North East Post Adoption Service - Adoption Narratives - Jean

I mean then, what fifty four, I mean, an awful lot, even like ye know, erm, a young woman and that, a mean, Grace, and that, and that’s why, Grace would have been looked down on,  ye know

Rod:     She’d have got, that off me gran

Jean:     before there was no financial support or any such, any such thing then ye know but like I say on records, like, ye know how you try to visualise.  This is what I was saying I cannot visualise, like anybody.  Ye know how you try to get a, ye know, a picture in your mind.  As I said to Andrea a while ago, I says, it’s like having  a photo but with no faces

Andrea:            I couldn’t visualise either mind

Angie:   But may be that’s a good thing because sometimes if you visualise something you’re kind of disappointed if

Rod:     Disillusioned

Angie:   The reality is different to what you’d pictured

Rod:     Remembered when our Paul met Roxy!  We’re like anybody, we’ve struggled over the years.  We live in an ex-council house which we bought, at the time we had a second-hand caravan and we both had cars because we needed            separate work but they were cheap cars.  I don’t think the whole lot came to thirty thousand quid, ye know what I mean?  But Paul had picked this picture to Roxy’s parents and they were so, so much trepidation about meeting us, ye know, ‘Paul said you had a caravan, ye did this, ye did that’.  ‘Yeah, well but it doesn’t cost a lot’.

Angie:               We do but on the cheap.

Rog:     Oh for god’s sake!

Jean:     That’s we’ve, that’s what we feel, that’s what we’ve done, that’s how the works got done. We’ve bought like an ex-council house

Rod:     Oh, we’ve neglected ours over the years.  We are just starting to get a grip of it now

Angie:   We’ve always been too busy working to pay much attention to the house but now I am only working part-time and because Rod has got the business we’re at home a bit more and we have suddenly started looking around and thinking ‘oh my god’

Rod:     Basically we haven’t had the cash.  We’ve always camped, or caravanned, or boats. 

Jean:     We’re the same

Angie:   Haven’t got the time

Rod:         The money’s gone in to the hobbies rather than the house ye know, I said tonight. 

Norman:  …… could have done me roof

Rod:         We said tonight, ‘thank god we’re meeting them down there cause we could never have got up here tonight

Angie:   We would’ve have needed at least a fortnights notice to clean

Rod:     We’re not houseproud in the least

Jean:     It’s like

Angie:   Especially having had the granddaughter all day

Andrea:            Yes, I know Wednesdays are bad       

Jean:     I mean like, if I’m lucky, I get like.  It’s like Norman works, it’s like well

Norman:   Six days a week

Rod;     Yeah, same as me

Jean:     Six days a week, ye know, then like, my job sometimes, like it’s been pretty horrendous lately, ye know, I’m getting phoned in and everything er so like if I’m lucky I get two days a week off; so it’s whiz round the house, get that done  and then for the rest of the week it’s just vvvmm

Rod:     Well I have Wednesdays off

Jean:     Football kit goes over and I’ll just say, ‘hang things up on the floor’

Rod:     Well a have Wednesday off and we have Rei on Tuesday night so I have to get her ready on Wednesday morning and give her, her breakfast and I usually about lunch time at least.  I do a bit of housework, just to make it look decent, I do the dishes and vacuumm and that, then you day’s gone.  You’re working seven days a week really

Jean:     I know, but we, our house is lived in

Rod:     Very much

Angie:   Like us

Jean:     Well and truly

Rod:     If ye don’t like animals, don’t sit on the furniture

Jean:     Yeah well that’s it

Angie:   It’s not that bad.  Ye know he does this to me all the time.  I have got a friend who comes to visit us and she always wears black and she’ll come in and Rod’ll say, ‘don’t sit on there’.  I’ll say ‘Will you stop doing that.  I hoover every day’.

Rod:     She has to clean the hairs off her backside will she? [laughs]

Angie:   It’s really embarrassing cause it’s nowhere near as bad as that

Jean:     Well we’ve got erm we’ve got a dog as well who loves anybody who comes through the house.  It will not leave them alone, will he?

Rod:     That’s Cash she comes up  ‘plonk’.  It’s a German Shepherd unfortunately.

