Violet Louise Winney

Vi lived for 91 years with a
Curious detachment, lack of understanding of the things
That for good and ill drive much of the world

• Money in excess from the basic needed to pay the bills
• Sex
• Power
• Alcohol and minor vices
• Work, that's employment
• And worldly ambition

She just wanted children Vi was Born in 1910 Younger sister to Olive Her parents were middle class The Barnes were ambitious They had a family car before world war 1 Only a little car, but a car

Vi was sent to Haberdashers' school Acton
She also went to Church
But got fed up with the hypocrisy, I think of some
Of the people involved there. It was a local problem.
She was not devoutly religious
But she sent us all to Sunday School

There was rivalry with Olive
Vi wanted to play the piano
Big sister Olive had professional lessons
The piano became her domain
When Vi wanted to learn she had to be
Taught by Olive
As a result the hated it.

She also had a pet dog
She was very fond of it
Unfortunately it died of distemper
She was hugely upset
It put her off ever having a dog again
We did have cats

Later Vi wanted to go to university
Passed the exams
Mother wouldn't let her go
She was very frustrated
University became her ambition for us

But had she gone would not have
Worked as a bank clerk at Westminster Bank
Threadneedle street
Met and married Tom

So if Vi had gone to University
The Winney family would not exist as it does
Many of us would not be here today, or at all

Tom was past 30
And looking hard for a wife
He took out several women at the same time
Tried them out to see how they
Reacted to the same things

He chose Vi
Vi may not have been Tom's first choice
But she turned out to be a good one

They Married in 1938 on 8^th October
That meant that she had to stop working at the Bank
Bankers wives had to stay at home then
To Prepare for and then bring up their children

Tom and Vi had
Moved into brand new detached
House in a London suburb, Hatch End, new furniture
We may all be relatively affluent now
But none of the suceeding generations
Have experienced that

As it was I think we made a mess of it
I remember drilling holes in various things

In 1940 Bank evacuated to Bournemouth Link established that has continued They stayed first in an Hotel in Bournemouth Then they rented a house at 100 Overcliff Drive It was superb Right on top of the cliff With the sea view of the bay which she Came to love

Bournemouth lived up to its name
It Turned out to be productive places

The world was at war
On a more destructive scale than ever in history
But Vi Winney was producing children at Tuckton Nursing Home
Under care of Sister Angus

One after the other
That was where she was focused

In 1946 the Bank plus Tom and Vi moved us back to London
Tom and Vi set to and produced a second batch
Peter became the odd one out, arriving at Northwood Maternity Hospital
George was arranged for the summer holiday
And so arrived in Bournemouth

Vi's regime as we grew older was
Prep school and Haberdashers

She Insisted we went to Haberdashers' Aske's School
Tom might have left school at 14 to
Become a shippng clerk
But we had to go to proper schools
With the ambition that University would follow

So it was Wellington Prep
Followed by Haberdashers' Aske's Hampstead School
It ensured we could all use public transport and walk
Part of the 10 mile journey

And that we could put apostrophes in right place
If nothing else

Shortage of Money

There never seemed to be a surplus of cash
Although there was an
Automatic Washing machine
In 1950
To greet No 5's nappies

And Tom had a 9 inch TV
Which he had built from a kit
In 1950

There was never much cash to spend

This of course led to some permanent hang ups
Best clothes were always
School Uniform
There was no money for anything else

It meant that events such as Westminster
Bank's Christmas party for children
At Threadneedle Street
Were cringe making
All the other kids in real clothes
Us in school blazers and shorts.

The only new clothes
That I can remember
Us having all together
Was when we had GEL 297
A brand New Austin Eight
In 1946
We all had to have slippers
To wear in the new car
So we would not mess up the carpets

The daily Shopping expedition

Vi always shopped daily
When the pram was no longer needed for infants
Vi kept it on the pavement
For the daily shop
Until Mrs Ockendon, Elsie, bought her a basket on wheels

She kept meticulous Accounts
Every day there was a routine of
Making them add up.
To the nearest halfpenny
The impression was conveyed that we were very hard up

She knew price of everything to the nearest penny In every shop in Hatch End
And would walk the length of the high street
To find the cheapest groceries
She would harangue the shopkeepers
And walk out if the price was too high

She used to remind us incessantly
"If your father and I drank and smoked
you wouldn't be able to go to a proper school"

