Today is my 81st birthday ...

... and I am celebrating the many faces of woman - of this one, anyway.

Will I never learn?

Driving home the other evening from my son's house at the other end of the village, I reflected yet again on how badly I drive, as I am constantly riding the clutch, with the result that my engine frequently over-revs. My son says he always knows when I drive into his yard because the engine is over-revving. How humiliating!

Then I thought, and that's not the only thing I haven't learned to correct after so many years of living. (I've been driving for over 40 years.) I also haven't learned not to cross my ankles when sitting or lying in bed: bad for the circulation and conducive to thromboses. I was told about that in hospital 16 years ago when I first had trouble with my heart. You would think I would make a point of breaking that bad habit, but my body just doesn't feel comfortable at rest unless my ankles are crossed - never mind the risks. I do try. Every time I notice what I'm doing, I uncross them, but back they sneak again a moment or two later.

So what else, I asked myself? This is almost a blog's-worth here. Ah yes! I have this terrible habit of giving things away and then wanting them back --- AND asking for them sometimes. Isn't that beastly? Not straight away, but later when I think they may no longer have a use for them - still jolly bad form. I am really ashamed of that one. I think I have managed to modify it slightly in recent years, but I wish I could undo some of the early occasions.

I am sure I can push this score up to five, was my next thought. Well, yes, I have a tendency to say too much ..... and I interrupt people ..... and I talk with my mouth full. Well, that's three in one, and quite enough for today. I don't know how I can show my face on here after this.

Anyone else like to 'fess up?

Collections

I have been selling some bits and pieces to a dealer this morning, and it got me thinking about collections. My earliest and longest lasting one has been cows : it started with Staffordshire cow creamers and eventually extended to cows in absolutely any material. They are mostly pottery, but also brass, glass, wood, clay, gold, silver, and even wax!

But I now have so many that there is nothing like the pleasure in them that I had with the first two or three acquisitions, so hard come by because I had little money to spare - £3 I think I spent on my first one! I can remember so vividly the look of those cows on the high cornice round the large bed sitting room that I rented from friends in Maida Vale’s ‘Little Venice’; and I still feel the buzz I got from knowing I had sought them out and bought them, and had given them a home, in my first home on my own.

It was a marvellous Victorian room, big enough for two single beds, with built-in cupboards all along one wall, including a washstand space with marble slab which I used as my kitchen worktop. It had a huge bay window with a raised floor, so that it could have made a stage if I had wanted to perform something, and it overlooked the garden which had a beautiful magnolia tree in the centre of the lawn.

I remember one spring evening sitting at a table in the bay, eating an omelette and salad supper cooked on my gasring, and drinking wine with a man I thought I would marry, while we watched the magnolia glimmering in the falling dusk. Life was so good: I was living in the capital city with all its interest and excitement, I was supporting myself - well, up to a point, though I think my Pa paid me an allowance as well - I lived with people I cared about, I was in love ........... and I was collecting Staffordshire pottery cows!

Eheu fugit irreparabile tempus !

[This is my oh-so-kitch candle-wax cow figure!]

My whole life .....

I am having a weird experience at the moment. My youngest son was here at the weekend, installing a new computer for me, and he chose the My Pictures folder for my screen saver. Previously I had chosen one particular folder with some sort of homogeneous content, but I decided to leave it as it was for a while.

I am finding that the effect of a random selection from my unweeded and badly organised picture files is most strange, including as they do not only photographs and graphics, but also images of pages from census records, scans of family letters and other documents, maps, medical diagrams, and pictures on almost any subject culled from the web for my blog.

Every now and then I receive quite a shock, when, for example, a treasured nude picture of my beautiful mother on her honeymoon pops up after some crude cartoon that I may have once thought worth saving .

But the greatest impact of this passing parade is of the scenes from my own life. As I am lucky enough to have lots of photos taken by my parents, as well as all my own, there is a mind-boggling array of events and experiences passing before my eyes in quick succession. If I watch for more than a few moments, I feel as though my grip on reality will loosen, and my mind begin to fragment. Have I really lived all that? Even my 80 years do not seem enough.

The computer slideshow is rather like stepping on a treadmill which is going faster than you can run. Perhaps it is better to allow the brain to pass one's life in review at its own speed. But if, as they say, your whole life passes before you in the moment before death, I am going to take a very long moment to die!

