My husband is an only child. I never met his parents, both having died before my husband and I met when we were, to say the least, not in the first flush of youth.
But I was certain from things he had told me during our dating games that his parents loved him better than they loved anything else except each other. Which is, in my book, the way it should be. The parental love must come first, with the children enveloped and celebrated. Protected and nurtured. Disciplined and congratulated...all as the situation demands. But under it all, the parental love for each other must remain paramount. Only in that way, for instance, can they maintain their individual and mutual balance when troubles arise, with the child or any other facet of family life, as inevitably they will.
My husband's parents were older than the norm when they had him, World War II having intervened. That, and the subsequent rationing in the UK, forced them to wait until both were established well in professions--father in sales and mother in teaching English and French--to leap from couplehood to parenthood.
Although Mary was the teacher, Ronald wrote. He wrote and wrote and wrote. Poems, plays, even (I recently discovered on going through some old boxes) some children's stories. None were ever published, though not from lack of trying, until now.
Whatever else Ronald's writing may have been, it was both witty and expressive of his immense and intense love for Mary, and for their son. And, for that matter, for all the creatures resident in his household, at the time, the top floor of a building in Torquay.
Here, without further introduction, is one of the daily letters Ronald penned to Mary as she spent the then-obligatory week in hospital after giving birth, although he arrived nightly to visit as well.
***
The Old Court House
Sweetheart.
I thought I was going to have some trouble with Horty, and of course I have. She’s heard from outside. I told her quite quietly the other night that she was to have a little cousin, and though she looked down her nose a bit, she took it reasonably well. Judge my surprise this morning when she kicked down the door and shouldered her way in thus…
H. ‘ere, wot’s all this perishin’ nonsense they’re telling me abaht a nine pound prod.
R. Really, Horty, not this time in the morning, please. In any case, you should be proud and pleased.
H. (With deep disgust) Prahd. Wot ‘ave I got to be prahd abaht. Or pleased fer that matter. You said somefing abaht a little cousin, you did. It’s treating me a bit shabby I must say. An’ I always fought you were fond of little things…being a bit on the tiny side yerself, as yer might say. And now this.
R. Well, I know it has come as a bit of a shock all round, old girl, but we just have to accept these things. No point in getting all hot about the whiskers. There’s nothing we can do about it.
H. (Darkly) Isn’t there?
R. Of course not.
H. Well, you just wait and see. I’ve got friends, I ‘ave. Nine pounds indeed. A nice old fool I’ll look getting town to me Whiskas alongside the brute. If ’e’d been a nice little four pounds, I could ‘ave knocked ‘im abaht a bit if ‘e overstepped the mark, as they say. But wot chance ‘ave I got now…and me out of training, too.
R. (Coldly) I don’t think we want any rough stuff, if you don’t mind, Horty.
H. ‘Ark at ‘im. Don’t want any rough stuff. A cat’s got to look after ‘imself. I should ‘ave thought you would ‘ave realised that there ain’t room for any more of us in this ‘ere ‘house. You must be more stupid than you look.
R. (Firmly) I will not have you talking to me in that way. If you ask me, a nine pound cousin is just about the best thing for you in your present belligerent mood. It’ll do you a power of good. It’s time you had someone about your own weight to put you in your place.
H. There you go. Inciting the brute. Well let me tell you, mister, me and me friends won’t stand for any nonsense, see. Wait ‘til I tell them about this.
R. Pooh. I don’t believe you’ve got any friends.
H. (Contemptuously) Huh. I’m just about the most popular member of our working cat’s club, and wot I say goes. If I tell ‘em we ain’t going to stand any nonsense from this ‘ere ‘erbert of yours, then no nonsense it is, see.
R. Yes, I see all right. But your cousin’s name doesn’t happen to be Herbert. As a matter of fact, it’s Simon.
H. Simon. That’s a laugh. Wait ‘til I tell that to the boys. Simon. Can you beat it? You might at least ‘ave called ‘im Fred, and given the poor so and so a chance. Simon, I ask you.
R. I believe a lot of people think quite highly of the name. And I venture to suggest that there are more Simons in the Bible than Freds.
H. I wouldn’t know abaht that. It’s a long time since I went to Sunday school. No time for it. But you can take it from me, the boys are going to get a pretty good laugh out of Simon.
R. It strikes me you have some very queer friends.
H. Speak for yourself. (Making for the door) Well, if that’s all you’ve got to say to me, I’ll push off and tell the boys. (Going out the door) Simon. Sounds more like a rare kind of fish. Back about ten for me Whiskas. Don’t keep me waiting….
I have not been here since, darling, so I don’t quite know how matters stand between us. But I’ll keep you posted.
Now I must fly for the post and the hospital.
Tenderest love, my darling,
Ronald
***
I so wish I had met Ronald and Mary. But I have been awarded a high prize by whatever means, their son. So I'm thinking that, despite my often passionate expression of my opinions in terms that would have been anathema to them, and my ever-growing distaste for religion while the Church of England was central to both their lives, we would have loved each other (I might be a good substitute for Horty; attitude and all). Certainly, I love the thought of them, almost as much as I love their son.
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