Adele Marie Carden

I'm a sit-down comic and I write anecdotal comedy stories.
These are mainly about my Grandma who is sadly no longer with us.
Her name was Ethel Dobson and she bowled for Yorkshire.
Grandma’s Gussets
I would like to introduce myself. My name is Adele – or Our Adele as I will be known in this piece. I am a sit-down comedienne and I aspire to be a Talking Head, This piece is called ‘Grandma’s Gussets’. It is about Ethel Dobson who is no longer with us but hopefully up in heaven with lots of Yorkshire bowlers drinking tea and eating large cakes.
“Our Adele - save some of that tea for the plants.” and I, under my breath, say “Make them their own bloody pot” but of course I never say this out loud as I would get a clip round the ear. I sip on my tea and out comes another shout: “Our Adele. Can you hang my knickers up again so that the wind will catch the gussets.”
I have hung nearly 12 of these huge white knickers outside so that I have to turn them round so that the wind can fly through the gussets and then my second job of the day will be complete. And lo and behold, the wind does catch the gussets and flies them up into the sky.
The story of Grandma’s Gussets, a lot of you will identify with if you have ever washed your grandma’s clothes or helped her to dress. The second large item that is in her wardrobe is her corset. This is huge and slack enough to twist around on her body. I imagine it stood up in the bedroom, on its own, marching about to the soundtrack of the ‘A’ team. It is a mighty item of clothing.
When I dressed my Grandma I realised that the corset had to deal with a number of underclothes – under the corset the long thermal vest, the knickers and then a huge pair of thick tights, usually of an American Tan colour or chocolate brown. Then the slip on top of all these before any dress or skirt was worn. Ethel always said to me, “I only fasten my gusset for special occasions”. I wondered what these special occasions were. Definitely, the Bowls Dinners and, hopefully, the Bowls itself.
Grandma had once been walking down Carr Lane in York and her knickers had dropped to the ground. What did she do? Stepped out of them, picked them up and put them in her pocket. These were large knickers so it must have been a large pocket.
This dressing procedure was carried out when she was very poorly, mainly for the doctor’s visit, along with a little spot of Estee Lauder cream on her nose and a brooch on her top. I looked after her in some of her final days before she would admit she should go in hospital and she announced to the family that “our Adele was sick of seeing my backside” which could often be heard in another version as “Our Adele – you’d laugh if your backside was on fire.”.
I was ordered about a lot. “Don’t slam that phone down, our Adele. You are too volatile.” “Cut the parsley again with the scissors.” Sometimes this was very annoying, but always rewarded with my favourite chocolates from Terry’s chocolate factory and Rowntrees chocolate factory that were the main employers in York at that time. Of course, now you have to be either a Viking or a Roman soldier to get a job in York but I don’t live there so I don’t mind.
My favourite sweets were kept in a special place in the sideboard. I remember that always there were chocolate oranges and toffee and mallow from Terry’s chocolate factory.
Everyone in the family had their own designated chocolate and Christmas was always very interesting to see what presents we were given. I remember one particular year I was presented with a coat hanger with a beautiful orange fabric ruched over it. I realised immediately it was one of my skirts but said nothing. My male cousins each received a huge box of Ultrabrite toothpaste with a small traveller’s pack of toothpaste attached. We knew these were from Terry’s factory and said, thank you! - and nothing more but giggled to each other.
The secret was to always treat these gifts as special and never talk about them to each other because the laughter wouldn’t go down well with Ethel.
Grandma was really the mafiosa of the “waste card” that employees were given to buy these sale items. She seemed to have a lot of waste cards to say she was a pensioner and hadn’t worked there for a number of y ears and there were deals done in secret with one of my aunties who still worked there. We were, as a family, ridden with chocolate, cheap as it was. A full bag plonked beside you on the settee was an enormous temptation especially when you wanted to keep your figure.
I myself wasn’t too bad as I went to Wigan Casino every fortnight and had other dealings that were edible, so to speak. Shall we say, ‘speeding’ on the dance floor. One of the things that she always used to say to me as I got ready to go to the all-nighter was “Our Adele, get this headscarf on else you’ll catch your death.” This wasn’t looked on as a healthy option when you are going to catch the coach to Wigan Casino. So the scarf got lost. This may be healthy but I wasn’t particularly health conscious whilst going on the coach, trying to be cool with the other all-nighter crowd.