--------------- [excerpt, Jerry Hall: My life in pictures] --------------------
Every summer holiday we were sent to our grandparents for three months.
Pearl and Oscar Sheffield were our mother's parents and we loved being with them, because at their home we could be like a normal family. They never raised their voices or seemed to have a cross word to say to one another, they always seemed to enjoy each other's company.
We had meals together at regular times and we had conversations. Pearl loved playing cards and dominoes, and we would play and laugh together. Although she was very religious and strict, she was also fair and we knew where we stood with her.
Their home was a little wooden plank-board house consisting of one bedroom, a living room and kitchen, and a big wrap-around wooden covered porch where Linda got to sleep on a bed, while us four youngest slept on a pallet in the front room.
Granny was always complaining that Mama hadn't taught us anything and would ask us 'How did we think you are gonna get a man?' She taught us to cook and bake bread, how to mend and sew and eight different kinds of needlepoint, which was extremely useful for Terry and me as we always ended up getting all the hand-me-downs.
We used to love to go with our Grandad to give the chickens their molasses. We'd sit on the back of his flatbed truck and stop at each little chicken house and pour out their feed and some molasses syrup. It was sweet and sticky and we'd lick it off our fingers.
------------------------
My aunts, Daddy's sisters, were very beautiful and a bit wild. Aunt Pearl had lost all her hair, through diphtheria, and she had wigs of every colour. We loved trying on her wigs and would howl with laughter at the way we looked in them.
We had a little gang of girlfriends and we often spent the weekends at our friend Karen McRae's house. Karen had a poster of Mick Jagger on her closet door, we all thought he was cute.
________________________
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment