Tea with Charles Dickens

This week marks the 200^th birthday of Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens 1812-1870

Just about everyone knows the name, even if they may have never read his work. We were introduced to his books in school, and some of us retain a life long attachment to them. Who, when reading those books, has not shed a tear at the story of Little Dorrit or Oliver Twist or been at once saddened and enchanted by A Christmas Carol? Disney may have made A Christmas Carol, his own but the original story lives on. These gems, Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations – all are favourites of mine.

There was of course, more to the man than just his literary successes but we can only know him now through the pages of his letters, memoirs and biographies.

Dickens’ 200^th birthday has been marked universally but with even greater fervor and celebration in Portsmouth where he was born. Living not many miles from Portsmouth, I watched the spectacle with interest as it was aired on the local television news.  Dickens’ Great, Great Grandson, Ian Dickens, was speaking on behalf of the now ever-expanding Dickens family. Charles Dickens had 10 children of his own to start the DNA rolling of course.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16914295

As I watched the celebrations, I had the strangest feeling that I would have liked to have been there too. After all, one of the greatest stories passed down to me, comes from my own Great, Great Grandfather, John Faulder.

According to my most reliable of sources, my Grandfather, Charles Dickens frequently took tea with my Great, Great Grandfather, John Faulder. John Faulder was not, so far as I am aware, a writer. Indeed, research shows him to have been a jeweller though perhaps he wrote in his spare time.

As a child, the story was told to me thus:

“Your Great, Great Grandfather used to often have tea with Charles Dickens at his house in London.” There was undoubtedly, more in the way of padding for this tale but I confess to only having remembered that vital part.

I do not know if this ‘taking of tea” was carried out in Dickens’ home as it was told to me, but I fancy, that it could have taken place in one or more of the many London tea and coffee houses that were popular in the 1800s. Who knows what they discussed or where their thoughts led when they sat, as I picture them, each in a high-backed leather chair, either side of an ornate fireplace, smoking a pipe and drinking tea?

Whenever I heard this story, I imagined my Great, Great Grandfather, wearing top hat and tails perhaps, climbing the steps to Dickens’ house and raising the brass knocker to signal his arrival. I imagined them cosied up by a roaring fire in the winter, discussing the finer points of London affairs and swapping anecdotes, truly, gentlemen at leisure.

How did they meet? With four years between them in age they could have gone to the same school at some point. They could have visited the same coffee houses, frequented the same drinking establishments. Perhaps Charles Dickens purchased jewellery for his wife from my Great, Great Grandfather. Perhaps John Faulder read some of the work in progress and gave comments. Or did Dickens keep that under wraps? Was their friendship based on a mutual interest far away from literature? Such questions are unlikely to be answered except by guesswork.

I have a romanticised view of their friendship of course but then, perhaps it really was like that. Who is to say?

Naturally, I would like to know if my own Great, Great Grandfather played any part in the stories that became so well known. Did he feature in any of them as a caricature or achieve a cameo role? It is well documented that Dickens did base his characters on the people he encountered. Given that the men’s friendship would have been cemented by their own similar family lives – John Faulder having eight children of his own, they may have had much in common. In Dickens’ wealthier times, he may have indeed visited my grandfather in his jewellery shop or did they meet when both were down on their luck?

I feel slightly frustrated that I can no longer go to my Grandfather and ask more but even without any further information, I cannot help but wonder if John Faulder is mentioned somewhere, in the annals of literature, if not by name then by nature making him a vital cog in the workings of that great, literary mind!

Now, wouldn’t that be something?

NB: This tale gave me inspiration for my novel in progress “Tea with Dickens”

I have no photos of John Faulder to date but I do of my Grandfather – here is Victor Gordon Faulder, in the 1900s looking very suave!

Victor Gordon Faulder - my Grandfather

“I heard that – Pardon?” *

As I will be on an island somewhere in the blue Aegean Sea for the next couple of weeks, I am scheduling a couple of re-runs to fill the gap. The following post was first published on 9th September 2010.

 

This post is inspired by what I now see as selfish behaviour on my part. Yesterday, the telephone didn’t stop ringing. As well as calls from family, there were many from British Gas, BT and a variety of sales people not to mention those irritating automated calls that begin by telling you it is an important public announcement (it never is).

Having spent most of the day answering the phone and part of the evening, I began to think Alexander Graham Bell was perhaps my least favourite person. I even stated on ‘linked-in’ this morning that I was ‘out’ to callers.

How wrong could I be?

Where would I be without this means of communication? In fact, I am now thinking that I should use it more often instead of complaining about its incessant ringing.

I have only one excuse and that is that I find it very hard to hear people on the phone. Not all people you understand but the majority. Just the first few words usually sound like gibberish to me. Friends and family tend to realise this and try not to say anything important when I first pick up the phone. I can hear perfectly after a few moments. Sounds odd? Well, I am odd. When I leave the phone I often experience the same phenomenon when someone speaks in the same room as me. I gape at them as their mouths open and shut but I don’t hear what they say. Yes, I had my ears checked and no, they didn’t find anything wrong.

Yes, some day I will get a second opinion.

