Thursday, December 27, 2012

WHEN YOU FIND YOUR WISHING ROCK


BACKGROUND:

The Paull family, Arthur Charles and Hazel Monica, their three sons, Jimmie, John and Charles, lived with Grandma Paull, and Joseph the black and white tabby cat in 16, Treveneth Crescent, in a newly built-small low-income housing area in the county of Cornwall, in south-western England. The house overlooked the busy fishing village of Newlyn, Lariggan Beach, which was just beyond Newlyn’s picturesque harbor, and, in the far distance, St. Michael’s Mount, rising out of the beautiful Mount’s Bay.

The big white stork brought me to the back garden in July, 1942, the middle of the Second World War, when the cities of London, Coventry and the naval base in nearby Plymouth were experiencing nightly bombing raids by the Nazi Luftwaffe. It was a time of fear, blackouts, oil lamps, flickering candles, and food rationing. It was the time before television, computers, smart phones, Ipods, and video games.
To supplement the family’s food needs,
Dad, a bus driver for the Western National Bus Company, did what all our neighbors did – grew potatoes, sprouts, carrots and sweet peas, in his small back garden.

My dad was a born-and-bred Newlyn lad.
When he wasn’t driving the big green double-decker buses from village to village, he’d set snare traps for rabbits in the nearby Bejoywan Woods and the hedgerows around the manor house lived in by the famous painter, Stanhope Forbes. Weather permitting, he’d go to Lariggan Beach and dig in the sand for the brown and red sand lugs, then set and bait a long spiller - a fishing line holding perhaps 20 or more hooks, tied to tins that were buried in the sand - hoping to catch flounder or bass.

Dad also kept a few chickens in a nearby farmer’s field, selling the eggs to neighbors in our street.

To celebrate the birth of his sons, first for Jimmie in 1938, then, me, in 1942, and finally, Charles, in 1947, dad planted three gooseberry bushes near the back garden fence behind the few rows of vegetables.

When we were in the garden, picking sweet peas, eating goosegogs [1] when they were in season or, more likely, looking for worms and other small creatures, dad would always say, with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, to my brothers, Jimmie and Charles, and me,

That’s where the big white stork left the three of you, just there, right under those three gooseberry bushes!”

I had no idea what a stork looked like, but, as it had carried me, I sensed it was much bigger than the herring gulls that perched on our roof.

I remember the day Charles was due to be born, I wanted so badly to see the stork and waited patiently in the garden, next to the two gooseberry bushes, with next-door neighbor, Johnny Hoskins, hoping to see the big white stork swoop down to the garden with mum’s new baby.  When it was time for bed, 10 year-old Jimmie wasn’t surprised when I told him the stork didn’t arrive with our new baby.

“See,” he said, as we got into bed, “ told you. Ain’t true.”
“Just a story.”

The next morning, over breakfast, a very tired looking dad told us that the big white stork had indeed brought baby Charles during the night and left him first, under the new gooseberry bush he’d planted, then Aunty Stella, the neighborhood midwife, brought him upstairs to our mum’s bed.

So it was true! I was so thrilled that, yes, we were left under the gooseberry bushes by the big white stork. Dad said so, didn’t he?
In the daytime, I played with neighborhood kids outside in the street, down the Bowjey, or, when the weather was nice, we’d kick a ball around in one of the nearby farm fields.

After clearing away the teatime dishes, mum, a Lancashire girl, usually sat in the kitchen with my Grandma, close to baby Charles lying comfortably in an old wooden drawer. Sometimes she listened to the latest news about the war on the crackly yellow Ferguson wireless as she worked on her weaving, making fishing nets to sell to the fishermen.

My brother Jimmie and I sat on the small carpet and he read aloud The Beano and Dandy comics before we played with my long-gone Granddad’s clay marbles. Sometimes, we played a game of cards, tiddlywinks, ludo, or snakes and ladders. 

If dad wasn’t on the late night shift, he always sat on the soft green chair under to the front room gas lamp, with Joseph stretched out on his knees, reading the boxing and rugby reports in The Cornishman newspaper sports pages.

He’d set aside Sunday afternoons, when he wasn’t driving his bus, to take the family on walks to the beach or to the nearby lanes around the painter Stanhope Forbes’ manor house.

It was dad’s chance to show off what he knew about the hawks, owls, ducks, rabbits, badgers and foxes that lived in the old granite hedgerows around the local farms, and the jelly-fish, sharks, seals and dolphins that swam in the warm currents of Mounts Bay.
.
Lariggan Beach was the best place to go, though. I loved going there most of all because you never knew what you might find lying on the pebbly sand - especially after a stormy night!
After the Sunday midday meat and potato pasty dinner, washed down with a cup of hot, steaming tea, if the sun was shining, mum would pick up her old, scratched black leather bag. She’d fill a big Farley’s Rusks tin with something to eat, perhaps a handful of small crab apples or small cheese sandwiches with the thick crusts cut off, and drop in two empty ‘OXO’ tins and two of dad’s used ‘OLD HOLBORN’ tobacco tins. We knew it was time to put on our thick socks and rubber wellies.
Then, with Mum pushing Charles’ pram, we’d make our way down the winding lanes, across the harbor, to the pebbly beach.

