COOK  AND  KENNY  FAMILY  HISTORY
 

BROCKS & RAMMERIES

DUFFYS

KENNY FAMILY 

Mary Ellen Kenny
 

Reminiscences of my grandmother
by Pat Cuckle

Until we got a modern, tiled fireplace, well into the 1950s, we had a kitchen range with an oven next to the coal fire.  Grandma could never get to grips with cooking in a gas oven.  Every week she baked fairy buns in the range oven ;  they were lovely and an added bonus was that she would let us scrape the bowl and lick the wooden spoon.  But she didn't over-indulge us.  We got a sound telling off when she heard us singing hymns we learned from other girls in the street.  Why?  Because they were the "Proddy haddock" hymns "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "All things bright and beautiful".  Her favourite hymn was "Star of the Sea."  She didn't make the finer distinctions between other religious denominations - you were either Catholic or non-Catholic.

I remember in her last years, when she wasn't feeling well enough to go Mass, the priest would come over and bring her Holy Communion and we used to help her to set up a little altar on the bedside table with a Crucifix, Rosary beads and Missal.  She must have had a tight budget because I think she lived on savings;  I think she was not eligible for a state pension.  Still, she would always find a few "coppers" for us to put on the collection plate at Sunday Mass and she always sent something for special collections at school.  The highlight of the church and school year was the Annual "Sale of Work", I think just before Christmas, and Grandma always sent something for that.  When Kevin and I went to secondary school we needed uniforms and she helped out by buying us our satchels.

As to her appearance, her wedding photo shows quite a glamorous young woman - she told us many times that she had a 21" waist when she was young but I remember her with fine white hair rolled up and pinned into place;  she always wore a hat when she went out;  she loved twin sets which were usually knitted by Aunty Mary on her smart knitting machine;  she used to get Pontins catalogues though I don't know whether she ever bought anything from them; she wore pink corsets that laced up and thick lisle stockings and pink knickers with elastic round the knees and she always wore a necklace, she said because it kept her neck warm.  And last but not least, she was an avid reader of the Hull Daily Mail; she read it cover to cover every day and when she went to stay in Brigg we sent her copies rolled up and secured with a small brown paper sleeve that we got at the newsagent's shop.

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BROCKS & RAMMERIES

DUFFYS