Just a week

 A week ago, I was feeling anxious. I know that's not rare. Like so many other people across the world, trapped at home, cut off from our usual lives, my mind had started to question and fret. Last week, it seemed, there was a reason beyond all others to worry. My daughter Megan was having her baby.

I should have been full of excited anticipation; the arrival of her third child, my eighth grandchild, it should have been something to celebrate and enjoy. But somehow the world had got to me.Too much sadness, suffering and anger, affecting our friends, our families, our countries. I'd started to wonder if I'd had it too easy, if somehow I'd been pushing my luck. 

We'd arranged that I could be her childcare 'bubble', that I would stay at the house, looking after the boys, while they went off to the hospital. The day passed, playing in the muddy garden, building lego houses, drawing pictures and eating pasta. It was fun, and all the lovely things it always is, but still, I watched the clock, and waited. And waited. 

I told myself not to worry. I remembered the births of my own children, how long each one had taken, how wonderfully they'd worked out in the end. I reassured myself that Megan knew what she was doing, that Andrew would help and encourage her. I'd been there when Charlie and Harry were born, I knew how she well she could cope.  But as the day ticked by, the clock slowed, the minutes began to take hours. I alternated between wanting time to speed up and praying for it to stop. If I could freeze the world now, then we'd all still be ok. If nothing moved forward then nothing would change and nothing bad could possibly happen.

I dozed and woke, unsettled and disorientated, until just after midnight, my phone buzzed with a message 'She's here!' Matilda Elizabeth, born at 11.56, weighing 6lbs 12ozs.

A week has passed since then. 

Megan is home with beautiful Matilda and my phone keeps buzzing as she sends me picture after picture. In each of them I see how the family are adjusting to the new baby; Andrew getting to know his daughter, the boys working out what it means to have a sister, and Megan cherishing every minute.

In some of the pictures, Matilda's eyes are open. I wonder what she's thinking, what she makes of this world she's entered. Not yet time for her to worry about disease, inequality, or climate change. For her, the only experience she knows is to be surrounded by love. 

Just a week, but a timely reminder of the power and possibility of love and the hope it brings for a kinder, more thoughtful world. 

My hope for Matilda is that she grows strong and fair in that love, that she takes it and spreads it wherever she goes.

Seeing the light

In the sudden switch from sleep to wakefulness, I can't work out what's woken me or why. It's as though someone has come into the room and thoughtlessly turned on the light. Philip is still there beside me, and there's no sign of recent movement, but across his face and pillow there is indeed a light; a clear bright beam, falling on him like a spotlight from the sky.

A strange and unexpected alignment of cloudless sky, leaf-bared trees and the lunar cycle, has brought the full moon through our open curtains and into the bedroom. Drawn to it, I stand at the window looking out, thinking of all the clichés that have ever been penned about moonlight, my sleep-dulled brain unable to come up with any new words to describe the silver glow lighting up our room, shining magically outside.

It's bright enough to see along the row of gardens that back the houses of our street; to pick out the sheds and greenhouses, washing lines and compost bins. It's the same garden furniture I see every time I look out, but tonight it's lost some of its ugly practicality, swept by a glistening shimmer. For a moment I wonder if this is what it would be like if giant slugs had crept across the land while we slept.

I stand and gaze, and as I do, the view in front of me is replaced by a series of other gardens, looked at from other windows. I'm back leaning on the tiled window-sill of my childhood bedroom in Croxted Road, peering through the net curtains and the steel-framed windows that were covered in condensation every morning of the year. I remember the story that I used to tell my friends to explain the small scar on my forehead; the story where I fell out of the window and somehow miraculously survived, not the real one where I climbed up to watch my Dad in the garden, slipped and caught my head on the corner of a cupboard. Or at least that's the story I think is real.

Then I'm looking out over the flat pitched roof of the dining room extension in Manor Way, past the spot in the flower bed where Megan would sit chatting to Ruth next door, as they swapped mud pies through  holes in the fence; past the hedges and the shrubs that I clipped and pruned year after year, down to the bottom of the garden, where the green swing sits, just as it should for every child.

I'm whisked forward in time to the bedroom window in Crown Road, to see Martin, our overweight cat, teetering along the top of the garden fence, making his way to our neighbours' bird table to sit hunched up like a fat furry turkey on a plate. Beyond the fence is the old orchard, where the overgrown grass and ancient trees strain to face another year, hoping once again to defy the latest in a long list of planning applications to fill their space with a row of houses.

I stand remembering, until I realise that the light is getting brighter, no longer from the moon but the start of a new day. I think about the hours I've spent staring out of bedroom windows at a series of gardens and neighbourhoods and I realise I've almost always slept at the back of the house. Hardly ever has my view been of street lights and front doors, of passing cars, or concrete paths. My first glimpse and last look at the outside world each day has been the world of grass and trees, of home and family.

I take one last look at the sky before going to make my first cup of tea of the day. Sometimes we try so hard to reach the moon, when all we really need to do is stop and see.

The address book

It's just a small address book, and I have to rifle through a pile of old bills, used train-tickets and Indian take-away menus before I find it, tucked away behind some tissue-paper at the back of the green wooden cupboard. On the outside it still looks new, the smooth red leather is barely scratched and the band of black elastic holds it tightly closed.

I hardly ever use it now.  New contacts are so much easier to store in the phone that's always with me, and a number for texting serves better than the full address and post code for a letter that never quite gets written. But once a year, after I've lined up the cards on the table, set out the different designs in separate piles, with the right-sized envelopes stacked beside them, I search for a pen that's nice to hold and has smooth-flowing ink, and then I reach for the old address book.

I write the cards in alphabetical order, filling in the names as I go through the book, and as I do, I find myself slowing down, pausing to think about the people who sit behind these names on a page. The aunt in Bristol, who's lived at the same address as long as I can remember, and who I've always called Auntie Tupp, although her name is Beryl. My ex mother-in-law, who used to play such a large part in my life, but who now lives in a flat I've never seen.

There are the friends I used to work with, whose company I valued so much "it would be great to see you in the New Year" I scribble in the corner of their cards; all the people I used to see every day, but never quite found time to see last year. I hesitate as I turn the page to a work-colleague from many years ago. Her husband is very much older than her, and for the last few years I've waited to receive her card, and the long round-robin letter that always comes with it, dreading the year when it will be just her name at the bottom.

As I leaf through the book, I see names crossed out; a sad reminder of relationships and marriages that didn't last. Other names remain, the friends and family I couldn't delete, the ones I thought would always be around.

On several pages there are old addresses scribbled through, with new ones added underneath. I remember all the excitement of friends and family as they moved to new homes and I think about the places I once visited, the houses that felt so familiar then, but that I'll never set foot in again. Suddenly I picture another address book from long ago, where Claire had added our own address and the bold claim "The Longworths - that's us!" with each of our names listed separately. Today, I still can't quite get over the feeling of surprise when I find my children's names next to houses that aren't mine.

