Christmas Cards

Earlier this month I returned from a week away to find two timely reminders that Christmas was, indeed, a-comin’. There was a pile of cards on the doormat from those who are infinitely more organised than yours truly, and a story in the papers suggesting that we give Christmas cards a miss – and that from a man of the cloth, the Right Reverend Bishop of Reading Dr Stephen Cottrell.
And for a moment, I was torn.
The Right Rev had a point after all, with his claims that the hustle and bustle, stress and strain of the season of goodwill to all men takes its toll on all and sundry, and clouds the real meaning of Christmas. And yes, cards do gather on the mat, multiply in the hall, and take over mantelpieces, shelves and walls. We, at Orgill Towers, are so short of those aforementioned resting places that ours end up Blue-Tacked on doors, even though every year I visualise them cascading from scarlet velvet ribbon, or nestling in a purpose-designed holder shaped like a Norwegian spruce.
Anyway, that moment of indecision was short-lived. After all, I’d actually made the effort and already spent the cost of a few of bottles of gin on some three-for-the-price-of-two charity designs (I missed last January’s sales), given himself instructions to revise the computer-printed addresses, which was something to do while I was away, and his sole contribution to anything bordering on the Christmas build-up. And then there were all those people out there who we never see from one year’s end to the next, expecting the usual missive.
So I girded my loins and set to with a will. Well, at least the first dozen or so were approached with something bordering on enthusiasm. But doesn’t it pall? I’m not sufficiently organised enough to compile that new-kid-on-the-block, the Round Robin, so it behoves me to write little messages in each – even though I’ve probably seen or spoken to the recipients the day before they plop through their letterboxes. I run out of witty/deep and meaningful/clever things to say, can rarely refer to their family members such as grandchildren because I can’t remember their names, and at our age, there’s always the danger that somebody on the receiving end has died, and nobody’s thought to let us know.
Then there’s the price of the postage, which amounts to a few bottles of Schweppes, and the worry that the Scouts know their way around Derby when you’ve contributed to their dyb-dyb-dyb and woggle fund. Oh dear, against my better judgement, I’m warming to Dr Cottrell’s advice by the minute. But then, he also made an almighty faux-pas by suggesting : "Instead of expensive presents, why not hand out a jar of home-made marmalade or pickled onions?"
I may take his point, though I’d rather settle for a luxurious, if useless, frippery any day, and clearly, the man has never suffered the mess the making of marmalade produces, or sat at the kitchen table, eyes and nose streaming, as he’s peeled a few pounds of shallots. So for this year anyway, I’ve dismissed him in bah-humbug mode, and taken advantage of the credit crunch crisis and every up-to-50-per-cent-off offer in pursuit of that Christmas gift list I am, one day, determined to trim.
I won’t, though, any more than I’ll stop the annual chore of card-writing, because although the spirit of Christmas may be lost in the mists of time, there is no greater joy than giving. Or, in fact, receiving. May I wish our readers not only a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year, but also say to those not on our card list, I trust the grandkids are thriving, your piles are receding, your new dentures fit, and your home-made pickled onions never go soggy. Or is that a Round Robin too far?
end

Home Alone by John Orgill

John Orgill’s column for December 16.
Holilo…1
How many holidays does a woman want in a year?
I knew she was getting a bit twitchy a couple of weeks ago. It all started with murmurings about the credit crunch – not that Ower Luce knows what she’s talking about – and how much cheaper it was to do the big Christmas shop in foreign markets. Not just more economical, she reckoned, but well, you know, gifts with a difference, some imagination. Although to my mind a copy Chanel belt, for the niece-in-law-once-removed, or Louis Vuitton wallet from a Mallorcan market (never mind the quality – just cop the price) for a great-nephew we never see from one year’s end to the next, is hardly worth the cost of the economy-price air fare.
That’s her trouble, you see. My missus buys for all and sundry. And then some.
She gets in a heck of a state at this time of the year. Although she has collected stuff throughout the past ten months, by way of sales, three-for-two-, BOGOFS, and must-haves, by the time Chrissy prezzie time arrives, she’s either forgotten for whom she has bought what, or lost a bag full of "bargains" in that wilderness known to normal folk as a wardrobe. It’s a stressful time for yours truly. So I’ve just waved her a cheery farewell on EasyJet – and came back from East Midlands International shouting "Yippee. I’m free."
But honestly, I wish it was just that simple. Most times when she disappears into the wide blue-ish yonder on a get-out-of-my-space break, my social life perks up. Isn’t it odd how people feel sorry for a man alone? Mates ring up and suggest nipping out for a quickie at the local. Their wives cotton on, and insist I return to their house for a bite to eat. Sisters-in-law who barely give you the time of day for the rest of the year, suddenly take pity on home-alone John and invite you not just for sustenance, but for the entire weekend.
The trouble is, most of these charitable folk have suddenly decided to "do a Lucy". And they, too, have gone on a sun-run to far-flung outposts courtesy of booze-cruises, the Costas, Guernsey, Malta even, leaving me high and dry, and a diet of takeaways, and, in the words of she-who-must-be-obeyed, a poke about in the freezer.
Not only that, Lucy made, as usual, great play of her panic over the dreaded Christmas card list. Oh, she’d bought them – together with the ones she bought in the 2008 January sales, but couldn’t locate at the estimated time of departure. So, would I attempt the honours this year, and at least give her a head start for when she returns from her exhausting sojourn by at least putting pen to card, so that she has but a few stragglers to attend to? Oh, and by the way, it appears you have to write down a bit of a personal missive, just to let friends and acquaintances know that they’re a bit special.
Which is a timely moment to those recipients who received a formal : "Yours sincerely, Lucy and John" that this was nothing personal. Merely a lazy lapse on my part.
Because not only was I deprived of free food and drink, plus the usual home comforts of cosy nights with her by my side but also I was left with instructions to record Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor, I’m A Celebrity .. and all the other dross that dippy women indulge themselves in.
But I am making a stand. I will NOT record any of the above appalling shows. Because a couple of days before she left we had a blockage in the upstairs loo. So for the entire week of her absence I’m having my rubber-gloved hand down the bog. There’s only so much a pre-Christmas martyr can do….
end

Home Alone

Lucy’s column for December 16.
Holilo…1
How many holidays does a woman want in a year?
I knew she was getting a bit twitchy a couple of weeks ago. It all started with murmurings about the credit crunch – not that Ower Luce knows what she’s talking about – and how much cheaper it was to do the big Christmas shop in foreign markets. Not just more economical, she reckoned, but well, you know, gifts with a difference, some imagination. Although to my mind a copy Chanel belt, for the niece-in-law-once-removed, or Louis Vuitton wallet from a Mallorcan market (never mind the quality – just cop the price) for a great-nephew we never see from one year’s end to the next, is hardly worth the cost of the economy-price air fare.
That’s her trouble, you see. My missus buys for all and sundry. And then some.
She gets in a heck of a state at this time of the year. Although she has collected stuff throughout the past ten months, by way of sales, three-for-two-, BOGOFS, and must-haves, by the time Chrissy prezzie time arrives, she’s either forgotten for whom she has bought what, or lost a bag full of "bargains" in that wilderness known to normal folk as a wardrobe. It’s a stressful time for yours truly. So I’ve just waved her a cheery farewell on EasyJet – and came back from East Midlands International shouting "Yippee. I’m free."
But honestly, I wish it was just that simple. Most times when she disappears into the wide blue-ish yonder on a get-out-of-my-space break, my social life perks up. Isn’t it odd how people feel sorry for a man alone? Mates ring up and suggest nipping out for a quickie at the local. Their wives cotton on, and insist I return to their house for a bite to eat. Sisters-in-law who barely give you the time of day for the rest of the year, suddenly take pity on home-alone John and invite you not just for sustenance, but for the entire weekend.
The trouble is, most of these charitable folk have suddenly decided to "do a Lucy". And they, too, have gone on a sun-run to far-flung outposts courtesy of booze-cruises, the Costas, Guernsey, Malta even, leaving me high and dry, and a diet of takeaways, and, in the words of she-who-must-be-obeyed, a poke about in the freezer.
Not only that, Lucy made, as usual, great play of her panic over the dreaded Christmas card list. Oh, she’d bought them – together with the ones she bought in the 2008 January sales, but couldn’t locate at the estimated time of departure. So, would I attempt the honours this year, and at least give her a head start for when she returns from her exhausting sojourn by at least putting pen to card, so that she has but a few stragglers to attend to? Oh, and by the way, it appears you have to write down a bit of a personal missive, just to let friends and acquaintances know that they’re a bit special.
Which is a timely moment to those recipients who received a formal : "Yours sincerely, Lucy and John" that this was nothing personal. Merely a lazy lapse on my part.
Because not only was I deprived of free food and drink, plus the usual home comforts of cosy nights with her by my side but also I was left with instructions to record Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor, I’m A Celebrity .. and all the other dross that dippy women indulge themselves in.
But I am making a stand. I will NOT record any of the above appalling shows. Because a couple of days before she left we had a blockage in the upstairs loo. So for the entire week of her absence I’m having my rubber-gloved hand down the bog. There’s only so much a pre-Christmas martyr can do….
end

Jean Charity

Lucy’s column for December 9
Jeanlo…1
Derby daughter Jean Charity fell in love with Palma, Mallorca, from the top deck of a cruise ship docked in its magnificent harbour.
After the break-down of her marriage to a Derby businessman, and the death of her two precious Maltese terriers, Jean had long felt the need to pick herself up, dust herself down, and start all over again. After all, as she claims, she couldn’t live her life on the edge of her many friends, however supportive and kind they were in her hour of need.
Spurred on by her disillusion with life in the UK, her love of the sun, and itchy feet, the independent and feisty Jean made the decision, there and then, to relocate to this island paradise. For just a couple of years, maybe…. That was eight years ago. And she’s still there. And what’s kept her there? Well, actually, a touch of cancer.
And "A Touch of Cancer" is the title of a book she has written during the past gruelling six years since she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphona, at a very advanced stage. Jean, former secretary to Geoff Lambert at Frank Innes, self-confessed party girl, well known in Derbyshire for her charity work, put down one of the initial symptoms – severe fatigue – to her penchant for partying most of the night at her "somewhat advanced age". She was, in fact, only in her early 60s. There was neither rhyme nor reason for the hair loss, but the diarrhoea she blamed on climatic and dietary changes. And the itching was nothing to do with vagabond shoes feet, but the invasion of weird and wonderful insects which her apartment harboured.
This is no maudlin amble through the trials and tribulations of diagnosis, treatments, prognosis. In the true, up-beat Jean Charity style which her many Derby friends and acquaintances are more aware of than I am, she shows a fearless spirit and acceptance of all that life has thrown at her and her fellow-sufferers. And her humour knows no bounds. She leaves not a stone – good or bad – unturned. But there is a chuckle or a belly-laugh on every page.
Let’s face it, there’s nothing light-hearted about such unsociable conditions as diarrhoea, wind, bladder weakness, but Jean takes them by the throat and squeezes amusement out of them all. Her section on sexual activity is positively side-splitting. But there’s an overwhelming sense of fight, peace, acceptance, throughout.
A lot of it’s down to attitude, apparently, a fact borne out by her Spanish oncologist – and here, we have to bear in mind that Jean was being treated in a foreign land, relying on translators most of the time – who assured her at the time of diagnosis : "You will get through – you have the right attitude". Jean admits a positive attitude is hard to maintain when you’re sick and in pain. But by comparison it serves to make the better days even more precious.
Jean may be far from her Derby roots, but her many friends here have proved a supportive influence on her problem. Indeed, we learned about the book from her old pals Gill Maynard (senior stylist at Keith Hall’s hairdressers, and I’m not saying for how many years!), and that gastronomic host-with-the-most Joe Waldron, when we met them, quite by chance, when they were staying at the smart and expensive La Residencia Hotel, in Deya, Mallorca, where we’d popped in for a drink. They were over there to see Jean, and waxed lyrical about their brave and inspirational friend. I’ve since spoken to her. They didn’t underestimate her courage, compassion and comedy.
Jean will be in Derby in the New Year to launch, and sign, her book. She can be contacted by e-mail at jean@ginales.com. A percentage of the royalties will go to a cancer charity.
end