Her Indulgence was sugar
once it was off ration
In tea. And all drinks

She was Happiest with plain food,
often it seemed to be like wartime menus.
But then we did not know
Any different

Porridge Prunes
Stewed Plums - In August
Rice Pudding, Queens Pudding
Later Salmon – when it was cheaper
Never exotic shell fish

But once meat was available
Off ration
It became a bit predictable
Roast leg of Lamb on Sundays

That was an extravagance
We didn't get shoulder, we got leg
But the portion control ensured that it was….
Cold meat on Mondays
Shepherds' Pie Tuesdays

After the Russian holiday
The top item on the menu
Was
Meat Balls
Savoury meat balls
And more of them
Day after day

I never quite worked out how the
Extreme carefulless with the housekeeping
Matched up with what appeared to be
Extravagant holidays
Every couple of years or so
Tom and Vi
escaped the domestic routine
with a foreign holiday

Cruises and later
( when I suppose the money was tighter)
bus trips to various locations

Excelsior of Bournemouth
Was the favourite firm

They started with the Stella Polaris
In about 1949, I think
And a trip to the North Cape

Over the years they covered
every continent except Antaractica

I think for the first trip I was Parked at Acton with grandma

For later ones we were put out at different places
Some of us together, some on our own

One I remember when at Prep School
Was a smelly house in Wellington Road
200 yards or so from school

It was on the corner
With an ancient car in the funny garage
At the end of the garden
And piles of old National Geographics
Which I spent ages looking at
They were only redeeming feature of the place
As far as I was concerned

The other feature of these holidays
I am told by Peter
Was that I always had some crisis or accident
Falling over at school into the stump of a cut down bush.
I had several stitches in my head that time I think

Tom and Vi loved Austria and Switzerland
Since "Spoilt" - Vi used to say

Their, largely couriered, adventures
Overseas pioneered several places.
Moscow in the early Sixties
Just after the failure of a summit conference

China, before it was easy to get there at all

And They were on the first cruise ship to
Call at Havana, after Castro's revolution
Tom and Vi were so shocked by the poverty
and starvation
That they carried their cruise line packed lunch
Back to their cabin, rather than be seen eating
In public.

Children

Vi's lifetime philosophy had
A strong effect on us which had to be
Fought against
Well that's how I felt

There was a perception that she
Did not want us to grow up

"You don't need a bike"
was the response when we were desperate for
independent wheels that would
take us away from home at will

Girlfriends!

"Plenty of time for that later"
Whenever later was supposed to be
Maybe Vi's influence was why as brothers
we never discussed girls

Apparently it was a huge shock
To her
when it was reported to her that I, at 17,
had been seen with an unknown girl
in Hatch End shopping parade.

Imagine her alarm
After Dick
Richard then, and always to her
Had been on a field trip to Ceylon
Very civilised then, a long trip on a boat

Weeks later a beautiful Celanese Girl
Turned up at the house
Asking for Richard
Mum was SO polite…

But Helen got the same treatment
When Dick wrote from Kenya
To say that he was "marrying an African"
It was a great relief to Mum
When a photograph was sent
Showing the White Settlers' Daughter

I'm afraid Vi was a bit old fashioned
In her views

Motorbikes and Cars

motorbikes were out
Even though Tom had one in his youth

Death of the only son of one of Vi's friends
On the Watford Bypass had condemned
Them as far as she was concerned

It was probably really just as well for Our survival

When a car, any car, became a vital must have
I Was told
"You don't need a car"
"your father will let you have his
if you need to go somewhere."

Amazingly, he did .
I can't imagine me ever doing that

But being accountable for every mile
Every muddy tyre
Was not quite the same as total freedom

Perhaps she understood later
Vi learned to drive in her 50s
It meant that instead of being chauffered by Tom
She became a chauffeuse for the WI
Unfortunately I don't think
She was a natural as a driver

But she was at crafts
And the WI equalled Handicrafts

She did them all

• Crochet
• Pottery
• Machine knitting
• Hand knitting
• Weaving
• Pewter
• Even Photography, after Tom died