This problem of missing the first few words of a conversation is not good when dealing with cold callers of course. My family tease me as I plead,

“I’m sorry, who did you say you are? Where are you calling from? I’m so sorry, I can’t understand a word you are saying,” Normally, the person on the other end does not break to breathe let alone explain anything. They are reading their set script and hurtle on before I get time to grasp any of it. To these callers, trying to earn a crust, I apologise but I must hang up.

The other kind of caller is the ‘old friend/relative of my husband’. I recognise the tone of the voice. I recognise the inflection but the words? Swahili?? I guess. Sometimes I am correct. Sometimes I am wildly wrong. No one seems to mind.

At some point, the conversation starts to make sense. Sometimes I think I have been speaking to one person and it is only midway through the conversation that their identity becomes clear. This happens when my daughters phone me. To be fair, they all sound much the same. My youngest phoned me to tell me she was expecting without first saying her name and I had to check which daughter she was. Yes, seriously. Well, so would you I am sure!

Having said that, when my eldest son was young, before his volice broke, he had a very ‘girlie’ voice. So ‘girlie’, that when he dialled the fire brigade aged six, (long story, he was going to see a fire station the following day with his Beaver group and must have decided to dial 999 and see what happened) the operator assumed he was a girl. She was of course, extremely unimpressed. She blocked the phone line so that when I returned to the house (bad mother had been across to the shops and left eldest daughter in charge)I picked up the receiver and was astounded to be berated by the lady on the other end because she said my daughter had rung for the fire brigade and she had informed the police. My 13 year old ‘babysitter’ knew nothing about it.

The police arrived in due course and wanted to speak to ‘my daughter’. My younger two daughters were in the house by then but both denied the offence emphatically and of course, I believed them.

“I think it must have been my son,” I told them. The police woman shook her head.

“Definitely a girl’s voice,” she said firmly,

“Can we just have a word with your daughter please? It’s usually all that’s needed to make sure she doesn’t do it again.” I was horrified. My reliable, slightly ‘Goth’ looking daughter who had an after school job and enjoyed doing a bit of charity work? No!

“My son has a very girlie voice, he’s only six.” I told them. They were not convinced.

I tried to find my son but he had vanished as children do when they have done something wrong. (Bad mother let her children play out in the cul-de-sac where we lived). My daughter spoke to the police of course but could tell them nothing and their gentle lecture did not go down well.

I found my son a little later. He denied everything.

It took him six months to confess. We were out walking one day and walked right past the fire station.

“Is it very bad to phone the fire brigade if there isn’t a fire?” he asked.

“Yes, it is,” I replied. I did explain why, but you don’t need to hear that, you know why!

“Did you phone them that time then?” I asked.

“Yes, but I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be naughty. I just wanted to see what would happen,” he confessed.

His voice broke eventually, thankfully. Now he can take responsibility for his own actions!

So, back to the phone and what has changed my mind about it.

This morning, having said I was ‘out’ to callers, I bumped into an old friend who lives about two miles down the road. I haven’t seen her for about ten years. We had a lot of catching up to do, happy news, sad news…the lot. Our youngest sons were friends when small so I suppose that’s the time when we saw each other the most. When the boys grew and went their separate ways, we did too. Work replaced those coffee mornings and the friendly chats we’d swapped in the school playground.

It made me think though. The odd phone call would have been a good idea. In fact I had one from another friend who I haven’t seen for a year or more, only recently.

It made my day!

So, I have ditched the selfish attitude and if you can bear with me as I struggle to hear the very first thing you say, I am definitely ‘in to callers’ today and every day from now on. I may even make a few of my own.

* “I heard that – pardon?” : An oft repeated quote in our house, taken from the BBC comedy series “I didn’t Know you Cared” aired in the 70’s by Peter Tinniswood and loosely based on his books.

Once upon a time

Whilst carrying out research for my latest book, I have been reading about some of the world’s greatest inventions. Many are attributed to named individuals. It all makes fascinating reading. I even found a website which summarises all this information and gives me the names of the inventor, the date and place. All very helpful when writing a historical piece!

http://corporate.britannica.com/press/inventions.html

It struck me though, as I perused this list, that there is one invention, from which our modern day society has undoubtedly developed, that does not include the name of its inventor:

The Wheel.

The information given for ‘The Wheel’ is simply:

“About 3500 Russia/Kazakhstan or Mesopotamia”

It is a shame that history does not record exactly who was responsible for such a notable innovation. In fact, just as I was thinking what a shame this is, a story popped into my head and because I like telling stories I wrote it down and for want of a better place to put it, I decided to post it here.

This is the story of Abi-eshu. (Ancient Mesopotamia circa 3500BC)

Abi-eshu sits beneath the shade of the date tree, avoiding the hot sultry sun that scorches the ground. One ankle is wrapped tightly in cloth. The injury will keep him from helping in the fields today. He has sat here all morning, tracing shapes with a stick in the dusty ground.

Abi-eshu sits beneath the date tree

“What is that you draw Abi-eshu?” asks his father at lunchtime.

“They are shapes father – see, this has four straight sides, this has three and look, if I drag the stick around where I sit, like this – this is the shape of the sun,”

Abi-eshu likes the shape of the sun. He cannot stare up at it directly of course but he can stare all he wants when he has drawn it on the soft earth. His father nods and smiles and hands Abi-eshu a rasp,

“Here, time to leave the shapes son. Take this rasp and smooth the wooden ladle your mother uses to ladle the soup. See how rough it has grown?” so saying, he leaves both rasp and spoon with Abi-eshu and goes back to his fields.