Jean:     Ours is a Staff, erm, well he’s, well he’s like, it’s like Lee’s dog, he brought him home when he come back one time and we couldn’t see the dog….  We’ve inherited ….   but he loves, just loves, ‘oh going to get patted here’.  ‘come on lie down’  But er no it’s weh family home and that’s, like anybody else.  We work and ye and ye struggle and ye have your moments where ye think, ‘what’s it all for’ ye know’.

Rod:     Well that’s it

Jean:     ye think, ‘bloody hell, here’s another, er, another one coming, like cos this roof, cause work like put in for the insurance cause the flat and it was raining, rain damage but er, estimates and that for what was to be done were ridiculous

Rod:     When we bought the house the guy come, in the street they were doing all the pan-tile houses and our street, pan-tiled slate, pan-tile slates, for whatever reason the Council did it I don’t know, but anyway they are doing all the pan-tiles, all the red ridged tiles and the guy come, the assessor erm for the Building Society and he said, ‘before we start here, ye need a new roof’.  I said, ‘well how come?’  And he says, ‘they’re changing all the tiles down there you have got to have yours done’.  Says, right three hundred, three thousand five hundred pounds retention on the mortgage straight away.  We only had a twenty thousand pound mortgage.  So anyway I put in for a few estimates, four thousand, two hundred, three thousand seven, estimate.  I thought this is ridiculous.  So I went down the street and had a chat with two of the tilers to ‘do a bit of work on the side?’  Says, right.  I says, ‘come and look at my roof and tell us how much ye you think’.  So he come down, and he says, ‘I’ll do it for fifteen hundred quid’ and I says, ‘what and how much for ye selves? ‘no, no he says. ‘that’s all in’

Jean:     That’s everything in.  Ye see

Rod:     He says, ‘just put the money up, the money up front for the tiles, the skip, the scaffolding and he says, ‘seven hundred quid for me and the lads, the two lads that help us’ and he says, ‘we’ll come on Saturday and take it off and have it on on Sunday’ for fifteen hundred quid and he was in profit.

Jean:     yeah, uh, hu

Rod:     So how much, ye naw

Jean:     Just shows ye

Rod:     Ridiculous

Jean:     Rip off it is

Angie:   We used to run a sandwich shop and I know the profit there is in them and now most lunch times I go to a sandwich shop near us and for what ye get and I look at it and think, ‘why am I doing this!  I know how much profit she is making on this.  It’s ridiculous’.

Rod:     Well in my trade it’s all, ‘what’s ye best price on this?’  Cause it’s all obsolete toys.  So you have thirty quid or ten, what’s ye best?.  OK, ten percent and I’ll give you a bit more cause you’re a regular customer, so you tend to go to a sandwich shop, ‘what’s your best on this!’

Jean:     I know, it’s a fact, isn’t it?

Rod:     And you live ye life like that, ye know.  It’s not worth two fifty I’ll give them the one ninety nine but I wouldn’t give ye two fifty for it.

Jean:     It’s right like.  Even me it’s right like what you’re on about sandwiches.  I think, ‘how on earth, how can they charge, how can they’

Angela: How can they justify it?

Jean:     How can they justify it?

Rod:     We go to venues like the Telewest Arena or Edinburgh and it’s a pound for a cup of coffee, two fifty for a hamburger

Andrea:            Don’t go and see the Tweenies there     it’s really expensive

Angie:   I wanted to take Rianne but I looked at the cost and worked out how much she could eat, cause she’s got a good appetite.

Rod:     So have we sorted anything tonight then?

Jean:     Ermm

Rod:     Do you feel better or what?

Jean:     I do, much more

Andrea:  You’re much better

Jean:     Yes, cause I was, I was

Rod:     Andrea said, yeah. She said, ‘ Got to be neutral ground.’

Jean:     That was because I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to barge in

Rod:     there is no problem from our side, no problem at all

Jean:     I was quite concerned about that,

Andrea : Ye were about that,

Jean:    cause ye know

Rod:     I tried to emphasise that to Andrea, there isn’t any problems from our side from meeting ye.

Jean:     Well Andrea had said, ye know, with your phone number and that, she said like ye know, Rod said ye can,  ‘ee I couldn’t!’

Rod:     Thought might have  toys she  wants to sell.  Give her the card!