Outrage...!!!

Somebody stole my balloon!

After my birthday lunch last Sunday, I brought home the Happy Birthday banner and the 80th birthday balloon, and put them up in my glass porch. (Nothing like a bit of showing off, eh?)

When I came home from visiting my family in the village this afternoon, the balloon had gone. It would not have floated away if the door was left open, as it had an anchor weight, and there was not enough gas left. So it must have been taken.

I found that I was very upset by this. (Picture it: an 80-year-old grandmother sniffling because someone pinched her balloon!) I did not mind the loss of the balloon so much, as I was about to take the decorations down anyway - a week is enough I think. But it was the thought that someone would be prepared to do that to an old person which upset me. And they not only stole it from me, but also from Sarah Jane, who put so much loving care into decorating the room at the restaurant for me, and who will ask where it is when she comes tomorrow.


So after a week of being a child again at heart, I shall have to go back to being a grown-up, and pull myself together!

Nothing under the beds

As the day draws to an end, this seems like a good moment to take stock ~ not of all those years, but of where I am now.

The past 12 months have been difficult and disturbing, in unexpected ways. A year after my husband's death I continue to grieve for the failure of our life together. And although we had lived apart for 20 years, I have been feeling strangely without purpose, now that he is no longer around. I have been surprised at just how much a person becomes part of you when you have been married for 50 years, and have been in, and out, of each other’s lives for 60. But he was, after all, the one I chose, and the only one.

I find I am immersing myself in projects centred on Michael, such as the research I am doing into his family history. I guess this expresses a need in me to both mourn and celebrate him still. I am doing this by putting my research onto a family tree website, with photographs, so that our sons and grandchildren will be able to see who he was, and where he came from.

All of this seems fairly positive, even when it is uncomfortable for me, as it recognises Michael 's value, and the value of the 29 years that we had together with our family; I feel that in some sense it is restoring a balance.

But I am also feeling that I have moved up a place in the queue for “the pearly gates”, that my relatively good health is less reliable, and that I should be putting my affairs in better order, for the sake of my executors. This has prompted me to sort out my business papers into a tidy, up-to-date row of ringbinders, and also to undertake a major programme of house clearance and chucking out.

Possessions and clutter can feel like a heavy burden at times, and I am a lifelong hoarder and collector, not only of objects of interest and appeal, but also of “might-be-usefuls”. But now suddenly I have started to let go of stuff. I seem no longer to have the urge to keep things, just in case, in some unforseeable future, they might serve a new purpose. I can see clearly and cheerfully what I am not likely to need, especially when I have not needed it for the past 20 or 30 years anyway! This is remarkably freeing - I feel lighter every time I throw something away - or better still recycle it.

Hence the title of this blog: my aim is to end up with nothing stored under any of my beds any more. (And no unresolved relationship issues pushed there out of mind either!)

My brain has become frenetically active in the past year, which seems likely to be a counterbalance to this increased sense of my mortality. The genealogical research I am doing is fascinating and compulsive, and gives rise to many ideas for pieces to write. But my mind darts from one idea to the next, embracing the new while longing to pursue what is already under way, but remains unfinished.

So the past year has been sad and reflective, but busy and creative as well, and I think that on balance the positive is winning. And yet ..... I am worried by a growing inclination to stay at home and live life in my head and in my computer, rather than make the effort to go out and socialise. It feels kind of weird. It's almost as though I am not quite the same person that I was two years ago, or not quite in the same world.

Is this the effect of bereavement? Or of ageing? Or simply of being a disgraceful old woman?!!

[The snowdrops were painted by Julie Oakley. You can see more of her work on her website.]

A day that could have started better

My birthday dawns and I am up early to switch on and read all the greetings by email that I am expecting. Then I'm going to post a birthday blog, which I've already drafted. But what happens? I can't access my server. This is outrageous! Even on an ordinary day this would be scarcely bearable, inducing acute traumatic stress. But today of all days.


I slope off back to bed with a cup of tea, and sulk until the window cleaner arrives, and I have to jump out of bed quickly to avoid embarrassment. When he's gone I decide I may as well get up anyway, go into the bathroom for a shower - and find that a large wasp has come to join me. Most unusually I am able to persuade it to leave by the window - I am in generous mood today, despite my frustration, and do not attack it with the fly swatter.

