:07:04
There was always a baron of beef or
a shoulder or leg of lamb before my father.
:07:10
There was never any talk
while we were eating.
:07:14
I never met anybody
whose talk was better than good food.
:07:18
My mother was always on the run,o
:07:21
always the last to start her dinner,
and the first to finish.
:07:25
For if my father was the head of our house,
my mother was its heart.
:07:32
After the dishes had been washed,
the box was brought to the table
:07:36
for the spending money to be handed out.
:07:39
No one in our valley had ever seen a bank.
:07:42
We kept our savings on the mantelpiece.
:07:45
My father used to say
that money was made to be spent,
:07:48
just as men spend
their strength and brains in earning it,
:07:53
and as willingly.
:07:55
But always with a purpose.
:08:17
Thank you, Dadda.
:08:24
Out of the house and across the street,
as I had run a hundred times before.
:08:31
Softly now, for respect for chapel
was the first thing my father taught us.
:08:40
Then straight to Mrs Tossal the Shop,
:08:43
for that toffee which you could
chew for hours, it seems to me now.
:08:48
And even after it had gone down,
you could swallow
:08:52
and still find the taste of it
hiding behind your tongue.
:08:57
It is with me now, so many years later.