Comfort Food

Lucy’s column for December 2
Foodlo..1
Ooh, it was a gourmet delight, and one we hadn’t savoured since Adam was a lad.
We’re talking rabbit pie. And it was on the menu at my friend Pauline Phillips’s house the other night. That, along with a huge dish of lamb’s liver and onions. And I was spoilt for choice. I could have been picky and settled for some of each – one or two people did just that, so overwhelmed were they with the options – except it would have meant a smaller piece of pie. But when it comes to rabbit, I’m a bit of a pig. And rabbit is so much tastier than pork, not to mention cheaper.
Indeed, this particular rabbit was free, I understand. It fell off the back of a Landrover, somewhere in the wilds of Derbyshire, making it a well-bred English young buck, which hadn’t so much as glimpsed a supermarket shelf, let alone originated in foreign parts.
In the same week, we dined at our friends the Skivos – Julie and Rob Skivington, who are equally as lavish and imaginative with their hospitality as Pauline. And Julie isn’t behind the oven door when it comes to conjuring up dishes to make your juices run. After all, with five children, four of them strapping lads, she’s had enough practice. But on this particular night, she excelled, with bangers and mash, mushy peas, and onion gravy.
It could be just him and me, but when it comes to food, we go for comfort. Show us a bowl of caviar, and we’ll settle for the home-made tuna pate. Try the temptation of a T-bone, and I’ll be howling for egg and chips. And the one oyster I once attempted didn’t even reach the back of my throat before nausea took over, so there’s not much comfort in that embarrassing dash to the loo.
So you see, with the credit crunch, we’re well prepared on the cheap and cheerful, tasty and nourishing, gastronome front. And I write this in a week when foodies announce, with a great fanfare of trumpets, that beef suet is back on the menu. To be honest, I’d never realised it had been off, because there’s always a packet lurking in our fridge, not just for dumplings, but baked, as a pie crust, in the oven, and so much simpler to make than pastry.
During my time as women’s editor of this paper, with a regular cookery column, it was a standing joke that Lucy knew fourteen ways with a pound of mince, and it has to be said that mince still figures largely in this household’s culinary delights, emerging as rissoles, cottage pies, the more exotic lasagnes, and easy-peasy spag bols. And casseroles and stews reign supreme, bulked out with loads of vegetables to keep the five-a-day police off our backs. These concoctions are switched on at bed-time, and next morning, what better to waken up to than the heavenly smell of that night’s dinner.
You see, I couldn’t exist without a slow cooker, which is in action at least once a week. On a tour of Derbyshire recently, we happened upon the famous Maycock’s butchers in Holloway. It was where Julie bought the aforementioned sausages, in so many flavours and varieties that she couldn’t choose – so ended up with two of each. And it was there I espied a whole ox tail, just begging to be bought. That, alongside a couple of pounds of shin beef and kidney, has made three huge meat pies, and two bowls of stew.
There should be somebody out there passing on this old-fashioned, economical fare to today’s youngsters who aim for little more than a burger in a bun. Even I’m still learning. It’s over to Pauline, because I haven’t cooked a rabbit for 40 years.
end

Home is where ....

Lucy’s column for November 25
Homelo..1
They say that home is where the heart is. Or, it has been said, the hearth. And in my very early days, that usually meant a black-leaded grate, with a side oven which permanently housed a simmering stew pot, and a shelf-like contraption on a bracket which swung back and forth over the fire on which sat a blackened, but non-stop bubbling, kettle.
After years of fiddling with flues, dampers, spitting kettles and boiled-dry casseroles, how my mother glowed with pride, and sighed with relief, when the great lump of heavy metal, which took her most of Friday to clean within an inch of its life, was yanked out, and replaced with thoroughly modern tiled fireplace. She still had to deal with the ashes, the coal bucket, paper sticks, kindling, and the twice-yearly mess known as the visit of the chimney sweep. So that, on the eventual installation of a flick-of-a-switch gas fire, she must have thought all her birthdays had come at once.
Fast forward a generation or two, and what have we got in its place? In our case, central heating, with a pretend coal-fuelled stove in one room, which glows like the real thing if we can be bothered to plug it in, and in another, a rather smart dog grate, complete with real logs, but with a red-glow bulb where the flickering flames should be. It could have been different. We could have opted for pebbles and posh candles.
But there are house-hunters who still crave those old-fashioned forms of heating the house – though they insist on the back-up of radiators, just to be on the safe, snug and warm side. I’ve watched them swoon at the sight of an ancient range, sigh over an ingle-nook, go potty at the idea of a belching pot-bellied stove. And how do I know? Well, I’m a closet day-time telly-viewer who occasionally catches a glimpse of these "to buy or not to buy a house in the country/in the sun" shows which crop up with alarming regularity.
Fireplaces apart, the wish-list of some of these home-seekers never ceases to amaze.
It’s hard not to hark back to dolly-tubs and wooden mangles in the back yard when they’re presented with fully-fitted, shiny utility rooms bigger and better than the average kitchen, and the tin bath hanging on the kitchen door when they’re viewing family bathrooms, wet rooms, shower rooms, and the ubiquitous en-suites, sometimes all in the same building. Other home-comfort must-haves appear to be a study, children’s room, summer room, TV room, snug, loft living space, and a kitchen vast enough to incorporate a banquet-size table, three-piece, family games computer, and 52-inch flat screen TV just in case there isn’t somewhere to house the home cinema.
In one recent airing, the would-be purchaser also demanded a room for the dogs. It’s not that long since it was the norm for kids to not only share a bedroom, but sleep three or four to a bed. The dog often had its own space, admittedly. It was known as a kennel.
I’ve not even touched on the basement, with its rumpus and games rooms, wine cellar, or the triple garage with electronic up-and-over doors. In the majority of the programmes, these are families with fewer than 2.4 children, and often couples looking to "downsize". Is it all a bid to keep up with the Jones’s? Or simply, like me, a deep-seated phobia of coal buckets and fire-lighters?

Ginlo..1
I’ll raise a glass to my favourite tipple, the gin and tonic, which last week celebrated 150 years as the world’s first cocktail. It’s long been a nightly treat as I cook the dinner. And I assuage any guilt by considering its juniper berries and lemon slice as two of those five-a-day fruit portions the health police are always banging on about.
end

Ross-Brand affair

Lucy’s column for November 18.
Celeblo…1
Assuming the dust has just about settled on the Brand-Ross affair – nothing to do with fish fingers – and the Beeb, can I stick my head above the parapet and give my two penn’orth?
To get it out of the way, until the recent furore, I’d barely heard of the chap Brand, except to gather he was a long-haired, sex-mad, would-be "comedian" with a penchant for puerile behaviour, and not a lot going on upstairs. As regards his oppo, the boy Ross, he was the one whose juvenile Saturday morning programme on Radio 2 – complete with a sycophantic Andy who was forced to titter uncontrollably at his boss’s pathetic attempts at humour – made us switch the off-button on our hitherto happy weekend wireless listening many years ago. To be fair, I shouldn’t really be commenting because I’ve rarely been privy to the pathetic pair. Except they belong right there. In the privy.
But I can. As a wartime baby, I was brought up on the wireless. This was in the days before TV reared its intrusive head. We listened to elections, Grand Nationals, Wimbledon, the news. And if we hadn’t been fortunate enough to have a neighbour with a telly, the Queen’s Coronation would have been heard, and not seen.
Our crackling, Bakelite affair was permanently tuned in to the Light Programme, as opposed to the Home Service, which was a bit more serious.
Friday night was Music Night, with Henry Hall and his Orchestra. There was a daily dose of Housewives’ Choice, which my mother and her four sisters wrote in to regularly with birthday requests, to no avail, though the thought of hearing their names over the airways kept them glued.
Who could forget Workers’ Playtime? - with the presenter visiting office and factory locations all over the country, and the euphoria of Down Your Way, with Franklin Engelman, actually coming to Matlock is embedded in my psyche because we knew most of the people interviewed. And no Sunday dinner and its lazy aftermath was complete without Two Way Family Favourites, the Billy Cotton Band Show, and Sing Something Simple.
It wasn’t just music which raised the wartime, post-war, and rationing spirits. The likes of Al Read, Charlie Chester, Tommy Handley, Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne kept the nation chuckling, and Round the Horn, with its clever innuendo courtesy of Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick, may have been a tad risque, but was never the in-your-face vulgarity we hear today.
Compare Have a Go, with Wilfred Pickles, and Violet Carson, who went on to find fame as Coro’s Ena Sharples, at the piano, Twenty Questions, and Top of the Form, with the current offering of brash, garish quiz shows, and you had entertainment without the glitz and the greed.
Way before soap operas, and even The Archers, we had our everyday stories of family folk with Meet the Huggets and Life with the Lyons. Educating Archie made ventriloquist Peter Brough a household name – no, you couldn’t see his lips move – and stars of that cheeky little wooden puppet Archie Andrews’ sidekicks, Petula Clark and Max Bygraves.
This is not to dismiss totally BBC radio’s present-day offerings, though I can’t speak for Radio One because I’ve never actually sought it on my dial. But early morning "Bunty" – Sarah Kennedy, who can be a bit of a hoot, but never vile – Wogan and his TOGs, Ken Bruce, Jeremy Vine, Steve Wright, and Chris Evans, and the occasional dose of deep and meaningful discussion on Radio Four, are the characters and programmes which make for a favourite "Auntie".
Those who need their daily dose of vulgarity and bile should do what I had to when my mother whittered on at me for listening to Radio Luxembourg’s brain-numbing, wall-to-wall music: get under the bedclothes, with a fading battery and a dodgy station.
end