The Summer Family Holiday

Tom and Vi so liked Bournemouth That they found a house to let during August Every august It was a vast pile called Hylton on the Overcliff drive Which we all came to regard as ours Rented for I think £14 per week every August Thoughout the Fifties Holidays were Shopping for Vi Beach for us Picnics – dried banana sandwiches And stewed Plums in the evening Later, in about 1961 I think the school sold Hylton and we were moved Round the corner to Woodlands Avenue and Dalveen instead It was never quite the same Smaller But still vast, but only just about in view of the sea. For years Tom and Vi's idea of a day out was To drive down from Hatch End and picnic on the front At Boscombe It was Inevitable that they eventually sold the house at Cedar Drive Hatch End bought a house, (t)here At Wentworth Close. They Moved there after Tom finally retired in 1981

The idyll was shattered in March 1987
When Tom died at 82
Completely out of the blue and huge disaster
for Vi
But in fact the only great personal tragedy
In a very long life
Somehow she had remained detached from
The reality of two world wars

The nearest Tom and Vi
Came to a World Trade Center calamity
Was Harrow & Wealdstone train crash
It was on 8 October 1952
Their Wedding Anniversary
We were on the way to the dentist
With Mum

There were rumours
A strange silence
I Remember it as if it were yesterday
If Vi was concerned she didn't show it
But it was not until about midday
That Tom called
His train, on the local line
Had stopped about 400 yards or so
Short of the accident
If it had been a little further on
The locos of the express would Have crashed down onto it.

All her life Vi remained Garrulous

She Would describe how she had five boys
within minutes of striking up a conversation
Family stories were told to anyone who would listen
In a shop or anywhere
Or she would tell you she
Was a Life Member
Of the National Trust

There were the
Tales of Toddlers trousers thrown up into a tree
At Southbourne
(thrown up there someone, Richard I think)
when we went out for a walk one day in 45 or 46
I think it was the cost of a new pair
that was as much her concern
as the bare bottom

Tales of
The half Crown lost by one
Of us down a crack in the Hall floorboards
At 100 Overcliffe Drive
The day we were moving out
It's probably still there

And of when Vi and Phyllis Crocket
Were driving Five boys
Three Winneys
Two Crockets
And Phyllis rammed the car in front
When the the man
Came back and saw us all in the car
He just walked away

There wasn't really any damage

The story of
The day Vi's straw hat blew off
when we were waiting tor a ferry
at Mudeford
she whipped off her shoes and stockings
and paddled out to retrieve it
causing much amusement
to everyone else in the queue.

She kept these family tales alive
To anyone who would listen

Gardens

She Loved gardens
And plants,
especially Bournemouth flora:
Heathers, evening primroses, Mesembryantheum
Birds
Buktterflies
Trees, she was good at recognising them from their bark
Taking cuttings,
The best plants are free

Her love of nature had exceptions
Squirrels and Magpies
Squirrels dug up her plants
I don't know why she didn't like Magpies

Back to Children

She helped with confinements
Couldn't wait when she heard of a pregnancy
Took my two in as weekly boarders
In 1976 when we had a crisis

She had been Chauffered round the world
But was Insulated from it
Never read a paper
Did not really follow the news

The Radio Times
was her newspaper
But
If there was no Vet story
A favourite soap
Or an animal programme
There was "Nothing" on TV
As far as Vi was concerned

Old Age

There was a feeling that
She was determined that
one day one of her children
would look after her

As she had done for some 10 years
for her mother
Who had
Suddenly given the appearance at 86
that she could no longer cope
at Vyner Road, Acton

Big sister Olive sorted out
the business side of selling up
and clearing the house
Annie Barnes moved in with Vi Tom
and those of us still living at home in our
Compact three bedroom house
In Hatch End
It was a squeeze

Then Grandma Made a speedy
A remarkable recovery
and lived to 96.

If she refused to get up
Vi pulled all the clothes off the bed
And went out shopping
"Damn!" I heard Grandma curse
as the door slammed

I think Vi hoped for the same
Not the firm control
But someone to wait on her
At home
Maybe the daughter
She never had

Vicky did a brilliant job in Summer '99

But the sudden move to a residential
Home at the end of 1999
Was the end of her independence
That was when she gave up

She still enjoyed food occasionally
Even when she was refusing to eat
Three weeks ago
She stuffed a huge slice
Of chocolate cake
Into her mouth

But for for weeks now all she'd
Seemed to say was

"I Want to Go to Sleep"

She's sleeping now.

©Mike Winney

Top