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As usual, I began my search for inspiration by looking through my collection of charity shop-acquired poetry books, although ‘Intimate expanses’, a collection of Scottish poems published 1978-2002, in which I found Liz Lockhead’s ‘My Rival’s house’ was a first purchase from Carcanet. It describes a first meeting with a future mother-in-law. I would like you to write your version of such an occasion, in no more than 500 words, deadline 10pm 31st August.
UNION: An account just touching upon rivalry.
This is a tale of two halves: two families from which the son of one and a daughter of the other meet, fall in love and marry, thus acquiring Mothers-in-Law and Fathers-in-Law.
This is part of my own life story and that of my husband of fifty-six years; David.
Our relationship began as a teenage romance; I was seventeen and he a year older. It was on a blind date that we first met, introduced by mutual friends. So young and yet we intuited that ours would be a life partnership.
This was in the Sixties, a decade of many cultural changes and technological advances. Mini skirts, flared trousers, Beatlemania and the first man on the moon. It was a decade of hope and we embraced it and held hope for our future.
If my memory serves me correctly, the first time I met my future Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law was at a small family gathering in David’s home, which was a modest terraced house in a city. Here, his Welsh parents had moved before his birth with their first born child: a daughter. I was later to learn of their previous hardship days and was humbled.
However, on this particular day, I felt more daunted to meet them and several other family members all at once. The youngest was just a baby and I was relieved that she took the role of centre of attention.
I need not have been nervous, for my future In-Laws were friendly and welcoming and seemed to like me. David and I were not engaged at that point, but were ‘going steady’ and I think it was assumed that we would marry.
His father I found to be a quiet, unassuming man, whilst his mother was talkative and very sociable. After this first meeting, we began to form a close relationship.
Like all relationships it would have its moments of frustration and irritation!
Time to go back to my own family home, and as David drove me the several miles, we both agreed that the afternoon had gone well.
Forgive poetic license, because the meeting I am about to describe, David with his future Father-in-Law was not actually the first for he had met my parents previously. This was the occasion of the then traditional formal asking of a daughter’s hand in marriage and was definitely a daunting ritual for my now husband. It was a necessity though before a formal engagement could be announced.
My father, as is evident, agreed and he and my mother expressed their happiness. David was to become like a son to them.
However, I sensed that my lovely father was upset that the second of his three daughters was soon not to be ‘his alone’.
Birds fly the nest; time flies by; families grow; losses and troubles occur. Life is not a bed of roses. But those first meetings proved a strong foundation for our union within an extended family.
492 words excluding title.
The Woman Whose Nose Pointed North
I had already met my mother-in-law, years earlier, not that I could have known. We had moved onto a still-being-built estate, the house across from ours taken by a large family. So many children were a draw for a five-year-old girl and her brother.
The children, I remember, seemed friendly. Not so the mountainous woman who came to the door and lifted her nose. ‘Don’t be letting them in,’ she griped, her voice polished as though she were speaking on a phone. I remember wondering what we had done wrong, and why my parents later concurred that I mustn’t go to that house.
And then we moved.
And this might have been lost to irrelevance …
… until, in my teens, I began dating Taffy.
‘So, where do you live?’ I asked on our first date.
‘You don’t want to know,’ he dismissed; but after some coaxing I heard mention of a familiar council estate.
‘Hey, I once lived there!’ I countered, nettled by his snobbish manner, though I understood the estate had gone downhill since we left it. Where, precisely, had we lived? Taffy asked. Faint memories took me to a side-street off a lane heading towards woodlands. ‘… below a clubhouse they were building. Ours the first house.’
He mentioned a name I rejected. Then another.
A third had me declaring, ‘Yes! That’s the one!’
Taffy frowned. That was his street – he must have inadvertently mentioned it before. Having lived there for so long, he would surely have remembered us since the house I recalled was directly opposite his own. We agreed to ask our parents – see if they could confirm my claim.
‘Please, tell me he’s not one of that lot,’ was my father’s reply, followed by a damning account of the woman and her husband with such insolent snobbery, they offended every neighbour bar none. They, he concluded, had no room to look down on anyone.
‘After you,’ Taffy insisted when we came to reporting back, biting at his lip and struggling to meet my eye.
‘I have an awful feeling we heard the same kind of answer,’ I said as nervously. ‘So, what now? Do you want to call it a day?’
‘Hell, no. That was between them – years ago. I mean, what can you remember of anything?’
I wanted to say the big, snobbish woman, but diplomacy guarded my tongue.
Weeks on, Taffy showed me into the house I had once been barred from. And there, not rising from her chair, was the same corpulent woman, nose-in-air. The unkempt room said there had been no effort made to welcome ‘her from that family’. Dad’s words sprang to mind of this woman’s double standards.
‘So this is her, is it?’ she sniffed, meeting my eye like I was something dragged in on Taffy’s shoe.
‘Let’s go through to the kitchen,’ he grumbled.
‘Or just go?’ I suggested. ‘It’s been a while since I walked the country lane. As I remember, it’s pleasant there.’
499 words excluding title
Apologies in advance, Sandra. I won’t be doing a story this month. I do enjoy these poetry prompts but a combination of holidays and life admin is swallowing the time.
Here I am, racked with guilt. I did sit down a couple of times to write an entry, but it just wouldn’t come. I had an idea yesterday that I liked, and it may end up as a scene in the WIP, but I had so much going on I couldn’t manage it. Apologies, it’s a fascinating idea and I should have done something. However, you have two very good entries to pick from.
Aargh – busy weekend filled with grandchildren visits and attempts to add names to a 1905 photo of a Christmas celebration. I’ll get to reading and deciding ASAP.
Only two entries, as Athelstone rightly points out, but both were a joy insofar as they echoed some of my experiences. Like Jill, Steve and I were but sixteen and eighteen – me young enough to be banned from going on the back of his motorbike, but after four years of ‘going steady’, when Steve asked my Dad for, permission to marry me his response was ‘Are you sure? ‘You’re worth ten of her!’ Steve’s Mum said only ‘But so soon, while my future father-in-law simply said ‘Oh gor blimey Steve, what do you wanna go and do a thing like that for?’
Janette’s snobby neighbours had an echo too, but sadly it was my mother forbidding me to play with one family, her not understanding that the eldest daughter was the only one to show me kindness on my first day at the local school.
So, much as I’d like to declare a tie, I’m declaring Jill a winner, for evoking the happier memories. And looking forward to September’s challenge.
Only two entries, as Athelstone rightly points out, but both were a joy insofar as they echoed some of my experiences. Like Jill, Steve and I were but 16 and eighteen – me young enough to be banned from going on the back of his motorbike, but after four years of ‘going steady’, when Steve asked my Dad for, permission to marry me his response was ‘Are you sure? ‘You’re worth ten of her!’ Steve’s Mum said only ‘But so soon, while my future father-in-law simply said ‘Oh gor blimey Steve, what do you wanna go and do a thing like that for?’
Janette’s snobby neighbours had an echo too, but sadly it was my mother forbidding me to play with one family, her not understanding that the eldest daughter was the only one to show me kindness on my first day at the local school.
So, much as I’d like to declare a tie, I’m declaring Jill a winner, for evoking the happier memories. And looking forward to September’s challenge.
Goodness! When I was eventually allowed to log in! I came here fully expecting Janette’s entry to be declared the winner and so was surprised that I have been declared. Thank you Sandra. Yes, our paths in life do seem to have some parallels… Congratulations to Janette too, as I loved the way she told her story and the title!
Now to work out how to set the competition for September and, more importantly, to think of a theme that might appeal … Bear with me! Jill x
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