033 - Chapter 33

(Illustrations: Collage: Stephen)

It’s hard to imagine what one’s life was like before children, because once they arrive everything centres round them, and their needs.

I was no longer a teacher, but a mother, and so proud to be one!

Bob and I have absolutely loved being parents, nothing can beat it. We were bursting with love for them all as each one arrived. It’s such a joy to see them grow and thrive, through all the different stages of life. It’s even more of a joy to receive back so much love in return.

There are many wonderful moments we recall, but some scary ones too; as accidents befall all children, I would imagine, in their early years.

When Stephen was just beginning to toddle, he decided to help himself to some Fairy liquid once, which he thought was juice. It had been left in an eggcup on a low table, and we had turned our backs for a few seconds!  I gave him a drink of water and he blew plenty of bubbles that day!

I was told a similar story about Bob himself drinking liquid paraffin, when he was child.

He had pestered his mother, for a drink from the lemonade bottle, which he had found in their back pantry, and he’d gone on and on asking for what he thought was ‘pop’. Eventually she pushed the bottle into his mouth and made him drink some, until he yelled out in fright, “Papa mammy, papa mammy!” When she realised what was actually in this bottle, which hadn’t come from a kitchen cupboard but the back pantry, she nearly passed out. She began crying, “Oh I’ve poisoned me bairn!” I’ve poisoned me bairn!”

She ran outside with him, and Jack the baker, who was doing his rounds, told her, “Don’t worry, he’ll be alright, it’ll just clean him out!”

One day, Bob took Stephen out into the back lane for some exercise in his baby walker, and one of the wheels hit a pebble, which propelled the walker forward , and Stephen, who was holding tightly onto the handles, went crashing headfirst to the ground.

I felt like telling onlookers then, when I took him out in the buggy “It wasn’t my fault, have a word with my husband!”

Stephen got my full attention, and the benefits of a home education long before he went to school. He could read fluently before his first year at school, and the teacher, rather than building on his ability, got him to hold words, called flashcards, up for the other children to read out, to prevent him shouting out all the answers.

He was also quite an artist, and used to love trying to draw superheroes and dinosaurs with me at home from cards. When he went to school, he painted a beautiful brontosaurus, (he was mad about them and knew all their names). The teacher was amazed at his painting, but later when she came back to view it, he had painted over it with blue paint, only the head was showing. He explained to her that this dinosaur lived in water. She couldn’t see its body anymore, but he knew it was there!

He was very musical too, pre-school. I would play music, which I’d recorded from various children’s programmes, and he could guess which programme it was, after hearing only two or three notes!

He also grew to love sport, any sport, and his stories at school nearly always consisted of games of football, even when the title of his essay had nothing to do with the game at all.

“Matty passed the ball to Bobby, and then Kev passed it to me! Then I took a shot at goal, and we scored! Yeah!”

There was the time we lost him of course, when he was seven, on a Benfield school trip to Brittany. I thought Bob was looking after him, and he thought I was. When we met up, and Bob and I found he wasn’t with either of us, we both panicked.

The pupils and staff who were with us, frantically searched the beach, as did we. I ran around like a headless chicken, asking each passer-by, in French, if they had seen a little boy on his own. Thank Goodness for a smattering of O level French.

“Avez-vous vu un petit garçon s’il vous plait? Mon fils, il a sept ans." 

Ten whole minutes later, someone found  him two hundred yards away, playing quite happily by a rock pool trying to catch crabs. I’d always thought he was there on his own that day, but recently, he told me that one of the Benfield pupils had been there looking after him. I wish we’d known that then.

I was a wreck, as was Bob!

Stephen was always curious and carefree.

One thing he loved to do, was to lie on the lawn outside, at home, or in a park, with a few seeds on his outstretched palm, trying to entice birds to come and feed from his hand. He would lie there for ages, waiting and hoping; a proper little St Francis!

As he grew up, he turned his attention to records, what we called 45’s. He loved music, and also electronic games or puzzles and he was a master of the Rubik cube, Pac-man, and hand-held Frogger games, which were a new innovation. Stephen took to them straight away.

Then during the school holidays, Bob brought the latest BBC ‘B’ computer home from school for him, and that was it. Stephen’s fascination with computers began. No wonder his career took him in that direction!

He loved bike riding during his teenage years, and would go off on cycling runs with his school mates, who by then all had bikes. Bob became the pick-up man for any emergencies. I think they imagined they were doing the Tour de France, they had 'the look', and on holiday in France much later, some of them got to do that very route, at Alpe d'huez!

After his A level exams at Burnside High School, Stephen was accepted by Durham University, (Hatfield College) where he studied engineering, then Civil engineering and Computing for his PhD.

It was at university he met, and later married, a most amazing girl, Dionne, a very accomplished Dutch student, who was seeking to complete her own university course in the UK. She would go on to work in PR at Newcastle Airport, and then later Durham University. She was a talented fundraiser for charity, especially for the Rainbow Trust.

Stephen was also a very successful local footballer playing for Durham City, Prudhoe Town and North Shields to name just three.

Both he and Dionne have always been involved in sport; both have played for football teams, and they now do half marathon and full marathons runs into their late forties.

I’ll mention their son Luke and their daughter Katie, later on.

Stephen has worked at a well-known firm NBS in Newcastle, since his university days, which deals with construction specifications, and he is the Innovation Director there.

I wrote a special song for Stephen in his late teens, when I suddenly realised, he was no longer a child, but a man. Now Stephen and Dionne’s son, Luke, has flown the nest.

I made this video with photographs of him, last year; so if your child is about to fly the nest, you may identify with its sentiments.

It’s called Fly Free, little one. Click the video below to watch it.