The very last entry in the book is my Mum's, her surname for more than thirty-odd years is that of my step-father Albert, who'll be eighty years old this week. I'll see them both on Christmas day, at my daughter's house, with two of my other children and my two delightful grandchildren. No doubt when I see them all, I'll stop to reflect on how some things have changed and moved on, how others have stayed just the same, I'll smile at the people who are there, and think for a moment of those who are not.

It's odd that I hadn't realised until today, how much of all that change is caught in the pages of my small red address book.

Gatwick South

Without even thinking to check my phone, I set off early for the forty minute drive to the airport, anxious to be there before they land. It's not until I park the car and walk into the terminal building, that I see the message saying they're delayed.

I sit and watch the arrivals board, seeing the details of their flight slowly inching to the top as the minutes tick by. Other planes land and there's a constant trail of people emerging from the baggage reclaim hall; you can tell straight away who's expecting to be met, they pause for a moment, looking around for a friendly face or a familiar name on a sign. You can tell who's pretending they fly all the time and don't need to be met - they determinedly don't look around, just march through, quickly heading to the car parks and onward transport. The unlucky few look lost and lonely, standing there hoping that someone will show them where to go.

Time passes.

When we were young, and air travel was still something of a novelty, my Dad would sometimes take us to watch the planes. I've never quite forgotten my surprise at how huge the planes were when you got up close; I've never got past wondering what strange sort of magic could lift a gigantic metal beast into the air then bring it safely back to ground again without smashing it to smithereens.

I was twelve when I got on a plane for the first time; heading for a holiday in Bulgaria with my family. It was the last time my sisters and I would go on holiday with both parents, though I didn't know that then.  I don't remember anything of the flight; my memories of the holiday are little more than snapshots, captured quickly without much thought, momentary images that have somehow stayed.

In one, I'm wearing a cotton sun-dress, small bright flowers on a white background, a ruched elastic bodice, thin straps tied on my shoulders. The photo, taken from behind, catches me at the moment when the wind lifted the skirt of my dress, revealing nothing but the skinniest legs imaginable. I hated that picture so much, squirmed with embarrassment every time someone looked at it. In another, I'm wearing blue and yellow sandals with cork wedge heels. I'd insisted on buying them for our big holiday, never mind that they were impossible to walk in and went with nothing else. I wonder now at the defiance in those shoes and my pride in the looks they elicited from other holiday makers; so at odds with my shyness over the picture of my legs. Perhaps that's what it's like when you're twelve; nothing is consistent.

There's a picture of us all on a balcony, dark wooden balustrades marking out the area where we ate breakfast every day; yoghurt and berries, cheeses and hams, so different from the Rice Krispies and Weetabix I was used to at home, so exotic as it seemed to me then. I think there was an abundance of water melons, like huge green bowling balls, or split into slices that we'd spit the pips from. I think I remember ice-cream, chocolate and strawberry flavoured, cold watery crystals. But that couldn't have been breakfast, could it? Another memory from another holiday perhaps.

I think of all the other times I've been here at Gatwick, waiting for my children to return; from trips to their Dad in Ireland, from their first grown-up holidays abroad, from the summers spent working in Greece. I think about how I'm always so determined to see them first, as if not noticing their arrival, looking the wrong way, reading a book, would somehow be a betrayal, a sign I hadn't missed them. Today my determination pays off and I spot them before they see me. I don't know which of them to kiss or hug first, I resist the urge to throw my arms round both of them at once, careful not to over-react, or embarrass them too much.

As we turn and head for the short-stay car park, I think about how I've always loved airports; the huge shiny planes, the lure of far-off places, the excited faces of people setting off on new adventures. Today  though, I realise that what I particularly love about airports is not the idea of going away, it's the certainty of people coming home.

Whores and heroin

You spend your life accumulating acquaintances, finding friends, building a circle of people to spend your time with. Somewhere along the way, you work out what it is you like about others, what they might find to like about you. You begin to understand and comply with the compromises that friendship requires, you relish the opportunities to try new experiences, build shared histories.

Once in a while, if you're lucky, you get to meet someone outside of your normal social sphere; someone who carelessly crushes all the criteria you've formulated for friendship.

"You'll like him - he's got great hair."


"He doesn't wash much, but he never smells."


"His boots have got more holes than leather and he's got really skinny legs."


"He's very, very talented."


"He talks about whores and heroin. And sex. A lot."


"He's become my sort-of adopted son"


You're not sure how to react to that sort of introduction, but you're each choosing guests for your wedding party and you want to be fair, so you go along with the suggested invitation for someone you've never met.

You barely talk that first time, though you quickly acknowledge he does indeed have great hair. A few months later, you go to see him play and you're bowled over by the power of his voice, the strength of his lyrics. You wake up the next morning singing a song you've only heard a couple of times that already seems implanted in your brain.

Then you begin to see the impact he has on the people you love; they way your husband speaks of him with smiling enthusiasm; the times your daughter is suddenly eager to spend an evening in your company when he's around. You start to like him a little bit more just because of that.

Conversation doesn't come easily or instinctively at first; you notice how polite he is with you and you feel a bit like a venerated grandmother.  But then there comes a time when the three of you get gloriously drunk on peach cider and you spend an evening swapping fish-based puns, juggling Maltesers and falling from bar stools. One day he sends you a message saying he's come up with a great new idea, suggesting you write a space-based musical together. Gradually, you forget to feel old and out of touch when he talks to you.

After a while you realise that he's no longer just your husband's adopted son. The pleasure you get that night in Clapham, when the whole bar is clapping and singing along to Happy Song is something akin to loving pride.

Whenever you meet his girlfriend you're really pleased that she seems so right for him, you're delighted that she takes such an interest in his adopted family, that she's happy to spend time in the village, decorating plastic ducks for the duck race, talking about knitting and sewing, visiting the allotment. You know though, that she's only here on a visa and sooner or later she'll have to leave. That day comes round much too quickly and without understanding how the time has sped so fast, you find yourself saying a hurried goodbye of hugs and tears at a railway station, wishing her good luck as she sets off for another continent.

You worry about him when she's gone, not sure if he's eating or sleeping properly, you're concerned he'll descend into a cycle of drink and despondency. You know they've planned to meet up in Canada in a month or two and you hope he'll stick to the plan, that they'll be back together soon. But you also know there's a downside to that.

Tomorrow you'll make your way to the Windmill bar in Brixton, where he'll be playing his last London gig for a long, long time. It'll be a great night, a proper send-off in a crowded bar; the sort of occasion you'd have tried to avoid before you knew him. In a few days he'll be getting on a plane to Canada. You want him to go, you want them to be together, but you also know how much he'll be missed. You sense it will be a while til anyone in your household wakes up singing their own version of Happy Song with anything like conviction.