If the tide was out, we looked to see what had been washed up on the beach, then we’d hunt small green and red crabs or brown bull cods in the rock pools. If we were lucky, we’d find a stranded jellyfish that we could return to the sea. Then we’d collect beautiful black and grey and white pebbles that had been smoothed by the constant rolling motion of the sea.
Pebble collecting was, for me, the most fun. I’d search for heart-shaped pebbles, or, even better, black pebbles with a vein of white quartz running through the middle.

These pebbles with the line of quartz were special. Mum and dad called them wishing rocks.

Finding a wishing rock that rested comfortably in the palm of your hand made you feel good. You’d pick it up, slowly wrap your fingers around it and squeeze really tight. When your fingers warmed the pebble, you closed your eyes and thought about someone you wanted to send a special wish to. Then, slowly, you uncurled your fingers, knowing that somebody, somewhere, suddenly felt a warm shiver down the spine, just as that lucky person got your wish! I always sent my very best wishes to my mum and my dad.

When the wish had been sent, you put your wishing rock into what Mum called your treasure tin, a small red OXO meat-cube tin. Mum and dad put theirs into the bigger, yellow OLD HOLBORN tobacco tins she’d carried in her bag.

When we filled our tins with our best finds of the day, ate our snack, we made our way home. If we were really lucky, we’d first visit the corner shop at the bottom of Old Paul Hill, and Dad would buy everyone a thruppeny crispy cone filled with Daniel’s delicious homemade ice cream.

When we got back home to 16, Treveneth Crescent, we took off our wellies, sat on the carpet in the front room, and emptied our treasure tins on to a sheet of  The Cornishman’ newspaper. Mum boiled the kettle on the gas stove, made a pot of tea, and cut up a couple of scones and a fresh saffron cake.
As we drank tea and munched slices of currant-filled saffron cake, sweetened with thick, yellow margarine, dad, with Joseph the cat curled up on his knees, chose what he thought was the best wishing rock, held it in his hand, looked at us all, and would always ask the same question:

Who found this one?” “Was it you, Jimmie? You, Hazel?”
“ You, Johnny? Is it yours?” “OK, then you, Johnny, you can make a wish for us all!”
“Then, you make a wish, Jimmie, alright?”
“OH, then me and mum, ok?”
“First, though, we’ll all make a wish for baby Charles.”

After Jimmie and I closed our eyes and made our wishes, Dad put five of our best, most beautiful wishing rocks in the old chipped green-glass jar on the small wooden table near the window in the front room. Most of the rest were put into mum’s bag to return to the beach another day, so, as Mum would say, someone else could find and enjoy them. Then, lighting his hand-rolled cigarette, Dad would take his first deep puff, slowly blow out a circle of white and blue smoke, and then say:

“Ready, now? For a story?”

Collecting wishing rocks was great but this was always the best moment of the day.
We were always ready for one of his stories because he told the best tales about badgers, foxes, stoats, weasels, rabbits, sharks and whales. When you listened to his soft voice, it was as if you could see everything as he had seen it.
 “Yes, Dad. We’re ready.”
“’Onest, we are! Tell us the one about the day you and mum collected wishing rocks. You know, when you found the dead seal! You know, the crabs and stuff that were chompin’ on it!”
“NO, tell us about the man who had his thumb bit off by a conger eel!”
“Then tell us about the weasel.”
“Tell us both stories!”

“OK” he said, shifting Joseph from one knee to another, “here’s the one about the conger eel, THEN, the one about the weasel surrounded by a circle of...............well, first I’ll show you what I found today...”
Leaning back in his chair, dad stubbed out his cigarette, closed his eyes, opened his tobacco tin very slowly, cleared his throat, and, showed us what he’d found on the beach.
Dad’s best find always surprised me. It was always something different and was always something that prompted him to tell a story.

When Dad finished, he’d put his treasure  inside his Old Holborn tin and rest it on the side of his chair. Then, with the quietest voice, told us how, when he was out in the woods very early, one bitterly cold morning, he’d seen a family of stoats surround a wounded weasel, waiting to pounce, kill and eat it. 
“I waved my arms,” he said,  “I shouted really loudly, and the stoats ran off.”
“I saved the injured weasel’s life.”
“When the stoats had gone, the little weasel stood up, shook its head, and hobbled off to the bushes.”

 Transfixed, I sat at his feet and stared up at him, sucking in every word.
As his story unfolded, I’d close my eyes, like my dad closed his, really tight. It helped me see the stoats and the weasel and hear the wild sounds that his words drew in my imagination.

When I went to bed, under which was my growing collection of pebbles and shells in an old cardboard box, my head was filled with bright images of wishing rocks, animals, birds and fish - and filled with hope .

I hoped that the was weasel ok.
Did it get home safely?

I hoped so.




[1] Slang for gooseberries
Finding your own wishing rock makes you feel good.

You pick it up and rest it comfortably in the palm of your hand.

Then, you slowly wrap your fingers around it and squeeze really tight.

When your fingers warm the pebble, close your eyes.

Squeeze your wishing rock as tight as you can - then send a wish to someone very special in your life.

Relax, open your fingers and let your wish go.

Someone, somewhere, then feels a warm shiver down the spine, just as that lucky person gets your wish.

When the wish had been sent, put your wishing rock into a wishing rock tin and keep it safe.

Found on my 5th birthday, my wishing rock and my amber
Forever.   :)

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