Blast from the past

Lucy’s column for November 11th.
Pastlo…1
A blast from my past flew through cyber-space all the way from 6514 Joy Road, Dexter, Michigan, a couple of weeks ago. And if anybody from the Canal Street/Carrington Street area of Derby, circa late 50s, early 60s, remembers the corner off-licence there, run by Ray and Betty Greatorex, then their son Clive wants to hear from them.
I recall the couple who kept what was known as "the 10 o’clock shop" – presumably because it stayed open until 10 pm – and their children, though, 50 years on, I wouldn’t have known their names. But Clive reminisces about his parents rushing over to the Barley Corn Inn, Canal Street, which my parents kept for a while, for the last half-hour’s drinking. And it was there that I, apparently, gave him some Elvis 78s, which he still has, hanging on the basement of his home, in what looks from the photograph to be a shrine to the King.
With his missive came a few more photos, including one of his mum – now 85 – and me, at a dance. I’d have been about 20 at the time, and we were both dolled up to the nines, yours truly, in what must have been a Grace Kelly moment, sporting a strapless gown, what looks like my granny’s "good" pearls, hair done up in a chignon, and with not just a waist, but one measuring little more than 20 inches. That’s near enough my dress size today!
Another photograph is of customers presenting Betty and Ray with a clock, when they retired from the shop. I don’t recognise anybody, but these are some of the people Clive wants to track down because he’s writing an account of his life for his grandchildren – grandchildren? He’s nowt but a lad.
I’m still waiting to hear where his mother lives, and how he arrived on Joy Road, Dexter, but from images on Google Earth, Clive has done very well for himself because his house looks like Southfork.
Incidentally, he and his wife supported Barak Obama, Michigan being an Obama State, and this isn’t his first venture into the hallowed columns of the Derby Telegraph. A few years ago he wrote an article for Bygones on the group he played in during the 60s, as a lead up to the Big Beat Bash in 2002, at the old Locarno, which resulted in "hooking up" with a few old friends. He can be e-mailed on clive_gtx@yahoo.com
I’m not too sure these recollections of our youth do much for our today’s image.
Twice every year, I meet up with my friend Pauline Worthy, nee Cowley, formerly of Darley House Estate, which was a bit posh, and with whom I shared my primary school days, and teenage and early motherhood years. We had such a day just the other week. Pauline, still as bright, bubbly, and talkative as ever, is a constant reminder of my School Certificate failures – she went on to teacher training college, and by the age of 22, was teaching English and maths at a Matlock secondary school. She gave up teaching to go into a heady and Very High Powered career with the Civil Service. And during all this, she and husband Alan produced four strapping sons – two more than me.
She turns up in blue mascara, the latest must-have fashion, perfectly coiffed hair, and is totally wrinkle-free. She regularly reminds me of when I was the flirty, flighty, blonde bombshell of what was known as the Matlock monkey-run, which took us across the town’s stone bridge, along Dale Road to the wooden foot-bridge, and back along the Hall Leys park, all the while pretending not to be on the look-out for lads!
Memories are made of this. Perhaps readers could help Clive Greatorex with his.
end

Sex education

Sexlo contd…2
It has to be said that this bit of role play was more to do with bandages and broken legs than giving birth, because in our tender years, babies came in a doctor’s little black bag, or from under a gooseberry bush, so I probably believed I was born on the local allotments because all we had in our garden was a few sticks of rhubarb. But we kept our eye on that doctor’s visits, and lo and behold, the sighting of the local GP with his Gladstone often resulted in Mrs So-and-So emerging a week or two later with a swaddled infant.
I really don’t recall any serious sex education, either from school or from my mother, and it was probably at secondary school where I learned the life-cycle of a frog, and the prolific mating habits of rabbits, which all ended up in a bit of a giggle-fest. But I was fortunate enough to spend the first few years of that secondary education at boarding school, so what I learned from after-lights-out girly talk, plus the bodily-changes of my peers, was enough to set me on the straight and narrow as a teenager. My mum, bless her call-a-spade-a shovel character, must have fought shy of the whole shebang.
Apart from regularly uttering the mantra : "Like time and tide, wait for no man" - which has stood me in good stead all my life! – her one acknowledgement of my coming-of-puberty was two bras, two pairs of stockings, two suspender belts, and a pack of you-know-what, languishing on my bed one half-term.
I’m not suggesting that my experience was proper and correct. But I’m convinced that a childhood free of all the trials and tribulations of womanhood when you’re nowt but a nipper is the innocence today’s children deserve. And guess what? None of we ignoramuses became teenage mothers.
end

Sex Education

Lucy’s column for November 4th
Sexlo…1
Now, what was I doing when at infants and primary school? I certainly had the three Rs drilled into me, by a lovely team of teachers who I thought were ancient, but with some perhaps only in their 30s, but delivered with such intensity and interest that by the time I left Class One, I could read, and ‘rite, though ‘rithmatic baffled me then. And continues so to do.
It was a school play-time of hopscotch, skipping games, hand-stands, and leap-frog, all the while willing the lads to loan you a conker or a bull’s eye marble to show your prowess on the macho front. Before sulking on the back row of the form’s afternoon music sessions with the miserable triangle when you craved the front row with the tambourine – the boys always got the drums – or dreaming of the day you were asked to read out YOUR poem, or landing the part of the Virgin Mary in the school’s nativity instead of a one-liner angel with dodgy wings and chunky legs.
What I’m getting round to saying is that there were far more things to worry about as a school-kid than sex-n-drugs-rock-n-roll. This comes in the light of the latest edict from our nincompoop nanny state, which proclaims sex sessions for tiny tots as young as five. It’s something I cannot get to grips with.
When we weren’t belting around the playground, playing hide and seek or tick-a-nit, the majority of my female compatriots were at home with whips and tops, a dressing-up box, in the back yard under the clothes horse covered with a sheet with a tea-set and soggy sandwiches our claim to housewifery fame. We had dolls and prams – my friend, animal lover Lil Bancroft, didn’t have dolls and made do with the family cat, done up in a bonnet, lolling in the pram, until one legged it in the Arboretum, but that’s another story - before moving on to Doctors and Nurses.

Enjoying bad health

Lucy’s column for October 21st
Doclo..1
Years ago, my mother once said of a neighbour who was a permanent fixture in the local doctor’s surgery queue : "She enjoys bad health…".In other words, she was a hypochondriac. This was the section of society which my old mum treated with total contempt, since she was one of those stoics who, in the 46 years I knew her, never went into hospital, and succumbed in her latter years only to an under-active thyroid which meant taking a tablet a day – which she loathed and detested doing, treating it as a weakness, rather than a life-saver.
Indeed, on the day she died, in her 81st year, she woke up feeling "a bit iffy", went downstairs and rang the doctor, went back to bed to await his arrival, and shuffled off her mortal coil as calmly and uncomplainingly as she had lived her life, just a couple of hours later.
So this "can’t bother that busy doctor – mustn’t be a drain on the NHS", attitude must have rubbed off on me, because I really have to gird my loins before I pick up a phone and ask for appointments. I don’t suffer from what’s known as the white coat syndrome so far as I know. I like to think I have a fairly good relationship with the young man who’s been monitoring my fairly hum-drum and boringly normal blood pressure for the past 20 years. I tend to limit my visits to perhaps two a year. But when I go, I certainly go, with a list, and the question : "Shall we start with my head, and work downwards, or the other way around?"
That doesn’t mean to say I’m a paragon of virtuous good health. In fact, most days I feel like rubbish, and my one gleeful thought of the day is actually waking up – alive and kicking. So far, I’ve been in hospital for the birth of one of my two babies – I had the second at home – wisdom teeth extraction, varicose veins – which came back with a vengeance just a few years later, and are still there – and the dreaded breast cancer lumpectomy. I can’t really count the cataracts. It only took about 20 minutes and I didn’t even have to take so much as my shoes off.
But despite my reluctance to cave in to what is known in medical circles as "the fat file" – the aforementioned hypochondria – I’m in the hospital appointments, and repeat prescriptions, loop. I have a yearly blood-letting date. And an annual mammogram at the Breast Clinic. And yes, the Statins are washed down with the nightly cocoa. I’m a martyr to a hideous corn, and a "bad back". As I write, the latter has been stopped in its tracks with some over-the-counter pain killers, and a heat-emitting ugly truss thing-y, which himself found on Google, which was lying beside me, stuck to the sheets, along with a corn plaster, next morning.
Talking of feet – oh, those 50s stilettoes have a lot to answer for – he, and Google, have come up with a cheese-grater contraption heralded as The Ultimate Foot File, so gentle it won’t burst a balloon, which claims to remove callouses and dry skin, neither of which I suffer from. I’m not sure what my chiropodist June Allen will make of it. It may trap the shavings in a little egg. But nothing calms a corn like June.
Currently, I’m awaiting the results of recent visits to the jolly vampires at the DRI, and the wonderful girls at the Derby City General Breast Unit. Fingers crossed. Back aching. Corn throbbing. I hope I don’t sound smug. I so want to be like my mum.
end

No diamonds

Lucy’s column for October 7.
Drivelo…1
That promised diamond ring becomes more Zirconian by the minute, the cruise ship has drifted away to just a dot on some exotic horizon.
In their place is a leak-free new roof on the kitchen extension, and a re-vamp of this office-cum-laundry-room-cum-pantry, which now boasts a lick of paint, a potted plant, and pictures of Elvis including a collage of leaves somebody nicked on a visit to Graceland. And since Ower Annie drifted off to the pilchard palace in the sky a few weeks ago, we no longer have to share it with a litter tray and a dish of wilting Whiskas.
Give or take a set of must-have tyres on his ridiculously expensive-to-run boy toy, and some fancy new doors on the ancient garage, the sponduliks have been gushing out of our account faster than the rain poured in through our aforementioned roof.
But new tyres? Posh garage doors? Makes the drive look a tad shabby, he reckoned. Which resulted in a visit from our mate Gary Wilkins and his team from DPL Paving Ltd, which stands for drives, patios and landscapes, but which joker Guggy – for that is his nickname – suggests could be interpreted as dips, puddles and lakes.
It was nigh-on week of diggers and bumpers, hard-core and steam-rollers, endless bacon butties, more tea than a NAAFI canteen, and loads of good-natured banter, resulting in the shiniest, smoothest, car-parking space in Littleover.
When, a few months back, I suggested using some of that rainy-day money to enhance our fast-approaching dotage, the last thing I anticipated was using it on boring, sensible, joyless ventures. I had frivolity in mind. Then along comes the credit crunch, and of course, by now, the diamond is reduced to glass, and the liner has sunk without trace.
But heck, I can now walk to this infernal computer without falling headlong into the clothes basket, straighten the nets, peer in the pantry pull-outs and actually see a tin of spaghetti hoops rather than run the risk of being knocked senseless by one. There’s the added advantage of a paddle-free kitchen without strategically-placed buckets and floating mats – not to mention wet, whingeing cats - and those garage doors could well be the golden gates to paradise, such is their sparkle and allure.
But it’s that vast expanse of shiny Tarmac and prettily paved edges which has done it for me. Guggy has incorporated into the "design" a state-of-the-art wheelie-bin park, and a cosy corner with room for a patio table and chairs from which to watch the washing dry. Oh, the bliss of a back yard, to be able to peg out with impunity instead of side-stepping dodgy concrete and craters.
And who needs a flash solitaire when he’s treated me to a new clothes line?
Catlo…1
Ower Annie’s passing – her demise was well documented in this column a couple of weeks ago - didn’t go without tribute from other cat-lovers. Hot on the e-mail came a note from fellow feline fancier and columnist Anton Rippon, whose own two beauties are the family’s pride and joy, and who wrote with sincerity, and a tear in his eye.
This was followed by a call from, again, Derby Telegraph columnist, former sports editor, and cat man, too, Gerald Mortimer, who was moved enough to pick up the phone and express his condolences. And we also received a couple of thinking-of-you cards – one from my old mate Michael Nazaruk of Mickleover, the other from Doreen Hatton of Allestree, who I’ve not seen for years, but remember as a tireless worker for animal charities. Thank you all for your thoughts. But no, and thrice nay, no more cats at Orgill Towers. No, not even the prettiest, fluffiest kitten in the world.