Staying over

It's sometimes blindingly obvious - that link between childhood fascinations and grown-up obsessions. It takes no effort at all for me to trace the journey from standing with my Dad, on the terraces at Crystal Palace football club, to standing with Philip behind the goal at Bromley FC.  It's almost as easy to see how my my love for Formula 1 racing started when we walked beside the wide tracks of the one-time racing circuit in Crystal Palace Park, or listened to the roar of the engines from the back door step at home.

It isn't always quite as simple to understand the impact of the things we never did, those things that went unnoticed and unremarked at the time.

Looking back I think we must have been fairly self-contained as a family; the characters in my memory bank are always my parents, grandparents and sisters. Apart from an occasional aunt and uncle, I don't remember any other visitors. Perhaps there were friends of my parents who made quiet calls after I'd gone to bed, but if they did, there were never any traces of their presence the next day. And, apart from the time when my Nan was really sick, I never, ever, remember anyone coming to stay.

No childish sleepover ending in a top-to-toe bed-share; no late night dinner party leading to a blanket- draped figure on the sofa. No strange coats thrown over the banisters at the bottom of the stairs, no odd toothbrushes in the bathroom, no politely embarrassed conversations over breakfast.

Our house wasn't big; five of us and only three bedrooms, but it never felt too small to me, certainly not like Maria from school, who lived with her six brothers and sisters in one of those tiny houses overlooking the cemetery. We didn’t have central heating, but hardly anyone I knew did then –we were used to the winter frost on the inside of the bedroom windows, to cowering under the wall heater in the bathroom, to sitting in the kitchen with all the gas rings blazing to keep us warm while we ate. But the house was always clean; properly clean. not just a tidy-away-the-newspapers-and  flick-the-hoover-round clean. 

I never asked then, and I wouldn’t dream of asking now, so I'll never really know why nobody came to stay.  But in the midst of all that didn't happen, I somehow missed out on a whole heap of life lessons, on the etiquette of staying over.

I never quite grasped how much cleaning in advance is a good thing or when to stop; I could never see the boundaries between thoughtful hospitality and force-feeding. I never learnt when it was ok to admit to tiredness, to suggest it was time for bed; and I never understood the proper arrangements for getting up in the morning or agreeing the order for the bathroom. I couldn't work out if it was better to take in a cup of tea and risk waking people too early, or to wait until they decided to surface and risk leaving them feeling ignored. I never reached that state of relaxed happiness where you know your guests are having a grand time and you can stop trying to fend off their boredom and disappointment.

For years I shied away from inviting people to stay; in my head I invented all sorts of reasons why it was a bad idea or simply inconvenient. 

This weekend I learned something I never found out as a child; if you invite good people because you enjoy their company, you end up enjoying their company. Your new house begins to feel a bit more like home and you start to see the place where you live with different eyes. You might even begin to feel a strange sense of pride that your village has the only listed duck pond in the country and the largest scale model of the solar system in the world. It might not even matter if you don’t quite get the etiquette right, you could still have a simply lovely time.

And this weekend we did.

Having words

She hated it when they shouted at each other. Cruel sharp words, arrows dripping in saliva and bile. How could they even look at each other the next day. How could either of them accept the other's 'I didn't mean it'.

In her head she joined in the screaming, silently begging them 'Don't say it. Please don't say it. You can't say something like that and not mean it' Once those words were out, they were out - there in the air between them. No matter how hard they'd tried to pretend it didn't matter, it did. She couldn't see how they could act as though things hadn't been said.

She'd dreaded the times at school when the teacher walked around the class as they wrote. Automatically her arm would go up around her work, shielding it from the teacher's eyes. Pencil in one hand, eraser in the other, she'd write and rub out, again and again. The paper turned thin and grey, but she didn't want anyone to read it until she was sure of every word.

At work she agonised in meetings. Confident of her point, but never quite sure when to make it, she dreaded the moment when they'd all turn to look; a raised eyebrow, a barely concealed smirk; her confidence sent plummeting. She lingered over e-mails, knowing how they could be misinterpreted, how jovial could be read as flippant, succinct as terse. On the way home in the car, she'd replay the day's conversations in her head; the things she could have phrased differently, the times she should have kept mum.

At home in the evenings, in front of the laptop, she tapped the keys, watching the thin black lines appear on the screen. Just lines and shapes, meaning so little, revealing too much, concealing more. Type and delete, type and delete. Again and again.

She hit the 'publish' button, sensed the black lines peeling away from her, lifting up from the screen and flying away. She didn't know where they'd land, if they'd be greeted with a friendly welcome or a forbidding stare. Once they were out, they were out. She couldn't pretend they hadn't been said.

Parallel lives

21st June 1982, London, England.

Two maternity wards, two young women; each of them putting aside the pain and exhaustion of the preceding hours as they reach out to hold a new-born child.

Two boys.

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Families and friends, school and work-mates, loosely connected by-standers, all influenced them as they grew, shaping their actions and recording their histories in photographs and memory.

Each boy was a first born son, growing up with the hope and expectation that brings, knowing that one day, in  a different century, they would be expected to learn the family trade, take it on, build and nurture it to support another family.

Each of them thrived in the early years, spontaneously talkative and affectionate, confident in their parents' love.

Each struggled to make sense of the bitterness and struggle of the separation and divorce that came later.

Somewhere along the way, each defined a role for himself as guardian and protector, the man of the family; taking care of his mother whatever his disappointment in her; accepting the role of elder sibling, whatever the annoyances and embarrassments of a younger brother who was more than reasonably prone to seeking out trouble.

Both grew up tall and handsome.

--------------

Tomorrow, one will stand in Westminster Abbey, with the eyes of the world on him, as he pledges his love to the future queen of England.

I will be among the millions watching that boy on TV, but my hopes and my love will be with the other one. The boy relaxing with his friends over a pint or several, somewhere in south London. The one that the world will never know, but the one who makes me as proud as any mother of a king.

My son Gerard.

Egg count

So many ways to mark the passage of time; the years slip by in a cycle of celebrations and anniversaries.  The old shoe-boxes under the bed fill up with hoarded birthday cards and folded wallets of photos; you build a treasure trove of loving wishes and embarrassing haircuts.

And there, tucked into a corner next to the boxes, still in its supermarket carrier bag, is the Easter egg you bought a couple of days ago. You’d been queuing up to buy your lunch when you’d seen the coloured boxes stacked high at the checkouts, when you realised how the passing decades have also been marked by the rise and fall of the Easter egg count.