Abi-eshu takes the rasp and in a few swift movements has smoothed the surface of the ladle. He lays it aside and picks up a small flat pebble which he places next to his drawing of the sun. It is not as round as the sun but when he stands it on end, it rolls a little way along the ground before it topples over. Abi-eshu picks up the stone and takes out the rasp his father has given him. If he could make the pebble rounder, would it roll for longer?

The rasp will not work as well on stone as it does on wood. Abi-eshu throws the stone down in disgust.  He thinks for a moment before leaving the shade of the date tree and hopping across the yard, his bare foot burning on contact with the red-hot earth.  He reaches the pile of ‘things to mend’ that his father has stacked up against the little clay house. He selects a flat, circular seat that was his mother’s milking stool and decides it is perfect for his experiment.

Over the next few hours, Abi-eshu uses the rasp to smooth the edges of the wood so that the surface is smooth. At last he sets it down on the ground and gently pushes it. The small disc turns full circle and continues to roll.

“Abi! Is that one of my best pot lids you have there?” calls his mother, seeing it roll by. Abi-eshu shakes his head,

“No mother, it is my new invention…I call it, “the sun that rolls along the ground,”

His mother laughs and shakes a rug from which animal hairs and sand cascade onto the parched ground.

“A sun that rolls?”

“Yes, it rolls just as it does in the sky mother – see…”

His mother looks upward and sees the sun sinking slowly behind the mountain. She smiles at her only son. Tomorrow he will be well enough to help his father in the fields.

That night Abi-eshu dreams. What does Abi-eshu dream of?

He dreams of becoming a rich man with a fine house and enough food on the table to feed everyone. The house of Abi-eshu’s father is modest and sits just outside the great city walls. His family is poor. Every day his father toils in the fields to bring food to the table and his mother walks miles to collect their water and wash their clothes. Abi-eshu dreams of his invention,

“The sun that rolls along the ground.”

He dreams he is rolling it along, faster and faster until he cannot catch it. His new invention rolls down the dusty track and over the mountains and disappears.

Abi-eshu wakes in a cold sweat but is strangely excited. He leaps up, heedless of his bad ankle and pulls out the piece of wood from beneath his bed. His eyes are shining. The pile-of-things-to-mend is lit by a silvery moon and he sees another piece of wood like the first.

As the sun rises in the East, Abi-eshu slumbers, knees tucked under his chin, beneath the date tree. Beside him lie two perfect circles of wood, joined together by a wooden pole.

“Abi-eshu! Wake up!”

His mother’s angry voice rouses him from a dreamless sleep and he jumps to his feet. The pain in his ankle has all but gone.

“Your father is looking for you. Today you must help him in the fields, come, breakfast first!”

Abi-eshu sheepishly follows his mother into the kitchen and downs the chunk of coarse bread and the cup of goat’s milk that await him. He is dutiful and polite and his mother soon forgets her anger.

All day in the fields as he drags the plough along the stony ground, he thinks of his rolling-sun. He imagines all the uses it could be put to. In his head he carries images of carts and wheel-barrows. Though he has no names for them, he can see them and knows they will come.

By day Abi-eshu works in the fields. By night he works on his invention.

By the time Abi-eshu is a grown man, his rolling sun has indeed been put to good use and is attached to all manner of things. His father has a plough that sits on 2 rolling-suns making it easier to drag it to the fields. His mother has a rolling-sun with a platform on which she carries pots to the river. By the time Abi-eshu has children of his own, he is sitting in a box on 4 rolling-suns and is being pulled along by horses.

Abi-eshu has become very wealthy. He no longer sits beneath the date tree, day-dreaming. He has a new house in the city and he and his family live there in comfort.

Many years later we know the Rolling Sun as ‘The Wheel’.

Well, it could have happened that way couldn’t it?

Ok, back to my research!

The Dress

There are times when one thoughtful act can change the way the world sees you – or the way you think it sees you – even if you are only seven years old and your world is a little smaller than it will one day be.

I was still seven years old when the year turned to 1964. I observed the world as the youngest of three sisters, the third of four children. My viewpoint was inevitably coloured by their experiences. My oldest sister, the elder by seven and a quarter years, was practically a grown-up in my eyes. She knew about the Beatles and dancing and had a record player in her bedroom.

She knew everything there was to know about the world I aspired to be a part of. She was fourteen going on twenty.

She was a ‘Teenager’ for goodness sake! Even the word ‘Teenager’ held a certain mystique. My best friend, when asked at school what she wanted to be when she grew up replied confidently,

“A Teenager, Miss.”

Teenagers inhabited the world of pop songs and parties. Later, the girls would tease and back-comb their hair into imitation beehives, wear mini-skirts and flutter false eye lashes. They were an elite group and we all looked forward to being admitted to their circle.

I still had a way to go at seven.

My early experience of the sixties was one of realising that some people just ‘had it’ while others, like me, aspired to have it.

There was a girl in my class who always wore the latest fashions and knew exactly what was what in the music world. Her name was Sharon. She was seven, like me but she could do the ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ and more. She was there, shaking and twisting, at every birthday party we attended, her skirts billowing out around her. I longed to be like Sharon. Her blonde hair swirled as she danced and she wore her clothes with panache.

