Recently I told a friend of mine the story that became known in my family as Rosemary And The Snails, and thought I'd share it here as well. I was too young to remember this event, which occurred possibly when I was around three years of age, but it became a family legend told many times over. I believe the moral of the story is “Don’t mess with Rosemary, no matter her age”.
I was just as much an animal lover as a young child as I am now. We had our own menagerie while my sisters and I were growing up including dogs, angora rabbits, cats, galahs, rainbow lorikeets, pet rats and more. I have very fond memories of playing with my first dog, cat and rabbit who were all good friends. We’d tear around the lounge room and the cat or rabbit would ambush Penny, the dog, or my sister or me from behind the furniture.
All these pets were clearly not enough for me so I kept snails as pets as well. The snails lived by day in a cardboard box I filled with grass and leaves. I wasn’t allowed to keep them in the house because they escaped at night to return to the wild, so they lived under a tree in the shade in our backyard. I tended them carefully and loved them dearly. After each night’s escape, I’d collect a new box of snails the next morning. Apparently, I didn’t want to put a lid on the box because the snails needed to breathe.
My paternal grandfather lived with us at the time. Grandfather had lost a leg as a result of time as a prisoner of war in World War II and used a pair of crutches. My memories of him are a bit vague, but I know he went to live in a nursing home around the time I was five. He’d had his other leg amputated by then, and his poor relationship with my mother had escalated to where one of them had to go.
Grandfather was an irascible Yorkshireman with a very short temper and many prejudices, one of which was my mother’s very existence. To say he and my mother did not get along was putting it mildly. They spent most of his time living with us, ignoring one another completely. They actively disliked each other and took every opportunity to annoy one another. Each was as bad as the other, although my mother tended towards subtle annoyances while my grandfather openly complained and thought of ways to make life difficult for her.
My grandfather, for reasons unspecified, decided one day to use his crutches to kill snails in the garden alongside where I was collecting my daily supply of pets. He didn’t attack my box of pets, but just because a snail wasn’t living in my little box of snail luxury, didn’t mean I didn’t care about all snails. Why he started choosing the garden area next to my snails and me was a mystery, but he kept at it despite my loud complaints. I am told my grandfather and I had many cross words on the subject and that my grandfather, a very stubborn man, continued to use his crutches to crush snails in my presence. I can just see my tiny, three year old self, hands on hips, looking up at my grandfather and voicing my objections as forcefully and a young child ca. No amount of remonstrance on my part convinced him that snails had the right to live as well. Snail murder and mayhem continued much to my distress. I plotted my revenge.
Grandfather retired to his bedroom for an afternoon rest each day - most likely to recuperate from all the snail carnage. While he rested and possibly dreamed of further forays into snail deprivations I struck. One afternoon he woke up to find that his crutches had mysteriously disappeared, leaving him stuck in bed until someone came to his rescue. The fact that the rescuer was most likely my mother, my father being at work, wouldn’t have gone down well I imagine.
It didn’t take long for the adults to figure out the culprit must be Rosemary, my sister Beth was only a toddler at the time, so clearly innocent. I was made to return the crutches and most likely punished for the theft (punishment was never mentioned in the retelling of this story). I begrudgingly returned the crutches, but continued to argue vehemently with Grandfather regarding snails and their right to live.
Grandfather continued on his snail crushing way, feeling I’m sure, that he’d won the battle with me and I was now a toothless tiger where protecting snails was concerned. He was very much mistaken. A few days after the missing crutches incident, and after more ravages of the snail population in our garden, my grandfather went to his bedroom for his afternoon nap, feeling secure that his crutches would be there when he woke. He pulled back the covers, ready to lie down and let out quite a yell. Various family members came running to find out what was the matter this time. Grandfather stood beside his bed, covers drawn back and pointed at a bed full of snails. We’ll never know, but it’s possible that I thought that if he just got to know them better he'd see the error of his ways – or, much more likely for my three year old snail vigilante self, I was just giving the snails their own chance to revenge their fallen brothers and sisters.
After this, my grandfather never crushed a snail in my presence again. I imagine he just didn’t want to contemplate what my next move might be. Harmony reigned supreme. I'm sure snails were still crushed, but never while I was out in the garden where I could see the murders take place.
My mother, who I have said, disliked my grandfather as much as he disliked her, found a way to rub salt into his wound. I hadn’t realised her new purchases after the snail war was a form of revenge until I grew up, but I’m now convinced it was deliberate on my mother’s side. Mum went on a buying spree after the snails in the bed manoeuvre, bringing home cute little snail ornaments to display around the house and on one triumphant shopping trip, an entire snail tea set, including a snail teapot, sugar bowl, and salt and pepper set, which she gleefully used every day. I still have the snail teapot from the set – it’s one of my prized possessions.
