Confessions of a Pea Thief
On how what we remember from our past might hold the answers to our future
A different direction for my piece this week as I continue to step backwards in order to move forwards in a more resourced way. I hope you enjoy this tale about my childhood, told through those younger eyes.
Jacqui x
Their garden was so much more exciting than ours, more colour and full of life - flowers, trees and, most importantly, Grandad’s vegetables. This was apparently all on account of him having green fingers, despite the fact he was one finger short. He’d won awards for his flower beds and prize vegetables.
I’d look at his hands and wonder where the greenness was and did it only show when he was actually doing the gardening thing?
This giant of a man lives in the place where all the warmest memories are stored. The place where what I can recall is mixed with what I have seen in faded Polaroid photographs. Forever an old man through my childish eyes I now realise as I inhabit my older self, he wasn't so old in those halcyon days of the late 1970s summers before I’d even hit double figures.
The sunrise fills the room with daylight, tinged with a lilac hue as it filters through the thin curtains suspended at the window on an white elastic wire. Hooked at each end of the window into its responding eye, my small hands struggle to slide the fabric back and forth, these bizarre curtain rails being just one of the many differences at my Nanna’s house. Lifting off the heavy blankets I tiptoe barefoot onto the landing to see if he’s already awake.
He emerges from the bathroom, a smile on his face revealing his teeth firmly in place. Dressed in his trousers, the belt fastened too high on his waist, and his white vest he greets me before ducking back into his bedroom to retrieve a shirt. No matter what season he always wore long trousers, long sleeves - the way grandads do.
Only the two of us in the kitchen, I watch him make tea in the teapot and pour himself a cup placed neatly on its matching sage green saucer. I look up to see if I can have a cup too.
Warming sunlight floods the back of the house. Tea finished, grandad puts his boots on in the small porch reached down the deep stone step from the kitchen door. I squeeze my bare feet into my red plastic wellies. Still in my pyjamas I follow him through the outside door I cannot open since the latch remains out of reach of my outstretched arms. I skip behind him up the flagged path running alongside the lawn.
First stop the shed. Never looking like it should still remain standing, slightly lopsided with gaps between the wooden slats, inside there are stacks of boxes and grubby bottles with incomprehensible labels on the crooked shelves. And tools. Tools everywhere. Tools to fix, cut up tend to, repair. Touch nothing, I’m told.
Gathering what he needs we continue up the garden, past the apple tree and through the magic gap that leads to his vegetable garden. Their garden is long and narrows all the way to an angular point right at the tip. Here it backs onto open fields with the railway line visible in the near distance.
The outside worlds does not distract me from the manicured rows of food, the climbing sweet peas growing up between the green beans, curly lettuces and the potatoes sprouting out in their full glory in the large grey barrel right at the top of the path where the garden ends. And the peas. The peas are forever my favourite because they are the ones I can pinch later in the day when grandad has gone back inside. But for now I am on bowl holding duty as he lovingly picks his crop. Shaking the dew off the tips of the lettuce, dropping furry runner beans and juicy fat pea pods into the blue plastic tub while the gradually rising sun warms the upturned rosy cheeks of my childish face.
With all the veg collected and left out on the kitchen worktop, he tells me to get dressed before Nanna sees me while he goes to collect the newspaper. This he reads with his next cup of tea and then goes ahead with whatever else it is that grown-ups do in the morning.
Lunchtime brings a choice to come in from the garden from the games we were playing to go with him to ‘The Club’. A place full of grown-ups, mainly men and mainly relatives of my grandfather. A collection of brothers, four or five of them (I can never be sure how many), all sit in a row on the burgundy leather benches each nursing a pint of frothy bitter. I am scared of these men who, even though they look so like my Grandad, are even older with even less hair and possibly no teeth. I am fascinated about teeth - the way Grandad could take his out, place them in the cup each night and leave it on the bathroom windowsill unattended. Intrigued and terrified in equal measure I am unable to make sense of how these bright pink gums with completely uniform white teeth hanging off them look so different once in my Grandad‘s mouth.
Shying away from this parade of great uncles and any questions they have, I run around the inside of the clubhouse returning to the table to eat one of my crisps or slurp pop from the bottle through the straw. Until Grandad says it is time to go back home.
The hazy warmth of these summer afternoons on our trips to stay at my grandparents are all about my imaginary game. I never play this game at home, only here and always alone. I ride my horse up and down the street chatting merrily to myself while I wait for Grandad to wake up from his snooze or finish watching the cricket on the television. Such a strange pastime - to sit inside and stare at the square TV screen makes no sense to my eight-year-old brain. Why would anyone want to watch tiny men clad in white, stand in a field, occasionally running around and chasing a red ball much to the delight of the voices coming out of the television? Given that my grandad more often than not falls asleep leads to even more confusion. Periodically, I either run in from the garden or from the road outside just to let everybody know I am still there and to see if he is ready for me to help chop up the vegetables.
