SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 34)

Almost miraculous.....

The first among us at Fraggle Rock to show signs of food poisoning were the kids. One after another began to complain of stomach aches, sickness and diarrhoea. Meanwhile a tremendous snowstorm enveloped the lane in a thick layer of snow and was accompanied by freezing temperatures. Our vehicles were buried under snow drifts and the lane became silent and still. Even the hardiest of our dogs was huddled indoors.

When both Sue and Giles, followed by other parents, took to their beds I knew that it would only be a matter of days before woodpiles and fresh water were exhausted and food supplies dwindled.

I went from caravan to bus to van, all along the lane stoking up everyone’s wood burners. I wrote a long list of shopping requirements between emptying sick buckets and cleaning up accidents. It was obvious that nobody was holding down their food and that a swift detox was urgently required, but the healing formula would have to be suitable for everyone, whatever their age and dietary preferences. I knew precisely what I needed.

On the second silent morning, after an early round of fire-stoking and cleaning, I dressed as warmly as I could and, armed with my shopping list plus a little cash from each family, I trudged through the deep snow drifts up to the top of the lane, where it joined the motorway. Traffic was significantly reduced but the snow ploughs had been busy enough to keep at least one lane open on each side.

It was bitterly cold and the snow was still falling thickly. I could barely see the slow moving vehicles, so I began stumbling along the icy hard shoulder with my thumb out. Within only a very few minutes, a large estate car pulled up alongside me and a huge grinning man was offering me a lift. I jumped into his passenger seat and he said he was heading to Bodmin for a haircut. He was very curious about why I was walking along the motorway and so I explained the situation as best I could. He asked a lot of questions and looked more grim as I answered him.

He came up with a wonderful plan. He dropped me outside the biggest and cheapest supermarket in Bodmin and went on to his barber’s appointment. He returned an hour later to collect me from the shop, complete with all my shopping. He helped me to pile everything, including bags of coal into the rear of his car and then he went into the shop and returned with several large plastic containers of water. His contribution, he said.

He was a very jolly and friendly guy with a strong Cornish accent. He drove back to Fraggle Rock, where he gently rolled his vehicle over the snowbound speed bumps and down as far as my pink and white caravan. He commented how pretty the lane was, as we unloaded all the shopping. I agreed but was very concerned. It was remarkably quiet. Nobody was moving around, not one dog had greeted us.

I could not believe how kind this man was when I waved him goodbye. He promised to return the following day with a load of firewood. Bless him.

I immediately set about cooking up a huge cauldron of strong fresh root ginger tea which I served in mugs with generous dollops of honey and slices of lemon.

I spent the entire day cleaning up after everyone, dragging bread-baskets full of wood and coal to replenish the stoves and administering more mugs of the essential ginger medicine. I told the kids that it was a special magic potion to stop sickness and that it was never known to fail. I also fed all the dogs and created salted pathways in the snow, linking each home with the next. When one vat of ginger tea was depleted, I made another and continued to go from one vehicle to the next until my efforts succeeded in getting some of them back on their feet or at least smiling and pain free.

The following day, my good Samaritan was good to his word. He turned up with another man and a huge trailer full of firewood which we unloaded into the school horsebox to keep it out of the snow. Giles, pale and significantly weakened, did his best to help, but I had to order him back to bed before he collapsed again. I was totally amazed that he agreed.

When the troops began to rally, I cooked a huge chicken, ginger and vegetable stew laced with a large quantity of garlic and whatever culinary herbs I could purloin from the various larders. Everyone got a small bowlful and I waited to see if this would settle in the stomachs. It did. The worst was over.

I was completely and utterly exhausted.

