Festivals generate nostalgia and on a social media chat, friends swapped memories of Easter childhoods: different levels of church-going and when they got their eggs. My Easter childhood memories always involve massive confectioner-made chocolate eggs, of the sort once seen in shop windows, and of kind American airmen.
I didn’t say this in the on-line chat because those memories need a bit of context. As a small child in the early 1950s, I spent several spells in a local children’s home. My mother was often unwell: she died of asthma at the age of 32 years, when I was seven. See why I didn’t post a quick one-liner? In those days, men (well, my Dad, anyway) didn’t do childcare, and the whole country was just past the period in which all town-dwelling British children had been evacuated away from their families for war-time safety’s sake. John Bowlby’s influential theories about early childhood and mental health had barely been published, so there was still a very low bar for taking children into institutional care. Each time my mother was hospitalised, whether through severe asthma (no steroids or modern preventive drugs then), pneumonia, tuberculosis or eventually a nervous breakdown, my two brothers and I would be sent somewhere to be looked after: neighbours, relatives, foster parents, particularly for short periods.
Often, especially when longer periods of care were needed, it was off to the local children’s home. It felt safe, because it was a place intended for children, so we knew we had a right to be there (unlike foster care, which often seemed to be ‘on sufferance’ – “be good, because Mr and Mrs ___ are being very kind to take you in whilst Mummy is in hospital”). The rules in the children’s home were clear and spelt out on arrival: eat everything on your plate; bedtime at 7.30pm; clean vest on Tuesday. The staff were kind but brisk; no hint of the terrible abuse that plagues so many memories of institutional care. But it was formal and lacked the familiarity and emotional warmth of home.
I was in the children’s home on at least two Easters. The specifics blur, but I recall two things very clearly each time. First, arriving on Easter Saturday, was one huge chocolate egg. It was a kind gift from somewhere, a local confectioner, so we should all be grateful. Look at the size! The edible cluster of coloured flowers! The elegant wrapping and bow! It sat on a small table at the base of the stairs to be admired. After tea on Easter Sunday (clear your plate), we all ooh-ed and aah-ed as it was broken into pieces and then lined up to receive a chunk of that masterpiece. It didn’t taste as good as it looked: dark chocolate is rarely a favourite for small children and I recall sticky hands as it melted (eat it quickly, so you don’t make a mess on your dress). How I longed for my own, individual Easter egg, however small, so I could break it open at my own pace, keeping it in the wrapping to savour when I wanted. So ungrateful.
The second memory involved a special treat each Easter Monday: – a coach trip to a nearby American Air Force base. There were a number across East Anglia, many of which still exist, although now mainly under British command. The visit was completely mystifying. Our coach was met by a line of young men in uniform and as we children stepped off the coach, we were each collected by one of them. “The Easter bunny has been busy,” said my host. “Shall we go and see?” I had never heard of an Easter bunny and I wanted to know details that he could not provide. We often ate rabbit stew at home, but I couldn’t make sense of how that kind of rabbit could set up what he insisted would be a fantastic Easter egg hunt in the grounds. What did that mean anyway? I was very reluctant to go chasing a rabbit in this strange place. If only I had understood, I might have got my wish of my very own individual egg – but it was a cold day and I was really wary, so this patient young man offered me a drink, which meant going inside, which looked warm and inviting. By the time we’d explored the meaning of ‘soda’, which drinks were on offer and where we might sit, I had discovered that there were books. Real books, of the kind that I could not access in the children’s home.
I should explain that part of the formality in the children’s home involved a strict age hierarchy about which parts of the building were for children under the age of eight (me, in the ‘playroom’ where there were mainly toys and just one or two picture books, with torn pages) and the ‘quiet room’ for older children, where proper books with words were kept. I don’t remember ever being unable to read. I was not just an early reader, but a voracious one. Books were my escape and joy. Any books (as long as they had words!) would do, and I would spend hours with my head buried in my favourites. So, the greatest privation of the children’s home, for me, was the lack of reading material. By my last stay there, I was nearly old enough to be allowed to sit in the ‘quiet room’ so I was granted permission to go in to choose and collect a book to read in the playroom. But on my first Easter outing to the airbase, I had not yet reached that state of privilege, so the sight of books and reading material just lying about was fantastic!
Even the noticeboards had words – including the ones inviting airmen to ‘Volunteer to Become an Auntie for a Day’ to host us children from the local home. “Why did they ask you to be Aunties and not Uncles?” I asked. The poor young man assigned to me must have thought I was a very weird child and offered me another ‘soda’ and biscuit by way of reply. I recall a small tussle about which books I might like or be allowed to read. Eventually we settled on a pile of comic books, as I drank more and more of the unfamiliar fizzy drink and the tasty biscuits.
I wasn’t really hungry by the time lunchtime came around, and was also unused to being asked to choose what I wanted to eat from a menu chalked on a board on the wall. Pumpkin Pie! So many children’s stories featured pumpkins, that must be good. “It’s very spicy”, warned ‘Auntie’ young man, “it might be a bit rich for you.” “But I like pie!” I said, “and I’d like to try pumpkin, please.” I knew I had to be polite, but didn’t know what to do when, halfway through the pie, I was suddenly very, very nauseous, then very sick on the canteen floor. Oh dear, I should have listened to Auntie. But at least there was no more talk of chasing rabbits around the grounds. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading American comic books in the warm, snuggled on a comfy sofa, until the coach arrived to take us all back to the children’s home. It felt like a good day out.
Easter often reminds me of those kind young men, away from their own families and giving their time to plan a special treat for local children who were likewise away from home. My poor temporary ‘Auntie’ must have thought British kids were strange indeed – and I’ve never eaten pumpkin pie since!
