Sindy saves the day......

It’s an old family joke that I have a bit of an odd obsession. Whenever I spot anything I think can be transformed into a miniature object that can be adapted to suit the scale of my daughter’s 1980’s Sindy House, I’ll snaffle it up for a rainy day. I recently changed a small hand torch into a rather fetching standard lamp by converting an empty Sally Hanson nail strengthener cream container into the lampshade. It had been after all manufactured in a rather fetching shade of orange. I tried attaching a frilly tassle but it failed to stick properly. I had a similar real life sized decadent purple one I bought from “Biba’s” in the ‘70’s.

I also have a habit of collecting miniature soap bars from hotel bathrooms which come in handy for all sorts of uses, guest soaps to impress the in-laws, drawer fresheners or just good old fashioned grime removal when washing powder or liquid just isn’t enough. Over the years I had acquired so many small bars I recently recycled them to the rubbish bin. I didn’t think I’d ever use them all even if I lived to be 150!

Our daughter recently got married on the beautiful island of St. Lucia. In between the vows and the photos it poured with rain as only it can in the Caribbean and while the photographer followed the happy couple around to get the best shots, the train of the chiffon dress was saturated with wet sandy sea water. As they were due to have a reception back in the UK a week later and I couldn’t find a dry cleaner who sounded confident enough to remove all the stains, I decided to have a go at gentle washing. At first ordinary washing liquid only seemed to have a limited effect and then I remembered that my mum used to scrub the collars of dad’s shirts with a bar of soap before hand washing. (We didn’t have the luxury of a washing machine in the 60’s).

Why hadn’t I hung onto at least one of the little soap bars? Then I suddenly remembered something. The last time I looked after my granddaughter, Scarlett aged 8, she had borrowed my nutmeg grater and disappeared into her bedroom which is also home to the Sindy House. After her mum had collected her I went to search for the grater only to discover its temporary “use”. Scarlett had eaten spaghetti Bolognese for her tea, (her favourite). So she decided to grate some “parmesan” for her Sindy and Barbie dolls. The pretend cheese was none other than a tiny soap bar I had placed by Sindy’s bath tub. Eureka! The solitary remaining bar solved the problem and removed the sandy marks just in time to hand wash the dress for the bride’s entrance on the night of the reception.

The Mother's tears - Frances Shand Kydd

After the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997, not much was said about her parents’ grief. The emphasis, quite rightly, was placed on her two young sons, Prince William, just 15 years of age, and Prince Harry who was about to turn 13. Who can forget the sight of those two young boys walking with such dignity behind their mother’s coffin? Of course when you become part of the British Royal Family I suppose you are drawn under their cloak of mystery and awe. Even a divorced ex wife was bound to have her eventual internment organized by “the Firm”. She was after all the mother of a future King and had to be treated accordingly.

But when a child dies, in whatever circumstances, before their parents, the whole natural order is turned on its head. When my aunty Mary died of cancer aged 61, her mother, my grandma, then aged 82 never really got over it and died two and a half years later. Mary herself had lived a sad life, married to a violent drinker; her first baby girl was stillborn. My mum’s younger sister suffered a similar tragedy when her first child, Tony who was born with a very severe form of cerebral palsy, lost his fight for life and succumbed to pneumonia aged only 15. Aunty Vonnie’s mental health deteriorated from then on and although she also lived into her early sixties, broken hearted, she sadly eventually took her own life.

Likewise, Princess Diana was also a daughter, sister, aunt, close relation to many other people even if they remained fairly anonymous and preferred it that way. As a mother of a 10 year old and 8 year old at the time of Diana’s death, I spared very little thought for her parents, especially her mother, Frances Shand Kydd. As my children grew up and their lives didn’t always go according to plan I began to feel some sympathy for the woman, cruelly nicknamed “the Bolter” by her ex husband and Diana’s father, Earl John Spencer, Viscount Althorp. She had, in my opinion, and to quote the marvelous Marilyn Monroe in the wickedly funny film, “Some Like it Hot”, definitely ended up with the fuzzy end of the lollipop! Frances was only 18 when she too married a man 12 years her senior in a glittering society wedding attended by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and everyone who was anyone of importance in 1954. Jonny Spencer was a well known philanderer but it was she who was cast as the villain when she eventually broke free from her unhappy marriage to marry her second husband, wallpaper heir, Peter Shand Kydd. After a particularly vicious custody battle in which her own mother sided with Jonny Spencer, Frances lost all four of her children who stayed with their father. After the birth of her first two daughters, Sarah, now Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Jane, Now Baroness Fellowes, she lost a baby boy, John, who died shortly after his birth, so she has had more than her fair share of tragedy. Added to which there was the pressure of being an aristocrat’s wife who was expected to produce a son and heir to the lands and title. She eventually succeeded when she gave birth to Charles, the 9^th Earl Spencer, which must have come as a relief after producing three daughters.