Sharon was popular and the other girls flocked around her. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.

In the Spring term of 1964, Sharon sported an above the knee, tailored, double-breasted  coat with shiny brass buttons. I still wore the one passed down from my sister. Owing more to the long gone fifties than to Carnaby Street, it had always drawn my admiration for its tweed fullness. I loved it, caring nothing for the fact that it fell well below my knees, until Sharon and her friends laughed at it when I wore it to school. Sensing the need to save face, I shrugged.

“Isn’t it horrible? It used to be my sister’s – I have to wear it.”

They stopped laughing and sympathised instead.  Even Sharon had to do what her mother told her. Sharon was not really without feelings.

The Spring term hurried on. I hovered on the stairs when my sister and her friend disappeared into her bedroom to listen to records. Mostly still content to play with my dolls and hang out with my baby brother, I was also intrigued by their giggles and whispered conversations. I received short shrift should I dare to peer through the doorway but I knew they practised the latest dances.

I once asked my sister  if she would teach me how to dance. She laughed at me and told me I just needed to move about a bit. She demonstrated a couple of moves. I tried them. I don’t think they went quite as well as I’d hoped.

I practised the head shaking – alone. My hair was not as long as Sharon’s and nor was I blonde so I did not get quite the desired effect when I looked at myself in the mirror. I did get a pain in my neck and felt extremely queasy for a while. Perhaps dancing was not my forte after all.

The Spring term ended and Easter approached. Winter clothes were put away and summer clothes brought out to air. My wardrobe was never extensive. Children just didn’t have the amount of clothes they have today, back then.

I possessed some hand-me-down dresses from my sisters and my mother knitted us all a couple of cardigans. Invariably, these would include a pink and a white one for my middle sister and a blue and a white one for me.

My mother was very busy over the Easter holiday. A Follower of Fashion in her own right, she made all our clothes and many of her own. They were all beautifully sewn. We were allowed to help choose the material and the dress patterns. This Easter, I had chosen a pale blue cotton and a pretty yellow and white floral print. The pattern book was not needed. My mother already had the dress pattern she had used for my middle sister when she was seven.

The fashion travesty

The dresses were lovely. Their skirts billowed out – a sash tied round the middle. I couldn’t wait to wear one to school.

On the first day of the summer term, I chose the yellow and white print. I trotted off to school with my middle sister. I don’t recall what she wore. At ten years old, she barely spoke to me unless she had to.

I walked into the classroom and the bright smile, that I had had pinned to my face all morning, vanished. My dress failed to draw the admiring stares I had hoped for. I could see why.

The fashion powers that held sway, had decreed that young girls’ dresses grow slimmer and straight. Tailored styles had burst upon the scene. Sharon wore a simple shift dress with epaulets and pockets. I looked down at my billowing skirts and if the floor could have swallowed the seven year old me up, I’d have been happy.

To be fair, no one said anything, they didn’t need to. Perhaps one or two girls still wore old style dresses but that did not help. I spent the day suffering from ‘wardrobe shame’.

I don’t recall telling my mother what had happened. I hated the thought of telling her that the dress I had loved this morning was a fashion travesty by home time. Perhaps my sister, ever observant, said something.  She had already moved up a notch in the pattern books. I merely asked my mother if next time, she could use a different pattern. She said that of course she would and that was that.

I put the dress aside and wore another, less flouncy one the next day.

Mothers are canny creatures. Mine was cannier than most. She must have guessed at my wardrobe-humiliation and a couple of days later, she took the brand new, crisp cotton dress with its carefully sewn skirts and wide sash and worked on it, unbeknown to me, into the small hours.

The next morning, when I awoke, it was there.

Gone were the fussy, flouncy skirts. This dress was straight ‘A’ line, sleeveless with no hint of a swirl. Best of all, it had a long zip running down the front with a silver ring pull on it, just like the ones in the magazines.

I couldn’t wait to show it off, I couldn’t wait to thank my mother.

I ran all the way to school wearing the re-vamped dress and I soaked up the admiring glances, both real and imagined, that were thrown my way as I walked into the classroom. Sharon came over and nodded approvingly. I basked in this new found celebrity.

I wore the print dress to the birthday party we had been invited to the following week. I no longer worried that people would laugh at me. I no longer felt inferior to Sharon and her circle of friends.

Over time my mother transformed all my dresses (there was so much material in each, it was easy she said).

The transformation

Along with my new wardrobe came a whole new confidence. I no longer worried that the dance moves I was performing fell short of those executed so deftly by Sharon. Clad in my new up to the minute clothes, I could do anything.

Suddenly, back in  1964, I had it!

Pattern Images copyright: www.rustyzipper.com

An Audience with Grace

The first time I had a short story published I was ecstatic.

It didn’t pay a fortune but the real pleasure came from seeing my story appear in print with a glorious illustration to boot.

I wrote several short stories in the mid to late nineties for ‘My Weekly,’ – a long-established, women’s magazine that is still going strong today. Each time I had a story published, I felt that frisson of excitement that any writer gets from seeing one’s words in print.