Jean:     Not very often er, I’m gob-smacked but I

Angie:   It’s difficult though to make that first move

Rod:     Obviously, I think in reverse I’d be the same

Jean:     Norman’ll tell you what I’m like on the phone ye know, I’m quite

Rod:     Well, just telling Andrea from my dad’s side, which is irrelevant to you, erm, I had an aunt I didn’t know I had and I was working on the markets a few years ago and this voice goes, ‘Rodney?’ – that’s me dad’s name – erm, ‘I’m ye aunty Miriam’, ‘and I live in Lowestoft’.  Well we love Norfolk, ye know. 

Andrea:            She’s a Docherty or? No?

Rod:     er, Aunty Miriam’s name was, oh, what the hell was aunty Miriam’s name? No she’s got a funny name,

Angie:   Think it begins with an ‘S’

Andrea:            Oh is it?

Angie:      but may have been a Docherty before hand

Andrea:            Donagy, can’t pronounce it sorry, it’s there

Rod:     Don’t know, might be somebody I don’t know

Andrea:            somebody else

Rod:     Aahh yes,

Andrea:            Different?

Rod:     erm, now, she was

Angie:     1950s

Rod:     From my grandmother’s first marriage.  That was my Grandmother Phillips.  Then you have got Rod, which was me dad, er Robert? no wait a minute no – they are, there’s a cross-over of names here.

Andrea:            Is there?

Rod:     Yes.  Margaret and Robert were half brothers and sisters to me mum, and Aunty Alice.  Erm, the family that lived 40 Peartree Crescent, Grandda Phillips and Grandmother Phillips was Norman Harold Roland, who you contacted, er, and there was another one.  There was a girl.  Miriam, obviously

Angie:   They might have been known as Phillips

Rod:     Well, but there was no Robert, unless that was me father, me Granddad’s name, don’t know what me Granddad’s name was because I never saw me Granddad very much, unless he was Robert Phillips

Andrea :           I presumed ye Grandfather was called Robert and your Grandmother was called Margaret.

Rod:     Maybe she was

Angie: Yes, quite possible

Rod:     That’s the parents there, Miriam certainly and Rodney me dad, and then there was Harold.  Harold was the oldest actually, so surprised you haven’t got him.

Andrea:  I’m good but not that good!   

Rod:     Harold committed suicide

Andrea:  Oh, right.

Rod:     Right.  Erm, Roland who you’ve contacted and there’s a younger one Norman.  It’s all irrelevant now, you’ve got them all here Norman Phillips, 40 Peartree Crescent

Andrea:            That’s off the marriage, that’s off your mum and dad’s marriage certificate

Rod:     21 Shakespeare Street, Winifred Cowler, at was me Gran who resorted back to her old name from Young when me Granddad died.

Jean:     Right, because that’s what on research over at South Shields, I was looking for Cowler, in the library

Andrea:  So who was John, John Cowler?

Rod:     Might have been her first husband, don’t know unless, now wait a minute.  Young might had been here previous name – married John Cowler.  That’s more like it.  Yeah, got it the wrong way round.  My Granddad must have been John Cowler and she must have been Young – course she was.  All other side was,  George Young, er, Hilda Young all of our half were half brother and sisters from er

Angie:   Don’t know why they couldn’t have all just got married once and had done with it

Rod:     It’s a very complicated family! 

Andrea:  If all had have kept the same name

Rod:     It’s because nobody believes in the first marriage obviously in our family

Angie:   It’s like a trial run isn’t it.  You find out what you have done wrong and then the second time, hopefully, it works

Andrea:  So did you get married for the first time in 19, oh here I go, 1969? 

Rod:     Oh god haven’t got a clue!

Andrea:  Was it Pauline?

Rod:     Yes. 69 was it?

Andrea:  Yes cos you married the same year as Winifred

Rod:     did a? 

Andrea:  Yeah

Rod:     It’s amazing facts there!  I’ll have to get some copies off ye.  I’m hopeless.  20 Borough Road, now that’s me mum, er, now you have got Grace, I don’t know, unless Rodney was me

Andrea:  No you weren’t old enough

Rod:     Well, me dad certainly didn’t live there

Andrea:  What in 1954?

