My grandma died when she was 42 and my Mum was just 13. She left 9 children and my Grandad. Whilst she was alive my Gran (who I obviously never knew) kept a tight reign on her husband`s spending. She knew he was a gambler and even though he owned 3 businesses she also knew to keep a close eye on the business finances. Every day he brought home the day`s takings and she dealt with it and the whole family thrived. They had a nice house and the 9 children had good food, nice clothes, good shoes, music lessons and were encouraged to do well for themselves. This was back in the early 1930`s.
When my Gran died my Grandad hit the road to ruin. My Mum had to leave school at just 13 and as the eldest girl she took over running the house and also worked part time in a weaving mill. My Grandad threw good money after bad and would gamble on anything and everything, mainly playing poker games or betting on horses. He also had lots of female hangers on who milked him for whatever they could get.
He lost 2 of his businesses, owed money everywhere and my Mum often struggled to feed and clothe herself and her siblings. She had 3 older brothers and several younger sisters plus another brother who was just 2 when my Gran died. As a very young lass my Mum faced life with an addicted gambler Father and she never knew a moments peace or security until she married my Dad in 1941.
She never knew where the money to pay the coal man or the grocery shop or the butcher etc would come from and her Dad was so addicted he left his children for hours and sometimes days on end whilst he was off chasing the so called next big win, a win which very rarely materialised and which he chased for the rest of his life.
My Grandad died in the early 1960`s, I was 11 and remember him well. He smelled of woodbines and brylcreme and wore cardigans full of cig burns and even as an old man he still owed money to various people. My Mum regularly had to settle his bill at the corner shop where he bought his fags and whatever he chose to eat and also his tab at the local pub where he played dominoes and drank pints of beer. She loved the very bones of him but his addiction robbed her of her education and her youth and she had to grow up very quickly and learned to dodge the tally man too.
Consequently my Mum had a hate of all kinds of gambling and in later years when one of her brothers, a married man with a family began following the same path as their Father, she took her role as surrogate Mother very seriously and verbally flayed him up hill and down dale and reminded him of how hard their childhood had been after their Mum died and to decide whether he wanted his children to suffer the same fate. Thankfully she got through to Uncle N and stopped the rot just in time.