I was delighted to find myself in the company of such celebrated writers as Catherine Cookson and always pleased to note that I was placed next to her in the contents list. If nothing else, my claim to fame could always be that I was published alongside Catherine Cookson. Having a surname beginning with ‘B’ meant that, alphabetically, our paths were bound to cross.

Most stories were bought as presented and very few changes made. There were the usual in-house edits to make them fit the page at times and the kind editor would add or remove an erroneous comma or typo. However, there were a couple of times when manuscripts were returned to me with requests for more major changes.

On one occasion, I was advised by my editor, Gladys, that a certain story might offend some readers. It was about a dog who had managed to eat a visitor’s dress ring. The description of how the ring had to be retrieved, in secret, need not appear here but you don’t need to be Einstein to guess how I might have told that scene. So, I had to have the dog bury the ring, still in its box, in a flowerbed instead. A much cleaner and far more tasteful scenario that would be more to the taste of my readers it seems.

In another tale, the main character was an elderly widow who was moving house. The story centred on the memories that surfaced as she said goodbye to her home for the last time and in doing so, revealed the answer to a puzzle that had had people guessing for years. 

The character’s status might make my readers sad, I was told, so I must change it. The change meant that we now believed the husband to be either dead or missing throughout the entire story but were then delighted to find him waiting in the car. Did resurrecting him make a difference to the story? It changed it a little but it was a compromise I was happy to make. The story was published.

Perhaps Catherine Cookson had to compromise at times too?

I continued to write short stories in between working on my novels and producing a couple of monthly columns which inspired the blog I write today. ‘My Weekly’ published several more of my stories and I often wondered if my readers liked them or indeed, had any opinions about them at all.

Who were my readers? The magazine seemed to have a large circulation and a broad readership of women of all ages according to its guidelines. I knew my mother read it and of course she loved the fact that I was frequently featured. She still has those magazines in which my stories appeared, I believe. On the whole, I was writing for a group of unknowns – for women over the age of 50 perhaps but for no one in particular. Essentially, they were anonymous.  

One good thing about writing for magazines is that you can buy as many as you want and read as many you want and put it all down to ‘research’. In fact, it is a necessity.

Bent on carrying out some of this ‘research’ I was browsing the newsagent’s shelves one morning when I was joined by an elderly lady. White hair freshly permed, ruby framed glasses perched on the tip of her nose, the woman smiled in a triumphant fashion and plucked a magazine from the shelf to my right. The magazine she had picked was, ‘My Weekly’. I smiled to myself. I knew I had a story in that copy. The elderly lady walked over to the counter to pay and beamed at the assistant.

“I do look forward to my magazine each week,” she confided. The assistant smiled.

“Good is it, Grace?”

Grace nodded as she handed over her change,

“I love reading all the stories, I read them over and over again,” she admitted, “they brighten my day.”

I smiled and picked up my own magazine – I don’t recall what it was. I was just so pleased to have ‘met’ one of my readers and to have heard her say how much she liked the stories in the magazine. Chances are she liked mine as much as any. So, this was who was reading them. This was who I was writing for.

From that moment I had my target audience in mind. I wrote for Grace.

My editor never asked me to change the contents of a story again.

Knowing one’s target market is essential of course and although I will not always be able to meet my readers, I remember and am eternally grateful for my unexpected,

‘Audience with Grace’.

P.S. My Weekly underwent a revamp in 2006, targeting a younger audience. I like to think that Grace has continued to enjoy her magazine just as much.

In the blink of an eye…

I was thinking the other day, how fast time goes. Now, when my mind moves in this particular direction, it normally flies ahead showing me how little time we have left. I then take a backward look and pull myself up sharply telling myself to ‘stop right there, enjoy today’, there would be no point to life if we did not stop to experience it.

The far wiser me, knows that we truly do arrive everywhere in a blink of an eye. When my first daughter was born, I remember gazing at her tiny form and wondering at the fact that one day she would be eighteen, I would be 42 and I would remember this moment and think,

“That all happened in the blink of an eye.”

My 24-year-old self was fully aware that it is dangerous to pinpoint the future like this. Indeed, when my daughter turned eighteen, I remembered that long ago moment and I did think –“That all happened in the blink of an eye.”

Since that moment, I have tried not to look ahead too far for fear that the moment I am seeking will appear to have arrived before I have even begun to experience the years in between. Is that ridiculous?

This particular form of mental time-travel that I have been prone to practise, works better within a smaller timescale. It comes in very handy if one is at the dentist or doing anything that is particularly distasteful. Hence, as I sit in that dentist’s chair undergoing whatever treatment I have been called in for, I pinpoint the moment when I will be back at home or in the office, a time when this experience will be firmly in the past. I tell myself that ‘in the blink of an eye’ I will be there.

It really works. As my mind hovers over that delicious thought, the treatment passes and lo and behold I am sitting at home or in the office and the dentist is a distant memory.

I used this technique during some particularly gruelling exams and even for my driving test though to be fair, I did need to concentrate more for the latter. The same principle applied when I was in labour – I’d pinpoint a time in the future where I was sitting holding my baby, all the hard work done and the pleasure beginning. I cannot say I sailed through labour without feeling any pain or without needing the odd gulp of gas and air. I can say that I was amazed on each occasion to find the future point in time, that I had identified, had indeed arrived ‘in the blink of an eye’.

