Nanna's Jeans

As I previously mentioned, my grandmother from Jarrow (who was affectionately known by everyone as ‘Nanna Jean’- or ‘Nanna’s Jeans’ to one of the toddlers who didn't quite understand that Jean was her name not her clothing) was one of the most amazing people I ever met. Though she has been gone for several years, she left us with so many great memories.

What do I remember most about my Nanna’s Jeans?  Nothing!!  I never had the privilege of seeing her in a pair of jeans, but my Nanna Jean was one of the most selfless people I ever met (my mum is a chip off the old block which I will get to share with you in another blog).

I remember as kids, my brothers and I would get excited as we asked her to tell us about ‘The Good Old Days’.  She was never too busy to tell us. 

Her real name was Jenny Sparrow (from Jarrow) and the kids at school called her 'Sparrow legs'.  But the 'Sparrow' is a whole other blog!!  Suffice to say that when she left home at 15 to work in Manchester, she left Jenny behind and made a new start as Jean.

She told us about how poor they were when her father worked down the pits and would go down to the pub on Fridays to spend every penny he earned.  She told how her mother would buy a half penneth of bones to make stew and would open her door to share it with all the kids and young people in the neighbourhood.     

She told us about little Tommy putting the cat’s tail through the old mangle shouting “Hush pussy, you’ll soon be through!!”, and about the two Londoners who went to place a bet on a horse “Ideentna” (Geordie for “I don’t know”) which they’d heard was the favorite.   She had a great sense of humour and such an excellent story teller that we didn’t know what was truth or fiction, and we didn’t care!!

She told us about the sad times, like when her sister died in her father’s arms as he ran to the hospital after a pan of stew poured over her head.  How she too was scolded on the head and lived forever in fear of going to the hairdressers as they would see the bald patch that was her constant reminder of the not so ‘good old days’.  How her husband left her with my mum (a teenager) and my auntie Hazel who was just two years old. 

Nanna Jean lived to help others.  After she re-married she got a job as a cook in a borstal (home for juvenile offenders).  The detainees loved her and went to her in stead of the social workers when they wanted advice.

When I was a teenager I shared a bedroom with Nanna Jean for a year or two (which I loved because I got to hear more about the good old days) because she gave her house to a young homeless family.

It was only later in life that I learned that my grandma and granddad Hailes had not accepted dad’s marriage to mum.  They looked down on her because she was from a divorced family (which wasn’t acceptable practice in the fifties).  But when Grandma and Granddad Hailes were sick and needed help, it was Nanna Jean who gave up everything and went to be a live with them and care for them.  She bathed them, clothed them, took them to the toilet, cooked for them, washed their clothes, ironed and gave their medication until the day they died.  Needless to say they grew to love my Nanna Jean (as did everyone who knew her). 

That is the story of my Nanna Jean.

The tragic death of 3 month old Baby Nathalie & the NHS

Have I told you that I live in the Philippines?

The custom here in the Philippines on Christmas Day is that kids take to the streets visit their godparents where they expect to get Christmas presents. There's no such thing as 'silent night' and 'heavenly peace' here, Christmas is all about noise and crowded streets.


My twin godsons Nathanael and Paul visited me this last Christmas (as they do every year without fail) with the whole family (wife, children, parents, sister, nephews and nieces etc). Nathanael was really proud of his baby daughter Nathalie who was three months old.  She was such a cute baby. We had a nice time together and of course we gave gifts and goodies for all the children.


You can imagine how shocked I was to receive a text a couple of weeks later asking me to lead the funeral as baby Nathalie had died.
As we rushed to the family home for the wake, little Nathalie's body lay lifeless in the home made casket (that was made by granddad from wood donated by caring neighbours) which was covered in balls of cotton wool (a typical style for the coffins of children of poor families). They couldn't afford funeral, embalming and undertakers costs, so she had to be buried within 24 hours.

Here in the Philippines there is no NHS.  Thankfully there is at least the PhilHealth now, through which patients are able to get help with hospital bills (usually not including medication) IF they are up-to-date with their payments.  Sadly there are many hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who can't afford daily food much less PhilHealth and therefore have no medical aid.

Babies such as Nathalie are born at home with no professional medical assistance.  Usually there is an old lady in the village 'experienced' in assisting with child birth who will offer her services for a small contribution. 

One time I was sitting in my GP's surgery when a young woman ran in with a baby that I guessed was a plump 3 month old.  It turned out that Timothy was a newborn baby, the 'old lady' in the village didn't have the means to suck the birth fluid and free the baby's airway and he died.  My GP freed his airway but she couldn't revive him.  He was a healthy 8-10lbs at birth.  What a tragedy!!

Then there was the woman who couldn't afford a Cesarean Section so the midwife in the hospital tried to pull the baby from the mother and actually decapitated the infant.  Of course no money for a Cesarean Section also means no money for a lawsuit and nothing was done about that baby's tragic death.

For babies born at home there is then of course no hope of any new birth screening.  
Who knows if baby Nathalie was actually born with some serious disorder?  All we know is that she seemed to be out of sorts, but the family had no money to take her for a medical check up.  She then got a fever and the grandfather rushed her to emergency.  They gave her an injection of something (probably to get her heart pumping), but it was too late, she died minutes after her arrival.


As the grandfather tried to take his lifeless granddaughter home, he was stopped by a guard at the hospital door and told that he couldn't leave with the baby because he had to settle all bills first.  At which point the grandfather lost his composure and threatened to kill the guard. ( I'm sure he meant it too!!)  So the guard finally consented with the doctor's approval, to let them go.

Nathalie's young mother fainted at the graveside because she was just not able to accept the tragic loss of her baby.  Very sad!!!