Rod:     No because they split up

Andrea:  I just go that off the Electoral Register today

Angela:  That must have been you then

Rod:     No couldn’t have been I wasn’t erm

Andrea:   It’s just what I got back today, I just had a look at lunch time

Rod:     aye I lived, I remember Borough Road, number 28, it was a dive of a place

Angie:   Perhaps, the tenancy was held in his and her name

Rod:     Noa, it seems to me, we, me Mam and Dad broke up long before Borough Road.  In ’54 I’d have been seven years old then.  I can remember when I was about 4 my dad coming to the back steps of Linden Road and visiting me with visiting rights and me Gran wouldn’t let him in the house

Angie:   What I’m thinking is, in those days it wasn’t always easy for a one-parent family, a woman to get a lease on property, so if she wasn’t divorced perhaps she just said, he was her husband and he worked away or something ye know to get a lease on the property.

Rod:     mmm, possible

Angie:   I know my mother did that with me dad’s name

Rod:     Well that’s where she left, she lived at Borough Road when she met Billy, your dad

Jean:     Like ye say, ye used to, I can remember like my mam, Mary, erm telling me they used to come over to North Shields, and they used to used one of the scuttle boats, to get back over the water

Rod:     Well I mean right from [laugh] used to be erm, where North Shields ferry is now

Norman:    a boat with a hole in it and peddle like hell to get over

Rod:     There’s three options actually.  I remember when I was a kid er going across with me mum.  There was the main ferry.  Now if you missed the main ferry, there was a little steam thing ran from the new quay straight across the river till twelve o’clock at night and you used to get twelve souls on that in the pitch black and if you were later than that somebody would take you across in a scull boat.

Jean:     that’s right, scull boat

Angie:   Enterprising young men with a small boat

Rod:     Must have been some characters crossing the river at that time.

Jean:     Like her two sisters er, like me Aunty May, whose, me Aunty Bella, who’s still living. The three of them with friends used to come over and that’s how they used to go home and tell like Gran, er a tall tale

Angie:   our two here

Rod:     That’s amazing seeing all the names after all this time

Angie:   Your family history would make a wonderful novel if you wrote it all down.

Rod:     Frightening

Jean:     isn’t it

Rod:     I mean, my old, I think my Granddad was actually a river pilot.  He was a very strict man, on the Phillips side, very much so.  Erm, I used to go, well I thought they were rich when I was a kid and I used to get spoiled rotten.  I used to go every Sunday for me tea.  I used to get sixpence of me Gran and I used to hang around till six o’clock ye know and go home. Christmas used to get fantastic presents of the lads – thought they were brilliant.  Never saw me dad there because he was away.  Brings back some memories

Andrea:  I’ll give one if you want, there’s this bit as well.  That’s just about you really.

Rod:     Oooh thanks!! Is there anything I don’t know in there?

 

Angie:   In those days as well lots of houses were sub-let in to rooms and a lot of house-owners …. children

Rod:     28 was, 28 was sub-let, it was a slum.  It was horrible.   It was er, just a lad              I suppose.   We had two rooms.  Me and our Win slept in the main sitting room and me mum and a don’t know whoever was there was ere, was in the other one.  She had long term relationships, if that’s a saving factor!

Angie:   She was a serial monogamist.

Rod:     Yes

Jean:     uhu

Angela:  One at a time

Rod:     She was a tart

Angie:   No she wasn’t.  She just enjoyed herself

Rod:     She bloody-well was.  Sorry Jean

Jean:     It’s alright, its alright.

Rod:     We knew what she was.   She enjoyed life but she went the wrong way about it, in her early days anyway.  I had so many bloody uncles I lost count.  No, she wasn’t that bad.

Angie:   She could have been a bit more discrete about it

Rod:     As a kid we were glad, our Win and myself, that she settled in later life and found a little bit of happiness in that respect.  It was important to us.

Jean:  That’s what I was saying because I knew, I keep going back to this little scrap of paper, what this letter was written on because to me that’s my inheritance off Grace.  It’s all I’ve got

Rod:     If you want I’ll give you a copy of her death certificate, don’t know if it’s relevant to ye or not

Jean:     eerrr.  I thought you could tell, just a few words but it was ye know, it was like er, desperation

Rod:     Well, I’ve got some of her letters to me when I was working away and ey dear.  Her mind must have been ahead of her words, ‘My Dear Son Rodney,’ ye know, ever so formal.  She’d never been formal in her life! ‘How are you?  I hope you are well as you find us at present’.