When you were young there’d been an Easter egg every year.  Three identical eggs lined up on the sideboard, one for each of you and your sisters. On Easter Sunday morning you’d take yours from its box and run your finger over the shiny purple foil, smoothing it out until the cracked pattern of the chocolate showed through from underneath. Then you’d unwrap and gently prise it apart, trying to keep the halves intact while you sought out the chocolates hidden inside. You could make it last for three days; eating the chocolates first, then one egg-half at a time, breaking off small pieces along the pattern lines.

There might have been two eggs each in the years after your parents split, but you don’t really remember, already by then your head was full of ideas for building another home and a new family. The first years of married life brought extravagant Easter gifts wrapped in crisp cellophane, tied with satin ribbons. Thrilled by the romantic gestures you saw no forbidding portents in the over-sized packaging and disappointing content.

Then came the years when the children were small. For weeks before Easter you’d push the buggy around Woolworths, walking slowly past the floor to ceiling displays, while they pointed out the ones they liked the look of, the eggs they hoped they’d get. And you chose with such care, each had to be just right for its recipient. A grown-up egg with proper chocolates for a girl so nearly a young lady; a Yorkie bar for a strong quiet lad; a black-and-white covered round ball of chocolate, for your football-loving boy; and a small pink-wrapped oval nestling in a ballerina-decorated cup for your singing, dancing baby girl. You’d keep them all under the bed, hidden away from sticky fingers until Easter morning.

In those days there were so many eggs; gifts from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, everyone wanting to mark the occasion, shower attention with a sweet treat, mindless of harm to teeth and tummies. It would be days before the boys’ appetites weren’t ruined by eating chocolate between every meal; weeks and months before the girls would get through the eggs that, just like you, they insisted on saving for eating slowly, bit by bit.

After a few years the number of eggs began to dwindle. Your father died, aunts and uncles had children of their own to buy for, money was tight. There was still an egg for each of them, every year, but none for you and not quite as much excitement. 

Then before you knew it they were grown and you were all living in different houses. The eggs you bought, and kept in the cupboard just in case, went unclaimed when they were too busy to visit. You found them some time later, the boxes covered in a thin layer of dust, the chocolate inside mottled white. You'd ended up just throwing them away. Last year you decided not to bother at all.

But a few days ago, as you stood in the queue to pay, you’d looked over at the shiny boxes. Something about the sickly looking white chocolate egg with its gaudy pink icing had made you smile, and now it’s sitting under the bed waiting to be handed over with a kiss and a hug.

Just one egg this year, but maybe it’s marking a change. Perhaps, before you know it, there’ll be dozens again.

A cottage in the woods

In fifty years, I've never lived on my own, never even been on holiday by myself. Half a century of sharing and adjusting, carefully negotiating space and sound, decor and temperature.

At nineteen I moved straight from the shared bedroom of childhood to the double bed of marriage. I'd quickly closed down any conversations about going away to university; that had seemed no more real than the notion of finding a room in a shared house, renting a bedsit in the city, travelling around the world. Other people did those things, people I read about, not people I knew.

It might have been that I was rushing into being with someone, trying to get back to the family life that I'd known before my parents' divorce. Or it might have been that young love had convinced me that being half of something was better than being less than someone. Either way, for a long while it was a good place to be, especially while there were children arriving and growing, when sharing space meant snuggling up on the sofa to read a book, budging up in bed to make room for a sleepy kid in the early morning. When eventually, perhaps inevitably, we realised that there wasn't enough space in being married, the children and I moved to another house. Though I'd never been more lonely, I still wasn't alone.

But every now and then I'd think about a cottage in the woods. In my head it was a place where I'd live all by myself. I'd sit and read, with only the creaking sounds of the trees to keep me company. Life was simple in my house made of logs. No electricity, no machinery, no conversations or relationships; nothing to break. I pictured myself revelling in my solitude, writing the book I'd never found time for, being at one with nature and myself. I sometimes wondered though, how long I'd last, how long it would be before I rushed to the nearest town, started a conversation with anyone who'd listen.

My children are all grown up now, but I'm still not on my own. With Philip I've learned a whole new set of adjustments. We live in a tiny house, so whatever one of us does, it's bound to have an impact on the other.  I realise that I'll sometimes have to tolerate the freezing gales that blow through the open kitchen window because he gets too hot when he's cooking. I understand that I'll need to grin and bear the northern cadences of Radcliffe and Maconie, because he likes to listen to the radio while he does so. But that's ok, because I also know that I'll get to sit down with him and eat the meals he's so carefully made while he's been sweltering and I've been shivering.

In return, he's got quite adept at avoiding the shoes and bags I place around the house like booby traps, the laptop leads that I trail across the floor like poachers' wires; he knows I'll get around to moving them eventually, because I'm the one who hoovers. We've both learned that, even when we silently blame each other for leaving clothes around, for piling up books and papers, for failing to change the bed, replace a light-bulb, put the rubbish out, it doesn't really matter. We're both quite comfortable in our clutter and our shared space.

Even so, I still sometimes imagine going on holiday alone. I picture myself lying by the pool with a book, while the other holiday-makers whisper between themselves, wondering in hushed tones about the enigmatic lone-lady. And every now and then, when I've had a dreadful week at work, when I feel like the years are slipping away, when the things I ought to do are eating into the time for the things I want to do, then I still think about that cottage in the woods.

Except this time, there's a bearded, check-shirted lumberjack called Philip living there with me.

The shed

A few nights ago I dreamed of our garden shed. It wasn't the timber-slatted, flower-pot-and-cobweb filled refuge of an aged pipe-smoker. Neither was it an eau-de-nil painted summerhouse, with gingham curtains and a wide verandah. This shed was brick-built and square with a flat roof; a utilitarian council-house issue of the early 1960s. It stood in the garden of our house in Croxted Road, just a few yards away from the kitchen, and for nearly twenty years it was the first thing I saw whenever I opened the back door.

For hour after hour when I was a girl, I'd play two-balls against the closed shed door, the pounding of the tennis balls on the wood, marking out time to one of the rhythmic songs I'd learned at school; each line accompanied by the appropriate actions as I practised throwing and catching, throwing and catching.

"PK penny a packet, 
first you lick it, then you smack it,
then you stick it to your jacket
PK, penny a packet"

In my dream the door was open and I was peering into the gloom of the shed's interior. It was a bit like looking at any memory, clear at the centre, but dark and fuzzy the further you go into it.

In my mind, there was a coal bunker just inside. Though the house was newly built when we moved in and I don't remember there ever being a coal fire, I could swear there were a few shiny black nuggets in its corners. Did I imagine the square of old faded carpet laid out on the hard concrete floor under our feet, where we played 'shop' on rainy days when it was too wet to stay in the garden; where we'd pile up toys for sale and take it in turns to press down the keys of the brown and cream plastic till to ring up the prices.