Years later she then had to bear the indignity of her youngest daughter, Diana’s very public humiliation and subsequent divorce. By which time she had escaped to far away Seil near Oban in Scotland. I must admit there were times when my daughter’s life was in turmoil due to her unfortunate choice of partner, that I too day dreamed about finding a little hideaway somewhere to escape the flak! Sadly, Frances fell out with her daughter just before Diana’s death over an interview she gave to a magazine and I too have put my big foot in it on occasions when I have attempted to support my daughter against her ex-partners. We mothers sometimes don’t know when to keep our counsel but it is all, usually, in the name of love. Fortunately I have never distanced myself from my girl and she always knew I had her back.

Prince William’s wife, the former Kate Middleton, seems to have got it about right as she has managed to maintain a wonderfully close relationship with her parents and siblings. If I could give one piece of advice to Meghan Markle, the fiancée of Prince Harry, it would be this. As much as you must be in awe of the great and auspicious family you are about to marry into, never forget your own family, at least the ones you are close to, mother, father etc. as to them you will always be their little girl who they will love unconditionally through thick or thin and who have always looked upon you as their own special Princess.

The day I stood up Barry Manilow

We want you to come to our “House Cooling party”, said my old friend Liz. Not a “House Warming Party” you understand, which is what you attend when your friends have just moved into a new abode. No, this was a bash to celebrate that Liz and Vince, newlywed and about to embark on the treadmill which is a 30 year mortgage were leaving the 2 bed roomed rented flat they shared with another couple in leafy Surbiton, in Surrey.

I first met Liz when she stole Vince away from my best friend, June, in 1972. June, Vince and I were working as shop assistants and trainee buyers at Bentalls, a prestigious department store in Kingston-upon-Thames. June was great fun and she and I lived in separate rooms in an all female hostel in Avenue Elmers, Surbiton, which was a beautiful double fronted detached residence owned by the Bentall family and used solely to provide a safe haven for its young or unattached female staff. There was a middle aged married couple living in the basement flat, who made sure there was no inappropriate behaviour between the girls and any male guests. The rent was a princely sum of £3.00 per week but as I earned no more than £11.00 a week, seemed quite extortionate at the time. We had access to a staff canteen and could eat well every lunchtime for about 2s and 6d or 12.5 pence in today’s money.

When June started her romance with Vince she moved out and together they rented a double ground floor room in a house nearby. I once made the grave mistake of looking through her partially draped bedroom window when I failed to attract her attention with the doorbell, only to find the couple in a somewhat compromising position, a sight seen which can never be unseen! Needless to say, red-faced, I made a speedy, silent exit down the garden path.

I’m not sure how I first met Liz as she didn’t work at Bentalls, but the attraction between her and Vince was instant, I believe the French have a suitable phrase for this – “coup de foudre” or thunderbolt, but sadly this rang the death knell on June’s love affair. Liz was also a great pal and it was difficult to retain a friendship with both girls though I was reluctant to lose either. Eventually, I grew tired of life in the retail trade and I returned home to live with my parents whilst searching for a more permanent and better paid job. Meanwhile Liz and Vince’s relationship progressed and they became engaged. Liz invited me to be her chief, or actually, only, bridesmaid, and I eagerly looked forward to their nuptials.

Sadly, it was not to be, as my darling dad suffered a massive heart attack nine days before the wedding and I was unable to face the celebrations which nevertheless went ahead as planned. I never did discover what happened to the bridesmaid’s dress that poor Liz painstakingly made for me. I stayed with my now widowed mum and started a new job in a local Government department. I made friends with some of the other single girls and after a few months one of them, Jane, asked me if I would come to London with her to a Barry Manilow concert. Though not an enormous fan of Barry’s, Jane had no-one else to go with as her sister had let her down at the last minute, so I agreed to go with her.

