think with all the years from being in doors he wanted outdoors.

Norman:           He was a postman for a few years an all, wasn’t he?

Jean:     Yeah, erm, and like he retired, even after he retired, anybody who, who knew me dad, up and down Jarrow, walked up and down, ye know, right up till, five years ago isn’t it

Rod:     What gets me when you get an active old person like that, they say they are doing a message for the old people!!  Very amusing, I really do.

Jean:     Where now erm, through, because he had never, never been ill in his life, to the fact when we did have to get his GP they had to open the eaves because they thought my dad was deceased.  He was registered with them when he was fourteen and never, ever seen them.  Took it very badly.  Which I’m afraid put a big strain on, on us for quite a while because he come very demanding, because of it erm, but quite, like Easter Sunday he had a fall and he broke his ankle erm, and from there the professionals had to come in.

Rod:     went down hill

Norman:  Probably blame us for that because  he went home mortal!

Jean:     Because Norman takes him out on a Sunday afternoon

Rod:     We’ve had a few stories like that in our family

Jean:     Well, I’m saying mortal, but before, he’s got a cupboard with bottles of whiskey in it so I think he would have been well on his way before he got to Deneside to tell you the truth.  Erm, but I mean it has helped hasn’t it ?  He goes to a day centre now erm, and that gives him a different outlook cause he is, sounds awful but he is meeting people, people his own age

Rod:     Yeah that’s what happens, yeah

Jean:     He has got a good friend there, Tom.  They argue like anything but Tom worries about me dad and me dad worries about Tom ye know.  And then a lady Jenny erm, she’s a nice lady and there’s like a few others, Katherine and them.  And he moans every week when he has got to go.  Now a few weeks ago I had been on night duty and it’d been really hard er, had a bad night so had went round seen he’d had everything and said, ‘dad I’m going to have to come, go round home’ but, ye know they will be picking you up shortly.  ‘Right oh’.  Twenty to four I rung round to see if was home safe and he says, ‘they didn’t come for us’.  I went, what you’ve been doing all day? He says, ‘oh I got a taxi’.  I couldn’t believe it.  I thought, you moan and groan, oh, can’t be bothered, don’t even like it’ and all this and yes he’d got a taxi, a taxi down.

Rod:     Funny how we mellow towards our parents in later years isn’t it.  It’s getting old isn’t it?  Ye do develop the things.

Angie:   Yeh, we all, hopefully all going to ye know get there sort of thing

Rod:     Ye get tolerant of things.  Cause, you have a choice you can take it or leave us because you have that choice ye tend to tolerate it more because it’s not forced upon you.  It’s like, the greatest thing I’ve ever done is work for myself.  Although you are doing the job it’s not like a job.  You have the worries, the same worries; is enough money coming in to cover everything er and the biggest worry is the tax at the end of the year.  That’s, that’s the biggest thing but apart from that it runs pretty well.  I could be better,

Angie:   You’re more relaxed than we used to be.

Rod:     Oh yeah. Rod:  I used to do tutoring as well, oh god I used to come home like this.  Used to do NVQs when I first started them I used to have, well all sixteen to nineteen year olds and some were adults and I used to do level 2’s.  Well the kids doing 2’s wanted to do them because they could see the idea of getting a qualification and then  I went to another company and I did level 1s where the kids could hardly write their names sometimes.  I used to go in on a Tuesday and do Level 1’s all day long.  I couldn’t hack this, I’ve got to pack it in – but for two years ye know

Jean:     My er, our Gillian. She went in for like to be an assessor for, for NVQ …

Rod:     …tutor assessor

Jean:     for to do it and she was doing level 1 in NVQ ye know. But she come away from it as well.

Rod:     It’s very hard

Jean:     Yeah she come away from it as well er, Gillian but erm, I’m a Support Worker.  Er I love it.  Erm we’ve got six young er, well, sorry five young people cause we did lose, we did lose one.  Five young people and their characters are just so totally different between each one of them but they’re fantastic.

