After she’d had such a lovely time in Vienna with Granny Betty, my mum wanted to take Grandpa Graham somewhere special as well. But where could they go?
He didn’t want to go abroad. He didn’t even want to go to Scotland, though Wales was all right as that was where he’d been born and brought up. He also didn’t want to use any of his holiday entitlement from work without Granny Betty and he didn’t really want to stay away from home without her anyway.
Then, just as Mum began to think she’d never find anything suitable, she saw an advert for a day trip to the Wimbledon tennis championships that summer – and suddenly she knew just what to do. After rugby union, lawn tennis was Grandpa Graham’s favourite spectator sport. Going to Wimbledon would be just perfect!
Mum quickly filled in the booking form, together with a cheque, then stuck it in the post and hoped that it got there before all the places were taken.
And her luck was in. Within a few days she had the tickets and the joining instructions. All she had to do then was get herself and Grandpa Graham to Victoria Station in London in time to get on the coach to Wimbledon.
As Grandpa Graham had never had the chance to go sight-seeing in London before, Mum booked them on an early train from Leeds to Kings Cross. This gave them time to have a cup of tea and a toasted teacake, before they went on the Underground to Piccadilly Circus.
Then, as the weather was fine and Mum knew the way, they walked to Victoria station, seeing Horse Guards Parade, St James’s Park and Buckingham Palace as they went along.
The coaches were waiting for them outside Victoria station and they soon found the one they needed and settled down to enjoy the six-mile journey to Wimbledon – or The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to give it its full name.
But, as they got nearer, Mum’s heart dropped, because, standing four deep on the pavement and stretching as far as she could see, was a huge crowd of people, queuing to get in.
As the coach drove slowly past them, heading for the coach-park, Mum was wondering how on earth she and Grandpa Graham would walk to the other end of the queue, and then slowly make their way back to the entrance before it was time to turn around and go back home.
Once the coach was parked near the entrance, however, she found out that the long queue was made up of people wanting tickets for the all-important Centre Court and Number One Court. They could join it if they wanted, but the tickets they already had at least allowed them to have a quick look at both, before watching any of the matches on the outer courts.
After all this time, Mum can’t remember which players they saw, but neither she nor Grandpa Graham cared. They were at Wimbledon and the sun was shining and they were having a great time…
…which got even better when they opened up the lunch hampers they’d been given on the coach and found that they contained fresh orange juice, some delicious posh sandwiches with cream cheese, smoked salmon and thinly-sliced cucumber, a good helping of fresh strawberries with a carton of clotted cream, and also a small bottle of white wine, together with knives, forks, spoons, plates, glasses and even paper napkins…
Although they could have stayed at Wimbledon until close of play that evening, Grandpa Graham also wanted to see a little bit more of London and so they left around tea-time and made their way on the Underground to Westminster station.
From there they had time to see the river Thames and the Houses of Parliament from Westminster Bridge…
Then they had a quick look at the inside of Westminster Abbey…
before walking up Whitehall, past the Cenotaph, Number Ten Downing Street and the Horseguards standing sentry at the entrance to their barracks…
And finally into Trafalgar Square – where Grandpa Graham was sorry he hadn’t brought anything to feed to the hundreds of feral pigeons gathered there.
After that, it was back to Kings Cross and the train home, with Mum thinking about where she might go next. What she didn’t realise was that her life would soon change yet again.
In July the official UK unemployment figure reached 1,896,634 – the highest it had been since 1936. People without jobs cut back on the number of magazines they bought and some magazines began to use their own staff to do work they’d previously bought from freelancers.
Though Mum was still selling stories, it was not as often as it had been and so her income began to drop. Even worse, the publisher’s hopes of earning big money from The Bradleys of Brookroyd hadn’t come to anything.
Copies of the book – which Mum had never wanted to write anyway – remained unsold in the warehouse until such times as they were destroyed to free up some space. Instead of a six-figure sum, all she got was the £1000 advance. Instead of Dreaming Big, by September she found herself on the way to the Job Centre…
I’ll tell you what happened there in my next post. Meanwhile – as always – take care, stay safe – and look out for another tale from me soon…
Follow my next blog: 118. MY MUM THE STORY–TELLER – PART SEVENTEEN
03/12/2020
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 