When, after a few days, normal life resumed and the worst of the snowdrifts had melted away, I could see how much of a toll that brief disaster had on everyone. They had all lost weight, none of them had been particularly fat to begin with, and their usual glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes lacked the colours of vitality. As soon as she was well enough to stand, Sue built her traditional dawn brazier fire and we shared yet another cup of ginger tea together as insurance against relapse. She remarked that her children would be all the stronger for having dealt with this bout of sickness. I commented that I missed my stock of Chinese herbal medicine and she laughed at me. She purred in that soft Welsh accent of hers:
“Your love is the healer, Fran. As long as you have that, you will always succeed.”
I must have been totally depleted of energy at that time because those words broke through my emotional fortitude to make me cry silently and Sue hugged me tightly, laughing at me all over again….

December of 1996, cold and harsh as it was, cemented our community into sharing everything we had. I organised the children into making Christmas decorations for the school and lane trees using every piece of shiny foil we could find. Every vehicle in the lane had hand-crafted paper snowflakes glued to the windows with flour paste. We made several snowmen and women and then laughed raucously when the dogs used them for pee-mail posts! We had some mad snowball fights which the dogs thoroughly enjoyed too. Everyone was back on form, thank goodness.

By this time we had established Fraggle Rock, A38, Nr. Liskeard, Cornwall as a recognised address and the post office delivered mail to us. I received notice from my insurers that the claim for my van had been processed and they would be collecting the red Nissan Micra the following week, just before Christmas. The kids and I gave it a wash and cleaned out the interior, then waved it a fond farewell. Of course, this meant that I was grounded with no vehicle, which set me to thinking about returning to Essex to see my son, Dan. For the first time in all of that adventure, I was feeling a little homesick.

On Christmas Day, we exchanged gifts and one very talented guy surprised us immensely. He had made each home a beautiful hand-carved, multi-layered scented candle that nobody wanted to burn, because they were so artful and decorative. We had a communal feast with a cauldron of mulled wine which must have been very potent because I don’t remember much else about that day! Oh, except the mad colourful bobble hats we all got from Santa!

We had an old rusty car on site which was still running (with mechanical persuasion) but had failed its Ministry of Transport test (MOT), had no insurance and was fit for nothing more than the breaker’s yard. As long as it did not conk out or stall, it would run and run agreed the mechanically minded guys in our group. I decided to pile all my possessions into this old unwanted jalopy and head for home under cover of darkness on New Year’s Eve.

I left the pink and white caravan clean and tidy to serve as a guest space for visitors, but Sue and Giles twinkled at the prospect of using it as a romantic boudoir bedroom away from all their kids! I joked that undoubtedly another child would soon be on the way for them and they promised to name it Francis or Frances if that happened.

I tried to leave without too much fuss, but the word went around fast. The gypsy grandmother from Pensilva sent one of her many sons to deliver a carefully wrapped photocopy of a hand-written gypsy herbal lore book. The copperplate script, spelling, drawings and terminology seemed to hail from the 17th or 18th century. It took my breath away and the recipes within it blew my mind. The first thing I saw was a way to heal cancer which involved baking a certain breed of toad until it was black and turned to powder! It seemed like such a miraculous privilege to hold this piece of hidden history in my hand. Words could not convey my eternal gratitude for that gift.

It was awful to see the children crying, especially Khan, but they came to understand that I needed to go. They promised to continue with their school work and to look after the schoolroom. The oldest among them was a mature, competent teenager and she planned to become the new teacher. She was especially good at expressive dance and had all the patient wisdom of her mother.

I promised them that I would write letters addressed to the School Room at Fraggle Rock. I pulled away with a huge lump in my throat. It was hard to say goodbye.

As presupposed, it being New Year’s Eve, there was very little traffic on the road. Most people were partying and the police were engaged with town centre boisterous activities rather than monitoring the motorways, so I was able to slip up country unnoticed towards the M25, circle around London and finally cross the Thames into Essex at the Dartmouth Bridge. I kept the car running, even when I was refuelling…. it was literally limping, with barely enough battery power for the lights, when after five hours, I finally turned the corner of my home street and the old jalopy sputtered to its silent death just as I coasted into the vacant parking space right outside my front door.

What an epic, nerve-wracking drive that had been.
Almost miraculous.

😉