Southend U3A

February 2024

Patience is a Virtue - Pete Norman.

Patience is a Virtue I don’t hate my mother . . . how could I possibly hate the most important person in my life, the rock at the centre of my universe . . . but what I really did hate was that expression, that simple, innocuous expression that she used to kill a conversation like a hammer blow. I never heard her raise her voice – not once – and even that expression was always delivered with a half-smile but the meaning behind it was rock solid and I grew up knowing never to challenge it.

‘Patience is a virtue’ sounds such a simple statement but for a very small child I quickly learned never to ask again, especially when she added the words, ‘never found in man,’ – that was the absolute showstopper!

It was painful growing up with schoolfriends showing off their birthday presents, Christmas presents and every other kind of presents . . . and the older I got the more obvious it became that I was seriously disadvantaged in the gift department.

Yes, I did try to put this to my mother – several times – but the answer was always the same: ‘patience and virtue’. When I finally grew old enough to recognise that my questions were futile, then I stopped asking. Instead, I changed tack, making subtle comments about my schoolmates and what they got for Christmas and how they were so great but I always stopped short of making the request and so the hated expression gradually faded out of use. There were actually times – rare but valued – when I did get what I was hinting about but we never, ever made any reference to the process by which she achieved my subtle requests.

All of the other kids at school had fathers who took them to the park, or to the fishing lake or to Southend United and stuff like that. I once even asked about my own father but the expression that flashed across my mother’s face was simply terrifying. It was only a split second before her normal self, with a monumental effort of will, did come back and, with a smile carefully formed and a voice so carefully engineered, she said, ‘That man will never be mentioned in this house – ever again.’

And that was that.

I never had the temerity or the courage to ever ask that question again.

As I grew older, life settled into a comfortable routine, every day the same: I went to school and mum went off to work at the corner shop.

However, my life changed forever when I reached 15.

A lot of the other kids in my group were going on to the 6th form and I had always thought I was going up with them . . . but it was just before the summer holidays that my mother told me that I had to leave school and get a job. I was, of course, absolutely devastated and I pleaded with her to change her mind . . . but she announced that she was giving up her job at the corner shop and that we couldn’t survive without a wage coming in. She never went into more detail and argument was quickly stifled. However, I thought about how she had not been her normal self recently and that her hospital appointments were becoming more and more frequent. I confronted her with her medical health but I met with that same old brick wall – resistance was futile.

I got a job.

Taylors is quite a small factory, a bike ride away from home and they were advertising for office staff. I dressed up in my Sunday best and went for the interview. To my amazement I was accepted. I guessed that my wage must be more than my mother was getting at the corner shop – but not by a lot. However, my colleagues were ok and the work wasn’t too demanding and I quickly settled into the daily routine.

Over the next few months my mother’s health slowly deteriorated and I found myself doing more and more about the house: the shopping and the housework and most of the cooking. I had never seen my mother like this before but she still resolutely refused to tell me what was wrong with her – it was only when she had a home visit by a McMillan Nurse that her situation was revealed to me – it hit me like a house brick. When the nurse had gone, we had a long discussion about her illness and her care but, unsurprisingly, all I got was that my mother was ‘going to stay at home as long as she was able.’

I was instructed to move her bed down to the lounge and there were several other changes that had to be made and, while the NHS would help out with some things, the rest were my responsibility – and I knew that that was going to be very difficult.

I called upon the help of a good friend, Robert, who worked in a car garage and was built like a brick outhouse. We moved her bed . . . and underneath it was a large box. Later, in a quiet moment I opened the box. It was full of papers: all manner of bills, statements and letters and, at the very bottom I found my birth certificate. With some trepidation I opened it up. There was my name: Martin Arthur Somerville and my mother’s name: Edna Somerville and then a third, which I had never seen before: Ronald Archibald Somerville. Not once in my short life had she ever mentioned his name.

Intrigued, I searched a little deeper through the papers and I came across a divorce certificate. I drew a deep breath and opened it up. I stared at it in disbelief and held the two papers up, side by side . . . there was less than a year between them. I knew that this was something my mother would never discuss with me but nothing could stop my mind from churning over and over the struggles my mother must have been forced to make in bringing up a small and extremely demanding child, completely on her own.

Back downstairs again I ran through the list of things the nurse had given me and I knew that somehow, something was going to have to change or we were going to go under.

I put the situation to my office manager and told him that, as I had been here for almost a year, I must, surely, be due for a wage rise. Duncan was most sympathetic but he said that he didn’t hold out much hope. However, he did say that if I was determined to persevere, then I would have to make a formal request to the boss.

The boss was an entity who never came anywhere near the factory floor. I had only ever seen him once – at my interview and it was with some trepidation that I put in the application and waited . . . and waited.

When I eventually did get the appointment, I was terrified; all of the words I had carefully prepared for the occasion had slipped quietly from my brain and left me quite alone and vulnerable. I was still frantically mumbling as I walked into a part of the building that I was totally unfamiliar with.

The boss’s office was large with huge glass doors, through which I could a see a rotund man in an expensive silk suit talking with a much younger lady, tall, with platinum blonde hair. I hesitated at the door and watched them as they held what looked very much like an intimate conversation, which was verified by the peck on the cheek and the finger wave she gave him as she left the office.

After a few minutes the boss waved me inside. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open. I moved towards the chair but I paused until he pointed towards the seat. Before I had a chance to speak, he leaned forward, steepled his fingers and smiled a most insincere smile. ‘Well, young man, I understand you are not happy with your working conditions.’

I shook my head. ‘Oh, no, sir. I am very happy here; my working conditions are fine . . .’

He broke in, ‘But, rather like that wastrel Oliver Twist, you come here to me, asking for more money.’

I started to explain about my mother and our financial difficulties but he stopped me in mid-stream. ‘Yes, I know all that. News always filters back to me. However, if I gave a pay rise to everyone here who asked, then we would soon be driven out of business.’

I gathered the strength and added, ‘But I have been here a year now, sir and I always thought there was a pay scale.’

He steepled his fingers. ‘Young man, you must learn to have patience – patience is virtue, you know. Salary increases are based on performance and loyalty and . . .’ I completely lost the end of his sentence as my head had dropped in defeat and there my eyes fell onto the centre of the desk and a large oak name plate . . . it was marked in ornate gold letters: Ronald Archibald Somerville . . .

The name Somerville might just be a coincidence. The Ronald was quite common . . . but Archibald was far less so . . . that was just one step too far.

I mumbled some kind of apology and fled the office and into the nearest toilet block where I sobbed my heart out. I was weak – too weak to tell him – to confront him with the devastation he had left behind when he had left us – left us for some blond bimbo.

After some time, I managed to regain my composure and I was able to return to my desk. Duncan, my office manager, came over and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Sorry, Martin. Give it a few months and try again, eh?’

I gave him a resigned smile but inside I was seething.

When I got home, I rang Robert and agreed to meet him at the garage. I blurted out the whole story, the birth certificate, the divorce papers, the interview and the man who I now knew was my father. It was cathartic to share the misery with someone who was on the same page as me . . . someone who was a really good friend.

At work, life passed as usual, nothing had changed, same as, same as . . . until the day that Duncan came around the office and announced that he was making a collection and wanted us all to donate for a wreath for the boss. I made my apologies and told him that I had no cash with me.

The day dragged by in an eternity of mind-numbing mundanity and on the stroke of 5 I fled the office, grabbed my bike and rode like the devil to Robert’s garage, slowing down only to take in the billboard outside the corner shop.

LOCAL BUSINESSMAN DIES IN CAR CRASH. POLICE BLAME BRAKE FAILURE.