Sand Sandwiches

Sand in everything but nobody cared.

It’s been a funny sort of week…..

Scary things are never funny at the time. Last Friday I read out a poem at the Bury Literary Festival, the first ever open mic for me and I was so nervous my heart was fluttering like a tambourine and I am sure I was producing enough heat to roast a handful of jacket potatoes. I had a few poems I could have read but as I wasn’t sure what to expect I chose one that couldn’t possibly offend anybody in the audience. Now I have written that sentence I have just realised it may have offended any vegans listening as it did refer to ham, maybe stop reading now if eating ham causes affront.

The poem refers to the idyllic two week summer holidays with my family lodging in the same working farmhouse every year in Devon. For quite a few years when we were young our annual holiday was spent with various aunts, uncles and cousins on a working farm, run by Mr and Mrs Durrant. Kind, portly, apron-clad Mrs Durrant and her much thinner rarely seen husband, lived on the farm with their tall, lanky son who my Dad very unkindly nicknamed Lurch due to his remarkable likeness to the Addams Family character. Their feisty one eyed Jack Russell terrier, Patch had a penchant for the postman’s ankles. Every morning we watched in amusement as the tormented postie peddled his push bike like billy-o down the bumpy farm track closely chased by Patch snapping wildly at his feet.

To my delight this traditional working farm was stocked with every type of livestock a young animal loving girl could think of, the like of which is now sadly a thing of the past. I loved all the cows, pigs, horses, sheep, ducks, geese and chickens equally, there was an orchard to play in, adventures to be had and stories to be imagined. Being pre health and safety days, we children were allowed to wander off around the farm as we pleased. These were truly the halcyon days of a childhood without cares. Days were spent on the vast sweeping beach, arriving early to claim our favourite spot in the shelter of the many rocks. The adults trudged like pack horses across the sand dunes from the car park loaded up with sun chairs, lilos, games, huge water containers and numerous bags and cool boxes full of food to keep us satisfied for the day.

After a day spent swimming and surfing, playing bat and ball, making gigantic sandcastles and new friends, all the crabs and guppies we had collected over the day were tipped back into the rock pools before packing everything up and heading home, sun kissed, salty and covered in sand.

Sitting in the hot and sticky car on the way back to the farmhouse we tried to guess what Mrs Durrant, an excellent home cook, would be serving up for our evening meal. Once the car was unloaded, wet towels and swimsuits hung on the line, ice packs put in the freezer for the next day and sand washed out of the cool boxes we rushed upstairs to change, feeling hungrier by the minute as mouthwatering aromas from the kitchen wafted up the stairs. All the children would share the same bathwater, each one rushing to be first in the queue as the last one would have to sit in the thickest layer of sand at the bottom.

The memories of those holidays are even more precious now my parents are gone, as are all but one of my aunts and uncles, but whenever I meet up with my cousins we usually end up reminiscing about these two weeks from our childhood, each of us remembering things slightly differently.

Time has a curious habit of altering the way our minds remember events from long ago. One of my cousins insists that Mrs Durrant was not called Mrs Durrant at all but I refuse to believe that, she will always remain Mrs Durrant to me. Although once I was certain that I used to be able to fly down the stairs, literally fly, with arms outstretched to land safely by the telephone table at the bottom, so maybe my memory isn’t 100% reliable.

I was surprised to find the tinned ham I remember so well in the poem, ‘Ye Olde Oak Ham’ is still readily available. Coated with brown jelly and if my memory serves me well quite salty, the next time I am in a supermarket I think I shall have to buy a tin to reminisce, although I have my doubts it will elicit quite the same fond affection without the added sprinkling of sand.

Sand Sandwiches

Ham from a tin
sand grains from the beach
a better sandwich there has never been 
more love than butter
spread on the soft white bread.
Ham, salty on the tongue
melting in the heat
of the midday Devon sun 
frying our well oiled flesh.

Washed down with orange squash
out of a sand rimmed plastic cup
apple cake passed around with gritty fingers
the crunch now half expected
accepted as part of this daily spread
as normal as the melted penguins
and bruised bananas
the same as yesterday
the same as tomorrow.

Fourteen days of sand
in our sandwiches
between our toes
in our sun bleached hair
in the shared bathwater
no matter how roughly 
we shook our towels
rinsed our feet in the rock pools
or brushed our briny limbs.

That scrunch between my teeth
lazing on a tar stained
cheap woven beach mat
edged with green ribbon
and smelling of the sea.
Scanning the heat shimmer
through white eyelashes
searching for sandcastles
bigger and better than mine.

If you have a favourite or funny childhood holiday memory please share in the comments, I think we all need cheering up at the moment, a little bit of sunshine goes a long, long way.

Lots of love,

Lindsey x