Now, you will be saying that of course, exams and tests and even labour takes longer than that and all I was doing was shutting out the present, going on auto-pilot perhaps (possibly not good on a driving test) and only allowing myself to come back to full consciousness afterwards. Is this a form of meditation then? A trick of the subconscious to banish nerves?

An out-of-body experience, would presumably have the same effect and I admit to having had experienced this as well (another story) so the meditation idea seems to fit.

Whatever it is, the trick should be used with caution however. It can be detrimental to the present. I remember thinking whilst on holiday that although I was sitting in the sun, enjoying a leisurely break, I would be sitting in my own living room remembering this, almost before I knew it. Not wanting the holiday to rush by, I had to give myself a stern talking to and banish such thoughts at source.

Quite a few years have passed since my daughter’s eighteenth birthday and like most people, we have had good times and bad. Throughout, I have tried to remain in the present rather than hurry them along. It is a hard habit to break though and perhaps I do it without thinking.  Housework is easier when you look back on it from that future spot and that function you dread is easier to get through from the vantage point of a few hours hence.

Before I start wondering what life will be like when I am truly ‘old’ though, I shall pause. I will stop myself because I’d rather not arrive at the end ‘in the blink of an eye’ I would like to enjoy the journey.

One for the road perhaps – ‘In the blink of an eye’ I will have finished writing another novel – I see myself sitting, holding the published book in my hand and reading the tons of fan-mail that has poured in…

Now I don’t mind that one…I’ll let you know when it arrives!

Beware – Boeing 747 coming in to land…

Freshly returned to home and family after a New Year’s Break, I checked my email to find that I had been sent a summary of statistics from WordPress. The stats cover the eight months of 2010 during which my blog has been running. I seem to be doing quite well in the visitor stakes then.

I quote: “A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 8 months. That’s about 5 full 747s.”

I am extremely impressed. I know that there are blogs out there that regularly attract many more visitors than I and far more comments but hey, this blog is doing a great job. It gives me a space in which to write, a space to meet new friends and it is such an enjoyable outlet for my literary musings and my treks down memory lane that I really cannot complain. Since most visits occurred post August 2010, and have been rising steadily ever since, I can confidently calculate the estimated annual figure to be in the region of 6000 visitors – surely an entire fleet of Boeing 747s?

Considering that I was the only one aware of its existence back in May, I am pleasantly surprised by this blog’s apparent notoriety.

Coming from a design and marketing background, armed with experience of both web analytics and Search Engine Optimisation, I know I could do far more to spread the word than I do but sometimes slow and steady wins the race in my view. I quite like being low-key. I go for quality rather than quantity.

So, content with my small corner of cyberspace, I looked at the source of most of my visitors. Many who I now count as regular blog friends have found me through Facebook, Wisdom of Words, Katie Gates’ blog and The ‘One Lovely Blog Award’ awarded me in September. There were some intriguing statistics given though, apart from these, and I can only wonder at one in particular.

Apparently, a number of visitors ‘Googled’ the question: “Where does Dawn French live in Fowey?” They were immediately directed to my post ‘Fowey Royal Regatta – celebrity or not celebrity?’’ How funny.

I believe I did mention the fact that Dawn French lives in Fowey, not that we have ever seen her, despite it being quite a small town. That particular stat did make me smile rather a lot. I would guess that those visitors did not tarry long once they realised I did not mention exactly where the good lady lives. (Nor will I by the way, since one day I may need her to return the favour – who knows?)

We feel quite at home in Fowey now and have just spent New Year there in our own modest but beautifully renovated holiday home. We spent New Year’s Eve at the Fowey Hall Hotel where the food was impressive, the company engaging and the fireworks at midnight, spectacular.

People in this Cornish town are very welcoming and we are greeted like old friends time and again. No wonder we love to return often. No, we still have neither met nor seen Dawn French or rather, as I prefer to put it, she has still to meet us. Coincidentally, I am actually reading her book at the moment and can’t help thinking – wouldn’t it be lovely if one day she tells us she is reading mine?

Meanwhile, I shall continue to enjoy the freedom of my blog and to welcome any visitors who chance by wherever they may have come from. I shall certainly be keeping an eye on the stats from now on though and, with the web working as it does, I have to wonder where anyone Googling me in the future may end up.

The web is just like a chain of paperclips, follow the links and you could end up anywhere – quite exciting really.

I am just waiting for the next Boeing 747 to come in to land…

Happy New Year to all!

Snowy December

Some of us like it!

December has arrived and with it has come the snow. Winter has hit us early this year it seems.

As we hurtle towards another Christmas I find I am once again excited with a brand new little member of the family to buy for. Yet it barely seems five minutes since my own children were small and I was traipsing off to the round of nativity plays and pantomimes in which they each starred.

Oh those were indeed the days. I recall sitting almost doubled up with mirth as baby Jesus was lobbed into the audience from Mary’s lap during a particularly enthusiastic rendition of  ‘Away in a Manger’. In the same scene a disorientated Mary tumbled from her perch in a cloud of blue chiffon and King Herod’s Guards yawned and resorted to doing unmentionable things to their noses while their mothers hissed at them from the wings.