When I get downstairs, there is still no reaching my server, and I am left aimless and deprived until my good friend Keith rings me. He checks out my server's website for me, where the status report is all green for GO; he suggests I just switch off and switch on again. I do, and it works. So here I am.

This afternoon, Sarah Jane is bringing her daughter Chloe to have tea with me, and this evening one of my sons will be visiting, so the day will not end as it began. I also have the promise of a lunch party in a couple of weeks' time, at a venue of my choice here in my own village, when half a dozen or so of my on-line mates will be driving up to take me out. I do so like birthdays that go on an on, don't you?

Later, maybe I shall post the piece I prepared in advance, if it still fits my mood.

Dressing up

1940s - at my first holiday camp

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1950s - fancy dress parties in Bombay

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1950s - pantomime in Bombay // 1969 - Miss Bourne in The Ghost Train

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1980s - fancy dress nights at a Butlin's hotel

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1997 - getting in the mood for turning 70

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The paper trail of generations

My brother came to see me yesterday - he lives a 40-minute drive away. Each of us had a bunch of family papers which had come down to us, and which we needed to finish sorting and making decisions about: keep; chuck; or send to a museum or records office? We last tackled them five years ago, and it has taken us until now to complete the job. Well, I say complete, but each of us handed over a bunch of papers to the other one to take away, rather than spend all day on the job, so each of us still has some decisions to make.

~~~~~

We have been dealing with:

A file of papers about the sale by our grandfather in 1942 of our great grandfather's jewellery business - [Premises and contents = £209.8s.6d: Goodwill = £100.0s.0d: less Expenses = £260.11s.1d]

~~~~~

Our grandfather's personal papers and souvenirs.

Our mother's and father's personal papers and souvenirs.

Our mother's sister's personal papers and souvenirs.

All these include, according to the talents and interests of each individual: letters; writings; artwork; photographs; theatre programmes; souvenirs of the war and of professional, artistic, literary and political associations; diaries, address books ............ eeeek!

~~~~~

And upstairs in one of my spare rooms are boxes and boxes of my late husband's papers and souvenirs and photographs etc to be sorted through in due course.

And here in my workroom, as you can see from my pictures which take a turn around the room, I am building up my own massive collection of papers to pass on to my heirs.

~~~~~

What folly for my brother and me to have left it until now to deal with our forbears' leavings. The generations march relentlessly on, and we need to keep up or our heirs will be swamped.

Of course, we could just chuck everything away regardless. But my brother has his family genealogy which he is building up on his computer, and needs anything relevant to that. And in addition to keeping stuff I might use in my autobiographical notes, I am just plain sentimental. Throwing away my parents' love letters to each other, for instance, seems somehow like throwing away their love for each other, and for the family they created out of their happiness.

But somehow we must catch up, or we shall live the rest of our lives in the past!!!!!

My new blog - a challenge!

Yesterday was big decision day! Back in September I wrote here about the idea of splitting my blog into two, to have all my autobiographical posts together. The opinions of my reader friends were about equally divided, so I let the idea go for the time being. But now I have found a sufficiently compelling reason to make the change.

A couple of nights ago I read in a friend's blog about how she had suffered from depression after her mother died, but how she had been helped by having a daily challenge to meet. With a blinding flash I realised that that was exactly what was happening to me after the loss of my husband last October. It is why I have been feeling lethargic and apathetic, reluctant to get up in the morning, and quite disinclined to pursue my contacts on line. It took me less than 24 hours to come up with my own challenge, not so demanding as hers, but hopefully enough to pull me up and get me going again.

I am challenging myself to write my autobiographical notes at least once a week; and to make this easier I have separated them into a second blog, which should help me to focus on them, and which will certainly be easier to read than following the complicated arrangement of links I had previously in my sidebar. I have not deleted the original posts in this blog, because here they are presented somewhat differently, and with many more pictures.

I spent the whole of yesterday setting up the new blog and transferring the previous posts, up to the point where I now have to start writing new stuff again. Already I feel revitalised, so here goes for the challenge!