Then the invitation arrived from Liz and of course the party was on the same night as the concert. What should I do? Attend a party, stay for the weekend and possibly meet some attractive single men or go to a concert in London and face a daunting train journey home the same night? No contest really, so although I felt a bit mean I explained to Jane that an old friend had begged me to visit her and I couldn’t let her down, (white lie alert). She wasn’t very happy about it but I was young and ruthless and I suppose rather selfish. At the party I got chatting to a young musician in the Household Cavalry whose name was John and three months later we were engaged. We have been married now for over 40 years so Barry Manilow's loss was definitely my gain.

Weddings past and present

The huge success of the wedding industry over the last few years, (thanks in part to social media’s fascination with “celebrity” nuptials), has had an interesting side effect. That is, the weddings of mere mortals have improved vastly from the amateurish attempts of days gone by. My own wedding, 40 years ago next month, was a total disaster. From the minor underwear malfunction which saw me walk down the aisle knickerless, (that’s another story), to the wedding reception flowers without vases and the wedding car driving off with my honeymoon clothes in the boot, plus the inebriated catering staff, (drunk on our booze), cutting the cake into giant doorstop slices. Our son and daughter-in-law organized their wonderful, flawless ceremony and celebration last month without any help, other than financial, from their parents and it was without a doubt the most joyous occasion I have ever attended and one that will evoke many happy memories for years to come.

SOAP THERAPY

A few months ago I realized I haven’t watched Soap Operas for ages. Several years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing my favourites, Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Eastenders. Then I decided to plot a graph of my life and corresponding viewing habits relating to said “Soaps”. To my amazement I discovered that the periods of frenetic “Soap” devotion happened to coincide with the most miserable times in my life. I gave up viewing Eastenders several years ago because the storylines were far too depressing and as I am a genuine Cockney, (well I was born in Hackney almost within the sound of Bow Bells), I didn’t feel the episodes genuinely represented a true picture of Cockneyism. That made me wonder, do we watch programmes depicting gritty and sometimes painful reality because the sheer horror of the characters’ day to day existence cheers us up and makes us appreciate the fact that there’s always someone worse off than ourselves? We may be suffering from stress caused by ageing parents or troublesome teenagers or the bank balance may be a lot lower than we would like but we haven’t been diagnosed with an exotic incurable disease and our husband hasn’t run away with the local vet’s lesbian mother! Life appears to be running reasonable smoothly at the moment, though after a lifetime of slipping on bananas when I least expect it I’m not letting myself become too smug. Never mind, I know that if dark clouds appear on the horizon any time soon, I can always rely on the fictitious and truly awful lives of the Platt family, Michelle and Steve or Paddy and Rhona and the entire Dingle dynasty to make me realize it’s much, much better being me.

All mums and grandmas should definitely read The Unmumsy Mum by Sarah Turner

My daughter recently gave me this book and I couldn’t put it down until I reached the last page. I laughed and cried in equal measures, (well probably laughed a bit more actually). She is mum to our gorgeous granddaughter aged six and a half and is determined that she will be an only child, (so far). I was a very unmumsy mum 30 years ago and now that my two are grown up and appear to have survived my mothering “skills” reasonably unscathed, I look back and ask myself – why? Why all the worry, guilt, comparing myself to all the yummy mummies I knew I had no chance of equaling. So today I’m a much more relaxed grandma, (even when I ask my granddaughter not to let on to mummy that a) she had an extra choccy biscuit for being a good girl; b) she was allowed to stay up late to watch “Britain’s Got Talent”; or c) we sometimes have been known to bribe her with extra pocket money to hurry up and get ready when we’re doing the school run. I am an only child and I can still remember bristling with indignation when my lovely mum pointed out rather unhelpfully that “I never behaved like that” as she witnessed her 3 year old grandson attempt to bite off his baby sister’s ear! No mum, I expect I was perfectly well behaved, as, I had no-one to aggravate the hell out of me all day long. When the Unmumsy Mum talks about mum’s guilt I know how that feels too. But then there was an added dimension to my situation. Unable to have our own kids, we adopted two babies so I always had the sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t doing as good a job as their “real” mothers would have done and they would one day compare notes pointing out that I was rubbish at baking, crafts, sports etc. That hasn’t happened – yet. It wasn’t exactly helpful when a “well meaning”, I.e., interfering old busybody from our Church exclaimed “well you didn’t have to have them”, as he observed me disciplining, (shouting), as they gaily ripped the heads off the daffs in the Priest’s garden. Of course the miserable old git was technically correct. We didn’t have to adopt. We both had a sluggish degree of fertility so we could have left it at that, bought a mansion, 2 brand new cars every year and travelled extensively in our private jet, (only kidding about the jet). However, after all the ups and downs of family life, the times when I could cheerfully have walked into the sea with large boxes full of Lego bricks tied to my legs, I know I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Last week my granddaughter wrote her first love letter – to me. It said “I luv Grandma and was illustrated with her depiction of herself, mummy and me. When I showed it to my girl her eyes filled up, (and she doesn’t do mushy sentiment). I’m so sorry that Sarah Turner’s mum didn’t get the chance to see what a wonderful job she is obviously doing with her two fantastic little boys. She would have been so proud of her daughter just as I am. My daughter is a single mum who hasn’t had the easiest last 7 years but she too has done and continues to do a magnificent job as I believe all mums do as they try to juggle work, family and relationships in the 21st century. And remember, when you’re a grandma you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. Just relax and try to enjoy it all.

