Olive P Lockyer in memoriam

Olive Remembered I wanted to say something about Olive So I put a few thoughts together Olive was years ahead of her time Two or three generations If born 1966 instead of 1906 I wonder what then? How would she have turned out? Would she have been a Power-dressed business woman in the City? She was very determined Liked to get her own way She had a great mathematical brain Perhaps with a merchant bank Something big in computers..... they really arrived after she retired Who knows?	Motoring with Mum and little sister
She came of an age when a woman's place was in the home My first memory of Olive Was when there was a crisis in our house at Hatch End I was three and didn't know then that my mum had fallen down the stairs I was packed off to Grandma at Vyner Road, Acton It was not a child friendly house The food wasn't thrilling and I was more or less confined to the back room...... making dens under the desk...a huge rolltop
Family Gathering for Vi's 80th Birthday	Olive was living at home with Grandma then She was a curiosity to me A grown woman who went to work instead of staying at home and helping to beat the stair carpet by hand, with Grandma doing the sorts of things I expected grown up women to do Olive was also the only one I knew who was allowed into the no-go area of the front room at Vyner Road and to touch the piano.
Only much later I discovered that music was Olive's great passion One which she shared with Will She met Will at the office, at the Great Western Railway's Old Oak Common Loco depot We, the family, can get a glimpse of Olive at work from ` a letter sent to Peter and Vi last week Typical Olive, she left a list of people to contact. The letter is from Doris Stanbury of Hounslow ( 18 Francis Road ) She wrote:

	Olive and Will married about a year after my brief stay at Acton in 1948 As for music Olive had been in the Royal Choral Society from about 1927 She sang for years and years Monday night was rehearsal night at the Royal Albert Hall She also played the piano in the front room It was an instrument which led to occasional fallings out with the neighbours later at Hayes and Warminster
With Will, Olive poured an enormous effort into the Gramophone Society At Hayes, Letters from them - known later as the Recorded Music Society taking in CDs and the like - say how they missed her It was Bach, Beethoven and Brahms Rather than modern stuff like Stravinsky I was told firmly one Christmas when sorting through my records for something to entertain Olive, while she nursed the cat that Stravinsky was . "All crashing and banging" Olive and Will went to lots of concerts especially the Proms Perhaps because they were such irresistible good value Cycling was another shared passion My image of Olive and Will in the Fifties is them arriving at Hatch End on their bikes They were not power dressed, no trendy cycling gear then And I was amazed at the bikes They looked wrecks to me My idea of a bicycle was a lightweight dropped handlebars and pencil-thin high pressure tyres I was even more amazed when I discovered Those bikes took them everywhere Before the war Olive had been all over Austria. She learned German They really were keen members of the Cyclists' Touring Club Olive had taken cycling holidays all through the war Not in Austria then of course but Scotland It must have been marvellous No private petrol and so no cars just peaceful empty roads On long journeys, to get there The bikes went free on the train Olive and Will on staff passes Occasionally there was a shilling or so charge for the bikes in the Guard's van And we' heard all about that when it happened. I can appreciate now how much Olive and Will made the ideal couple Olive hated housework and hadn't a clue about cooking , Even though she really liked her food Will was perfectly at home....... as what would now be called a New Man....a House Husband Doing the chores He was a keen and eapert gardener They were both members of the RHS and I remember being very thrilled on a visit to Chelsea Flower Show with them, when I was waist high to the crowd. That was an unusual event for me. I had always assumed that Olive didn't like children Now I think I may have been wrong on that one Only the other day Vi discovered that Olive used often to talk about her younger sister with five boys to her card school friends in Warminster My view on Olive and children had been coloured by Olive's reaction to certain boys who, when she was not around entertained themselves in the front room at Hayes by sliding down the back of her leather sofa with their Clark's buckled sandals on......... We left great gashes down it Only when I had a house of my own did I appreciate why she had been so angry. Despite the life long attachment to cycling at 60 Olive suddenly decided she needed to drive Maybe it was the steep hills at Warminster where she and Will retired to in 1963. Anyhow Olive took lessons, passed her test and was soon tootling around in a little Hillman Imp Visiting Olive since Will died, in 1979 and being someone who likes to have things in order I was always impressed by the shambolic state of the house But I was wrong about that as well Olive's fall in Warminster in Autumn '92 put her in hospital and then in more comfort than she had known for years at the White House, in Boscombe.

	It was then I found that the house at Warminster was only apparently a shambles some sorting out of Olive's affairs was necessary We discovered that Nothing was ever thrown away Not a single envelope, free newspaper, Carrier bag, Saga brochure, Chinese takeaway foil dish Nothing But everything was sorted out and filed foil dishes packed in a kitchen cupboard Electricity bills in order lined up on the sideboard With the gas bills, and the phone bills And every letter ever sent by Haberdashers' Aske's Acton Old Girls Society Envelopes were not thrown out because After all they are handy for writing lists on In tiny and neat handwriting Lists of when the grass had been cut...... Complete summaries of the Chancellor's Budget...... All crammed on the back of an envelope
Olive's ability with figures never dimmed. She always loved playing cards It put her in top gear And didn't lose very often.... A few months ago, when Some people might have thought she was not really with it, sitting quietly thinking most of the time Jane was going through a letter to the bank Olive, only one good eye by then Suddenly stabbed her finger onto the page Pointing to a column of figures One of the amounts had been written down incorrectly with two figures transposed Another time Olive was being shown the latest Building Society interest rates In a flash she found inconsistency between two figures......... in the second decimal place.... Jane and I have learned a lot about a very modern woman........ Now I'm sure that none of the drivers and firemen coming off the shed at Old Oak Common From driving their magnificent Castles and Kings..... from Carmarthen, Bristol and Penzance...... and the lads who cleaned out their fireboxes None of them was ever a penny over or under in their paypacket Not when Olive was making up their pay .
©:Mike Winney 30 January 1995	REMEMBERING AUNT OLIVE

Olive Remembered