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modern medicine was around then she’d had bloody dance teams, but all that’s left
have lived,” says Norma. “The doctor tried now is Goathland. They just died. And if
to get some oxygen up to her but the car they hadn’t been collected pre-war by the
got stuck in the snow and she died. Two folkies we wouldn’t have known they
weeks later our dad had a stroke and was were there at all.” A
lso living with them was a
tiny, hunched, deaf girl who
Eliza Ward had bought out of
the workhouse after her
mother died and her father
ill for 18 months and then he died too.”
Grandma Ward enterprisingly built a
abandoned her to emigrate to Australia.
Various aunts and uncles offered to business as a ‘wardrobe dealer’ – knocking
Her name was Thirza – immortalised in
take the kids in but it would have meant on people’s doors buying their unwanted
one of Lal Waterson’s finest works, Song
splitting them up and Grandmother Ward clothes, furniture and jewellery and
For Thirza – and she did the day-to-day
wouldn’t hear of it so they all moved in reselling them. By the Second World War
looking after them. “She broke her back
with her. I ask what Grandmother Ward she had two shops and was a wealthy
as a little girl, but she did all the shop-
was like. “She were a bloody menace,” woman, furnishing local theatres with
ping and cleaning,” says Mike. “She slept
says Mike instantly, the only boy raised in a their costumes. The clothes of Old Mother
in my grandmother’s bedroom. In one
house full of women. “But Norma will tell Riley, the Irish washerwoman music hall
half of the room was my grandmother’s
you a totally different story, she’ll tell you character created by Arthur Lucan, were
bed where we had to say our prayers
she was an archangel.” Norma does tell supplied by Eliza Ward, who ended up
with the rosary and stuff and in the other
me a totally different story. “She wasn’t an with numerous bank accounts and
half was a dressing table and in the cor-
archangel, she was a very strict, hard enough money to buy all her children
ner was this small wooden bed with a
woman… but she had to be, she had a houses when they got married.
wooden cross hung behind it – that was
hard life. In her teens she hawked eggs
“Our grandmother was hard but I’ll tell
where Thirza slept.”
round the streets to make a living.”
you what – she’d stay up all night on Christ-
The family were of Irish Gypsy stock –
a bloodline denied by some strands of the
S
he married and had six children mas Eve to make sure we had a big cooked
but her husband died in 1918. goose for our Christmas dinner. She’d put it family in an era where no Irish, blacks or
“He enlisted with the Hull Pals in at midnight and would be up all night Gypsies need apply – and while father’s
on the first day of the Great basting it and making the stuffing so it was family were committed socialists (their
War, and they all went to the proper for the next day. She also used to grandfather was mates with Manny Shin-
Somme or wherever and went through make these amazing things she called well and had been on the Jarrow march),
the war in the trenches and everything, shortcake, though it wasn’t like shortcake the other side were mostly conservatives,
and he came home without a scratch on the way we know it. I’ve tried to make it with plenty of fall-outs as a result. The one
him. Two weeks after getting home he but I can’t get the same taste. She was an thing they had all shared was a love of
died of the Spanish flu. People don’t amazing woman. When they came to tell music, any music. Their dad played guitar
understand the impact that war had on her our dad had a stroke she said ‘He can’t and banjo and loved swing – There Ain’t
this country – it killed our traditions for have done – he had two eggs for his break- No Sweet Man, which Norma sang on her
one thing. Some villages didn’t have any fast’. When she was about 75 she fell and Mercury Music Prize nominated Norma
men left at all. The majority of the tradi- broke her hip and they pinned it but she Waterson album, was one of her dad’s
tions were carried through by the male was never the same after that. I was there favourites – while their mum played piano
line and so many musicians and singers at the hospital one day when they asked and sang, one uncle played cornet in a pit
and dancers were lost in that war.” Mike: her what she wanted for her tea. She said orchestra at the local theatre and various
“Lots of longsword teams were lost. Skel- ‘Tea? I don’t want your tea – I’ve got plenty other aunts and uncles played different
ton, South Skelton, Old Skelton… they all of my own tea at home…’” instruments and danced.
The Watersons in 1964: Mike, John Harrison, Lal & Norma (Photo: Brian Shuel)
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