dandelion

No, not Sliders the TV show from way back when. But ice cream. A specific ice cream from my childhood.

I have fond memories of a time whenever my father was deployed in the UK in between postings abroad, mostly to do training courses as a Master Armourer, he often had these short postings of several months or more that my mother took full advantage of.

She would take what she called her second family, that would be us: the three smaller, younger kids. Abandon my father — along with my three older siblings (all at school and able to look after themselves) — and do a mini 2-3 week holiday in Scotland to see her own family. Specifically, her sister, Margaret.

I for one loved these mini breaks away from my older siblings, school, and being picked on. Even though it meant, for a lot of the time we were visiting, that I would be looking after my two younger brothers. The reward for being away and being on babysitting duties came in the form of ice cream.

The area where my aunt lived in Dundee, my mum’s home town, boasted not only one of the best ice cream parlours I’d ever visited, but they also had an ice cream van that visited the street where my aunt lived. They handmade Italian gelato ice cream, served out of huge tubs. I remember there were only ever three flavours, chocolate, strawberry, and their award-winning gold medal vanilla.

My mother use to give me her coin purse and send me out to buy the ice creams. I have to tell you, I felt so much excitement at being rewarded with whatever ice cream I wanted, it was a dream for a kid my age.

And what did I order, I hear you ask? 

A slider. But not just any slider. I would either ask for the marshmallow wafer slider or, once, I went for the supreme ice cream, the Empress.

The Empress was a vanilla slider with a twist. It comprised a single crisp rectangular wafer that was placed in a metal holder with sides. The server, a gentleman with the most amazing moustache, then took a small metal spatular and hand paddle the ice cream till he had what looked like a trowel full, and pasted this onto the waiting wafer in the holder. Atop this he added a Snowball—a chocolate covered marshmallow ball rolled in coconut, that was squished gently onto the waiting ice cream, before a marshmallow wafer was then carefully balanced on top.

The server expertly tipped the ice cream out onto a piece of waiting paper, wrapping it to keep it safe, and then placed it in a paper tray.

It wasn’t so much an ice cream as a full-on dessert and, let me tell you, not for the faint of heart.

I was only ever brave enough to order the Empress once. But once was enough for me to remember that taste and sheer enjoyment for a lifetime.

I still dream of that <i>slider</i> even today, and wish I could taste it just one more time.

And you, what childhood memories do you have?

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

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Note: In Scotland, ice cream sandwiches are known as ‘sliders‘ – usually served as vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two rectangle wafers.

You can buy sliders consisting of vanilla ice cream sandwiched between one wafer and one block of chocolate-covered nougat. These are known as nougat sliders. Alternatively, called a ‘single nougat’ or in the case of two blocks of nougat; a ‘double nougat.’ In this context, the word nougat is pronounced as in gold nugget.

As a child growing up I use to tell friends, “… my dad kicks bombs for a living.” when asked the inevitable stupid question, ‘what does your dad do for a living.’ One because I was never sure at first what it was my dad did actually do and had overheard him talking to someone and say, “I kicked bombs …” and giggling to myself thought, oh, that’s cool. Never once, at whatever tender age I was at the time, realising what kicking bombs for a living actually meant or entailed. And two, because I loved the look on the other kids faces when I told them that.

It wasn’t till much later it all made sense when one of my older brothers explained to me and, having a half ass explanation, had gone and asked my dad what exactly it was he did. By this point I was about 8 years old and we were living in Singapore, and I vaguely knew he worked putting bombs on planes. Though why they needed to carry bombs in the first place was still a little beyond me.

My dad had laughed for a good five minute when I told him what I told my friends. Yes, it was true that at one point he had kicked a single bomb, a dud he told me, when being pranked in his early career in Bomb Disposal just after the war. It turns out this was a phrase they guys used to pull the ladies in with when dating just after the war. Not that my dad mentioned this at the time, this was again, something I learnt from my mother much later as an adult teenager about to join the military myself.

Still, I have fond memories of grinning when I told other kids that my dad kicked bombs for a living and seeing their faces light up in glee and then, fear, seconds before one or two might call me a liar. But those kids were mostly civvy kids who didn’t know any better. Kids in the Air Force all knew their fathers could be doing some sort of scary job involving weapons and explosives. And, for me, as a kid, it seems wild and exciting, as I grew up, I began to understand the humour people like my father used when talking about some of the work they did, because it was far from exciting or glamorous.