Dustbins

Lucy’s column for September 30.
Binlo…1
Oh dear, just as we are lulled into the false sense of security that in Derby, at least, our bin men are more benevolent than bullying, we get a slap on the wrist at Orgill Towers. Our crime? We put a plastic bag of hedge clippings in the brown wheelie, on top of the other garden refuse. Yes, it was that bad, dire enough to have a sticker slapped on telling us there were "inappropriate contents" inside, which meant they couldn’t empty it.
Unusually for himself, he didn’t storm the town hall steps bearing a placard with rude words on it, dragging the offensive receptacle, like he threatens he’ll do. Indeed, apart from tearing off the label, which is why I’m not sure of the exact wording, and mouthing a few expletives, he accepted that it was our fault, a stupid oversight, and in future he Must Do Better.
But really, it’s not beyond the wit of bin-man to tap him on the shoulder – he was but a few yards away when the "crime" was uncovered – and ask him to remove the bag, or knock on the door with the same request. Naturally, we wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that the refuse collector just jiggle about with the contents himself, and leave the black bag tucked into the lid. It’s clearly more than his job’s worth.
Our minor incident happened in a week when it was reported that a single mum faced a £700 fine. No, she hadn’t been caught dealing drugs, wielding a knife, or even driving dangerously – oh, silly me, they don’t warrant substantial fines, just a spell of counselling or community service, and never mind if you don’t turn up for either. Her heinous offence was under the heading "advancement of rubbish", meaning she’d put out her bin bags on the wrong day.
A couple of days later, another householder was left with a pile of flattened cardboard, which the recycling men wouldn’t take because it wasn’t cut up small enough.
Then we’ve had the 95-year-old whose collection was refused because he’d put a sauce bottle in the wrong bin by mistake. Not to mention the number of litter bins left unemptied because they were too near the kerb/too far away from the kerb /half-in-half-out of the garden gate/too far to trundle.
It’s the petty-fogging bureaucracy from power-mad councils which make you want to weep for the state of this country.
And you never know who’s lurking in the park these days, do you?
I’m not talking the would-be mugger, or potential paedophile, here. It’s the tinpot town hall dictators imposing petty laws, not to mention hefty fines, on all and sundry.
We read about it every day. There’s always some jobsworth prowling around, waiting to pounce should you drop a crumb, walk on the grass, or, heaven forbid, kick a ball with your toddler, or throw a bit of mouldy Hovis to the ducks.
Law-abiding citizens are sick and tired of being "criminalised" by a Government which is handing even more authority to local councils to create these rules, and more, with hefty financial penalties should we fall foul of these new laws. We can only hope they’re on the case should a mugger, paedophile, riot instigator, or to a lesser degree, a failure to pick up dog-poo criminal, raise their anti-social heads.
Meanwhile, back at our ranch, we will try never again to flout the laws of recycling our rubbish, if you, in turn, will use a bit of nous and common sense if we happen to have a senior moment. Talking of which, I’m the mad woman who, the week before Christmas collection, can be seen at 7am standing on the street corner in my nightie, wielding your £10 Christmas tip. Buoyed in the belief that such bureaucracy doesn’t happen in Derby.
End

Fox Watch

Lucy’s column for September 23.
Foxlo..1
We’ve been on fox watch for the past fortnight, which means hail, rain, and even that rare itzy bitzy shining moment, has found us huddled in a corner of the copse – okay, two fir trees and a bush – waiting for a special visitor.
Oh, we’ve fed foxes for years, and viewed their nocturnal dining from a strategic spot which involved a bit of curtain-twitching on our part, and some furtive foraging on theirs, with them taking to their heels if they realised they were being spied on. But a couple of weeks ago, in broad daylight, a cheeky little blighter bounced into a bit of garden inches from the back door. And there he sat, brazen as you like, almost daring us to approach him. Which we did. And he didn’t move a muscle.
Instead, this nearly-grown cub daintily and delicately took food from our hands. Mind you, it was a better class of fare. First came the Sunday roast lamb bone, which he proceeded to bury. But perhaps some instinct had told him that I’d had a purge on the pantry, because he sat on his haunches waiting for the pudding – Cadbury’s flake, long forgotten and turning white, and chocolate digestives so soggy he could be forgiven for thinking they had already been dunked.
We spoon-fed him for nigh-on 20 minutes before he disappeared. We’re now worried that he may have suffered death by chocolate, because despite all our observation efforts, he hasn’t been back.
But there’s always somebody to "top that".
St Francis of Assissi can eat his heart out when it comes to our friends Lil and daughter Dorn Bancroft, the Saints Francesca of Chaddo. Their neighbouring gardens in the midst of suburbia are wildlife havens. Recently, and with a little bit of help from the gas board which had to demolish her fireplace, Dorn rescued two baby squirrels trapped in the chimney breast. And such was their appreciation that, even on returning them to the waiting parents after a couple of days of comestibles and cuddles, they were at her back door and in the house before she could shout "Nuts!".
They are also fox afficianados, and I couldn’t wait to relate our close encounter. Follow that, I thought. But wait for it. One night, as Dorn and son Harris sat in their garden, surrounded by stray cats, leaping frogs, squirrels pleading to be taken into care, in strolled a fox. Quick as a flash, he was in her conservatory, emerging seconds later with her best slippers. Which he proceeded to tear to shreds.
A few days later, in the middle of the day, Lil – who actually buys grapes for the squirrels, has more bird feeders than an endangered species sanctuary, and actively encourages a good slug-eating toad when she sees one – returned from pottering in the front garden to find her best shoes, chewed up, in the back. A fox had not only been in. He’d fetched them from her bedroom. To add insult to injury, he’d tiddled in them!
But, amphibians apart, isn’t wildlife watching wonderful? Friend and fellow columnist Anton Rippon takes great delight in clocking not only frogs, which make me phobic, in their special pond positioned next to his smokers’ gazebo – which has a ditto effect on him - but field mice, as well as the birds and the bees which take sanctuary at Ripponville.
Friends Annie and Dave Colville, and Phyl and Derek Lyon, have followed us in the fox-feeding frenzy, but so far, none of them have fed them manky chocolate from their hands. And it’s going to be a struggle to keep up with Dorn and Lil. But not one of us is going to compare with the recent South African experience of daughter-in-law Claire who, as recounted last week, came face to face with a hyena at her safari cabin door.
end

Having the kids

Lucy’s column for September 16th.
Kidslo…1
It’s debatable who drew the short straw – daughter-in-law Claire, on an adventurous, 12-day trip to South Africa. Or the two of us – part-responsible for the grandchildren while she was away. I say part-responsible, because their dad, our son, Simon, was here, but at work. And my word, did their friends rally when it came to taking them off our hands.
But even so, there was the daunting prospect of catering for, and entertaining, 13-year-old Jacob and nine-year-old Grace, who, together with mum, had gone through lip-trembling farewells at Heathrow, but for the sakes of each other, had put on bold and brave fronts. Never since they were babies, who didn’t care so long as somebody shoved a bottle, or a pot of pureed parsnips, in at one end, and cleaned up the other, over a parents’ weekend away, had we had them for so long.
The first hurdle was our six-hour round-trip journey – yes, the ubiquitous tail-backs – to and from Heathrow, with two youngsters who’d just seen their precious mum off to the land of man-eating lions, being fractious and falling out, over whose turn with the I-Pod, tally of Eddie Stobart lorries, choice of granny-labour-saving take-aways when we eventually hit Derby, (Chinese or chippy – no contest, according to each of them, so long as one had the crispy duck and the other the battered cod), and who won the grandparental double bed, all to themselves.
As it happened, Grace won the Stobart contest, Jacob the bed, granny lost out on the food front by conjuring up something yummy in the egg-and-chip pan. And granddad took several hours to calm down from driving seat road rage, placated eventually by a home-made-chips buttie.
But for all that, they were stars. All of them.
For Claire, a teacher at Silverhill School, Mickleover, it was a privileged trip of a lifetime, on a teacher exchange at a school in Durban. It must have been enough leaving behind Simon, Jacob and Grace, but facing a 15-hour journey, alone, with a flight change at Johannesburg, borders on the scary. Coupled with that, she felt nauseous all the way there, and was physically sick during the flight back. She missed her husband and kids for the entire duration. And what could be worse – conducting assembly for nigh-on 800 pupils, or eye-balling a hyena in the dead of night, during a trip to the loo on a weekend safari?
On the up-side, Claire, a dyed-in-the-wool professional, following both parents and grandmother into teaching, claims she had the experience of a lifetime, and loved every moment of the interest, questions, inquisitiveness, and affection, she provoked from the Durban youngsters. As for her own children – I can say, as a grandma, they were an absolute credit in terms of behaviour, fun, bravado, and stoicism.
On the down-side, they breakfasted on chocolate donuts and Coca-Cola between fried-egg sandwiches and beans-on-toast, and ran me ragged round the shops – Grace insisting on real mother-disapproving glittery eye-shadow, which resulted in what looked like styes, and Jacob demanding to go-it-alone in the Westfield Centre, where he spent over an hour – and twenty quid – perusing books.
Family friends Janet, Sue, Marie-Louise, and school-friend Isobel, provided pleasure–filled days for Grace, and Jacob had a super sleep-over with pal and fellow-Scout Matthew. Grace and I enjoyed girly shopping and chatty nights, Jacob and granddad took over the TV and computer without anybody yelling "You’ll get square eyes and a mushy brain."
As for Simon, he played a blinder. On the nights they stayed at home, he dragged down every duvet, pillow, cushion, they possessed, forming what resembled a Bedouin tent, and there they lay, together with the cat, munching pizzas and watching dvds. Claire – feel free to roam the world. Safe in the knowledge that your kids are happy – though not necessarily healthy!
end

