![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Aug. 6th, 2008 03:56 pmKeep up the bad jokes, please. This time, though, add a thought for Betty, who died yesterday. She was my first best friend's mother and egged Dad on throughout my childhoood and teens. I had forgotten how nice she was about his jokes.
Betty worked with the CFA. My earliest memories of Christmas were hanging round at their place and being part of the cooking thing. We'd all keep an ear out for the phone while I was introduced to the Christmas tree and got to sample the fudge ahead of time (because I obviously couldn't on the day).
Anyhow, if the phone went, it was likely that there were bushfires in Victoria and that Betty would race off and make cups of tea for thirsty and brave firefighters. M and I were incidental in a lot of fundraising for the Country Fire Authority, too, when I was a kid.
I do remember being told, quite seriously, that not everyone's Christmas was determined by the timing of bushfires and that other people stuck to Christmas Day. I didn't discover this, though, until my uncle and aunt had settled back in Australia (they'd been in Aberdeen for much of my childhood) and invited myself and a sister to share it.
Lots of wonderful memories of my childhood are coming back. M and I got up to bunches of mischief and Betty dealt with it very calmly. She trusted us not to kill each other or burn buildings down. We nearly did the latter, once.
After talking to M and to Mum on the phone, it suddenly settled upon me that the Betty of my childhood was way more important to me than I had realised. She gave me a sense of uniqueness, of the possibility of being myself. she did a whole lot more than that in her life, but this is what I'm celebrating today.
Betty worked with the CFA. My earliest memories of Christmas were hanging round at their place and being part of the cooking thing. We'd all keep an ear out for the phone while I was introduced to the Christmas tree and got to sample the fudge ahead of time (because I obviously couldn't on the day).
Anyhow, if the phone went, it was likely that there were bushfires in Victoria and that Betty would race off and make cups of tea for thirsty and brave firefighters. M and I were incidental in a lot of fundraising for the Country Fire Authority, too, when I was a kid.
I do remember being told, quite seriously, that not everyone's Christmas was determined by the timing of bushfires and that other people stuck to Christmas Day. I didn't discover this, though, until my uncle and aunt had settled back in Australia (they'd been in Aberdeen for much of my childhood) and invited myself and a sister to share it.
Lots of wonderful memories of my childhood are coming back. M and I got up to bunches of mischief and Betty dealt with it very calmly. She trusted us not to kill each other or burn buildings down. We nearly did the latter, once.
After talking to M and to Mum on the phone, it suddenly settled upon me that the Betty of my childhood was way more important to me than I had realised. She gave me a sense of uniqueness, of the possibility of being myself. she did a whole lot more than that in her life, but this is what I'm celebrating today.