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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
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
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
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
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
Thursday, 5 June 2008
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
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
Monday, 26 May 2008
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
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
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
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
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
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
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
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
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