Meeting my sister, for the second time (really!)
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Regular readers will know about the grindingly awful experience that was meeting my so-called mother after 20+ years. Also at that meeting was my half-sister, 'Jan' who was the one who wrote to me several years beforehand.
After much "humming and haahing", Jan visited us last weekend. She stayed in a local B&B but most of Friday-Sunday was with wifey and me. As you may imagine, it was all a bit odd. The B&B was chosen in case it all went horribly wrong and we had someone we didn't like in our spare room.
Friday morning - I collected Jan at the airport and brought her to my hometown. While avoiding any remaining neighbours who might recognise her as the spitting image of her walkout mother and want to express their views, I showed her round my old neighbourhood. It was her mother's neighbourhood too, before she walked out and left me with my Grandparents. No, I'm not bitter (any more) but unlike my in-denial mother, Jan does understand that I might have reasons to be a little pissed off.
By the end of the day, she was the one showing signs of annoyance as she realised I had gotten a far better deal out of life. OK, the town isn't much (thank you, IRA) but it's improving and like any rural town is within a few minutes walk of the countryside (not so for her, in inner-city England). The traffic's not too bad and crime is not a problem (apart from migrant workers hurting each other!). She noticed lots of churches that were still, well, churches - and not pubs,
houses and such like. Where she's from, church is a dying habit. We enjoyed the view from the top of the town and walked on to my primary school (similar to hers) and then to my secondary school.
Like most towns it has a couple of grammar schools and the one I went to was fairly typical - old buildings, a sense of history, pitches galore, and around 700 pupils that most of the teachers have a chance to get to know. She wondered how I could have gone to such a place as where she's from it would cost thousands of pounds per year. She wondered more when I told her all I had to do was pass an exam, aged 11, and that such schools are open to anyone who passes the exam, regardless of background. She was anonymous among thousands in a couple of dodgy inner city comps and was held back by the wasters. The ones who failed the exam went to the mega-comps, she wondered - nope - same size of school and teaching at their level and plenty still going to Uni/Tech afterwards. She 'did well' to get several Ds and Es at GCSE, such was the level of expectation. To her credit, she's working hard to make something of herself now.
Lunchtime saw us bump into a guy I was at school with (the second such meeting of the day). "Hi, this is my half-sister you've not heard of before...." For such reasons I had tried to avoid the old neighbours earlier!
I took her to her grandparents' grave and she seemed interested. I explained a bit about them and - from my perspective - what might have prompted her mother's running away. We took a walk round the town park's lake (with its island full of giant rhubarb - another talking point). Thirsty, we had a cuppa and looked round an exhibit showing off the now collapsed linen industry. Then off to her B&B in my car (the car is only 2 years old - another talking point).
Saturday saw us potter briefly in town and head to Portstewart/Portrush - somewhere her mother told her to check out. Alas, there's not much to do in Portrush on a wet weekend and once we had a pleasant cuppa and walked round Barry's (see below) we were running out of ideas. Behold Nicky (now free of the psycho woman), an actor who loves to entertain! Off to his house we went for more tea and a couple of hours of him ad-libbing. He's single, lives alone and finding tapes of Annie and Dirty Dancing raised (hilarious) questions. I got to know him when he rented my spare
room, I explained, and unlike two previous lodgers was not removed because of poor hygiene.
That night we ate out. In a lovely restaurant with sea views we got onto a more serious conversation about her mother (who still thinks she did nothing to cause me annoyance) and the rest of her (dysfunctional) family. We also made fun of the loud American golfers sitting a few tables away.
On Sunday morning we went to church (she noticed a good spread of ages), had a lovely walk round a cliff, poked round a seaside exhibit (and she got her photo taken by the local paper!) and had lunch. Then it was off to our house with its garden and plenty of space inside (neither of which she is used to). More tea, wedding DVD, airport, hug at security and off she went.
She arrived a stranger, she left as a friend. She got the family upbringing I lost out on and maybe not much else. I've hit the jackpot on most things since then.
There's lots to think about.