I pictured a folded up wigwam leaning against the wall and the old Silver Cross pram, which we used mostly for pushing our dolls, but sometimes for carrying the docile ginger cat from two doors down, who didn't mind being dressed up. Behind it was a heavy black tricycle and somewhere in a corner there must have been the abandoned pogo stick that I tried so hard to master yet never managed to cling on to for more than two springs.

In the shed of my dream there was no sign of my sister's chopper bike and no images of us huddled on the doorstep each night after school, polishing our shoes before we could go indoors. Nothing had yet been cleared to make way for the stacked cages of the guinea pig stud farm, those small substitutes for the ponies my sister really wanted. And my selective memory edits out the times I took friends home to ridicule her as she spent hour after hour training guinea pigs to jump over tiny makeshift fences in her garden gymkhanas. My older sister tells me she locked me in the shed once until I wet my knickers, but that event is firmly erased from my consciousness.

Memory is a tricky thing; even more so when it's shaped by a dream, so it's hard to be sure how much of what I recalled is true. The shed always seemed dark, I don't think there was a light or any electricity and there was only one small window high up, but in my mind's eye hanging on the far wall, was a framed print of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, shining out like a gold tooth in a gaping mouth.

A north-south divide

I'm a South London girl, through and through. Those of you reading this from other parts of the country, or indeed the world, might not realise the enormous difference between being just a Londoner and being a South Londoner. I know lots of countries have a north-south divide; with one half of a country deemed to be more prosperous, productive and progressive than the other. I know I've occasionally made an ever-so-slightly derogatory comment about my beloved's birthplace being in the north of England. But the truth is, in my heart, the north-south divide centers on the River Thames. All the good people live south of the river, the others, well they're just Londoners.

I'm fiercely proud of the few square miles where I grew up. Who needs London Zoo when you can feed the ducks in Dulwich Park? Who'd want a dip in the Serpentine when you might swim all day at Brockwell Park Lido. Why crane your neck to admire the Docklands skyscapers when you could gaze up at the Crystal Palace Tower and pretend you're in Paris?

None of my family still live in the area, so nowadays there's very little reason to go back. But once in a while, when I'm brave enough to take the car into London, I'll go slightly out of my way to follow the route of the no.3 bus, slowing down as I pass our old house in Croxted Road, and again when I hit the congestion of Brixton High Street.  Then I'll remember the shopping trips to Brixton with my Mum, me traipsing around behind her while she did her shopping; bored, but comforted by the knowledge that we'd always end up going to Marks & Spencers for chicken-flavoured crisps and a packet of iced biscuits.

My first ever Saturday job was at Clark's the Bakers in Brixton's Electric Avenue.  Wikipedia tells me now that the street gained its name from being the first in London to be lit by electricity. I didn't know that then, but I did know the different names for all the types of bread; from farmhouse to bloomer, split-tin to baguette. I remember the way our fingers got sticky from the cakes, then black-sticky from handling the money, and I know how horribly smug I was that I could add up the prices in my head while others needed to jot them down on the back of paper bags. I haven't thought about that job for years, but as I write this, I can still picture the brown and white checked overalls we had to wear; a bit like a doctor's housecoat, only nasty and nylon. I can still sense the feel of sticky fingers on synthetic fabric.

And when I think of working at Clark's I can't help but remember my first ever boyfriend. Eddie lived in Brixton, and on Saturdays he worked in Electric Avenue. I never minded tidying up the trays of belgian buns and doughnuts, when it meant I could look up to see the tall grinning Irish lad, selling yams and green bananas from the market stall outside. After work, it was so much nicer waiting outside Woolworths for the bus home, when you had someone warm to wait with.

Perhaps the relationship was doomed to last only as long as my job at the bakers, but it wasn't helped by events on the night my Mum threw a party, on a river-boat on the Thames. Copious amounts of free drink and the gentle rocking of the waves proved too much for Eddie and he ended up being sick over the side of the boat. It might perhaps have been ok, if I'd known before then about the false tooth he wore. The one right at the front. The one that flew out in a stream of vomit, into the river that night.

At the time I was mortified and even though the tooth was soon replaced, I could never look at him quite the same again. Many, many years later, with the benefit of hindsight and perhaps a slightly less shallow perspective, I can be much more forgiving. Who knows, maybe his nausea had nothing to do with the drink, perhaps it was the strange foreign air he was forced to breathe on leaving South London and entering that no-man's land of the Thames, the great north-south divide.

The Black Crow

It was the rain that woke me up. The incessant drumbeat on the flat kitchen roof, the higher singing tone of water cascading over the blocked gutter. And now that I'm awake, it's the rain that keeps me up, watching its drops break against the window pane like a series of morse code dots and dashes.

There'll be sandbags across the doorways of the cottages by the river tonight. Bags to sop up the encroaching water, stop it coming across the doorstep; a lumpen wordless bodyguard for each house. I wonder how high the water is now. In the few years we've been here, I've seen it swell over into the fields across the river, reminding me of the Chinese rice fields we learnt about in school, but it's never been high enough to cross over to our side, or inch its way up our street. I imagine the water filling up all the cracks and holes left in the tarmac by the recent frosts and snow, forming puddles for wellie-clad children to jump in tomorrow.

We've been here long enough for me to know which of the roads gets tricky to pass after a heavy downpour, the big dip further along the valley, the road by the lake, where there's nowhere for the water to drain away. I'm never sure how to drive through standing water. I'm scared that if I drive slowly the water will seep into the engine, creep in around the door sills, suck me and the car into its clinging wetness. My urge is to accelerate, push through it as quickly as possible, no matter what great bow-wave I create. Then through the other side, where, if my car was a dog it would shake from side to side and nose to tail, creating a halo of raindrops. Instead I pull away fast, hoping the wheelspin will drive away the water.

When I was a child, my younger sister Caroline was scared of the rain, she always thought it would flood. And as kids so often do, we picked up on her terror. We could reduce her to tears, a flood of her own, by telling her that the house would float away each time it poured. I always liked the imagined idea of de-camping upstairs in a storm, piling up the furniture, eating picnics on our beds, but that probably didn't help for Caroline. Upstairs wasn't a place of refuge for her - not since the time our big sister Ros had so vividly imagined and described 'The Black Crow' that hovered at the top of the staircase waiting to pounce.

Perhaps it was just water that Caroline hated, you'd have certainly thought so if you ever heard her having her hair washed. When we were kids, there was no shower at home and it wasn't til I was a teenager that we got one of those rubber shower hoses that you can fit over the bath-taps. So for years, our mother washed our hair while we stood at the sink, using saucepans full of water. Pour, shampoo, rinse, then repeat. When it was Caroline's turn the sound of each saucepan-full was accompanied by the sound of screaming as she wriggled to escape, trying to duck the water, failing to keep the shampoo out of her eyes. Pour, scream, rinse, shriek, shampoo, sob, rinse, screech, then repeat... scream, scream, scream.