Ower Annie

Lucy’s column for September 9th.
Catlo…1
For nigh-on nineteen years, she ruled out household. With eyes the colour of topaz, and plush grey fur as soft as chenille, she was beautiful. And she knew it. But last week, Ower Annie, the cat we have adored, and in turn, despaired of at times, gasped her last and shuffled off to that paradise of tinned salmon and squirty cream.
She was the last in a long line of family felines stretching back nearly 40 years. Our first, Georgina, lasted 21 years, and was the only one we’d chosen as a kitten, born in the boiler house at the old Manor Hospital. The rest – six in all – just sort of crept through the cat-flap when we weren’t looking, and before we knew it, had their paws under a groaning Whiskas and Felix-filled cat dish, and languid bodies stretched out on various sofas and beds.
At one time, we had three ensconced in Orgill Towers, when Spy – so named because, as a homeless hobo, he came in from the cold one November night – was later joined by Annie, and her sister Emily. Both had flitted from next door, home of our friends and neighbours, Nick and Colette Ball, never to return there. From the moment she perched herself on the kitchen chair nearest the radiator, Annie established herself as Top Cat. Spy, ever the gentleman, was a wuss in her presence. Emily, who eventually went to live with my late son Matthew and his fiancee Rose, trembled in her wake.
Visitors could be forgiven for thinking she was one of those posh, pedigree, Russian Blues, and indeed, she conducted herself as some sort of Tsarina – imperious, disdainful, picky, cold and snooty, choosing a satin cushion over a cosy knee any day, and a food-bowl faddy who refused to eat with the others.
But cop her lolling on a garden-lounger on a sunny day with the light behind her, and were signs of wrong-side-of-the-blanket ginger-tom parenthood among the bluey-grey. And when it came to the nitty-gritty of camouflaging herself as a branch as she sat in a tree waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting sparrow, or stalking a mouse through the garden undergrowth, she was wily, vicious, cruel, and just as yobbish, as her fellow-moggies. We’ve even seen her whack a few foxes around the face when they’ve dared invade her space.
But there was a loving side to her, signs which showed as she grew older, and the other cats croaked. A flick of the landing light switch, and she’d be down the bed before I could say "pyjamas". She greeted every visitor, and when they left, she’d join us at the garden gate to say goodbye. Off for a walk? Ower Annie would trot along beside us. And she is the only cat I’ve know to be barred from a bar. It became her absolute right to accompany us to the nearby Fairholme Club, where she’d tour the grounds before settling down on the settee. One night, though, a member complained because she was allergic to cats. Ever after, we had to sneak out for a drink, and trust she wouldn’t follow.
Like all old stagers, whether they’re aristocratic or common as muck, her quality of life suffered over the past year. Though she ventured out, would hurtle back in and do what she should have done outside, inside. In the end, the dreaded cancer got her, and thanks to the gentle and sympathetic hand of a vet and nurse from the Scarsdale Veterinary Clinic, was put to sleep, on my knee, on her beloved kitchen sofa.
All signs of her existence were gone in half-an-hour. The cat-flap is locked. Anybody turning up with a fluffy kitten will go away with a cat flea in their ear. Annie Orgill has left the building. And we miss her like mad.
end

Clearing his wardrobe

Lucy’s column for August 19.
Wardlo…1
He was, once upon a time, the picture of sartorial elegance – all Daniel Hechter suits and silk ties. But then, he had an image to keep up, in the heady word of telly, and the cutting edge of PR.
But retirement does something to a man, and the slob emerges – in his case, the vagrant, though I’ve seen better dressed tramps wandering our streets. He’s happiest in the sort of holey jumpers and stained slacks which most men wouldn’t even consider wearing to dig the allotment.
His trouble is, he won’t throw anything away. Shirts with frayed cuffs and collars will always "come in handy". Flares, and the sort of lapels once sported by spivs and comedian Max Miller, could, according to himself, make a come-back. And he’ll be ahead of fashion. The aforementioned sweaters are his comfort zone. (His favourite, one of those emblazoned with that little alligator logo which once spelled the height of cool, I bought for my late son, Matthew, in 1984).
And then, there’s his anorak. Well, there are two of these cazzy, but decidedly un-smart, garments which spend entire winters on his back, and summers lurking in the cubby-hole at the top of the cellar steps. One is a woolly creature, several sizes too big, and there’s a paper-clip where the zip-pull should be. The other is just a nasty grey thing, all elastic waist and poacher’s pockets, which could have come from the wardrobe department of Last of the Summer Wine. Which it may well have done, since he once had access to the wardrobe sales at Central TV, when they produced light entertainment programmes there, and once came home with a frilly shirt with the late Bob Monkhouse’s name stamped across the collar, and a pair of shoes belonging to Lionel Blair.
Suffice to say, the shoes didn’t make him dance any better, probably because they nipped his toes. And the shirt went the way of all singed nylon frills – okay, I confess, I did it on purpose. It’s tough enough ironing straight bits, so I’m blessed if I’m expected to faff with frilly bits.
Right now, I’m sitting here with a smug grin on my chops. I’ve just done a major purge on his closet. Shirts, trousers, moth-eaten woollies, several threadbare jackets, even what I recall was his wedding suit – and we’ve been married 37 years – were dumped in bin-bags awaiting a trip to the recycling plant at Raynesway. Oh, I had the decency to tell him. Which was perhaps my downfall.
Because that self-satisfied smile has just turned to egg on my face. As I dragged him, kicking and screaming, from the vision of what must be the neatest hanging space in Littleover, proud as Punch about my major effort on his behalf, he threw an almighty wobbly. The bags were retrieved, everything strewn across the kitchen floor, and you’ve guessed it, half the stuff is back, cluttering up those imaginatively colour-co-ordinated rails. The rest, he’s carted off to the charity shop, screeching : "If I can’t have them, they’ll be snapped up by somebody else."
Heaven help us, what more does a man of his age need other than a selection of half-decent shirts, trousers of every hue, two Daks jackets – they never date, apparently, and if they’re never worn, don’t wear out – a funeral suit, and a second one which will take him to weddings, christenings, and any other event which cries out for a tie? It’s not as if we spend our time swanning off to soirees, or cruising into the sunset with the ship’s captain’s table beckoning.
Besides which, I’d kept back a ganzy, gruesome enough to garden in. And those anoraks are still mouldering in the cubby. There are some things even I daren’t dump!
end

Camping Horrors

Lucy’s column for August 12.
Camplo…1
We’ve had some rum holidays in our time.
We once joined forces with my sister’s family to rent a cottage in the wilds of Wales, advertised in the Sunday Times, no less, so it should be posh. But nothing prepared us for a flock of sheep dancing on the roof at regular intervals – the house was built into the rain-swept hillside – nor for the bath, standing on bricks in the kitchen, ferns cascading from the ceiling, and a family of toads under the wonky floor-boards.
The two cars both left bits of their under-belly on the mile-long track up to this sparsely-furnished shack – we found the "complete with telly" under a tea-cosy - and the one channel we could summon showed wall-to-wall Eisteddfod. Worse still, we were in a North Wales "dry" county, so our Sunday lunchtime drink was scuppered. Desperation drove us to join the not-so-dry Conservative Club for the day, totally at odds with the old man’s left-wing leanings, but needs must when the devil drives.
And it was North Wales which set the scene for our next adventure, this time a family-run hotel recommended to us by our late friend and colleague, Alan Smith. The setting was exquisite, the food and facilities excellent. But it turned out to be not so much "family" as "familiar", as the old-retainer odd-job-man, who doubled as a waiter and bottle-upper, took a shine to himself. He served him last at every meal to keep him in the dining room, and leapt out at him from nooks and crannies along the bedroom corridors.
After a few days, the better half made his excuses and left me and the kids to our car-less fate. But he was soon replaced by the next victim to book in. And Willy – for that was his name – took us under his wing, drove us to the beach every day, and provided free picnics.
But perhaps my worst experience was a fortnight in France, under canvas.
He’d borrowed the all-singing, all-dancing, tent, complete with zipped-in bedrooms and spring-loaded poles, from the landlord of a Burton pub. All went well at the demonstration in the pub function room, and the contraption folded up into a dinky little bag. But come the hour – around midnight, in the unfamiliar surroundings of a cricket-infested French site, with two tired and fractious kids, one with a broken arm in plaster, and a wife having a bad hair day – he couldn’t hack it.
The French and German happy campers, well practised in the art of giving rough-living a sophisticated edge, were relaxed as newts, ready to crawl into their little home-from-home which came complete with fridges, dining tables, even the odd vase of flowers, as we sat in the middle of our little patch, surrounded by bits of tent, primus stove, washing-up bowl, and bags of tinned stew and spaghetti hoops, which was to be our diet for the forseeable future. But it must be said, in the spirit of united nations, they came to our rescue and completed in two minutes, the puzzle he’d fought with for two hours.
I cried for the entire two-week ordeal. And we never did get that tent back into its package.
Our kids wallow in the carry-on-camping scene, and have the pop-up caravan contraption from a trailer down to a fine art, from Scotland to Spain. And according to reports, the credit squeeze is tempting more and more families to follow this economical holiday route, with equipment sales up six per cent. Oh, I like the fresh air. It’s the hard earth, cold showers, 3 am trek to the loo, cacophony of copulating crickets, beastly bugs, and dearth of electric sockets, which put me off joining you all.
end

DiY

Lucy’s column for August 5th.
Homelo..1
Following his anti-sun, sea, sand and sangria revelations last week, when he invaded this column to set himself up as the bore of the Balearics, I have to admit that the old man has come good.
I came home from my ten-day extension – as he left Palma, the gels swooped in, and whoopee, did we party – to find the following : a garden which was lopped, chopped, watered and weeded; a garage bereft of any signs of our hoarding past; new soffits and fascia on aforementioned "sod the car – it’s storage we need" dumping unit, set off with a dinky little diamond-shaped bling-y thing-y; and an order in place for new garage doors.
And, yippee, there’s a brand new roof on the kitchen extension, to replace the leaking glass one, a move which has been number one on my nagging list for at least four years, and to which he was forced to succumb when he woke up one morning to a floating feline, watery Whiskas, distressed dishwasher, and the door-mat squelching in the region of the sink. The RubberBond roofing system – sounds a bit kinky, that - was quickly and efficiently installed courtesy of Aquarite Roofing Ltd, and proprietor Ian Hudson was round with his battens, boards and bonding before the old man could say "bail-out bucket".
Oh, and there’s a set of shiny new taps, drip-free and without the scruffy, raggy lagging round the joint, which has graced the kitchen sink for nigh on a year.
As me and my mates – Lil Bancroft, Rose and Lisa Kennedy, and Debbie Kitchen - wallowed in over 80 degrees in the shade – and there wasn’t much shade – he got what he’d craved during his week-long moan-fest of itching, scratching, sighing, sweating, in the relentless sun. He got rain. Buckets of it. And I got results.
Whether it was a sudden rush of blood to the head, or a twinge of conscience because he’d been such a holiday pooper, is anybody’s guess, but – and I never thought I’d ever say this – he’s a little star. Because the frenzied activity hasn’t stopped there. He’s created what could laughingly be called an arbour, out of a flowering shrub which grew so big for its roots it became an eye-poking health hazard, and trimmed one hedge within an inch of its life so that, if I jump up and down, I can see what the neighbours are barbecuing (and note that they’ve got a posh new shed – now there’s a thought).
Mind you, I’ve had to suffer for his art. He’s so proud of his DiY and gardening exploits that every five minutes he drags me outside, insisting I look at his handiwork. Down to a half-inch tack, he’s made sure I’ve noted every nail and screw, brush stroke, sheet of hardboard, clump of soil, and bead of sweat of this master-toiling. And each and every visitor passing through our portals do so at their peril. They suffer the same fate.
There is quite a lot more on my "do-it-before-I’m-too-old-to-appreciate-it" wish list which I hesitate to mention, but, hey, in for a penny, in for another pound of flesh : one of those driveways, with fancy bricks decorating the edges? A hot tub? A sun-trap patio where the wheely bins currently stand? A transformation of the hovel in which I now sit, which quadruples as an office, laundry room, freezer centre, and cat’s en suite?
Timing is of the essence. I’m off on my hols again soon, and have promised not to drag him along. Perhaps a whinge the week before I go might do the trick. In the meantime, though, I’ll settle for a tap which actually stops running when it’s turned off, and a water-proof roof, which is rubbery.
end

