Sounds like a jingle for an Irel commercial but is in fact my mother's voice still audible long years after her passing. Yes she was a good cook, as all our mothers were then I suppose, never having any alternative but to cook everything themselves. Talk-aways and frozen meals being way in the future, my mother was mainly self-taught and relied, like the bible, on All In The Cooking, a cook book I still have, and which, for most of my childhood I thought, like your prayer-book or your cathecism, was the only cook book any home would have.
From the image of the Irel bottle, I'm remembering a tea-party she organised for us children, somewhere in the '50's. For some reason, she felt obliged to invite two of our cousins, Anne - 10 , and Raymond, 12, for tea one Sunday. We two sisters ( of round the same ages) didn't really like them, as Anne sniggered after everything she said and talked with her mouth full, and Paddy had a dreadful stammer. We, little stuck-up madams, had heard our mother say that these children has 'no manners' and were quite in agreement.
Our neighbours were a family of boys and I was secretly in love with the youngest one Robert (again around 12). Mother invited him too and so, that afternoon, we five children sitting round our dining-room table were a stiff little party, with none of us knowing what to say.
After our plate of cold ham, hard boiled egg and tomatoes, mother arrived back from the kitchen triumphantly bearing her coffee cake. Butter icing she flavoured with Irel, stood in peaks on the top, more of the same bulged out from between the perfectly rounded sponge disks. It has three layers and she'd finished off the top with glace cherries.
We sisters were full of pride watching her place it in the middle of the table. She asked Paddy (he being the biggest of us) if he liked cherries. He tried to reply, but - poor child - his stammer took over. This started Anne's famous snigger, which in turn started the divine Robert giggling too. In a few minutes, we were all at it, even our mother, though none of us knew what we were laughing at.
And then Robert, his glasses sliding down his face, suddenly jumped up and ran out. We heard the front door bang. Everyone sobered up. The fun was over and I was heartbroken he was gone, but mother just said "Ah don't mind him, he probably forgot something."
It was only days later she gave way to her own horror and let us in on the secret of Robert's disappearance. Her prized, green leather covered dining chairs, and more especially, the one on which poor Robert had been seated, now bore a large circular stain with the imprint of the lad's nether regions.
After she'd told us, my secret passion for Robert faded quickly. The imprint he left on our chair however, remained.
From the image of the Irel bottle, I'm remembering a tea-party she organised for us children, somewhere in the '50's. For some reason, she felt obliged to invite two of our cousins, Anne - 10 , and Raymond, 12, for tea one Sunday. We two sisters ( of round the same ages) didn't really like them, as Anne sniggered after everything she said and talked with her mouth full, and Paddy had a dreadful stammer. We, little stuck-up madams, had heard our mother say that these children has 'no manners' and were quite in agreement.
Our neighbours were a family of boys and I was secretly in love with the youngest one Robert (again around 12). Mother invited him too and so, that afternoon, we five children sitting round our dining-room table were a stiff little party, with none of us knowing what to say.
After our plate of cold ham, hard boiled egg and tomatoes, mother arrived back from the kitchen triumphantly bearing her coffee cake. Butter icing she flavoured with Irel, stood in peaks on the top, more of the same bulged out from between the perfectly rounded sponge disks. It has three layers and she'd finished off the top with glace cherries.
We sisters were full of pride watching her place it in the middle of the table. She asked Paddy (he being the biggest of us) if he liked cherries. He tried to reply, but - poor child - his stammer took over. This started Anne's famous snigger, which in turn started the divine Robert giggling too. In a few minutes, we were all at it, even our mother, though none of us knew what we were laughing at.
And then Robert, his glasses sliding down his face, suddenly jumped up and ran out. We heard the front door bang. Everyone sobered up. The fun was over and I was heartbroken he was gone, but mother just said "Ah don't mind him, he probably forgot something."
It was only days later she gave way to her own horror and let us in on the secret of Robert's disappearance. Her prized, green leather covered dining chairs, and more especially, the one on which poor Robert had been seated, now bore a large circular stain with the imprint of the lad's nether regions.
After she'd told us, my secret passion for Robert faded quickly. The imprint he left on our chair however, remained.
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