Snapshot: The overnight drive to Cornwall for a holiday

I can still feel the agony trying to contain the excitement, and the eternity waiting for Dad to get home from work on those Fridays. Even then, Mum would never guarantee that we would be off that evening, Dad might be too tired, and we had a lot to get into our faithful two-tone blue Humber Hawk – might be better to wait until the morning. However, we did always go that evening. I think Dad was as excited as we were.

To get to Cornwall from South Yorkshire in those days meant many hours in the car. An overnight drive in fact. There was only one usable motorway, the M1, that would take us as far as just beyond the Blue Boar services. Ahh, the Blue Boar. It was exciting as an airport terminal is nowadays to a kid – probably more so. The Blue Boar was full of families all off on their holidays, the excitement was everywhere. I cannot remember us ever actually eating there. It was too expensive for seven of us on a panel-beater’s wage – that was only for the real sophisticates – but I used to save a portion of my holiday money just to spend there and I used to dream during class about how I would spend it.

However, enough money was always reserved for the hire of my board for two weeks (50p) – now known as bodyboards, but really a piece of plywood curved at the front edge for riding on the waves. No one ever told us we were surfing – that was something the cool, rich teens were doing on the longboards – and at the end of the fortnight you had a rash on your chest that took weeks to go.

In the picture is me and my siblings. Dad took the picture and Mum was probably getting the sarnies out. Graham, the eldest, my elder sister Jo looking very 1960s (this must have been one of her last holidays with us), my next-older brother Stephen, then me (with overnight sleeping hair) and my little brother, Chris.

Getting five kids, two adults and all our luggage into the car must have been a feat of packing. One kid between Mum and Dad, three at the back and Chris on a lap or sleeping on the back shelf! Good old bench seats with no seatbelts required. But how did they get all our gear into the boot? All I remember is that Mum and Dad would get into the nearest thing they ever had to an argument debating the required number of towels. Dad seemed to think that seven people would only need a couple for the fortnight!

Heather Howard

Playlist: Tears, laughter, life and death in one song

The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin

“Upon us all a little rain must fall …”

This song has been with me for most of my life. I first heard it as a bookish 14-year-old, already immersed in rock of the heavy-ish variety, but discomfited by the macho, aggressive nature of much of the music.

Led Zeppelin were different. They could create sensitive songs, with Robert Plant’s voice oozing genuine emotion, at times sounding almost feminine in its upper registers. The Rain Song seems to glow from within, lit by a tender, luminous beauty, with layers of softly strummed guitars, piano and ersatz strings. When John Bonham’s drums kick in, it becomes joyous, celebratory; and when Plant sings, “It is to you I give this tune,” it feels like a personal, almost intimate offering.

The Rain Song has seen me through teenage heartaches and family tragedies, including the dark days of my father’s dementia – but then I also played it soon after my daughter’s birth 20 years ago, when it felt joyful, optimistic and life-affirming. I have laughed and cried to this song. It’s a private, personal thing, an emotional safe space I can go to when I’m feeling fragile or disconnected from the world.

Even today, more than 35 years after I first heard it, it can still catch me unawares. It can bring a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat; it can elicit a tingle of sheer sensory pleasure.

For me, it’s a song for all seasons, evoking bittersweet memories and strong emotions. It connects me to my past. I never tire of it.

Neil Hussey

We love to eat: Mum’s blind scouse

Ingredients
3 large carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
10 large new potatoes quartered, skin on
1 onion, peeled and diced
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 small swede, peeled and diced
2 handfuls of pearl barley
1l of vegetable stock
Salt and black pepper to taste

Prepare the vegetables and cut into generous chunks – this is no dainty soup. Add to a large pan with the pearl barley. Pour over enough vegetable stock to cover, add seasoning then simmer gently, lid on, for about an hour until the barley is fluffy and the veg is tender. Serve topped with pickled red cabbage or beetroot and enjoy with crusty bread and butter.

As kids, we were told that scouse came from the Vikings, along with our red hair. The name derives from Lobscouse, a stew of meat, onions and ship’s biscuits enjoyed by Scandinavian sailors, who brought it to Liverpool. Each family has its own recipe for scouse, and there is fierce debate as to its proper ingredients. In our house, Mum and Dad made scouse, each in their own distinctive style.

In the 70s, Mum’s version was thick and hearty, made with chunks of beef and old potatoes in the pressure cooker. I lived in terror of being asked to go and “put the weight on” the plume of steam emanating from the lid. Doing so caused a deafening cacophony of hissing and spluttering, whereupon I legged it in case the thing exploded. In the 80s, when money was tight, Dad made it with mince; his was a clearer stew cooked in a pan, where the potatoes remained recognisably intact.

These days, Mum makes blind scouse – slang for a version with no meat – and this is the one I love best. Using new potatoes instead of old keeps the broth clear. The addition of pearl barley gives texture. For me, the dish is incomplete without the traditional red pickled cabbage on top; its sour crunchiness is the perfect antidote to the warm, soft veg.

Global Scouse Day is on 28 February and, like scousers everywhere, I’ll be enjoying a bowl of our eponymous stew. It also happens to be Shrove Tuesday. Scouse and pancakes anyone? Now that might be a step too far.

Jay McCarthy

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