I posted this last May, but had a few criticisms of it which I have now dealt with, and since I was at it,  I wrote up the next 6 or so episodes of it. I'm not sure whether it is really stuff that a child would be interested to read - unless, as this was, it was written by their parent. When I wrote it originally - just after we got back from New Zealand - I typed it on an old typewriter, with loads of whiting out and typing over,making it impossible to scan - and the kids illustrated it.

TELL US A STORY MOMA ABOUT WHEN YOU WERE A LITTLE GIRL - revised

Part 1

“Now Stephanie, you sit on my right side, and Jonathan on my left and Andrea can sit on my lap. When you are all quiet, then I’ll begin.

“Once upon a time, many years ago, in a far-away land there lived a very poor family.”

“Didn’t they have any shoes?” asked Stephanie.

“Well, yes, they did have shoes, and clothes, and food and a roof over their heads, but relatively speaking, they didn’t have much money.

“The daddy in the family was called the grand name of Chester Rense Wyngarden, but that was such a big mouthful, that everybody called him Chet.”

“Chet, Chet, Shet (giggle)”.

“Be quiet Jonathan,” said Stephanie.

“Chet was a tallish man and quite thin with brown hair which was starting to recede, which means that it was not so much on his forehead anymore. He had a little moustache which looked sort of like a toothbrush. He was just over 30, which might seem old to you, but that is younger than your daddy. He worked at a prison, which is the place they put bad people when they have committed a crime like stealing money or hurting somebody.”

“Was he a bad man?” asked Andrea.

“No, he worked in the hospital part of the prison and helped the doctors take care of the prisoners when they were sick. He was called an orderly which is something like a nurse. One day he saved a doctor’s life by throwing a chair at a prisoner who was attacking the doctor with a knife.”

“The Moma’s name was Ann, and she was quite a lot older than Chet, and had been married before but her husband died when their little girl, who was called Kathleen, was only a few months old.”

“Why did he die?” asked Stephanie.

“He had something wrong with his heart. He was only twenty four when he died, and Ann had not expected that it would happen, so she was very upset.  She took her little girl and went to live with her husband’s mother who was called Madge. Madge looked after Kathleen while Ann taught school.”

“Did she teach the infants or the juniors?”

“In those days and in those remote parts of North Dakota, there would be one teacher for all the children, of all ages from six to fourteen. But she probably only had ten children in her classroom.”

“It was not until Kathleen was about twelve that Ann met Chet, and they decided to get married. Ann was medium tall, and rather plump, and her brown hair was starting to turn grey. She had been very pretty when she was younger but now she looked sort of tired all the time.  That was because she had some little babies to take care of.  Her first baby was called Donald John, but he died when he was only 3 weeks old.”

“Why did he die?” asked Stephanie.

“He had something wrong with his heart too.”

“Just like the other daddy.”

“Well not the same really, because the daddy had lived quite well for 24 years, and his heart suddenly went bad because of an infection. The baby’s heart was made wrongly and just didn’t work.”

“Then Ann had a baby girl who she called Judy, and just over a year later she had another girl that she called Barbara Jean, but called Jeanie.”

“Was that you?” asked Jonathan.

“Yes, that was me.”

“Why didn’t they call you that other name that they gave you?”

“Well, apparently Ann knew somebody called Barbara who had buck teeth, and so she didn’t want to call her baby that.”

“What’s buck teeth?”

“It means that your teeth stick out like a buck rabbit’s teeth.”

“Do I have buck teeth?” said Andrea.

“No, so you are very lucky.  But they liked to call me Jeanie because it sounded good with Judy, and we were sort of lumped together, almost like twins when we were small.”

“The town we lived in was called Bismarck and it is the capital city of North Dakota in America.  It is not a very popular place to live, and that is partly because it is very cold in the winter with lots of snow, and very hot in the summer.”

“Why did you live there, then?”

“You just live where you live when you are small. When I grew up I moved to other places which were perhaps a bit nicer to live in.”

“You moved to England.”

“Your daddy said that if I wanted to marry him I had to live in England because he certainly wasn’t going to live in North Dakota.”

“Shortly after Jeanie was born, Kathleen finished high school and moved to Washington DC, where the President lives, and worked as a secretary there.”

“Didn’t she like living in North Dakota either?” asked Jonathan.

“Not very much, I don’t think, and she wanted to do something exciting and get away from crying babies and dirty nappies, which are called diapers in America.”

“Did she ever come back?” asked Stephanie.

“Yes, she came back when Judy and Jeanie were 4 and 3, and by that time they lived in another house on 22nd Street and Avenue A, way on the edge of town. Next door were some salt and pepper coloured cows.”

“Did you have any cows?” wondered Jonathan.

“No, but we did have a dog for awhile. Kathleen had been given the dog, which was called Pablo, by her boyfriend, Toby. But since Kathleen lived in an apartment in town and couldn’t keep the dog, she let us have him.”

“Was he a nice doggy?” Stephanie asked.

“I want a doggy,” said Andrea.

“We thought he was lovely. He was a black Labrador, and still only a puppy but he hadn’t been trained properly so he sometimes was very naughty.”

“What did he do?”

“One time he tore a blanket off the line. Another time he chewed a package that had been left on the neighbour’s doorstep. But he really got in trouble because of a little girl who lived next door. She hit him with her hair brush and he sort of nipped at her. She cried and her parents wanted to call the police to get rid of him, so we had to give him away.”

“Did you miss him?”

“Yes for awhile, but we never did get another pet.”

“What did Judy and Jeanie play? Did they have dollies and trains and bikes?”

“When they were still very young, and still very poor, they didn’t have many toys. They found loads of games to play with empty toilet rolls. And they cut paper dolls out of the Ward’s catalogue. Whatever Judy did, Jeanie wanted to do too.”

“Didn’t they go to school?”

“Yes, but I think I have told you enough for one night, and now it is time to go to bed. If you are very good, I’ll tell you tomorrow about some of the games they played and what happened when they went to school.”