I can almost hear it now.

As I sit and listen in my head to those sounds from long ago, I realise that it's quieter here now. The deluge from the drain has stopped; the ticking of the mantelpiece clock has replaced the rain-beats on the roof. Time to go back up to bed.

I wonder where The Black Crow sleeps tonight.

Saying the wrong thing

There's a certain irony to this post, given that writing a blog is all about choosing the right words, but I guess in real life we've all done it - said the wrong thing in the wrong way at the wrong time.

Sometimes it's just plain funny. Like the time when my Mother, sitting under the hazelnut tree in the garden, turned to my beloved and exclaimed loudly, "Oh Philip, what lovely nuts you've got"

But at other times it’s more complicated. 

It was probably my twelfth birthday when my parents' gift to me was a hairdryer and some money. I've never really been a hairdryer person; I'm vain but lazy, so the effort of standing there for hours with aching arms to achieve a perfect hair-do was never my thing, but they meant well. And the money was brilliant - ten pounds was a lot in those days, I remember my friends at school being really envious and I was genuinely grateful for it at the time. Until... until my youngest sister's birthday six months, later when they bought her a Chopper bike.

Choppers were all the rage at the time. I'd never had my own bike, and never learned to ride one, I was horribly jealous. 

I didn't stop to think about the reasons behind the gift, or the tight finances that might have stopped them buying me one when I was her age. To me it was proof that they didn't care enough to think about what I wanted and that they loved her more. Complete nonsense, but it rankled. It rankled so much that next time I lost my temper I shouted "Ten pounds and a hairdryer! That's how much you care about me!"

Cruel, horrible words. Since then I've tried to erase the embarrassment that came to me too late, by attempting to make a joke of it, encouraging people to laugh at my mean-spiritedness and over time, my generous family have let it become just that - a family joke.

As an adult I've haven't eliminated my ability to be insensitive or stupid, but I've learned to recognise the tell-tale signs - the raised eyebrow, the polite smile and embarrassed laugh, or the fleeting expression of pain that comes in response to a thoughtless remark. And that's a kindness because it gives me a chance to redeem the situation.

But it only works when you're face-to-face with people. The advent of e-mail brought with it a whole range of opportunities for misunderstandings from hastily sent missives. And since starting this blog, I've uncovered another potential bear-pit - the comments form.

I love to receive comments; at their best, they make me feel proud of what I've written, at their most useful they help me to see how I could write better. So it seems only fair, when I read other people's work, that I should say something in return. And that's where the trouble arises - because it does feel like 'saying' rather than writing. For me, that sometimes means I'll fall into the trap of trying to make myself sound clever, without really thinking through or understanding how it will be interpreted at the other end and I'll press the publish button just a little too soon.

A few days ago I left a comment on a blog I admire very much. When I went back to look at later comments I re-read what I'd said. I winced at the horrible combination of patronising and glib, at words which say more about my character faults than anything about the person they were written to. There's been no response, so I've no notion of how it was received. The simplest thing would be to go back and delete it, but that might also seem odd and spark another load of misunderstanding. So I'm writing this with that slightly sick feeling of knowing I said the wrong thing at the wrong time and not quite knowing what to do about it. 

If you're reading this as the recipient of the comment, then I'm genuinely sorry. Given the chance, I will try and make a joke or a tradition of it. In the meantime, I shall just sit here and feel like my twelve-year-old self.

Christmas past, Christmas present

Once upon a time, there was a young mother who believed in the magic and wonder of Christmas. Each year she set about the tasks of shopping and cooking, making and decorating; convinced that if she only tried hard enough she could create the perfect day.

As the glitter frosted windows of the advent calendar were opened, she spent the days of December assembling the chocolate coins, tubes of sweets, pencils and socks; all those long thin objects that would fit in a Christmas stocking. She helped the children write their letters to Santa, lifted them up to reach the letter box, made sure they didn't find the shiny-wrapped gifts hidden under her bed.

As the big day drew nearer, she went in search of the tree, just the right height and width, non-dropping needles and a tall spike at the top for the fairy. She tested the lights, replaced the fuse-bulbs where necessary, then carefully, one by one, placed the fragile glass baubles and home-made paper lanterns. She searched out the pine cones they'd collected in summer, then tied them with scarlet ribbon to the green garlands draped around the fireplace. Her evenings slipped past in writing cards, shaping and painting marzipan fruits, finishing hand-knitted jumpers.

Almost before she realised, it was Christmas Eve, with its own special schedule. A carol service at church; walking there in the cold with excited children pulling her along. Coming home to baths and hair-washes; there'd be no time for those on Christmas Day. Putting the girls' hair in rags to curl them, keeping an eye on the boys to stop them eating all the chocolates on the tree.

And then it was bedtime. There were no difficulties in getting any of them to bed on Christmas Eve - the sooner they went, the sooner Santa would come. But before they could go up the stairs there was the sherry and mince pie to put out for Father Christmas, the saucer of milk and carrots for the reindeers. Then the song they'd all sing -

Christmas time is here

so we go to bed.

As we climb the stairs

nodding sleepy heads.

Take our stockings off

hang them in a row

then jump quickly into bed

and off to sleep we go...

But then came the years when the Christmas sparkle faded, when they didn't live in the lovely house any more, when the choices had to include decisions about spending the day with Mummy or Daddy. Two sets of presents didn't make up for the things that were missing. Pleasure offset by guilt and regret.

Year after year of not-quite-right Christmases followed.

Last weekend, the not-so-young mother went shopping with her best friend and her youngest daughter. They chose jumpers for the boys, looked at boots and leather jackets, checked out different types of make-up, bought new fairy lights for the tree.

At the bookshop they spent ages looking through the children's section. She found the books she'd loved as a child, Pippi Longstocking and the Chronicles of Narnia. She re-lived the times she'd shared stories with her own children, their laughter over Peepo and Each-Peach-Pear-Plum. She carefully selected the first books she would read to her grandson on his first ever Christmas.

When lunchtime came, they stopped at a new restaurant. They sat on soft leather seats while they waited for their steaming mugs of chocolate. They looked around at the light fittings made of tea-cups, at the velvet patchwork sofas, the cake-stands piled high with dainty treats. She noticed the excited, smiling  faces of children and adults alike;  she couldn't help but smile back.

It was still early in December, but it felt almost as though they were finding a new tradition.

Maybe a perfect Christmas wasn't quite so far away.

Missing song - found!

Last night I wrote here about a song my father used to sing. I mentioned that I'd never heard anyone else sing it, and that I hadn't been able to find the lyrics or anything else about it. Then I packed up and went to bed.

