Jilly's Blog: Samuels first year

In honour of Samuel I thought that I would show you some photos from his early years.

This photo was taken at Christmas 1980. We lived in Devon but spent Christmas at my parent’s house in Stevenage. He is having his bath in my Mums kitchen sink! He is three and a half weeks old. Back in those days we didn’t travel with every last bit of baby equipment known to man. We improvised when we got there. So much easier than the fuss that seems to go on nowadays. Equally on that very long trip down from Devon the baby would be fed once at our convenience and that was it. The rest of the journey he had to wait. They all survived. They are all here to tell the tale. In those days it was a LOOONG journey from Devon to Hertfordshire.

This one is his christening photo. He was christened at Datchworth church on the 15^th March 1981. It was the same church we had married in. IE. not a Catholic church. Simon’s family didn’t come! Yeah I have told you before the rot set in early with them.

This one is Sam aged 3 months. He seems to have found his hands!

The next two were both taken at around four and a half months and show him wearing his hand knitted woollen ensembles! My Mum made them. I think it is such a shame that you very rarely see babies wearing handmade knits nowadays. Whatever happened to matinee jackets, bootees and bonnets?

I never really learnt to knit despite the fact that both my Mum and my sister were excellent knitters. I can do a simple plain and purl but that is about it. I did manage to knit a couple of baby things around the time I had Saskia. A couple of matinee jackets and a cute little pink bonnet. I must find the photos so I can record for posterity that I did knit a few wearable items in my life time!

Samuel at five and a half months enjoying what looks like chocolate pudding.

Me Sam and Buick our Irish setter. We lived in a really grotty rented bungalow which was actually on a petrol station forecourt! In the summer months if we were not inhaling petrol fumes then we were being knocked out by the smells from the pig farm on the other side of the road! Oh yes, I remember it well, a heady mix of gasoline and pig, Fantastic when you are pregnant!

I’m going to digress here...... When I look back to how Simon and I began our married life in that grotty, grotty place which was freezing cold and damp; we even had slugs inside the house! Then fast forward to the expectations of young people today.........They would never survive. They would class it as uninhabitable. They want everything NOW this generation. I’d like to tell you that it was wonderful despite the grotty place and that we were happy as the proverbial sand boys, but it wouldn’t be strictly true.

I was a long way from home. A long way from family and friends. Simon was working all hours to try and build up a franchise business. Within 3 months I was pregnant and home alone with few opportunities to make friends. There were many occasions when I would quite happily have gone home to my Mum! I think there were several reasons that I didn’t. First the rows that prompted me to want to go home would invariably take place late at night and no way could I get in the car and drive several hundreds of miles in the dark in the middle of the night! Yes even then I was a scaredy cat! Secondly NO WAY would I give that wretched woman the satisfaction. (I think you will all know to whom I refer!) Thirdly, I guess the bottom line was I loved him. So I stayed and he stayed too and after lots of ups and downs tomorrow we will celebrate 31 years.

Ok, back to Sam! Six months old with his best friend.

Seven months old and in his walker. The bungalow had a very long passage which went from the kitchen at one end to our bedroom at the far end. Sam very soon learnt to go on a circular route! Starting in the kitchen, around the table, down the passage into our bedroom, round the bed and back again up to the kitchen and the table. I remember once having him in the walker in the garden while I was hanging washing out (yes we did hang out washing in those days even in winter, no tumble drier then. In fact no automatic washing machine either just a twin tub) the path wasn’t level with the lawn and one of the wheels went off the edge tipping the whole thing over and Sam landed on the concrete path!

He survived! My kids survived lots of things. While telling the above story I have remembered something else. Back then it was customary to put babies in their prams out in the fresh air to sleep. You did this in all weathers. Just tucked them in nice and warm and out they went. One day when he was about a couple of months old I had put him out in his pram for his afternoon nap, all tucked up really snug as it was very cold.

I went in to get on with my jobs. At some point I sat down with a cup of tea (yes tea, I drank tea in those days!) and guess what, I was tired and I nodded off. When I woke I was disorientated and it was still a while before I remembered he was still in the garden! By this time it was dark and when I oped the door a thick fog had set in and I couldn’t even see the pram! LOL. He survived that too. He was fast asleep and snug as a bug.

I need to digress again......... That story reminds me of another that I have to tell you even though it has nothing to do with San. I left Coralie on the drive of our house! She was just a week or so old and I was going to visit a friend in another town. I carried her out in her seat and put it on the ground on the passenger side of the car. Sam was agitating so I left Coralie to go around and strap Sam into his seat behind my driver’s seat. Then...... I got in and set off. I was going from Sidmouth where we lived to Ottery St Mary. About 7 miles, a 15 to 20 minute journey as it is on very narrow lanes with single file traffic in places.

I arrived at my friend Diane’s house, got Sam out, went in, chatted a few minutes and then Diane said where’s the baby. OMG! OMG! I was out of there so fast. That was the worst journey of my life. I think I got back in about 10 minutes despite those little lanes. I turned into our road and there she was fast asleep in her little car seat, all alone in the middle of our drive! She survived!

Let’s go back to Sam. This is him being pushed by my Dad. We were visiting Bicton Gardens. They don’t make pushchairs like that anymore. It was brilliant. It lay flat so a child could sleep in comfort and had a proper hood and apron just like a pram. They were snug and dry in there.

Another one with Buick his friend.

And then before we knew it he was one!

And his second Christmas, again spent at his Nanny’s house in Stevenage. He loved that little ride on thing. He was walking just before he was 9 months old so he was a very active child. Look at the little red shoes. Boy’s shoes for toddlers in those days were pretty much the same as girls.

So that was Sam’s first year. It seems like yesterday. I cannot believe that my first baby is all grown up, 30 years old, married with 2 children of his own. It happened in the blink of an eye.

When he was born everyone said he looked like Simon, some of you said that yesterday when I posted one of his birthday photos. I can see the resemblance. See what you think. He has less hair now than when he was born! LOL.