Dancing

Lucy’s column for July 22.
Dancelo…1
It’s difficult describing to your nine-year-old granddaughter the intricacies of the Gay Gordons and the Eightsome Reel, and the great gusto with which this granny danced them on the lawns, fields and playgrounds of her childhood, when Grace has spent the past month or so practising to perfection a 50s style jazzy-jive Jools Holland number before making her debut on the Assembly rooms, Derby, stage.
My reminiscences were all but dismissed with one of those waves of the hand which spell "Get a life, gran" or, worse still, "What-e-verr…..". She’s not that rude, but you get the drift. And she was slightly more impressed to learn that I went on to bop many a Saturday night away at the Pavilion, Matlock Bath, and that it was my generation, and not her teacher, Rhiannon Jones, or her daughter Catherine – a professional dance student, who taught them the steps - who invented the hand-jive.
But this was Derby’s dancing divas sixty years on, and I was privileged to be in the Assembly Rooms audience last week when the Derby City School Sport Partnerships presented a celebration of dance 2008. Although "privileged" was furthest from my mind when I turned up, as requested, at 9.30 am – to discover that out of the 28 schools taking part, Our Grace’s, Mickleover Primary, was number 27 on the programme.
I confess a groan escaped as I anticipated three hours of nerdy music, clod-hopping routines, screeching kids, and performing prima donnas, and thought of that basket of ironing, and great clumps of weeding, I could be doing back home.
But even the little lad sitting behind, and kicking seven bells out of my seat with such determination and intensity that even a polite complaint to his parents from the women in the adjoining seats, let alone one of my looks, could not quell, failed to mar the sheer joy of that wonderful morning.
Hip-hop and be-bop, bhangra and Bollywood, boogie and ballet – oh what a lot of talented and diverse dancers and dance styles we have in our Derby schools. There were cheerleaders with their pom-poms, little poppets in space suits strutting their stuff to David Bowie, street dancers, break dancers, and tiny tots cavorting to Pop Goes the Weasel and Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush.
The event incorporated children from reception class to Sixth Form, and the versatility of the programme, and putting it all together in one great, glorious, colourful show, is a credit to their teachers and all those who took part front or back stage.
It was heartening to learn that the Government has invested some £5-million in dance in schools. It sure beats PE and rounders as a form of exercise, and is far more appealing to the majority of children. I was well impressed. Gay Gordon? Eat your heart out!
End
Tealo..1
Oh dear. Regular reader and the man I regarded as an ally in all things old fashioned and traditional, George Wride, writes that he is "saddened, disappointed, and feel let down" to learn I no longer use loose tea. It seems that my ritual of pot-warming, mashing, brewing, milk-in-first, is no longer good enough because there are state-of-the-art tea-bags lurking at the bottom of my tea-pot, where there should be tea-leaves. George, of Hollies Road, Allestree, reckons that in keeping with my penchant for the past, traditional tea-making would have been an essential in the Orgill household.
It is, he says, one aspect of the past that will never die in the Wride household. And he wounds even deeper by signing off : Yours, with betrayed trust. Dear George, don’t desert me, I need all the readers I can get. If this heralds the end of our special relationship, just let me say, I hope your down-pipe never clogs! end

Headscarves

Lucy’s column for July 8.
Scarflo…1
They say that if you hang on to it long enough, it will come back into fashion. So it’s sod’s law that, within a couple of years of divesting my drawers of my stash of headscarves, some of which dated back to my teens, the fashion afficianados are threatening a revival.
I say "threatening" because, let’s face it, the only folk who could wear this horrible head-gear with any semblance of style or panache were the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jackie Onassis, who teamed hers with over-sized sun glasses and became an iconic trend-setter.
The rest of us resembled our grannies on a bad hair day. Indeed, every day must have been a bad hair day for my own gran, because my overwhelming image of the lady we called Little Nell was of her, hail, rain or shine, scurrying off to feed her hens, housed half-way up the highest hill in Two Dales, her woollen head-square firmly knotted under her chin.
She wasn’t the only person in my childhood to adopt this accessory. Come to think of it, just about every female I knew wore one. But they were more out of practicality and necessity than any fashion statement. If they weren’t keeping out the cold, they were keeping the curlers in place. Stand outside the gates of any factory in the 40s and 50s, and the headscarf, or, when tied another way, the turban, was as part of the uniform as the overalls and dungarees.
It’s with these visions in mind that me and the headscarf never quite clicked. I tried it knotted right on the neck, perched prettily on the point of the chin, or, quelle chic, fastened at the back with the bow barely visible, swashbuckling-style, and there was always the danger of somebody asking me if I’d got ear-ache, or was I merely disguising a pile of pin-curls. I guess I just had the wrong sort of face. It helped if you were pretty, pert and elfin.
Come Friday night being Amami night, my sisters wore theirs in bed. They wouldn’t be seen dead is something as frumpy as a hairnet to keep their rollers in position, but a chiffon scarf, styled a la Hilda Ogden, was, to them, acceptable. And this curling-and-covering ritual carried on night after night, until the next hair-washing and setting session – though, unlike the loveable Coro character, they drew up short of actually going out in this get-up.
My own collection must have come from the days when these fancy squares slipped from the head, to make a fashion statement sitting casually on the shoulders. I spent my trendiest years sporting the finest silks, satins, Paisleys, and okay, the odd rayon number, nestling nicely on the cleavage – before cleavages became compulsory – knotted, nattily, to one side, or, John Wayne style, tied at the back, with the point down the front. How rakish was that.
At the start of my dotage, age around fifty, I embraced the shawl, which covers a multitude of bingo wings, Rugby prop-forward shoulders, wrinkled neck, sagging chest, kept the frozen shoulders and rheumatics at bay, and is easier to cart around than a cardi. Okay, I may have moved on to the odd Pashmina, especially those you can pick up, three for ten Euros, on Spanish markets, garish colour compulsory, but the shawls won’t be following those scarves to the charity shop because one of these days, just like headscarves, Vogue will no doubt herald them as the latest fashion accessory. And for once, I’ll be ahead.
Actually, if push came to shove, I’d rather sport a headscarf than a baseball cap. But at my age, it could just be that a Benny bobble beckons.
end

Teabags

Lucy’s column for July 1
Tealo…1
The first time my (now) 47-year-old son, Simon, clapped eyes on a packet of tea-bags was forty years ago, at my parents’ home. In a rare "helping grandma put the shopping away" moment, she found him in the kitchen, studiously emptying each and every tea-bag into the caddy.
It was then my mum realised that the contents of these new-fangled and revolutionary little sachets bore little resemblance to actual tea leaves, dismissed them as the "sweepings-up" – and never, to my knowledge, bought another, reverting to that old-fashioned method of leaf tea and strainers.
It was only about twenty years ago that I, too, clogged up the sink for the last time with the soggy remnants of the pot, and a friend in Mallorca always puts at the top of his regular shopping list to this visitor, along with extra-mature Cheddar and Bramley apples, as many packets of proper, strong tea as I can carry.
But who can blame him. The Mediterraneans and the Continentals may have cornered the market on their coffee-making skills. But they can’t conjure up a decent cuppa. Which is hardly surprising, since their funny little bags, attached to the tea-pot with a piece of twine which gets wound round the stirring spoon, contains only 2.5 grams of tea, where our British brew holds 3.125 grams.
It’s hard to grasp that this month, the tea-bag reaches its centenary, and although we tend to think of the cup that soothes being quintessentially English, the bag was invented by an American – though quite by accident. According to some stirring statistics sent out by Tetley’s to celebrate this birthday, New York tea merchant Thomas Sullivan, in an attempt to cut costs, sent samples of tea leaves to potential customers in small, silk purses. Confused by this marketing ploy, the recipients dunked them into hot water. And the rest, as they say, is history.
But as far as our tea-mashing history goes, the bag is only just over 50 years old, and it took Tetley’s several years to perfect the perfect bag, which now comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, and has, on average, 2,000 little perforations.
But even though its intention is to make life easier for us all, old habits die hard. And at Orgill Towers, the tea-making ritual carries on, because I don’t go along with the dunking-in-a-mug method. Oh no. The tea-pot rules. It’s warmed. The bags are popped in, and it’s at least 30 seconds before pot goes to boiling kettle for the mashing ceremony. The contents are then stirred, and it’s another minute or so before it’s poured, with milk in first.
Himself has been known to make himself a sneaky mash in a mug. The vile, brown stains on the best china (can’t stand pot!) tell the tale. But even if it’s only one cup of Rosie-lea for myself, I make it in what is known as the Brown Betty – a little, fat, earthenware pot which holds one cup – and everybody thinks I’m a little bit barmy.
Not so grandson Jacob. Ever since he’s been trusted to make the family cuppa – four mugs, four tea-bags, no sign of a pot – he’s hung his nose over Betty, and for years pestered me to leave it to him in the will. I went one better. Instead of a chocolate egg last Easter, I bought him his own tiny tea-pot. He now brews with impunity, following granny’s method to the letter. If I’ve taught him one thing, it’s how to make the char that cheers. Incidentally, he becomes a teenager today. He has a lifetime of tea-making ahead of him. I’ll drink to that.
end

