Avis Saltsman - Artist

Genealogy Pages - Origins Essay page 4

Essay on my Origins - Version of May 1997 - Page Four

After World War Two

Before the war, a family joke about me was me saying 'Aa'll do it mesalf', meaning 'Don't try and do everything for me'. I think, as a girl I was expected to be useless and I was trying to express the opposite. When my father went away and my mother and brother seemed so helpless, I had only my own strength to rely on. In June there were the Wakes Week processions in Lancashire which children took part in. I was given a supporting ribbon for one of the poles supporting the banner. When the wind was blowing it down I was mocked by two boys for trying to pull it back. This is a vivid memory and I feel it is very symbolic.

My father came home on what had been a luxury cruise liner from the 1930's with several times more men on board than it was intended for, sleeping in close ranks on the decks. Every possible ship was enlisted for this. My father volunteered to be Librarian and slept in the library which gave him a little more room. This piece is written from a child's point of view as there are many histories of the facts of the wars, but many reaching retirement now, in the early nineties, were children then.

Cyril and a friend, George Hibbert, who was a local solicitor and had fought in Italy, spent their war gratuity on what was then a luxury holiday for themselves and their families. At one time before going abroad my father was posted to Corfe Castle and wanted to show it to us, and a number of other places much more beautiful than Manchester, so we set off for the West Country in a large local taxi. There were the four of us, my brother Peter then being five and not having seen his father for at least two years, 'Uncle' George, his wife Mary and daughter Moira, 'Auntie' Clare, the one who had fallen from the deck-chair in the doodlebug raid and her husband. The journey took at least twelve hours and we slept in the car and at the end we returned by train, another adventure. For a number of summers after that we went to South Coast resorts, Lyme Regis, Torquay, Swanage, staying somewhere on the way, like Wells or Stroud (The 'Bear' Inn which seemed the epitome of luxury and had a Siamese cat). They all tend to merge now. I think we once stayed at Falmouth, but did not stay overnight on the way. I know we arrived about midnight. This was all very adventurous for people from Manchester then, but later became commonplace.

A vivid memory from that holiday was Sennen Cove, the nearest beach to Lands End. Although I had been to Wales and St.Annes, this beach was special. It was huge and sweeping and we were the only people on it. I have an almost visionary memory of gazing into a rockpool and the green weed and red veins in the rocks were astonishingly bright. They fed my intense need for colour, which I have used as the stuff of life in hundreds of artworks. There is a collograph called 'Ocean Sounds' which I made forty-five years later which captures that mood. Perhaps I felt safe then after so long, but was soon to be taken over by another tragedy.

My father had his first heart attack during that holiday when someone had taken us on a visit to Dorchester and he was travelling in the back of a car with me. I must digress: In 1985 I took early retirement from teaching as I was disgusted with the Education policies of the present government and my life circumstances allowed me to pursue a life-long aim to be a visual artist full-time as opposed to fitting it in to the rest of my life, as I had always done. After leaving teaching I had more time to spend on my health and found I had astronomically high blood pressure. It had affected my eyesight to the extent that, after treatment and a calmer life I no longer needed to wear dual-lens spectacles. I needed none for distance sight and only half the previous prescription near sight half-glasses for reading, drawing and print-making.

I got some medical advice about high blood pressure;- 'People who suppress emotional problems could be harming their hearts. Researchers have found that people who hide psychological distress show an unusual jump in heartbeat and blood pressure when they're stressed.' This is from advice circulated at the Y.M.C.A. gym at the Barbican where I attend for over-fifties exercise. I speculate that my father had these problems from adolescence, that he, like his elder brother had felt more obliged than most to go and fight for this country to show where his loyalties lay. This was because they were of German extraction. The worry about his young family and business on top of his war experiences created that first heart attack and he struggled on, at one point being in hospital for seven months taking nineteen pills a day.