Harsh Voice Down The Decades

Back in about 1960 my grandmother Hope made a comment that I can more or less still recall: the gist of it seems  unremarkable now. She was looking out of the living room window at 11 George Street, Esh Winning, at the time of her inexplicably memorable comment, and said:

‘Oh that girl call over there is showing some life now that she has a boyfriend. She was always dozy before he came along’.

How unkind was that? Perhaps the girl had suffered a bout of depression. Or maybe she was in mourning. No doubt you can offer further reasons for appearing dozy.

Anyway, it seems to me that my grandmother would not have been moved by Gene Kelly’s excitement as he sang in the rain during what was a glorious feeling of being in love.

I have two further points to make; although Esh Winning is not Ushaw Moor, and therefore might excite members of the Cluff police station, my grandmother did spend  most of her life in the Sleetburn and  Ushaw Moor villages and therefore ought to have been influenced to the good by that; secondly I wonder about the identity of the girl. Perhaps you can all walk up to 11 George Street and narrow down the likely dwelling that housed the girl in love and take it from there.

WB