Rod:     they are OK?

Jean     Yeah.  The firm, well it’s a charity, United Response I work for, are very, very, erm  updated with everything erm and it’s, we’re there  professionally its only for the service erm users; the trainings brilliant and erm, cannot really.  We have been having a few problems with morale since we lost a service user er, a young lady, Lisa, because she had been looked after for quite a long time; when you get to know them, erm,

Rod:     ….like family aren’t they?

Jean:     …. and morale has been very low but we’re having a team day next week and we are hoping to get some problems, because we are introducing another young person in.  So we are hoping to get, ye know things

Rod:     …. what you are doing is you all told to sit around don’t you, say, right where do we go wrong?  Could we have done this? Could we have done that?

Jean:     yea

Rod:     Happens in every, in everything with

Jean:     But ye know these people’s life spans aren’t, but when you’ve done it on a daily basis, ye know, where you look after them day in, erm, day out, during the night.

Rod:     Doesn’t make it any easier does it?

Jean:     No

Rod:     It’s like when your parents take ill when they’re old, ye know it’s going to come eventually but it’s still a shock when it happens and you cannot

Jean:     ye but er, we’ve got one Richard he is wheelchair-bound, curvature of the spine, but he’s mind, the focus that er, that, the focus that, that man’s got

Rod:     Sharp!

Jean:     Sharp, isn’t he Norman?  Sharp as a razor.  Erm very intelligent, in his own right and music

Rod:     It’s a body disability isn’t it, not a mind disability

Jean:     Music, could tell ye anything with music.

Rod:     There’s a guy comes down to, I do a market on a Saturday and a Sunday at Tynemouth Metro Station, erm, and there is a guy comes down there, Walter, I think you’ve seen Walter, comes with his minder.  Walter’s, he’s up there, he’s not quite functional, but cars!!!  That’s a so and so, a 1934, that was made.  It has such and such engine in that and he is just like that with his cars.  He’s brilliant.

Jean:     Richard’s verbal communication is limited but with like Makaton and that, he’ll tell you and what verbal communication he’ll know, he’ll let you know.  He’ll let you know what he knows and everything.  He’s like, he’s extremely clever because cause even people who have never met him before, can get an understanding of him straight away.  So ye know

Rod:     I used to have a deaf and dumb friend like that, when I started work, I was telling Angie, and we used to argue like hell about football in the toilets, in the gents, when we were at work.  And, how can you understand?  He’s just standing and going, urgh, urgh and Newcastle United stink because he was a Sunderland supporter; Sunderland .. and we used to be hammer and tongue like………..

Jean:     Yeah definitely get an understanding over.

Rod:     We are digressing like hell here!!!!

Angie:   I think that’s quite good actually because you’re obviously so relaxed in each other’s company that you are able to do that.

Jean:     yeah a know

Rod:     from the same bloody stupid family that’s why [laugh].  It’s me mother’s side coming out obviously.  Is there any important points that you had before you came out that you wanted to sort out?

Jean     Yes.  One thing I wanted to ask you, which I had said.  I know Grace has passed on but I was hoping if you wouldn’t mind if I asked where, like her resting place is because I would like to, to go, because to me that’ll be like a closure, erm, just with, ye know, a token of respect because, I don’t know, but in my own way I want her to know like, ye know

Rod:     I know what you mean. Erm, it’s not a problem.  She’s erm, Preston Cemetery in North Shields.  She was cremated but there doesn’t seem to have been any arrangements made for her ashes. So I don’t know what happened after that.  Erm. I think George was just too distraught to organise anything.  Our George doesn’t cope very well at all.  Erm, and I think back, I can’t remember what I did at most of funerals and whatever.  But anyway, I don’t know what happened about the cremation thing but we didn’t get the ashes but me mum would be in the book of remembrance there I would imagine.  I was a bit gutted because we had nothing to sort of, tangible to latch on to for her.  There wasn’t a burial, fair enough, but if we had the ashes we could have put them somewhere.  There would have been that contact.

