Meet the Family (Part 2)

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If you've read Part 1 of my story (http://www.mylot.com/post/3248812/meet-the-family) you'll know that my dad was the middle child in a family of five and had a very happy childhood. Mum on the other hand was the illegitimate child of a housemaid and a landowner's son. The landowner himself had decided that the people I knew as Grandma and Granddad Barcham would take her and bring her up as their own. So Mum found herself being delivered by the landowner's driver to her new home in Coltishall in 1933. Grandma and Granddad welcomed her and gave her a cuddle and it seemed to Mum that she would probably be happy. Grandma gave Mum a sweet to suck but, as kids do, she crunched it up and swallowed it. After the driver had left and Granddad had returned to his barber's shop, it became very apparent to Mum that Grandma was not going to be the sweet, doting mother she had expected. Almost as soon as the door had closed behind my granddad, Grandma grabbed Mum's arm and asked her what she'd done with the sweet. Mum told her she'd eaten it but Grandma accused her of taking it out of her mouth and hiding it. When Mum continued to insist she'd eaten it, Grandma struck her across the face with the back of her hand, dragged her to her bedroom and locked her in. As soon as Granddad arrived home for tea, Grandma unlocked the bedroom door and told Mum to hurry up and wash her hands as if nothing had happened. When Granddad commented on the red mark on Mum's face, Grandma said that Mum had tripped and banged her cheek. By this time, Mum was so terrified of Grandma that she just kept quiet and ate her bread and jam. Thankfully Mum did have two days a week away from Grandma. She attended a small private school. She'd always assumed this was paid for my Grandma and Granddad but, many years later, she learned that it was paid for by the landowner who wanted to keep tabs on how she was doing. Unfortunately, he never knew what went on behind closed doors at The Dell. II'm going to stop here and hopefully get the next instalment done tomorrow. I hope you enjoy what I've written so far.