Circle of life …

I was born in the winter of1950. While it was 5 years since the end of WW2 the country was nowhere near recovered. There were still food shortages and rationing and many people displaced without adequate housing.

My family lived in a community who had taken up residency on boats on the Hamble River since Southampton had been badly flattened during the blitz. As the rehousing programme began families gradually moved back to the towns and cities.

However, my family remained on our houseboat, not a palace, but it met our needs, considering something more comfortable was less affordable. Also, my dad was a boat builder and was able to find work in the growing yachting industry. Nonetheless it was poor, and we had to make do and mend in the true sense of the words … it was what we did.

In time my mum and us children left my dad and moved to a tiny cottage that was more convenient to school etc.  and was a little more comfortable for a growing family. Without the support of my dad, my mum worked hard to make ends meet and making do and mending was the norm.

Learning all the time ways to stretch the economy for when I married and had children of my own. While I was better provided for, when the children arrived in the early 70s so did political unrest, stringent economic cuts, 3-day week and electricity cuts. So, my early education came in useful.

Moving on, the country recovered in the 80s I remarried and had a third child with more political upheavals. Pole tax, withdrawal of married man’s tax allowance and other problems that lead us to negative equity and unable to make ends meet.

Our draughty little house needed floor covering particularly in the bathroom.  I collected scraps of waste materials from other projects and old sheets and made a rag rug … and for over 30 years on my bathroom floor a constant reminder in more ways than one, of the circle of life …

Sadly, it was beginning to show wear and the warp threads were no longer fit for purpose … the weft fabric was in tack. This week I took it apart and remade it and with luck it will last another 30 years … and out live me!