While I slept peacefully, halfway round the world in Canada, Liz got to work.(Liz is one of my earliest and very favourite blogging buddies - check her out here - http://backwardleonard.blogspot.com/ )

And I woke up this morning to a comment from her which took me to a whole debate on the web about my song! The song I've always known as Three Lonely Prisoners, has been known as Two Convicts and The Prisoner. In the discussion, its origins were attributed to either Mississippi, Ireland or the London Music Hall.

My Dad had always sung about three prisoners, and I think he must have invented and inserted his own lyrics in a few places, but the lyrics printed below are definitely the basis of our song. Underneath I've tried to capture the words we knew and grew up with - I've tried and tried but I can't remember the last verse as he sang it - I'm hoping my sisters will jump in here and help me.

I cannot say how grateful I am to Liz for finding this and telling me about it. It means my new grandson Eddie, who will never get to meet his Great -Grandad, will at least get to grow up knowing something about him, his songs and some of our shared history.

THE PRISONER

Two convicts one day were seated, in a lonely prison cell -
The story of their past lives to each other did tell.
"I was once young and happy," said the elder of the two,
"I had a loving wife and a little baby too."

"One night as I went home, after working hard all day,
I found the fire had gone out and my wife had run away.
It was then I started drinking - for what else could I do?
I mixed with bad companions and became a burglar too."

"One night as I went out, to rob a mansion grand,
The tools were in my pocket, a revolver in my hand.
As I climbed through that window a gentle voice I heard.
I fired a shot, then cried a lot. By God I've shot my child."

Without a friend in all this wide world, not a friend to speak my name,
Praying to God that I might die, praying all in vain,
For after all that I have suffered, no man could ever tell,
With no place to shelter, but this lonely prison cell.

THREE LONELY PRISONERS

Three lonely prisoners, in a lonely prison cell -
The story of their lifetimes to each other they did tell.
Now the youngest of the three he said, 

"my tale I'll tell to you,
"I had a wife, a loving wife and a bonny baby too."

"As I came home, from working, after working hard all day,
I found my house without a light, my wife had run away.
So I took up to drinking - what else was I to do?
I mixed with bad companions and became a robber too."

"One night 'twas my intention, to rob a mansion grand,
My tools were in my pocket, my revolver in my hand.
As I climbed through the window I heard a voice cry out.
I turned around and fired a shot "Good God I'd shot my child."

"Not a friend in all this wide wide world, 

not a friend to call my own,
...................,
With no place to shelter, but this lonely prison cell".

A golden oldie and a missing song

I realise that this post might elicit a response of despair and a shake of the head, so I'll admit upfront that I will be covering both my questionable taste in music and an over-emotional response to a tune on the radio. Then I'll leave it to you to decide whether to read on.

This morning while driving to work I listened, as I do most mornings, to Chris Evans' breakfast show on Radio 2. He has a daily feature, Golden Oldies, introduced by the marvellous Moira Stewart, for which listeners nominate a favourite song which evokes a special memory. Usually it's a tale of a song which sparked a long-ago romance or a tune that accompanied carefree dancing days. Today's was slightly different.

I didn't catch the name of the man who'd written in - for which I'm sorry - but his special memory was the tale of how, as a child, he'd been known by family and friends as the boy with the shining eyes. His mum told him this was due to his Spanish ancestry and so, whenever he was feeling sad and needed cheering up, she would sing him the Al Martino song Blue Spanish Eyes.

As I drove along, listening to the song I found myself crying. It wasn't Al Martino's fault. It couldn't even be blamed on my normal frustrations with the M25. It was just that I had a really clear image of a little dark-haired boy gazing up adoringly at his mother, a woman who could make things better for him just by singing.

I've often thought that the world would be a much better place if everyone would just sing a bit more. Just look at what it did for the Von Trapp children. I don't think it's a coincidence that almost all of the important events in our lives are accompanied by song.

I've written here before about our family love of musicals and our habit of over-loud singing in the car; this morning's Golden Oldie set me thinking, not about our recent song-book, but about the songs I grew up with.

My Dad had a fine repertoire of Music Hall songs, we all learned to sing along to 'Any Old Iron', 'If you were the only girl in the world', and, a real classic, 'Knock 'em in the Old Kent Road'. But there is one song, which so completely reminds me of him, that you'd only have to say the words and he'd be back in the room. It's not a love song, nor a cheery uplifting tune, but it would be my version of the song-that-always-makes-me-feel-better.

Three lonely prisoners, in a lonely prison cell, the story of their lifetimes to each other they did tell...

He sang it to us hundreds of times, he taught it to all of my children, but I've never, ever, heard anyone else sing it. I've tried googling the lyrics, in the hope that someone, with a passion for songs from the early twentieth century, might have stumbled across it and shared their knowledge - but nothing. I've sometimes wondered if it was a 'proper' song at all, or something that Dad had made up. The tune and lyrics never changed - so if he did make it up, he did a pretty good job of it.

I won't be writing in to Chris Evans and Moira Stewart. I know I won't be driving along to work one day hearing it playing on the radio, but that's ok. I can play it on my own internal juke-box any time I like and it will still always make me feel better.

Three quarters of a century

I don't know what the weather was like that day, I don't even know what time of day it was, but 75 years ago, on the 19th of October 1935, Patricia Payne made her first appearance in the world.
Over the years, I've heard snippets about her childhood - how she was evacuated during the war to a manor house in the country, how she spent long periods of time in hospital or convalescing. But generally, my knowledge of Patricia comes from my own memories of her.

In most of these, I'm a child and she's just my mum - doing all the things I didn't think about twice at the time - working her way through a pile of ironing while singing along to Rubber Soul; telling us we couldn't use the toilet because she'd only just cleaned it; avidly watching Wimbledon every year and teaching us how to keep score in a tennis match; or making me stay in bed when I was ill, but bringing me jigsaws to stave off the boredom.

In some of my memories, she's a glamorous princess, in full evening dress with glossy dark hair piled high, kissing me goodnight before going out with my dad. In others, I'm cringing with embarrassment because she's turned up to a school event wearing a hat and gloves.

I suppose the truth is, for most of my life I've only really thought about her as my mum. I've only looked at her with daughter's eyes and I haven't ever stopped to think about how others see her, about who she is when she's not being mum, grandma, or great-grandma.

A few months ago, when she shared with me a file full of letters, copies of the correspondence she's kept over the last twenty years, I learnt for the first time how well she can write. A couple of weeks ago, when she had me aching with laughter as she described a night out with the ancient and decrepit members of the 'Recorded Vocal Arts Society', I was reminded that she can also tell a story.