My dad had the physical and metal scars to prove it. A three inch gash along his scalp to start with, when a missile fell on him from the undercarriage of an airplane during load-up.

He never did tell me if that was when he had his first heart attack. I often wonder.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Or, surviving the loss of my parents.

Surviving a loved one’s death can only be personal and subjective. We all react differently, we all perceive differently, we all emote differently. Some feel the loss more keenly than others, some not so much. But one thing you can be sure of is, the loss of a loved one changes you no matter what your relationship was till that point.

I lost my father to lung cancer in 1991, he was only 68 years of age. His ‘illness’ was slow, debilitating, terrifying and painful right through till the last few weeks when, being cared for in our local hospice, my father passed quietly, almost peacefully after his (and yes, our) two year ordeal.

Heroic in her efforts and, till those last few weeks, my mother took on the all but lonely burden of looking after my father almost singlehandedly. Albeit with help, where we could, from the rest of us. Supporting and bolstering my mother, where we could, during a time where home care from any nursing services was, at best, minimal. Closer to the end, and before he was lucky enough to get into hospice care—and yes, I say lucky, because, due to space limitations, and the lack of hospice care in general, most people either die at home, or in hospital. And usually, with minimal care and attention. My mother had to feed, bath, dress and care for my father—a man she had already dedicated her life to for most of her adult life, sharing all the highs and lows along the way and giving birth to, and bringing up six children.

Trying to help her, as she tried to maintain my father’s dignity and integrity, was heartbreaking and gut wrenching. Especially on the last day when, with my mother, we watched the frail comatose shell that had once been my father, finally gave his last breath. I was holding his hand and gently rubbing his head in a way I had done from earliest childhood, when he simply stopped breathing. No drama. No wailing. No more pain. He was no longer there.

For a few minutes neither my mother nor I said anything as, entranced, a painted butterfly, a Red Admiral if I recall, fluttered silently around my father’s bed. It was as if this beautiful, transient insect had come to finally take my father, or show my mother and I that even in his passing, my father may have transformed and gone elsewhere. A thought we quietly shared after the butterfly drifted out through the open French windows, and into a garden lush with summer flowers.

That Red Admiral, or maybe it was another, silenced everyone at the wake a few days later, in my mother’s back garden. It came and fluttered about us for a few precious moments before leaving. Was it my father saying a final goodbye? We’ll never know.

My mother was a big believer in signs and I know, took this one to heart.

Eight years later, I felt my heart skip a beat when my phone rang. It was a brightly cold February morning, a Saturday, we were waiting to board a horse-drawn sleigh for a ride around the snow-covered Plains of Abraham, during the winter Carnaval here in Québec City. And, for a split second—as my niece gave me the news that my mother had been taken into hospital having suffered a heart attack—I thought I saw a brightly coloured butterfly. It was impossible, of course it was. It was minus fifteen degrees, and ice crystals formed each time we exhaled. But just for a fraction of a second, out the corner of my eye. I saw it.

I’m not sure I heard a thing my niece said from that point on, calling from the UK. I kept turning in a circle much to the consternation of my partner who kept trying to see what it was I was looking for. They told me later, I had tears in my eyes. I don’t remember. All I remember was the cold dread I felt erupt in my chest.

My niece and I shared a few more words with her promising to let me know any and all news the minute she could. But I knew it wasn’t going to end well. Just over twenty-four hours later, after a massive stroke, my mother was dead. She had always said she wanted to go quickly, and without knowing. I can only hope it was as sudden as my brother said, and that she left us without the long, drawn out pain my father suffered through.

If you ask me now which loss hurt me the most or hit me hardest, you would think I would say that of my father. After the long, painful struggle, watching the man wither away and die slowly. But the truth is, I would have to say the loss of my mother hit me harder. With my father it was, by the time he slipped away, almost a blessed relief. But the suddenness of my mother’s death gave me no time whatsoever to say, I love you, or even a goodbye.

And, without that goodbye, I don’t think I’ve ever come to terms with her passing.

So, Mum, this is for you … goodbye.

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Footnote: My niece, The Oracle Genius, emailed me to say that later, much later, while waiting on a London Tube station, she could have sworn she saw him, her grandfather, sitting a few feet away from her. Then, just as suddenly, he was gone, obscured by the rush hour crowd.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

My sister breaks things.

