Banana Tea Bread

Lorna Whyte

It was a summers day in the 1980's, our family consisted of me (mum) plus 2 boys, Simon was 9 years old and Lee just five, we were on what was then called Social Security. That's 'Benefits' to the uninitiated, our claim to fame was being the first single parent family in our street. It had only taken a couple of years of married life for me to make the decision that it was not for me, and rightly or wrongly I felt it would be better for the boys growing up without their father living with us. When he realised that I meant business, he disappeared for 4 years. His family claimed they new nothing about his whereabouts, later on I discovered that he moved to small remote village in the north of Scotland.

Obviously money was tight, devising all kinds of ways to keep money in our possession became a challenge, I even managed to save a bit for the odd day out. The kids got bathed in the kitchen sink using a couple of kettles of water, a lot of our clothes were bought from jumble sales, or made from scratch using the treadle Singer sewing machine. Feeding two growing boys with healthy filling food was another challenge. A friend lived in Holland and when I worked over there in my early twenties I ate dinner with them quite a bit. I must say I wasn't all that interested in food at the time, but she was always making different meals with mince. Well, that experience came in handy, what I could do with a half pound of mince was nobody's business. Meatballs, meatloaf, burgers, there was even a soup with balls of mince floating around in it along with noodles. Usually, it was served with loads of tatties and fresh veg from the van. ... (continues)