Possess it if You Can

I'd be the first to admit that my domestic skills are not great.  In fact, 'skill' probably isn't a good word for them at all.  But one thing I have discovered, that I believe to be good economy, is 'cooking bacon', formerly known as 'bacon scraps'.  Pound for pound (I know ... an out-of-date expression now, but still meaningful), it's about half the price of neatly packed rashers and once unpacked and unpicked, there are many almost complete rashers amongst the true 'scraps'.  However, last night for dinner I was confronted by a single 'rasher?' that was about a centimetre thick.  I was proud to be aware of the need to cook it very  s l o w l y.

Similar patience is needed, I discovered, when filling the iron; getting a lot of liquid through a small hole too quickly can result in water everywhere and an uncomfortably wet foot!  I've had a lot of reminders of patience lately, not least of which have related to the world of politics.  However great my desire for the overturning of a corrupt government and for electoral reform, I realise that neither of these is likely to happen for a number of years. 

Last month, I mentioned taking a great interest in the regular webinars of the Western Front Association.  I learned from one of these that, surprisingly, one of the things that the soldiers in the trenches had to deal with was boredom.  Yes, there was danger, yes, there was the excitement of conflict, sometimes the physical pain of wounds or the emotional pain of lost comrades, but for much of the time there was ... nothing.  There was time to sleep, to smoke, to read over again letters from home, or to write back but, in terms of the war, just waiting.  And that needed patience!

In a way, reacting to the Covid pandemic - which our Prime Minister described, with accuracy if not with sensitivity, as a war - has brought just such a need for patience.  Right now, I find the need for patience for the pain in my arm to end, following my second vaccination yesterday.  But more generally, there has been a growing frustration at the social restrictions resulting from lockdowns of varying intensity, one after another, for the last year and more.  Who knows when we will once more be able to visit loved ones in their homes,  watch a football match or enjoy a pub lunch again?  What we learned last summer was that bringing these things back with inappropriate speed simply invited a resurgence of infection and renewed restrictions as a result.  If we desire a return to 'normal life' in all its fullness, we must be patient.

I have been fortunate in having my family history researches - largely unhindered, thanks to the internet - to occupy me during lockdown.  In October I embarked on what has sometimes seemed an endless exploration of the clan of my great-great-grandmother, and in particular during the last fortnight I've followed the fortunes of one Agnes Jane Bailey.  Born in 1892, she appeared in the 1901 census as the second of a family of five children and that was how I had been content to leave them when I first learned of their existence some 16 years ago.  

However, when the 1911 census became available, I discovered a small discrepancy and corresponded again with the cousin who had provided that information.  In her reply she advised me that the three-year-old latest addition to the family was not, as she appeared, Agnes's youngest sister, but her daughter!  Agnes, meanwhile, was recorded working as a kitchen maid in a large household some twelve miles away.  Whether there were any connection between this household and the girl's father, I have no idea.

Clearly Agnes's family had been very supportive when the child was born to their 15-year-old daughter.  Many a girl in such a predicament would have been cast out to make of her life whatever she could with no help at all from her disgusted parents.  My recent researches have revealed not only that the child, Helen Ruth, survived and married in 1932, but that Agnes rewarded her parents' support by also marrying just after the outbreak of war in 1914.  Over the next twelve years Agnes and her husband had five children, four of whom were living with them in 1939 (one had died when only a few weeks old in 1919).  Sadly, Agnes's parents both died in 1940, so wouldn't have seen the marriages of these four grandchildren, between 1944 and 1973, and the great-grandchildren that I'm sure existed, but whom I  have yet to discover when opportunity affords.

And my title this week?  It comes from a playground rhyme of the age when behaviour seemed always to be in the context of 'boys v. girls': "Patience is a virtue; possess it if you can: --- in a woman, but --- in a man."  The gaps were filled by such two-syllabled words as 'always', 'often', 'sometimes' or 'never', and the word 'but' replaced by 'and' as necessary, according to the chanter's attitude to, and tolerance of, the opposite sex.