I have seen Angels run off in tears and baby Jesus literally lose his head only to have it kicked into touch by a helpful shepherd.

I have witnessed my middle daughter dressed as the most reluctant shepherd you have ever seen because there were no more spaces for angels. (She so wanted to be an angel.)

but I wanted to be an angel...

I have been overcome with motherly pride as my youngest daughter led the singing of “We will Rock You” with gusto, nudging those children next to her with her elbows when she thought they weren’t performing and making their wire halos wobble in a most alarming fashion.

I’ve coaxed my eldest son into wearing red tights so that he can play Herod’s page and cajoled the youngest into staying awake long enough to carry the letter ‘C’ onto the stage where the class of two and three year olds were spelling out ‘Christmas’. He did this with all the aplomb a two year old can muster before putting his thumb in his mouth, sliding beneath the Christmas tree and falling asleep. (I think he was coming down with something!)

My eldest daughter once led the narration for her nativity play. The school had had the innovative idea of producing a play that had no script. As my daughter narrated, the actors ad-libbed their parts. This was working very well considering the age of the actors which averaged four and a half years.

The story reached the part where the Three Wise Men reach the stable. My daughter confidently narrated:

“The Three Wise Men arrived at the stable and knelt down to give Baby Jesus their gifts,”

On cue, the three wise men dropped to their knees and threw their gifts into the manger. It was evident that they were then to stand and talk amongst themselves for a bit. The ensuing silence was broken only by the sound of an over enthusiastic Shepherd making a premature entrance and being shooed off stage by helpful cast members.

As we waited expectantly, the bravest of the three wise men took the show in hand, piping up in a small gruff voice,

 ”Well, it was worf comin’ all this way then were’n it?”

His ad-lib stole the show.

That’s a little how I feel as we approach the festive season and I look back on those long gone days and forward to Christmases that are to come.

It has definitely been worth coming all this way!

Let there be light

 I have been trawling through the files in my archives again and the story below rose to the fore and demanded to be read. Just a timely memory I thought I’d share. I promise not to include too many of these ‘down memory lane’ extracts but sometimes it’s good to look back and remember how it was.

The couple in this tale are the same couple who appear in Nappy cakes, picnics and popcorn by the way.

Let there be light

When I think of the 1970s,  I remember the cheerful fashions, wonderful films like ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Sting’, good music and long hot summers with clear blue skies and of course, being a teenager. 

There was another side to the 70s though.

In the early part of the decade,  The National Union of Miners had held the whole country to ransom. Coal supplies at the power stations were at an all-time low and an Emergency situation had been declared. Wherever your sympathies lay, there was no escaping the grim reality of the three day working week and the constant power cuts. 

Walking home from school along the darkened streets could have easily become a nightmare. Luckily, showing a unity of spirit for which they have been famed in the past, the British public came to the fore.  When the power failed, the candles and hurricane lamps were lit. Walking down the streets was like taking a trip through fairyland as the flickering lights twinkled from behind the darkened panes, curtains left undrawn so that passers by could be guided home. 

As we shivered and pulled our overcoats closer we were cheered to see that some enterprising souls had lit bonfires in their gardens (even though it would be a while until Guy Fawkes’ night) and were happily roasting potatoes and baking sausages in the embers. 

There was a kind of camaraderie built up as we queued to buy candles, night lights and oil lamps from shops displaying hastily erected signs advertising the arrival of new stock.  The humble white kitchen candle became a much sought-after item, whereas the fancy Christmas variety from the previous year burnt far too quickly. 

Shopping itself became an adventure during the power cuts and not one to be entered into lightly, given the likelihood of accidents as bodies bumped  and collided with one another in the gloom. 

The young American couple who, a while before had moved into the house adjacent to our own, must have wondered what on earth they had come to.  R was in the U.S. Navy and had been posted to England with his wife V and their baby daughter.  We had met them a few times and my sister and I had baby-sat for them.  My father chatted to R about cars and such. For a while R’s car was the talk of the neighbourhood, being a red and white Mustang, far wider than any car we were used to. We thought it was amazing.

Someone else must have thought the same, for one night in November it was stolen. 

R reported the theft to my father, who happened to be a local policeman. Always ready to help anyone, my father drove R around the local streets, convinced that it had been snatched by a joyrider and would have been abandoned intact.  He was right.  They found the car parked in a side turning right next to the local police station of all places. 

Meanwhile, we were having yet another power cut and V and the baby had come round to us to share the candlelight and use the gas stove, since they had an electric oven. The talk turned to Thanksgiving and V invited us to join them for their Thanksgiving dinner in a couple of weeks.  We were pleased to accept and intrigued as to what it would entail. 

We, who in those days rarely ate turkey at all outside the Christmas season, found it strange to find V preparing a large bird for the table at the end of November.  My sister and I went round early to help look after the baby while V busied herself in the kitchen.  To keep us going she had baked a plate of brownies, which we gratefully demolished. 

As we sat on the rug building bricks for the baby to knock down, the smell of the roasting turkey assailed our nostrils and we sighed in anticipation.  At 4.40 p.m. it was quite dark outside. At five o’clock the lights went out.

This power cut was quite unexpected and had caught all of us on the hop. 

“Don’t move!” V’s command reached our ears.

