Boggle Lane and other matters by Jennie Hart

The shop on Boggle Lane

I hear my grandson sing ‘Away in a Manger’ and want to cry; those ancient long remembered tunes are laden with memories:

My early Christmases were sometimes spent with Grandma Verity in Hull. Grandad was there too but in the background, avoiding the bustle. Christmas eve was full of excitement yet I was fearful of catching sight of Father Christmas who may not leave my presents if I spotted him. As soon as I was tucked up in bed, Grandma would ring the tiny tinkling bell from her mantel piece a few times; I knew its tone because I was often allowed to shake it, yet I would suspend all knowledge of the familiar chimes and believe it was Santa’s sleigh bells. On hearing a quiet tread on the carpet, I buried myself beneath the covers until all was silent. After his visit, I slept till morning, happy and tranquil and dreamt of reindeers and walky-talky dolls. 

Christmas in my own home was pleasurable but exhausting. Dad was irritable and moody at Christmas and we were never sure if he would join us for dinner. He had his own sitting room upstairs where he would listen to music on his radiogram, read ‘Tailor and Cutter’ and behave like a hermit. As we grew older, my brother and I gleaned from his reminiscences, the reason for his misery at this time.

He had lived with deprivation and rarely owned shoes. Even after he left school and was employed delivering medicines for a doctor, he had none, when surely footwear would have been useful. He also told how each night he had to bang his bed to scare away the cockroaches. He was abused in his teens, by his older sister and his two brothers. Dad lived to be ninety four and had always been a dapper man, buying clothes our family couldn’t afford. When he died I sold his Crombie overcoat, bowler hats, expensive shirts and Aquascutum suits to the vintage shop,  Radio Days in London Bridge.

Dad’s mother, my Grandma Kitt, was a lay-preacher’s daughter but I never knew her husband, my grandad, a seaman in the merchant navy who died before I was born. They had five children and because of her poverty grandma used to pawn grandad’s clothes when he was away at sea. If he came home unexpectedly and found his suit missing, he would beat her up and vandalise the home. The first thing my dad did with his savings, was to decorate and furnish a room for my grandma. 

Mum had a grocery and sweet shop and Christmas Day was her only day off. Even then, customers came to the back door asking for last- minute items; packets of Paxo stuffing, Bisto gravy or oxo cubes. She was loved for her kindness and would never refuse a customer.

Boggle Lane was once the address of our shop before the railway came. The house and shop, a long low eighteenth century building, had been in the family since the early-nineteenth century and my brother lived there until recently. Before it was a shop, it was described in historical accounts as a ‘rooming house’ and is one of the oldest premises in the town. The long narrow garden which runs along one side of the house was once a part of Boggle lane and the gravel and rubble from the lane lies buried below the turf and garden borders. When the railway was built in the late nineteenth century its track cut across Boggle lane blocking its route, so the length alongside our shop could no longer serve as a street and became a garden. The rest of the lane was the other side of the railway and eventually built over.

Boggle is an unusual name for a lane but it was so-called because there was once a well on it. Boggle, bogle or bogill are the Northumbrian and Scots terms for a ghost and boggles were often associated with water. I am glad I didn’t know this as a child because my dreams were haunted by ghosts, primarily because of my father’s tales. He used to tell of an old woman who live in his sitting room and how she had once passed him on the stairs. The door to that room was at the top of the old wooden staircase and each night I would hold my breath and rush by and along the landing, to the safety of my own bed. I once had to sleep in there on a makeshift bed when a visitor was given my room and I experienced sheer terror when awoken by inexplicable creaking noises. In the morning it was clear that the sideboard door had opened of its own accord and mimicked a visitation.

Mum was exhausted on Christmas Eve after the shop closed. When the cashing-up was done, I used to help her hang the decorations; there were garlands and lanterns, always gold and bright and showy and I looked forward to them each year. The ceilings were low and if mum stood on a chair she could arrange the streamers in uneven loops across the small room. They were uneven because she had to feel for the beams in the ceiling in which to push the drawing pins. 

Mum bought presents but often didn’t have time to wrap them. My dad played no role in these preparations except for buying whisky and stocking his cocktail cabinet. That was an art deco work of art in smooth polished walnut but I didn’t recognise its quality then. I clearly remember one year wrapping my own presents because of my disappointment the previous Christmas that nothing was wrapped. For children, it is the opening of the gift and the anticipation of the present within that makes Christmas morning special.

Grandma Kitt always bought me the Daily Mail Annual and my favourite story of all time was ‘When Father Christmas tore his trousers’. In the tale, Red Riding Hood generously parts with her red cloak to patch Santa’s tear and a little tree fairy mends it with needle and thread. I looked on- line recently and discovered the story was printed in The Daily mail Annual, Christmas nineteen fifty. I was only four years old at the time so quite an early reader. I was taught by my great Uncle Harry, a retired tailor who lived with us. He was kind gentle man who once gave me a five pound note which I threw on the fire instead of a sweet paper.

In this strangest of summers I sowed seeds of Origanum marjorana or sweet marjoram and once it had grown and before it flowered, I harvested the leaves and stems and hung them in bunches until dessicated. A few weeks later, I rubbed the grey green foliage between my fingers and experienced the nostalgic sweet aromatic smell of this amazing herb. I learned from my mother to love this herb. Towards the end of every summer mum bought armfuls of sweet marjoram from a customer and arranged the fresh stems in attractive posies on hooks around the kitchen to dry. I adored that heady scent when I was young and for me it signified Christmas.

We didn’t use sage with onion to make turkey stuffing as most recipes recommended; instead we used sweet marjoram along with onions, suet and breadcrumbs. Some of it was used to stuff the turkey but the rest was baked in the oven and was called Savoury Pudding. This turned a feast into a banquet when accompanied by chestnut stuffing made of freshly roasted chestnuts, butter and sage. Fresh cranberries were also essential, simmered to succulence and deliberately allowed to retain their tangy piquancy. These days, our centre piece is a Pine Kernel Roast.

Usually, as dinner was about to be served, the door from the haunted staircase opened. It was never a ghost, just the figure of my father roused by the sublime smells from the kitchen. He would pour a Glenfiddich’s whisky, hand round the Sobrani Black Russian (he never smoked himself, just kept them for guests) and settle by the fire. With a whisky in his hand, he relaxed. He was a working class man with only a weekly wage but somewhere along life’s path, he had acquired the tastes of an aristocrat. Perhaps he was fulfilling the dreams of a lifestyle he yearned for which had always evaded him? It’s my theory but I shall never know.