Holidays

Lucy’s column for June 24
Mosklo…1
The first time he set foot on an aeroplane was on our honeymoon trip to Jersey, on what was affectionately called a vomit comet. It appeared to hedge-hop all the way there and back on a couple of wings, a prayer, and a propeller.
Yes, it was that long ago, that short-lived golden era when, still trying to impress, he forfeited his phobia and fear of flying to whisk his loved one to a paradise isle when he’d have been far happier tootling along to Tenby and pitching a tent.
As it turned out, Tenby in a tent would have been the romantic option, because he spent the entire week away whittling about the return journey – nudge-nudge, wink-wink – that anything remotely connected with honeymoon, June, silvery moon, turned into his neurotic nightmare.
It was years later before his feet left terra firma for the second time. This was a Derby Telegraph trip to Moscow. I was going, anyway, on a freebie, to report on events. He, always fascinated by Russian history, was just a tintsy bit envious. So, saint that I am, I bought him a ticket as a birthday gift, wrapped him up in a camel-hair coat, because this was March, and Siberia sprang to mind, and led him, kicking screaming, aboard a jumbo jet.
Together with friends in our party, and believing the horror stories of rationing and shortages which emanated from that Spartan land at that time, we wrapped our winter woollies around fruit cakes, Mars Bars, great lumps of Cheddar, crisps and biscuits so fearful were we that we wouldn’t survive. And we packed, as bartering fodder, bars of soap, cigarettes, chewing gum, and the ubiquitous tights which, we understood, the Russian women would give their right leg for.
We weren’t far short of the mark on the frugal food front. Two meals spring to mind. One was something fishy, as grey and mucky-looking as the River Moskva, which the anglers among us put down as perch. The other was a bowl of equally grim-looking liquid with a boiled egg floating in it. And yes, the bread was as black as was rumoured, vegetables non-existent, and the wine only slightly less dodgy than the dinner-table water.
The female concierges on each floor of the vast Rossia Hotel were built like brick out-houses, and made Sylvester Stallone look effeminate. We couldn’t even soft-soap them with a tablet of Imperial Leather, and it took almost our entire stock of chewy and cheese to get ours down the corridor to sort out the sewage leaking into the bathroom. But it wasn’t all bad.
Waking up to the vista of snow atop the minarets in Red Square was a sight to behold. So, too, the treasures of the churches and the Kremlin, the two-hour countryside drive to a summer palace, the joy of the Bolshoi, the Saturday brides in Red Square, the intricacies of the changing of the guard at Lenin’s tomb.
We now learn that the streets of Moscow are paved with gold. They have overtaken Bond Street, and are only slightly behind Fifth Avenue and the Champs Elysees, as third most expensive shopping streets in the world.
Does this mean the famous Gum – dubbed Glum, such was its lack of customer appeal – has had a makeover? On our visit, we found a window full of Dansette-style record players, a rail of what our grannies would have called "good washing frocks", a few bolts of Crimplene curtaining – and little else. But it all added to the atmosphere and style of the famous Square. The thought of Russia’s new, rich tsars gobbling up the designer gear and sparkly stuff makes me glad we went when we did.
end

Trousers

Lucy’s column for June 3
Marilo…1
The old man’s trouser hems are, more often than not, held up with Sellotape. I’ve never darned a sock in my life. And if a shirt button drops off, it’s tough if the garment is any other colour than black or white. That’s the extent of the cotton-reel colour co-ordination in our sewing basket.
Oh yes, I’ve got one of those, given to me by somebody not quite right in the head, obviously, and handed over more in hope and anticipation than suitability to this recipient. It contains two needles – one with a big eye, one with a little one – and a pair of scissors which wouldn’t cut melted butter.
Apparently, this darning and button-stitching is all part and parcel of the attributes needed to be a "perfect wife", taken from a questionnaire dreamed up by a marriage guidance counsellor. Circa 1939, I hasten to add. And it goes without saying that the counsellor was a man, Dr George Crane. It was devised to enable men to gauge whether they had chosen a "superior" wife, by allocating plus and minus points to different types of behaviour.
This wonder-woman never wears face cream in bed, red nail polish, criticises his driving, but can play the piano like an angel. Points were deducted from wives who didn’t have a meal on the table the minute he came home from work, had wonky stocking seams, and were "slow in coming to bed". And she must never, but never, have breakfast in her nightie.
I daren’t go on because even in this short look at the housewifely virtues, or otherwise, I’m definitely in the "otherwise" category. And not just in the clean frilly pinny and neat housekeeping department. I reckon I fall flat in the cherish-him stakes, too, because I’m none too sympathetic when it comes to man flu, that self-inflicted hangover, or his current whinge – his sciatica. What better cure for a gammy leg than a couple of days clearing up our blinkin’ garden?
How come there is no Marital Rating Scale – because that’s what this downright cheeky check list is called – for men? Oh, he may have an ongoing love-affair with the Dyson, but only providing there isn’t the inconvenience of a sofa or table to interrupt its flow, and on the odd occasion I’ve begged him to do the spuds, there’s more potato in the peelings than in the pan. After nearly 40 years together, I’ve yet to discover the "new man" the younger generation talk of – the one who cooks, can work a dishwasher, undo the buttons on a wash-basket shirt, pour a gin and tonic.
It’s 11 am. I’m still in my dressing gown. And blow it, I’m going to paint my nails scarlet. Truth is, he won’t even notice.
End
Eyeslo..1
Readers Barbara Parkinson and Ann Smith have taken me to task recently in Opinion about my comments on my cataracts operation. As I said, the last thing I wanted was to put off would-be patients, such is the relief and joy of this "second sight". As usual with the much-maligned NHS, I was fulsome in my praise of the expertise and kindness of staff at the eye clinic, and made it clear that the actual operation was a doddle.
But the injection cannot be couched in comforting terms, and I’d be failing in my journalistic duty if I made it appear that way.

My dear friend Joyce Palin, who’s also had the op, went so far as to call me a mard a*** ! Not so reader Kevin Butler of Starkholmes. He may be able to see Riber Castle clearly now, but he suffered nightmares for weeks. However, he went on to have the other eye done. And guess what, folks, I’m about to do the same.
end

Sisters

Lucy’s column for May 20
Sislo…1
Like many a war-baby, I was brought up with an absentee father.
Indeed, he entered the Second World War at its outbreak in 1939 when I was barely six months old, returned in May 1946,seriously ill, which led to an untimely death, and he was buried on Christmas Eve that same year. My recollection of him is rather scant, although I do recall prancing about at what must have been a war hero’s funeral because the Union Jack covered his coffin. And loads of folk turned up to mourn, grieve, and eat up the ham and fruit cake "afters".
But did I suffer through this formative-years trauma? Not that I’ve ever noticed. Because wasn’t I the lucky one? With a feisty, hard-working mother, and sisters Margaret and Natalie, respectively thirteen and eleven years older than this fat baby sister, I ended up with the equivalent of three mums, all wanting a piece of the first-tooth, first-word, first-hesitant-step action, and all the love and cuddles which go with being the bald, but blue-eyed, baby.
I know this because, over my years of growing up and being grown up, our mother told me. Those sisters, by then teenagers, out gadding, and up for a bit of fun and frivolity like adolescents the world over both then and now, would actually argue over who was going to stay in and look after me while our mother worked shifts on munitions at the local Bakelite factory. Gentle though they both were, without an ounce of malice in their very bones, they would almost come to blows when it came to taking turns to baby-sit this lump of lard they labelled "our little Lou".
I was no doubt responsible for stopping in his tracks many a young soldier stationed at the nearby Whitworth Institute who had his heart set on a dance date at the local hop there, or at the Drill Hall in Matlock, with one of the Seymour sisters, and probably ruined the prospect of a fish-and-chip supper from Pearl’s chippy at Broad Walk – still there, but with Pearl long gone.
My sister Margaret, who became a swimming teacher at Matlock Lido, sadly died shortly after retiring from the job she so loved. But Natalie lives to tell the tale – though she’ll deny, hotly, that I was anything but a blinkin’ baby nuisance – and last week, celebrated her 80th birthday. So in a Jeremy Kyle world which portrays siblings on the point of slitting each other’s throats, indulge me while I pay a little tribute to those girls who made me what I am today.
While Margaret was laid-back, shy, calm, and wouldn’t say boo to a goose unless it bit her on the leg, then she’d go in, guns blazing,, Natalie appears to be headstrong, determined, stubborn – an image she likes to portray – but is as soft as butter, and loyal as the day is long, when it comes to that inner strength. She’s also a chip off the old block of our mother when it comes to being industrious and hard-working, tenacious and imaginative.
She’s a mother of three, with seven grandchildren, and with one great-grandchild (that we know of!), and at her ripe old age, still gardens with gusto, cooks, cleans, and her embroidery is in the brilliance class. With lovely husband Peter, she zooms off all over the world, whether to their holiday home in France, or on a cruise, or some classical concert in a capital city. Catering for a 30-strong Christmas "do" doesn’t faze her one bit, and it’s only with much reluctance on her part, and some friendly persuasion on Peter’s, that she allowed caterers in for her birthday bash – which incorporated our annual cousins’ get-together, so that’s nearly forty folk for starters.
She visits a doctor only under extreme sufferance, has never been in hospital, and three years ago, age 77, gave up a lifetime’s smoking habit.
As sisters, we were all so different, but looking back I can often see the influence they had on my life and character – an influence Natalie exerts to this day, though I fall far short of her willpower and boundless energy.
They provided me a wonderful, warm and loving environment. What more can I hope for than, when I grow up, I’ll be a heady combination of all three "mothers".
end
Jefflo..1
I’m grateful for the response I get to this column – it shows somebody reads it – and the ones referring to my little tribute to former Derby City father Jeff Tillett were particularly heartfelt. His life-long partner, Robin Wood, was first on the phone, a tad emotional, but full of praise. And a blast from my past came via a letter from Jim Rowley, who served on the council with Jeff in the 70s, and was a solicitor of note in Derby.
Jim, who lives with his wife Julia in Melbourne, writes : "Your column was so fitting, and so worthy of a friend and colleague, that I have to say how much I enjoyed it. I’ll keep it in my few cuttings of another age." And don’t we all miss that "other age"?
end