On Sunday she arranged a lunch with family and friends to celebrate her birthday. When the meal was over, one of her friends got up to speak. Peter has known my mum for forty years, he's been her friend for all that time - and he wanted to share some of his memories. He told us a tale of a holiday in Portugal; of too much Mateus Rose at two-shillings and sixpence a bottle, and of a moonlit walk along the beach, which ended with my mum crawling along on all fours. Of course she denied the crawling, and claimed that all she could remember was singing 'By the light of the silvery moon' as they strolled on the sand. It doesn't really matter which version of the story is true. For a few moments I had a glimpse of mum as a carefree independent young woman. Peter spoke of how gorgeous she was then and still is now. Mum's husband, my step-dad Albert, sat smiling proudly, nodding his agreement.

All these years I've had such a limited view of who my mum is.

I know I've left it a bit late, but in the months and years ahead I'm hoping to get to know those other sides of her a bit more. In the meantime, I hope you'll join me in saying - Happy 75th Birthday Patricia!

A casual remark

'Everybody uses a lot of phrases without understanding what they really mean, me included'
This is the opening sentence of a recent post from one of my favourite bloggers - Mr London Street. And, as often happens with his writing, it set me thinking - not only about how we use sayings with little thought for their meaning, but also about the way that things we say are perceived and received by others. And how, in turn they come to define who we are and how others think about us and remember us.
A few months ago I was doing the 'concerned mother' bit with my gorgeous daughter, who had been overdoing it a bit and was feeling somewhat jaded. 
'Ok Mum, I know what you're going to say'
'Really?'
'You're going to tell me that I've been burning the candle at both ends. You always say that.'
Not only could I not remember ever having said it, I was dumbfounded to discover that it was something Megan expected me to say.
There are other phrases I know I use - 'you'll miss me when I'm gone' is one I'm least proud of - it usually earns the loving retort 'shall I help you pack' from one or other of my offspring.  
I remember, many years ago, getting stuck in a traffic queue one day, with them all sitting in the car. As we reached the head of the queue we saw a workman operating a 'Stop / Go' board. 

 

Without any thought, I commented - 'that's where you'll end up if you don't work hard at school'. Not exactly Ideal-Mother-Motivational-Speaking, but I didn't think much more about it, until I later heard it repeated by one of the kids. It's now become a standard 'family phrase' - one of those sayings that everyone in the family knows and expects.
At work, I've developed various coping mechanisms for when it all gets too much. My favourite has always been a shared team shake of the head and a loud shout of 'it's all bollocks' - never fails to bring some perspective.
When I stop to think about it - there are certain phrases, just a few words, in a particular order, that belong to people I know or have known and loved. Words that automatically bring with them a picture of that person. 
I don't have many memories of my Nan - she died when I was quite young, but to this day if anyone was to say to me 'if Ifs and Ands were pots and pans....' I would immediately be a little girl again, sitting in her flat on a Sunday morning, Two-way Family favourites on the radio, and me coveting her kitchen stool with the fold-up steps.

In praise of small things- part one - playing with letters

Some time ago, my beloved accepted the honour of a meme, passed on to him by Mr London Street. Over the last few weeks he's written a fantastic series of posts about things that never fail to make him smile. The series culminated in a seriously awesome post - 'Messing with my hair' - if you haven't already read it, please do - you may laugh, you may shake your head in disbelief, you may even understand a little more about the strange man I happen to love.
Philip has now passed the meme on to seven other bloggers and, with what I'd like to think was a mixture of love and indulgence rather than simple nepotism, he included me among the seven. 
I'm a little daunted at the idea of following in the footsteps of MLS and my domesticated bohemian, very fine writers both, but there aren't many rules attached - I can write about seven things I like or love, seven things that make me smile, or actually any seven things of my choice, which ought to give me plenty to play with. And I've never been one to wimp out of a challenge. 
We live in a small house, in a small village. I like this small world, being here makes me smile; so I've chosen to write my series about seven other small things that also make me happy. 


In praise of small things - part one - playing with letters


From its title, you might well think that this is a post written in admiration of epistolary efforts. But no, when I talk of playing with letters, I really mean playing. With letters.
I was quite young when I first learned to read, when I understood the magic world that tiny shapes on the page would open up for me. Letters were a code, with a meaning, and I'd unlocked the code. It was the first time I ever felt clever. I loved to read - anything and everything. My Saturday morning wasn't complete unless it included a trip to the children's library in West Norwood and an hour spent choosing the three books I'd be allowed to take home that week.
But I wasn't only fascinated by letters that made words. I loved the letters themselves. 
With a stroke of genius that I have only recently come to appreciate, my Dad invented a series of games that cost next to nothing and involved little effort on his part, but they kept me occupied for hours.
Probably the simplest one was colouring in the letters on an old sheet of newspaper. Any letter that had a closed loop had to be coloured in. 'O's were best - so I'd always do them first, then 'p's and 'd's before the smaller hoops of 'e's and 'a's. Each different letter had to be in a different colour. It was painstaking work - I had to stay inside the circles so the letters were still distinguishable - no mean feat with newsprint, but it looked great when I was finished - my own colour code.
Another favourite with newspaper stories was the 'sausage and mash' game. This was great because it meant Dad would read to us. He'd choose a column from the Telegraph - serious world news was the best - but instead of reading it straight, he'd substitute 'sausages' for every word that began with an 's' and 'mash' for every word that started with an 'm'. Complete nonsense, but almost impossible not to giggle. Go on - try it. It puts a great perspective on politics.
As I grew older the letter games were more challenging - we became quite accomplished at finding over a hundred short words from a single longer one (ok, we were allowed 2-letter words). As we got better at it, we were allowed to set the words - of course we wanted them to be as long as possible - which meant scouring through a dictionary. And although I could never get Dad to accept that wonderful word from Mary Poppins - Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - it was an inspired way to expand our vocabulary. Literally. 
Almost my first foray into poetry was with acrostic poems - I loved that the first letter of each line was so important - that I could read something in the lines across and the first letters down. I learnt to do anagrams, and crosswords, and then came Scrabble. All those letter tiles, each with a value, and an infinite number of uses; a criss-cross pattern of interlocking words. I'm horribly competitive - I always want to win, but I get just as much pleasure from dreaming up the longest words I can, or from changing the meaning of a word on the board by just adding a letter or two. Even now, no trip to see my Mum is complete without a game of Scrabble. 
Several years ago I set up an after-school homework club on an estate in one of the less affluent parts of London. The kids bought along the homework they'd been given at school and after an hour or so we'd finish with a game. I had all sorts of things prepared beforehand, but the one they always wanted was the simple game I'd played as a child - choosing a letter of the alphabet, for which each of them had to think of an animal, a country, a boy's name, a girl's name and an article of clothing - all beginning with the chosen letter. Week after week they pleaded for the alphabet game.
I recently realised another lasting impact when I heard a comment about names spelled backwards - immediately and with no hesitation, I could remember my own name in reverse and hear my Dad calling me it - Norahs Snikrep. 
I sometimes think my desire to write is just an excuse to keep on playing with letters.