If no one is paying much attention I sneak back up the garden to pinch a couple of pea pods, pop the peas out, eat them then hide all evidence of the empty shells in the kitchen bin - all the adults are none the wiser!
The afternoon’s vegetable preparation starts with removing the long strings from the edges of the runner beans before slicing them on an angle. This is is too challenging and dangerous for my small clumsy fingers and involves a knife which is most definitely not allowed. However, Grandad brings a chair so I can reach the sink, then I tear apart the lettuce, wash it under the tap and lay the leaves out on a tea towel to dry.
The best of all though is shelling the peas. No matter how many times I am told not to eat them all because I’ll end up with tummy ache it makes no difference. I smile at Grandad then take one for me and one for the pot. Never mind the ones I’ve already eaten! The morning harvest is significantly depleted by the time Nanna comes to place the peas into a pan of boiling water to cook them for our evening meal.
I don’t remember whether my grandad ever did any cooking, but he definitely did the washing up. It feels like there isn’t enough room at the sink for Grandad to stand at it. It is too close to the porch door and the worktop on the other side. No room for elbows. Since I can’t reach the taps I am never asked to wash up. Instead Grandad hands me a tea towel and passes items to me from the draining board one at a time for me to dry and leave on the table for Nanna to put away.
Is this when we talked? When he shared the stories of his time in Cairo during the Second World War. Or how he lost his little finger in an industrial machine at work? Why I must always remember how lucky I am to live in a house where I can step outside of my front door and into my own garden. (Oh and something about whistling women which I’m quite sure would be frowned upon now.)
These stories were definitely shared repeatedly because they’ve stayed with me, re-emerging when I least expect it.
The day ends at the other side of the house, both the sunset and our evening. Peering through the net curtains of the curved bay window I watch the sun bathe the neatly manicured front lawn and privet hedge in the gentle orange light. Being allowed to stay up later is the treat of these summer holiday visits. There is one final ritual that completes the day.
A little alcove under the stairs behind yet another curtain on a springy elastic cord is where my grandad‘s homebrew resides. In a green plastic barrel with a large brown and cream tap, the absolute treat of the day is being able to pour Grandad a pint each evening.
This evening I am allowed a very very weak bitter shandy - with decidedly more lemonade than beer. I sit next to him on the sofa and sip my homemade brew while Grandad half watches something on the telly. Coronation Street, my Nan’s favourite. I never sit through a whole episode - the people moving around on the screen talking at each other cannot hold my interest. I am just happy to be there until it is time for bed.
Summer days in the life of my grandad didn’t seem like anything, they just were. I don’t remember having any questions or needing anything, it just was.
If I could do it all again, there’d be so many things I would ask him while he was still well enough to tell me. Before the hip got too sore for him to garden and the allotment retreated row by row. When the shed filled with cobwebs and the tools became covered in layers of rust. After the heart attack when he wasn’t well enough to go to the club anymore and the strokes which robbed him one by one of movement and then his voice; until his essence seemed to fade. The gentle nature, loving heart and his mythical green fingers.
All these memories are tinged in the amber glow of the summer sun. Suspended in time as they were captured in the fading photographs, they dance too infrequently in and out of my recollection. I fight the urge to wrap them in the melancholy of regret. Eight-year me never knew it would change and nor should she. The playful, carefree child with just enough cheek to pinch peas is still in me somewhere. The lessons from Grandad do ground me in where I came from even when I feel so untethered by all that has followed in his absence.
Writing this story I find myself reaching back for the connection. As another generation of my family reaches the point when their grandparents are fading I wish we all had more time. But we do still have some. It's my time to capture the memories and plan how we make as many as we can going forward.
Sharing stories, writing words and committing their images to paper so we never forget.
Thank you for reading.
with gratitude
Jacqui x
The latest Live Meditation Circle replay - Acceptance with EASE.
Still Point Meditation Circle 5
Welcome to the replay of our February Still Point Meditation Circle inside Inner Source and a really juicy one at that!
The next live Mediation Circle dates are:
Gathering Six - Wednesday 19th March at 19:00 - 20:00 London, UK time (GMT)
Gathering Seven - Wednesday 16th April at 19:00 - 20:00 London, UK time (BST)
If you want to listen to previous live mediation circles you can find them here .
Our next Still Point Seasonal Mentoring Gathering - Is it me? Defending our personal reality
Spring Gathering - Monday 31st March 2025 - 19:00 - 20:15 London, UK time (BST)
From the get go, this tale of childhood and grandfatherhood absorbed me completely. Thank you for this joyful warmth with its flavour of peas and home brew.
Such a beautiful memory, thank you for sharing 🩵