Old Folks Homes

Lucy’s column for May 13, 2008
Agelo..1
Many years ago, my friend Granny Annie Colville and I made a pact that when we were knocking on a bit, and our better halves had shuffled off to that beer-and-skittles Utopia in the sky, we’d move in together.
Not only that, we also had our "carers" lined up – her daughter Deborah, and my friend Rose Kennedy, who’d cook, clean, pander to our every whim, and make themselves scarce should we want to be alone. Though we’ve never got round to letting them know our plans for their future. It was, we agreed, the soft option, compared with spending our remaining years in an old people’s home, sitting in a semi-circle with a telly blaring away in one corner, and a budgie twittering in another, watching the kids’ inheritance drift away as we snoozed from one meal to the next.
We’d have a weekly visit from our hairdresser Julie Skivington, a monthly one from a chiropodist we’d call a pedicurist in that she’d paint our toe-nails as well as cut them and wrestle with crippling corns, buy all our food from Marks and Spencer’s, and have gin delivered by the crate-load. But it’s all pie-in-the-sky, of course.
We can’t even agree on where we want to live. While I fancy a luxury flat with big windows and little window-boxes, and the sort of security system which sifts out any visitors, Granny Annie insists on a bungalow because she needs her beloved garden, with easy access to all and sundry so that she can indulge one of her many hobbies. Talking.
Even the proposed décor causes consternation. She’s brown leather, with crimson curtains and sensible lighting. I’m more your chintz and cherubs and chaise longues. Besides which, Annie’s dead bossy in the kitchen – shaker-style for me, stainless steel for her – and wouldn’t allow me within an inch of the stove because she thinks she’s the only one who can cook. So no prizes for guessing who’d end up with her hands permanently in the sink.
And although I’m with her when it comes to home-made soup and stock pots, and her waste-not-want-not ideology, even I have been known to baulk at her imaginative ways with leftover potatoes, especially after three days. And while I’d also run the risk of being pulled out of bed at the crack of dawn every day to go swimming, Annie would be loathe to go along with my idea of entertainment bliss – an afternoon on the sofa, watching a soppy film, followed by Flog It with the dishy Paul Martin.
But there’s already another option on the cards. I’ve recently read about a retirement village being built on the site of an old Pontins holiday camp, nestling between Lancaster and Morcambe, offering bungalows, apartments and cottages to the fifty-five-plus age group, and boasting all sorts of facilities and activities.
They include tennis courts, a bowling green, pool, spa facilities and treatment rooms, and a dizzying number of classes, courses and quizzes, all topped off with nights spent strutting your stuff doing the salsa and the samba round the ballroom floor.
This is retirement Florida-style – yes, the idea comes from the sunshine state – and promises both practical and emotional support to the silver surfers and golden oldies in their midst. It may be some people’s idea of shangri-la, but to me, it smacks of the kind of discipline, joining in, forced friendships, my-net-curtains-are-whiter-than-yours attitude, which I would abhor.
Then there’s always the idea put forward by granddaughter Grace a couple of years ago : "When you’re old and tired, grandma, you can come and live in our garage, because you’ll still be good fun." Which would suit me just fine, but I don’t think she’s passed that one by her parents yet.
Much more appealing is the route offered in that famous Jenny Joseph poem, When I’m Old I Will Wear Purple, which tells of, after a lifetime of towing the line, paying the rent, not swearing in the street, setting a good example to the children, an elderly woman going slightly bonkers.

Agelo..2
She dreams of spending her pension on brandy, summer gloves and satin sandals, gobbling up samples in shops – which some of us do already at Costco – eating three pounds of sausages at one go, or only bread and pickles for a week. She yearns to press alarm bells, run her stick along public railings, and learn to spit.
Since I’m not a born eccentric, it’s going to take a bit of practice to get into that dotty frame of mind, so don’t be surprised to see me picking flowers from other people’s gardens, or shuffling around in slippers in the rain. I’m going to start with a trip to Costco. And on the way back, I may just treat myself to a purple frock and red hat. Coming with me, Grace?
end

Jeff Tillett

Lucy’s column for May 6.

Politically, we were poles apart. But we shared a sense of the ridiculous, and in the early 70s, Jeff Tillett and I forged an unlikely friendship.
I say "unlikely" because he was, on the surface, erudite, intelligent, cultured, a gentleman and a scholar, where I was, compared with the great character, a bit frivolous and ditzy, forced to play her three miserable School Certificates close to her chest in the presence of this man of letters and -ologies.
I was in Cala Bona, Mallorca, when Jeff, perhaps Derby’s most famous Derby City father, died – a fitting place to be, perhaps, because with him and his partner of 40 years, Councillor Robin Wood, I spent many happy hours in their company in that Derby-by-the-sea home-from-home. And oh no, it wasn’t just a round of bars and sun-beds, parties and posturing. They attempted to instil in me a soupcon of culture by showing me the sights of Palma, and I’ll never ever forget that one and only visit to the famous and exquisite Palma Cathedral.
But it was back in his home town that our camaraderie began to flourish, when I was a Derby Telegraph hack reporting on the then Borough Council’s meetings, and he was education chairman – slipping me the odd "leak" which did wonders for my reporting reputation, and at the same time enhancing his prowess as a dyed-in-the-wool councillor with Derby’s progress engraved on his heart.
But it was that heady year, 1977, when Jeff was elected Mayor of Derby for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, that our friendship was well and truly forged. Together with the late sisters Margaret and Wendy Wilcox, who were incredibly zany and fun-loving, I became one of what he dubbed his "ladies of the town", giving us the opportunity to doll up in fancy frocks and posh hats as his mayoral escorts. Though it wasn’t all fun and life in the fast lane. A deeply spiritual man, he spent his fair share of Mayoral duties on official visits to churches. And for reasons best known to him, usually called on yours truly to accompany him.
By the fifth, I was getting a bit brassed off. "Next time you walk me down an aisle," I quipped, "we’ll come back married….." As a committed gay member of society, it probably scared him rigid, but it did the trick. Next time out was a champagne-fuelled hurtle on the high-speed-train to London, with the Mayoral chain taken off, and put back on again, as we whizzed through Leicester Station on the way there and back.
The year had its fair share of embarrassing moments with both of us. I toddled along with Jeff and Robin to the first real ale festival in Derby – and asked for half a lager, since they weren’t serving gin and tonics. He confided later : "I thought we’d be asked to leave…. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me." What did I know about men and their beer? On another occasion – a church "do" – he berated me for turning up in a dress with a contrasting broderie-anglaise hem. ""Your underskirt’s showing, hitch it up" he chided me. To which the priest retorted : "Mr Mayor, don’t you realise, it’s the latest fashion."
But Robin and I still cringe at our red-faced moment in Derby Cathedral when, just as the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Donald Coggan, began his oration to packed pews, Jeff fell asleep – and his snores reverberated around that hallowed hall.
But that was the year, that was. Jeff, often with his mainstay, Robin, by his side, was magnificent in his statesmanship and cool, rose to every occasion whether it was when the Queen granted the Letters Patent granting Derby city status, accompanying the Queen Mother as she opened the Assembly Rooms, or, more humbly, attending celebration street parties, or opening a bazaar or garden fete. What a character. And what a good egg of a chap.
Along with Robin, his nephew Nicholas was the light of his life, and when Nicholas’s children came along, he took on the role of doting "grandfather". With Jeff and Robin, we continued to party – and debate and argue - for years, because they were superb hosts, Jeff was a brilliant cook, and we all had our opinions.

Jefflo…2
His good works, in literature, music, education, charity, art, are legendary, both locally and nationally. He was a committed politician who believed in democracy, the spirit of this city, and above all, the people he was privileged to serve.
We last saw Jeff on his 80th birthday, last November. He was ill and very frail, but in true fashion, didn’t turn down the chance to celebrate with a glass of red. As we reminisced, he occasionally chipped in to the conversation. And the famous Tillett chuckle never left him. Our sympathy to Robin, his lifelong, loyal and loving partner. As was noted at his beautiful funeral mass, Jeff Tillett left the world a better place.
end

Cataract surgery

Lucy’s column for April 29
Not only was I a fat little kid, born weighing eleven pounds, but was lumbered with the kind of moniker, Lucy Seymour, which cried out for cat-calling of the Loose-Elastic, See-More-Knickers, variety.
I also wore specs from the age of five, so Speccy-Four-Eyes was never far from anybody’s lips, and I always had to sit on the front row of the class to see the blackboard, which had me down as a bit of a swot. Which I wasn’t, because my main aim in life was to move to the back and create mischief with my mates
It’s taken 64 years to move, metaphorically, to the back row. Because I’m writing this column without any visual aids. As from a couple of weeks ago, I can read a newspaper or book, spot sparrows and starlings without wondering which was which, identify a daffodil from a dandelion from the kitchen window at twenty paces, see number plates and bus destinations, all without peering, squinting, or resorting to the dreaded bi-focals.
And it’s all down to the skills, dedication, and patience of Mr Praknash Puri and his team in the eye clinic at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, a department long recognised as one of the finest in the country. Over many years on this newspaper, I’ve written stories on the miracles performed there on people who have been blind for most of their lives. This, it seems, is my very own miracle cure. I’ve had cataracts removed from my right eye. It’s like being re-born. Only the left eye to go. And aye, there’s the rub…..
Bear in mind that I’m a bit of a wimp in the eye department. Not only could I not consider popping contact lenses in and out without breaking out in a cold sweat, I come over all faint watching other people do the deed. So for me, it was not so much a sight-restoring experience, more an ordeal which will, once more, have to be faced. You see, there’s baddie in all this. So stand up and be counted, Dr Ian Whitehead. Oh, he’s handsome, humorous, reassuring, unassuming, apologetic….but he’s an anaesthetist, and earns a living freezing folks’s eyeballs. Not a pretty thought! And not the most pleasurable experience when you’re on the receiving end.
Actually, when Ian’s done his dastardly deed – and somebody has to be the fall guy – it’s all downhill as Mr Puri puts a bag over your head, clamps your eyelids open, and performs his magic. Hear the cataracts breaking down? It sounded like a chain saw at work in my head. And was I miffed when he suggested that if I stopped talking, he’d concentrate better? What do women do when their nerves are in shreds? They gabble.
I reckon the whole darned cataracts team on Ward 16 was aware they had a coward in their midst that day, from John, the theatre manager, to Gill whose job it is to meet and greet, and nurse Ann whose hands must still bear the scars left behind by my fingernails as I gripped her for support.
They worked their expertise in the preparation, operation, and importantly, comfort, department on 32 patients that day. Everybody else on theatre trolleys appeared up-beat and relaxed. All those I’ve spoken before or since, who’ve undergone the cataracts op, have taken it in their stride. One of them, my friend Rose Skivington, who can give me ten years when it comes to age, was bewildered by the fuss I made. Not only did she not give a jot about the entire operation, she even went home in a taxi, and was capable of putting in her own drops.
Oh heck, don’t mention the eye drops. Two lots are administered, eight times a day, for nigh-on three weeks. There’s more Maxidex and Chloramphenicol gurgling in my right ear because it’s failed to reach target, than you can find on a chemist’s shelf. Half-way through the blessed 21-day ritual, and we’re bordering on divorce. Himself has taken over the torturous task, and takes some perverse delight of being in charge of a dropper bottle, a highly-sensitive, blood-shot orifice, and a whimpering wreck who once was the brave, stoic wife who beat breast cancer.
He stands over me with a demonic gleam in his eye, positions my head at a neck-breaking angle, pulls down the lower lid, places the offending plastic thing too close for comfort, and, without fail, utters the words : "Hang on a minute. And don’t blink." The two comments don’t exactly go together. And neither will we, if this nightmare continues.
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But so far, the resulting vistas and visions are well worth the pain, the traumas, and the rows. I trust this version of events hasn’t put off anybody on the eye clinic waiting list, because bear in mind that heroines are made of sterner stuff than yours truly, and there really are bright lights at the end of that cataract-infested tunnel.
I can’t thank enough Mr Puri and the eye-problem staff at the DRI.
I reserve judgement on Ian. He really should get a proper job…….
end