It’s a fact—a family fact.

She doesn’t just break ordinary things like you or I might do; dishes, glassware, bones in our body, no. My sister breaks things like, the internet.

What? Oh, okay, so maybe it wasn’t her, per se, who caused Google to have a nervous breakdown the other day, thereby causing everyone one on the planet to collectively hold their breathes. But we, that is, our family, on hearing of another Google outage immediately think, Sis! Yes, we actually text and or message one another asking, did she do it, did she break Google, again?

You see, my sister has this knack, put her within 3 feet of a remote handset and you can guarantee it, and any programme you might have set to record will either start in the middle, end before it’s supposed to, record another channel entirely, doesn’t record because it set itself to another century from now, or simply doesn’t work.

We have no idea why, let alone the ‘how,’ but it happens. She goes through fancy watches like you and I might go through hot dinners. Digital? Forget it. The thing might work out of the box—for a week, and then stop. Or she manages to somehow cause the digital display to go haywire. I’ve seen it.

Microwaves? Not much better. Strangely enough, she has yet to break the fridge. We’re working on that one. Factoring it into the equation, throws it for a loop. Why one appliance, but not another? Why a digital alarm clock but not an old fashioned wind-up one?

Brother Number One reckons my parents dropped her on her head as a child. My sister gives a good evil eye. Brother Number Three thinks she was struck by lightning as a kid and, thereby, has been electrically discharging ever since. Brother Number Four is still doing the calculations and has yet to come to a conclusion demanding more verifiable evidence. But, as we all know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

These things are abstract and, in a lot of cases, just her proximity to something can force the issue and blame assigned without anyone knowing the exact nature or details of the occurrence, such is the mystic that has grown up around my sister’s seemingly innate ability.

I’m sure someone, somewhere out there in the scientific community knows what I’m talking about, and would love to study her at length. But hey, good luck with that. You’ll need to do it without instrumentation, mechanical or otherwise, because as sure as my sister is my sister, she’ll break or f*ck up your equipment.

As kids, her freakish nature was fun but, as adults? Not so much. Invite over to dinner? Maybe. But just clear the room before hand, and under no circumstances let her into the kitchen.

Oh, hi sis, what? What am I writing about? I’m writing about you … no, no, don’t touch that …

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

One of my all-time favourite sweets as a child were Bassetts Jelly Babies. And I mean the original flour dusted version, not the more recent Maynards version. As anyone who is a regular reader to this blog might know by now is, most of my favourite things have came to me by way of my family. Jelly Babies are no exception. This particular love was gifted me by my gran, Mary Anne. My dad’s mother.

There are a few things I particularly remember about her with a fondness, and they were:

1. Her love of pig-shaped piggy banks (she had dozens of them).

2. Her proclivity for boiling a kettle on an old WWII paraffin stove she kept way too close to her armchair.

3. Her prized roses, which were older than me at the time.

4. And her love of Bassetts Jelly Babies.

She always had a crumpled bag of them at hand. A bag I was convinced filled up magically overnight, as there always seemed to be an endless supply whenever I visited her after school.

Of course my visits became a ritual. We would sit and chat about the day, I’d make tea for her, and we’d eat a jelly baby, or three, then I would help her in her tiny postage stamp sized garden keeping her roses in check. She would always give me a small bunch to take home for my mother, who adored the smell.

For me, the best part of these after school afternoon visit was, of course, seeing my gran, but also, the jelly babies. And so, long after my Gran had passed, I would buy a quarter pound of Jelly Babies every week to keep my connection to her, and keep those memories of her alive.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

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Fun Facts:

Did you know, Jelly Babies were invented in 1864 by an Austrian immigrant working at Fryers of Lancashire, and were originally marketed as “Unclaimed Babies”. By 1918 they were produced by Bassett’s in Sheffield as “Peace Babies”, to mark the end of World War I. Bassett’s themselves supported the “Peace Babies” name.

Also, more recently, I think it was the 90s? Bassett’s allocated individual names, shapes, colours and flavour to different “babies”: Brilliant (red; strawberry), Bubbles (yellow; lemon), Baby Bonny (pink; raspberry), Boofuls (green; lime), Bigheart (purple; blackcurrant) and Bumper (orange).