A series of  thumps and bangs from the kitchen conveyed to us that she was searching the cupboards for candles – by touch.  The search was not very successful and once our eyes had become accustomed to the dark, we picked up the baby and made our way to the hall, where one of us had thoughtfully stashed a torch. No one went out without one at that time. 

Light at last!  The beam was not brilliant but using it we managed to locate the candles and illuminate the rest of the room.  

“Well that’s good, but what about the turkey?” wailed V when we had placed the last candle on the mantlepiece.  The solution was obvious. Our house had a gas oven; we would take the bird over there to finish cooking.

Wrapping it in tin foil and placing it on a tray, we shielded it from the rain with an umbrella, and carried it, not without a struggle, to our own house. We left V trying to salvage the rest of the dinner as best she could. 

By the time we returned, V had unearthed the primus stove and was cooking the vegetables on that.  At seven o’clock a phone call from my mother confirmed that the turkey was ready. 

“Take the pram!” V admonished, removing baby and blankets in one movement and replacing them with a large tray.  Amidst much giggling and joking, my sister and I pushed the empty pram around the corner to where my mother waited on the doorstep, the enormous bird on the side table.  We carefully sat the turkey in the pram, covered it with the apron and pulled up the hood before dashing back around the corner lest it should get cold.  I often wonder what a surprise some well-meaning old lady would have had if she had peeped inside to admire our “baby”! 

The dinner was a great success, the candlelight making it particularly special.  The highlight of the evening, however, came when the power returned and R jumped up to show us how popcorn was made.  None of us had tasted salted popcorn before let alone seen it popping in the pan.  (If it was in the shops we frequented, we certainly had not noticed it.)   R had bought some from the naval base as a special treat. I can still see the enormous mixing bowl into which he tipped a mountain of glistening, white, freshly popped corn. 

The firelight flickered in the grate and played strange shadows along the wall as we relaxed in the chairs and listened to Don McLean on R’s reel-to-reel, of which he was inordinately proud.  Much later, when we had talked the night away, R gave us a tin of unpopped corn to take home with us. 

Those days are far behind us now and reel to reels have been replaced many times over. It’s funny though, I still like to keep a supply of white candles in the house, just in case.

One Lovely Blog Award

Awards must be just like London buses; you don’t see any for ages and then two come along at once. So it was with me this week. Not only was I told I was to be a BON on Monday, but I also received a ‘One Lovely Blog Award’ from Katie Gates. Thank you Katie! (I discovered an icon for this Award which I have pasted on the site. I thank whoever it was who produced it.) Do visit Katie at Katie Gates: Stories and Opinions . Katie is a very talented writer. Her personal essays are topical, thought provoking and often humorous and I can personally recommend her novel, ‘The Somebody Who’ a warm, funny and wholly believable story woven around a family dealing with dementia. The book is currently being serialised on Saturdays on Katie’s blog.

Now that the fuss and furore of my BON day and all that it entailed, has died down, I have had time to contemplate and select five people whose blogs I think deserve to be called ‘Lovely’. This is the only request that comes with the award, the recipient must pass it on to between 5 and 15 other Lovely Bloggers.

I thought this might be a hard task but in fact, it was easy. I just picked the people who regularly make me smile, cry or just feel ‘good’ as I read their posts. So, without further ado, here they are - my five favourites in no particular order:

1. Amy: Normal is a Dryer Setting
   Amy’s son Jonah has Autism and this blog is a truly amazing insight into the world that he and his parents inhabit. I love the way Amy writes with such matter of fact honesty, humour being never far away. We ride the escalator with her and Jonah, over and over…and for a brief time, we see the world through Jonah’s eyes. I love this blog.
2. Doris Gallon: http://www.babyboomerstraveling.com/ I found Doris in a writer’s group on Linkedin and her blog caught my attention on day one. Doris’s travel tips are brilliant and her traveller’s tales informative, funny and highly entertaining. I am constantly amazed at how prolific a writer she is and how far she has travelled.
3. Zoe Louise : http://www.zlbarker.wordpress.com Yes, I know she is my daughter but I am so amazed at her design skills as well as her writing ability that I cannot possibly leave her out. Zoe is a fashion designer who has just completed an MA and is launching her first collection. To reach her goal, she has struggled with finances, transport, plagiarism and moments of self doubt but her blog tracks her journey over the past year and I love her observations and various dilemmas chronicled along the way.
4. Tia: Cottage by the Sea I had to include this one because not only do I love this blog for its gorgeous header and Tia’s hilarious tales of how this cottage by the sea was restored and renovated but I can really empathise with Tia’s choice of two white sofas – despite having five children and 6 grandchildren! Reminds me of when my five were young and we too were persuaded to buy a whiter than white suite. You just have to wonder don’t you?
5. Joann Mannix Laundry Hurts My Feelings I love the title – it resonates so well with me as does her house full of daughters (she has three, so do I, though I also have a couple of boys to lighten the load) The effects of three girls under one roof are the same though.  Whether writing about a film, a vacation or just life, she makes me laugh out loud. You’d better get there before Bono does though or she’ll be gone!

The only criteria for acceptance is that you pass One Lovely Blog Award on to between 5 and 15 of your own favourite bloggers and let them know that it is on its way. I do hope you enjoy my choices and if you have already met I hope you enjoy a return visit.