To all my British friends, fight with all you can to keep the NHS.  It is terrible living in a country where there is no free medical assistance and you just can't afford for your child to be sick.  Many people lose their children and they don't even know why.  When their children get sick they just don't have the means to have a medical check up, and many deaths could have so easily been prevented.  How many innocent British children will be lost if we lose the NHS?  I hope it will never come to that!!

The fur lined belly button warmer

So, I know what you are thinking, that I look nothing like Princess Di.  Well that would be because my grandmother had a more striking resemblance to Winston Churchel than to Princess Diana!!!  How unfair was that!!!

I actually know very little about my father’s side of the family as he rarely speaks of them.  What little information I have I mostly gleaned from my mum and nana.

As a small child I thought my grandparents lived the other side of the world, because our visits to them were quite infrequent and their visits to us were even rarer.  I remembered passing through narrow lanes with fields and cows which made it seem so far away to me, as we lived in the centre of town.  But in actual fact, they lived in Knutsford and we were just a mere four miles away in Altrincham.  I later learned that dad visited them regularly but mostly at night after work so we kids seldom had the opportunity to go along.

As a child I never heard any negative comments about my grandparents and we kids held them in high regard.  I treasured each moment with them and considered it a rare privilege whenever I got to visit.  I used to think they were quite well-to-do too, because Grandma spoke ‘posh’ as compared to my nana’s Geordie accent and they owned their own home as opposed to Nana’s rented house with an outside toilet and they also had a car (which was quite rare in the sixties, though we had a couple of cars too).

Dad had one younger brother whom we saw even more infrequently than my grandparents.  If dad didn’t have the opportunity to visit his brother at Christmas, gifts were not exchanged.  So we usually got to tag along with dad on his annual visit to uncle Stan’s house.  Again our visits were at night so our younger cousins were always well tucked in bed and had it not been for the photos on the TV I wouldn’t have known what they looked like.

Uncle Stan was a successful businessman and accountant and we always got to see the latest gadgets on our visits, (which would always whet dad’s appetite).  Dad, unlike uncle Stan, would study reviews and the ‘Which?’ magazine for months before risking purchasing anything of value.  He would let his brother be the guinea pig while Stan would get things hot off the press.  So our annual visits were usually consumed with talk about gadgets and we learned nothing of how the family feared only about the latest gadgets.

Though our visits to uncle Stan’s were rare, it was enough to get dad started on the road to gadgets.  He got every gadget that came out.  Everything in the house was electric or some latest technology.  We had an electric garbage compacter, an electric egg boiler (which incidentally still took 3 minutes to boil the egg!!), an electric plastic bag sealer and more.  Even our bins (trash can), and the toilet seats way back had some kind of hydraulic mechanism so the lids didn’t make a noise!!  When it came to Christmas, my poor mum found it so hard to find a gift to get him that he didn’t already have.  Then she eventually found it, it was 'a fur lined belly button warmer'!!  So then he finally had everything!!  (At least until the next gadget came out).  

Dad is now 79 and you would think that he'd have gotten over the 'gadget thing' by now, but not at all.  Now there is QVC and online shopping and dad has lots of time to shop in the comfort of his Bowdon home.  He even learned to like coffee when those handy dandy gourmet coffee machines came out!! 

Me?  Gadgets?  Please!!!  I had to go right back in time, to something I had never known before in my lifetime, which was a time of washing clothes by hand without the luxury of hot water!!!  Hydraulic toilet seats??  Our WC is made up of three toilets of differing sizes and colour, and only flushes on a good day!!  All this of course now that I find myself living here in the Philippines (though lately mum has been shipping me all the gadgets dad's finished with- but not the fur lined belly button warmer, it's too hot for that here!! So now I'm reaping the benefit of dad's little pastime. Thanks mum!!).

I'm related to Princess Diana!!!

Hi, I'm Chrissy and I was snobby Brit who ended up living in the Philippines.
I grew up in a middle class home (or 'upper middle class' as my mum would say) in Cheshire, England.

According to my parents, (which embarrasses my father somewhat each time mum mentions it- So please forgive me dad, for including this in my blog), we are related to Winston Spencer Churchel and Princess Diana (Spencer).  (My son keeps telling me how much I look like Diana, which I wish were true, but really, being surrounded by Filipino brown faces, flat noses and black hair, just being white makes me resemble Princess Di to most.  I assure you, being white and female is where the resemblance ends!! I'm sure you agree?). 

Anyway, my father's grandmother was a 'Spencer' who was cut off from the family as a result of her love and devotion for a commoner.  She married the commoner (an inventor I'm told) and my grandmother was born to them.  When my grandmother was around two years old, her father died.  The family did make an attempt to help my great grandmother, and offered her a small house.  She apparently turned it down, insulted when she found it contained no piano!!!
According to what I'm told, she earned her living playing the piano for the silent movies in the theatre where my grandmother (and Julie Andrews) spent her childhood.

And here ends my claim to fame.

My grandmother married Sydney Hailes, who was a plumber for a small company and earned a good living.   My father went on to become the managing director of that company where he worked for more than 40 years.
On the other side of the spectrum, my mother's family came from Jarrow, which is known in British history as being the most impoverished mining community of the UK of that time.  My grandmother (one of the most wonderful people I ever had the privilege of knowing) left home at 16 and moved to Cheshire to serve as a cook in what was called 'being in the service' at that time (which was the politically correct term for 'servants' in that day!!).  
She used to cook and clean houses in the posh part of Bowdon, never dreaming that one day her daughter would own a home there.


Mum and dad were high school sweethearts and went on to have my two brothers, Steve and Paul and me.  Imagine, this snob from Cheshire ended up here in the Philippines!!!