Author: Julie Leek

HOPING YOU ENJOY THIS FIRST CHAPTER OF “MOTHER WAS A STRANGER”…

The letter was lying on the mat when we arrived home.  The postman rarely delivers before we leave for work, so any mail has to wait until we return in the evening to receive attention.

I am always disappointed when there is no mail.  Letters have been an important part of my life.  I can remember, in the first year at Margaret Glen-Bott Comprehensive School in 1965, being set up with an American pen pal, Cathy.  We corresponded for a year or two, exchanging photos and adolescent chit chat, discussing personal likes and dislikes.  Our enthusiasm gradually waned.  Letters arrived less frequently, were shorter, slightly indifferent, until one of us sent the last letter and a reply was never forthcoming.  Oh but the excitement I felt at 11 years old when I received her first letter!  Could I hear Big Ben chime from where I lived in Nottingham?  Her friends thought the clothes I was wearing in the photo I sent were really “groovy”.  What was Nottingham like?  How many department stores were there downtown?  She had visited New York and it was “huge and exciting!”

What must she have thought when I replied that there were only two major department stores in Nottingham?  Of course in my limited experience as an 11 year old shopper there were only two - Woolworths and the Co-op.  My Grandmother, who I lived with, only made infrequent bus trips to the city when she had an appointment with the chiropodist.  I went more frequently with a couple of friends, but we had very little money to spend and would just wander round aimlessly, looking but without the means to actually buy anything, and usually we frequented these two department stores.  My American pen pal obviously had the impression that England was a very small country if she thought that residents of Nottingham might be able to hear the chimes of Big Ben, and I’m afraid I did nothing to alter this opinion with my modest description of Nottingham city centre!

Then there was the letter Steve had written in reply to the six which I sent him.  I was staying with an Aunt and Uncle in Wolverhampton for a week. We had been going out for a couple of months and saw each other most days.  This was the first time we had been parted, and every day I spent an hour or two writing to him, although goodness knows what there was to write about!  Towards the end of my stay a letter arrived in response.  It was written in capital letters, littered with spelling mistakes and badly punctuated.  Yet I knew that for Steve, hopelessly dyslexic and having completed his basic school education in the mid-60s, before this condition was recognised or accommodated, these couple of pages represented more effort than I had put into all six of my letters.  We have been married over 40 years now.

The letters my Dad wrote in the late 70s meant a lot to me.  Having visited friends in Eire (Southern Ireland) in 1978, we came back from our holiday to announce to our relatives that    we would be going back in three weeks’ time to live there with our six year old daughter, Emma.

I was surprised and pleased to receive regular letters from my Dad.  Since he remarried when I was seven years old, I had always felt his second family came first.  My stepmother Eileen viewed me as a rival, and although Dad told me that I would be going to live with them after a few months when they had adjusted to married life, it never happened and I continued to live with his mother and father, my grandparents. It was therefore great to have the one-to-one attention which corresponding with him afforded me.  

His last letter arrived in autumn 1980.  He enclosed a cheque and asked that we use the money to come over for his funeral.  The doctors had told him that, despite the operation to remove a growth in his oesophagus, tests showed the cancer had spread and there was nothing more they could do for him.  It was just a matter of time.  I spent a lot of hours over the next couple of days writing a reply, trying to say all the things I wanted to say and soon wouldn't be able to.  I was comforted to know he received and read it before dying later the same day.  He was 49 years of age.

In 1982, whilst still living in Arklow, Co. Wicklow, I received a letter from someone who was a stranger to me. It began, “You don’t know me but …” I was fully half way through reading it before the realisation of who it was from hit me like a bolt of lighting. This letter was from Jill, my adopted sister.

My Gran had told me about her in her own way when I was seven or eight years old. 

“It’s Jill’s birthday today.”

“Who’s Jill?”

“Didn’t you know you have a sister?”

 “No”

“Yes, you have a sister two years younger than you.  She had to be adopted because your mother was so ill; she couldn’t cope.  Well, it’s her birthday today.”

“Oh”

Of course I thought about her now and again over the years.  Would I ever meet her?  What was she like?  She must live miles away in another part of the country.  It turned out that Jill had been adopted by a couple who lived less than 10 miles away in Gedling.  They had previously adopted another girl, Rosemary, so Jill had grown up with a sister.  Her adoptive parents had always been open with her and had told her that her father’s name was Schoolar, and that she had a sister called Julie.   Her mother had drawn the notice about our father’s death in the local newspaper to her attention and Jill resolved to contact me.  Looking in the telephone directory, as she had many times before but never had the courage to actually try any of the numbers, there were only four Schoolars listed.  She dialled each in turn, pretending to be an old school friend who was searching for Julie Schoolar.  

The second number she dialled put her in contact with my recently widowed stepmother Eileen.  Jill could not keep the pretence up for long as it soon became apparent that she did not even know the school I had attended, let alone been a “best mate”!  She confessed that her real motive in trying to locate me was because she thought we were sisters.  Eileen, fully aware of Roy’s second daughter and that she had been adopted, asked point blank, “Are you Jill?” 

Eileen gave Jill my address in Eire, hence the letter.  We have been in touch with each other for more than 30 years now.

It has become quite unusual for me, and I suspect most others, to receive a real letter nowadays.  By “real” I mean one that isn’t a bill, a statement, or worse still “junk mail”.  One which isn’t typed, isn’t mass produced.  Even in my current job as a secretary/ administrator, I rarely type letters now.  Emails have caught on in a big way and it is so convenient to dash one off, no need for the old protocols.  Is it Yours sincerely or Yours faithfully?  No need to worry now!  Email terminology is much less formal, more relaxed, and yet far quicker and more efficient than “snail mail”. Who wants a pen pal now?  This is the IT generation!  Kids master the new technologies with ease and communicate instantly via online social media sites, internet chat rooms and mobile phone text messaging.

Yet, here on my doormat, was a real, old fashioned letter.  Handwritten; no postcode.  I scrutinised the writing.  I can usually recognise a friend’s handwriting before even opening the letter, but this hand was totally unknown to me.  Intrigued, I ripped open the envelope and read the contents.  It was dated 22 April 2001 and was from an address in North Wales. 

Dear Julie 

I have been trying to trace you & Jill, daughters of my youngest sister. I believe she was married to Ron School (actually Thomas Roy Wolsey Schoolar) of Sneinton, Nottingham?  My sister was called Audrey or Lilian but I do not know her surname at the time.  I have been given your address by your step-sister who lives at Calverton.

If this information means anything to you would you like to give me a ring on the phone number above, also if you have information about Audrey or Lilian.  I believe she married a man named Goodwin about 1972.  It would be quicker if you phoned but I will enclose a stamped address envelope if needed, especially if you are not on the phone.  This is not any bad news, on the contrary it will be good news to you and yours. 

Hoping this short letter reaches you. 

From your mother’s eldest sister?   

Joan

I was intrigued.  I knew my mother had two sisters but I had no recollection of ever meeting them.  Why was Joan trying so desperately to trace us now?  Why had she not been able to find my mother?  When I told her that I had not had any contact with my mother for 30 years, what would she think of me?

In retrospect, if I had known the emotional roller coaster ride which awaited me, the disillusionment with myself, with others and with the establishment, and how the strength of my relationships with family and friends would be put to the test, would I have torn the letter up and got on with my life? 

But I could not have known.

I picked up the telephone and dialled Joan’s number…