All in Good Time

Today

Paul took me only a little by surprise this morning when he announced that he needed to allow half an hour to get to his dentist's appointment. "But it's a ten-minute drive!" I said, before remembering that he is anxious about being late and would rather hang about for twenty minutes than be a minute late.

By the time we are adult, it seems, we have an attitude to time-keeping that is more or less fixed. There are those whose anxiety prompts then not just to get the early bus but the one before that, in case. Then there are those who saunter up, half or an hour late, not apparently having noticed the passage of time nor how irritated you are. Of course, some people have timekeeping down to a fine art.

Generally, I'm fairly good with time, although marriage to Paul has meant that I sometimes find myself arriving earlier than I'd wish. When it's to catch a plane, this just blends in to the overall tedium of airport lounges; when it's to a dinner party, it can be embarrassing to catch the hosts still vacuuming!

In My Day

As a child you are simply hustled along by parents who have their own idea of timekeeping and you don't really know how they arrive at the necessary judgement. My parents had four children to hustle, so they probably allowed plenty of time.

Daddy's job at Hansard was ruled by time and he couldn't afford to be late. I do recall one occasion, after a late sitting, when Daddy arrived by the skin of his proverbial to catch the last train, only to find that it had departed early. He had to get a taxi all the way home and was not best pleased. He complained and the railway company, notwithstanding their terms and conditions which probably included the words "we do not guarantee that trains will run on time or at all", paid his taxi fare and offered him a week's holiday in a camping coach in the New Forest as compensation. (I still remember that holiday, taken at Easter and freezing cold.)

So where did I get my attitude to time? I don't know, but I do remember what was probably the first occasion that I was given the responsibility for getting somewhere on time. I was about seven and Daddy and Mamma allowed me to walk to school on my own. I don't know what they could have been thinking.

The walk was mainly along busy South Norwood Hill in South London. I had to negotiate the complexities of the junction with (equally busy) Church Road. Even in the '50s the road was full of buses, cars and lorries. The walk to Cypress Road School was about a mile and a half.

I'm sure that I was sent off in good time to arrive at nine O'clock. I still hadn't arrived by ten. I have a memory of how I dawdled, crossing the road several times; I'm not sure why. I looked into gardens and dreamt of this and that, probably imagining myself as a princess or fairy queen. Perhaps I walked along low walls and then went back and did it again. Eventually, I was caught up with and taken into school. Somebody described how they'd observed my snail's pace and meandering progress.

I don't think that I was trying to avoid going to school; I just had no idea of the passage of time. Maybe that incident was embarrassing enough for me to pay better attention in future.

What I am sure of is, that if this incident had occurred today, Mamma and Daddy would have attracted the attention of social services and I might have spent some time in care. And that would have been a very bad time, never mind the timekeeping.