Jean:     Well believe it or not we organised that with me mam, didn’t we?  Like for me mam, erm and we said we’d like a private service cause my mam was cremated, said we’d like a private service and we strewed the ashes without telling anyone and I was devastated because we have a tree of life for her but I know my mam’s not there.  Me mam is over there somewhere.

Rod:     We have discussed this between our two selves as well.  We have our own pact.  Originally I was going to get buried. Because I wanted Angie to be buried erm, long time before she’s dead!!  But

[chatter]

Rod:     but the cost of burying her is impractical really is.  So I think we will both go for cremation.  I don’t know we are talking death about it but you take the ashes and put them back in your own part of the garden or something like that and I think that’s very important.  We have done that with pets over the years and that’s been

Jean:     At the time you are that distressed you don’t ye don’t know, it was the first time I had come across anything like that.  So I had asked them, but I mean the undertaker did, they apologised, well in actual fact they offered to take us down in one of the limousines, I said I didn’t want to go in one of the cars again, erm they made arrangements with the gentleman who looked after the crematorium to show where Mary, where it would have happened, was allowed to put flowers there.  Err, it was pretty horrific at the time

END OF TAPE

Rod:     It’s not the same though, no specific spot where you can remember that person for

Jean:     They were full of apologies but I thought well, it’s done.  Ye know you can’t bring anything like that erm, back but it’s like, erm.  Then the manager turned round and and told weu really ye know, he says, ‘we keep people’s ashes for years because if there’s a partner ye know sometimes like to be together and be like that’ and I thought what a stupid mistake.  If only I’d

Rod:     they are so professional it should never have got to that stage because they would have realised something got to happen, there has got to be confirmation of what’s happened to the remains

Angie:   mistakes happen in any business

Jean:     They do and like I say you can’t go back, ye can’t go back ye know but

Rod:     Well that’s no problem.  We’ll arrange something and we’ll go across over with you to Preston Cemetery.  That’s not a problem.  Is there anything else? 

Jean:     Err

Rod:     Anything that might shock you?

Jean:     Ye know when you have got loads even when we went through the tunnel, I went to pieces then

Rod:     I said to Andrea, ‘get her to make a list of any questions’.

Andrea:            I did, I told you!

Jean:     I know, I know.  I’ve left them in the house.  I have them but I’ve left them in the house.  Erm, my main concern was that how everybody was, like

Rod:     Oh we’re fine.  I haven’t told anyone.  Erm, because I wanted to see what you wanted to do, your first reaction, ‘don’t want anything to do with that lot!’  Oh no but it happens. Basically, no but we are all pretty sound.  We will not be introducing you to Colin.  I think that is for your own peace of mind as well.  I’ll have a word with our George.  Our Winnie I don’t think you will have any problems whatsoever.  Erm, our George is, he’s not really sentimental as such.  It’s a bit of family history he doesn’t know about, I’ll have to weigh it up, but certainly our Win

Jean:     Oh, I can understand

Rod:     Winn, we’ll arrange

Angie:         in the house.  I’ll sort them out.

Rod:     The rest of the family our Brenda is very nice, I’ll see her because, although I haven’t said anything, I don’t know what they know,  they may have kept quiet over the years as well ye see.    If anybody know anything it’ll be our Brenda so I’ll have a word with her, she’s me auntie Alice’s daughter, me mums sister, cousin sort of thing.  Erm, and who else was there?  Who else have we got in our family?  George

Angie:   Sonia and Tina, what will they be to your mam?

Rod:     They are cousins to me.  That’s me auntie Alice’s kids.  Ye know there is nothing there unless you want to go into that side of the family.  But that’ll be in the future.