After much "humming and haahing", Jan visited us last weekend. She stayed in a local B&B but most of Friday-Sunday was with wifey and me. As you may imagine, it was all a bit odd. The B&B was chosen in case it all went horribly wrong and we had someone we didn't like in our spare room.
Friday morning - I collected Jan at the airport and brought her to my hometown. While avoiding any remaining neighbours who might recognise her as the spitting image of her walkout mother and want to express their views, I showed her round my old neighbourhood. It was her mother's neighbourhood too, before she walked out and left me with my Grandparents. No, I'm not bitter (any more) but unlike my in-denial mother, Jan does understand that I might have reasons to be a little pissed off.
By the end of the day, she was the one showing signs of annoyance as she realised I had gotten a far better deal out of life. OK, the town isn't much (thank you, IRA) but it's improving and like any rural town is within a few minutes walk of the countryside (not so for her, in inner-city England). The traffic's not too bad and crime is not a problem (apart from migrant workers hurting each other!). She noticed lots of churches that were still, well, churches - and not pubs,
houses and such like. Where she's from, church is a dying habit. We enjoyed the view from the top of the town and walked on to my primary school (similar to hers) and then to my secondary school.
Like most towns it has a couple of grammar schools and the one I went to was fairly typical - old buildings, a sense of history, pitches galore, and around 700 pupils that most of the teachers have a chance to get to know. She wondered how I could have gone to such a place as where she's from it would cost thousands of pounds per year. She wondered more when I told her all I had to do was pass an exam, aged 11, and that such schools are open to anyone who passes the exam, regardless of background. She was anonymous among thousands in a couple of dodgy inner city comps and was held back by the wasters. The ones who failed the exam went to the mega-comps, she wondered - nope - same size of school and teaching at their level and plenty still going to Uni/Tech afterwards. She 'did well' to get several Ds and Es at GCSE, such was the level of expectation. To her credit, she's working hard to make something of herself now.
Lunchtime saw us bump into a guy I was at school with (the second such meeting of the day). "Hi, this is my half-sister you've not heard of before...." For such reasons I had tried to avoid the old neighbours earlier!
I took her to her grandparents' grave and she seemed interested. I explained a bit about them and - from my perspective - what might have prompted her mother's running away. We took a walk round the town park's lake (with its island full of giant rhubarb - another talking point). Thirsty, we had a cuppa and looked round an exhibit showing off the now collapsed linen industry. Then off to her B&B in my car (the car is only 2 years old - another talking point).
Saturday saw us potter briefly in town and head to Portstewart/Portrush - somewhere her mother told her to check out. Alas, there's not much to do in Portrush on a wet weekend and once we had a pleasant cuppa and walked round Barry's (see below) we were running out of ideas. Behold Nicky (now free of the psycho woman), an actor who loves to entertain! Off to his house we went for more tea and a couple of hours of him ad-libbing. He's single, lives alone and finding tapes of Annie and Dirty Dancing raised (hilarious) questions. I got to know him when he rented my spare
room, I explained, and unlike two previous lodgers was not removed because of poor hygiene.
That night we ate out. In a lovely restaurant with sea views we got onto a more serious conversation about her mother (who still thinks she did nothing to cause me annoyance) and the rest of her (dysfunctional) family. We also made fun of the loud American golfers sitting a few tables away.
On Sunday morning we went to church (she noticed a good spread of ages), had a lovely walk round a cliff, poked round a seaside exhibit (and she got her photo taken by the local paper!) and had lunch. Then it was off to our house with its garden and plenty of space inside (neither of which she is used to). More tea, wedding DVD, airport, hug at security and off she went.
She arrived a stranger, she left as a friend. She got the family upbringing I lost out on and maybe not much else. I've hit the jackpot on most things since then.
There's lots to think about.
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As you say - a lot to think about. Norn Irn isn't so bad, which is something that strikes me sometimes when I think of school or university contemporaries living more "glamorous" lives in London and its outlying commuter-towns.
A very interesting blog and an interesting, if unsettling, experience for you...
