Its fry up day in memory lane

Hurrah it is Fry up day, which means for me, a trip to see Big Al  and order the Friday morning treats.
It also means half day working and the weekend.

We are all ready for the weekend although mine is mahoosively busy as I head off  to be told how unique I am this afternoon ( again) and then tomorrow, off to an  early morning meeting with some very lovely cricket folk, before getting Miss Margot and Miss Babs and looking after them until Sunday.

Phewwwww!!!! full on busy!!!


In the office yesterday lunch time we were talking ( again) about people we have met who made an impression on us.

 I recalled  a lady who's husband worked with my Dad, she made a huge impression on a young Lainey.

Bob, ( her husband) was a man with a full head of white fluffy hair who had been been in the army during WWII.
After our first visit to North Africa, he told us that when he was in the Sahara during the war, it snowed.........and it was pink. Something that we were sceptical about until it happened a few years ago and was much reported.

However I digress,Maria, his wife was a lovely Lady from Turin, and back in the 70's in a small town  in the North East of Blighty she very much stuck out like a sore thumb.
She was a very quiet lady who knew Mum, but kept herself very much to herself. She would go to the local shops every day, and would be seen out and about in the car with Bob, but she remained  a very private person.

I had to do a project on Italy for school and so Mum asked her if she would talk to me about Italy and especially Turin.

I went to her house, which was absolutely spotless, nothing out of place and everywhere gleaming.
She was a wonderful story teller with her gentle Italian lilt.
I learnt a lot about the country ( especially Venice which she loved) the food ( especially the different types of pasta which she loved), and the history of the country.

She talked and talked and I scribbled in my notebook.

As we talked she pushed up the sleeve of her cardigan.......................

and it revealed  numbers tattooed on her arm.

Even as a child I knew what this meant and tried not to stare at her arm.

This beautiful, quiet and reserved lady will always  be remembered by me, it is the only time that I have knowingly been in the presence of a concentration camp survivor.

Sadly this time of her life had made a huge impact ( obviously), her daily trips to the shops were to buy numerous cleaning products and bleach and she spent the rest of the day scrubbing her house 'clean'.
We would now recognise this as OCD ( related to a event in her life), at the time it was seen as  an oddity.
Sadly this lady passed away in her 50's.
I was very sad to hear of her death.

I will never forget Maria.



Time to sign off and head to work I think.
Hope its not been too boring a read this week, hopefully I can concentrate on cricket next week.




* In later years I worked for a German Jewish gentleman, who escaped Europe on the last  boat out of Holland.......but that is another story*