Jean:     Like erm, I don’t want to step in like any ones

Rod:     I don’t think it’ll be any, any good to you.  I mean I can give you the background of everybody and if there is anybody you want to meet I can approach them for you but at the same time I won’t them because it’s totally irrelevant to them.

Jean     Yes exactly

Rod:     I don’t mean that disrespectfully

Jean:     No, like I say, yes, I’ve got cousins and such like what, I mean as years have went by separated.  There was part of the family who didn’t take to us because I didn’t think being adopted was right ye know but, that’s by the by. 

Rod:     Ee well mum give two of her’s away

Jean:     Really I haven’t got any.  Me, Norman’s younger brother Rob he knows because he, he’s pretty close and that.  Our Lee and Cheryl and then Warren know but that’s it really isn’t it?  I means we wouldn’t sort of like dive and say ye know cause like I says its irrelevant.

Rod:     Not going to gain anything, get, satisfaction its pointless really.  From the other side the Walkers, which is the closest to us, er the girls are OK and the lads are not too bad but there is no sort of great affinity there just cousins full stop.  Our Brenda’s dead nice, she’s a lovely lady.

Jean:     I have a friend who’s been more like a sister to us than, funny expression, than if I’d have had a sister, if you understand what I mean?  Lorraine erm.  Lorraine’s been very supportive erm, not just to me but both of wuh through the years as a very good friend, er we’re very close, me family’s very close as well.  So I have, well actually it was Lorraine who first come here with us.  Very sincere, erm, honest person

Rod:     Genuine friend. Not many of them

Jean:     So I do hold that in great, great respect er, so I mean I know for a fact, Lorraine will be on the phone there cause she was just, ‘ee will ye be alright’

Rod:     From my point of view we haven’t got anything to hide from you.  So if there is anything you want to know I will tell you about and we can decide how to approach it between us, if you want to.

Jean:     But is that’s alright with you, I would,  and if you feel at ease with ye know

Rod:     The…….. there is no problem at all.  She was as much your mum as she was mine.  Our Win, I’ll sort something out with her.  You will get on well with Winnie she’s no problem and I’ll hunt out some photos of the rest of the family and that.

Jean     Right,

Rod:     But then have a think of what you really want to know, ye know

Jean:     errm just, Billy, Billy, I was going to say William, because as I say I have got that ye know, that was the first name.  Erm, did he belong round here, right this is where I start getting, he belonged to Tyne Lane, to South Shields?

Rod      Yea, yeah

Jean:     Right.  Billy actually did, because with the bit mixed up with Shakespeare Street and that.

Rod:     Bill was actually at South Shields lad and as far as I can remember because bear in mind I was just a child myself.  He is a very tall guy, he is six foot two, very smartly dressed erm, his nickname was Billy the Buck because of his teeth.  He always wore specs but he always had on a suit and a tie and shirt.  He was always, bit thin on the top, black hair, but straight back, very smart.  Erm he must have had a good job.  Now when my mum first met him she would have met him in North Shields, unless they had been on the other side with, like with a gang of girls which happened quite often, they went over there and he’s come this way.  So they’ve got together that way.  Whether he was actually married at the time he met me mum and slipped up on that account or what, I don’t know

Jean     I know records, er what I’ve got like from Durham where it states like, ye know the father, parental father, erm and that, but we took it that he was, like he was within a marriage cause it said at the bottom how – I’ll bring the records over

Rod:     I don’t think he was divorced as such

Andrea:            I’ve got them here if you want to

Rod:     He must have split up at some time.  Obviously when we were living there she certainly wasn’t

Jean:     But it had stated they weren’t free to marry

Rod:     Yes, yes, so he must have not been divorced, may be had the affair with me mum and nothing sort of finalised.  Certainly me mum wouldn’t want to get married

Angie:   But then again divorce wasn’t as easy in those days either

Jean:     Oh, no it wasn’t was it?

Angie:   I mean they had to be separated for something like seven years, had to be able to prove good grounds

Jean:     yeah that’s right.  Which