Online Abuse of the Elderly by - the Elderly

I recently ventured into the murky waters of on-line blogging. I’ve had a personal blog for just over 6 years, visible only to my immediate family, (if they could be bothered to read my drivel, that is). I write for my own amusement and treat it like a diary of my life, thoughts and opinions on this crazy planet we live on. Occasionally I’ve had the odd article or letter printed in magazines or newspapers but not enough to make me big-headed or presume I have any kind of talent. The fact that my blog is almost exactly the same age as my first and so far only grandchild is no co-incidence. She has brought such joy to our lives, (my husband has just recently retired), I picked up the proverbial pen again after years of child-rearing and work put writing on the back burner. So, as a grandmother I have just discovered a website dedicated to like minded women like me, (or so I believed), who wish to share information, chat, discuss problems or queries or just share nonsense they’ve penned to get a little feedback from their peers. At first all went well and I received some useful advice about such topics as what age to teach a granddaughter to knit or how to deal with a thorny motor insurance problem. I also posted a few comments on other grandma’s “threads” – see I’m learning the jargon already! I kept my comments short, to the point, always respectful in spite of my personal take on the subject and, I hope, constructive. Then one day I dared to put my toe into the shark infested waters of the “Blogging Forum”. Wow....of course I didn’t realise that this area was for professional or semi-professional writers and discovered too late that had my piece been correctly monitored by GNHQ it would never have passed the rigorous criteria required. It was a small somewhat caustic and very tongue in cheek piece, and not at all intended to offend anyone except perhaps Princess Catherine and the Middleton family who I’m convinced are big enough to take it on the chin anyway. Well the amount of vitriol spewed at me from the other grannies had to be seen to believed. I appear to have inadvertently offended not only all fans of the Middletons but everyone who was ever related to or descended from a coal miner, or living north of the Watford Gap, or lovers of “Marmite”. One of the more disgusted sisters then reported me to GNHQ – sounds scary enough to be a secret agent network doesn’t it? GNHQ very politely informed me via e-mail that they had removed my writing from the Blogs section and placed it in the less explosive “Chat” area. Then an enterprising granny posted a new and very originally entitled blog called “When is a blog not a blog?” and the same old witches, (sorry grannies), proceeded to spit their bile at me on that blog too. After informing them that I’d discovered their not very discreet game of hide and seek I then got bored and gave up viewing the poison. After all I had no desire to feed their already inflated egos by letting them think I was waiting with baited breath for yet more unoriginal snide comments as they each tried to outdo one another with bigger and better insults to me, a sad, snobbish Southerner. Luckily for me I lead a very busy life in retirement with several hobbies, volunteering and of course caring for our beautiful granddaughter while our daughter works. So I’m at a loss to know where these GOGs, (that’s Grumpy Old Grannies), find the time to a) read and b) tear to pieces so many other peoples’ harmless jottings. Oh yes, after a little research it wasn’t long before I spotted the same old pen names crop time and again posting similar vile comments on other writers who had dared to venture onto their hallowed territory. Fortunately I’m a mature, well balanced person who knows I can shut down my account and no longer have any dealings with these ethereal vampires. But I can imagine if you’re young and just gaining some confidence in the grown up world how hurtful and harmful on-line bullying can be and I accept I got off lightly. I heard recently that Saira Khan had death threats from One Direction fans for daring to write about Harry Styles. What on earth is that all about? I never thought that at the grand old age of 64 I’d become a victim of Trolls. It’s been a unique experience and I wonder how many other silver surfers have come across this phenomenon?