Certified

There can't be many of us who do not start off in life with a birth certificate to testify to our existence. But what other certificates may we gather on our way? Engaged recently in a rigorous sorting out of files and drawers, I came across a collection of testimonials and certificates which seems to have followed me from house to house over the years.

I started with a baptismal certificate in 1927, and then there was nothing until 1942, when I became the proud owner of the Life Saving Certificate below. I recommend enlarging it and scrolling round to study some of the detail, which is fascinating.

With the certificate in its envelope was a card bearing the following message: “Owing to the restriction in the use of Metal during the War, the Royal Life Saving Society is issuing this (token) Certificate instead of the Bronze medallion to which the holder of the Certificate is entitled. If the holder will forward the Certificate after the cessation of hostilities to the Chief Secretary, it will be replaced by a Bronze Medallion suitably engraved.” I never did - I wonder if I could still do it now!

Soon after that came academic qualifications, with the School Certificate and the Higher School Certificate (the equivalent of O levels and A levels these days). Next were certificates for shorthand and typing, which have stood me in good stead throughout my working life, and also through the years of voluntary work I have done since retiring from family life. But the ones I enjoy having much more are the ones which were fun to earn, rather than hard work.

At about the time that John Travolta burst upon the world in 1979 in the film Saturday Night Fever, I started taking dancing lessons. I have certificates for Latin, Ballroom, Old Time and Scottish Country Dancing, but the one I am proudest of is the one for Disco Dancing. (I actually made it to Gold, as I did with the others, but the label didn't scan so well!)

After that the certificate for the Miss Evening Gown Competition, at Butlin's Ocean Hotel in Brighton, is a bit of a come-down really, as they were handed out like paper hankies on a weekly basis, for all the regular events like Glamorous Granny, Fancy Dress and Miss Evening Gown. This one awarded in the 1980s isn't even signed or dated!





The only certificate I have acquired since then has been one in Word Processing in 1985, and notwithstanding, it was another 14 years before I got my first computer.

What next I wonder?

Realising my antique value

In her comment on my previous post, Stitchwort remarked that "age in furniture, china, or cars, merits the tags *antique*, *vintage*, or *classic*, which are all more complimentary than *old*, and describe desirable qualities." This reminded me of an experience I wrote about a couple of years ago for the Growing Old Disgracefully Newsletter.

Out of the blue, I received an email from a film company engaged in making an antiques auction programme for Channel 4 TV. They were trying to add interest to it by giving a sense of place and history to each auction house that they visited. The first of these was to be Wandsworth, not far from Battersea Park, where the Festival Pleasure Gardens were situated during the Festival of Britain in 1951. I had worked there during the Festival, and they wanted to record my recollections of that time.

There are few things more seductive than being asked to recall one of the most colourful and exciting times of one’s life, and after making sure that my expenses would be paid, I said ‘yes’ without hesitation, although I have never particularly yearned to be on television. I agreed to go up to London two days later - so soon that I hardly had time to get nervous about it, much less to buy a new outfit or have my hair done!

So I set off with sandwiches in my bag, in case the filming schedule should not include lunch - (it did, but not until very late!) I also took with me my few treasured souvenirs, which I thought could probably be shown on camera. I was met at St Pancras by a young woman ‘runner’ for the film crew, (but no limo), and we set off across London in a taxi. In the lunch-hour traffic it took an hour to get to the auction house, and I was thankful not to be paying!

On arrival at the auction house, which from the outside looked more like a warehouse on an industrial estate, I was greeted by the film crew: a director-producer, an assistant producer, a researcher, a camera man, a sound man, and of course the runner. Then there was the front man who would actually interview me, Michael Hogben, who is now seen a good deal on TV in antiques programmes.


I had to hang about for 2½ hours before getting ready for my interview, which itself took not much more than half an hour. The sound man, incredibly young but quite unabashed, dropped a microphone wire down inside my T-shirt. He had to enlist my help, however, when it failed to reappear at the bottom, having lodged itself firmly in my well-braced cleavage!

I had used the waiting time to rehearse my answers to the questions prepared by the director, but in the event the presenter forgot half of them and he and I both ad-libbed. Sadly, he didn’t ask about the things I really wanted to talk about, but I hoped I had at least acquitted myself without looking an idiot.

We did the interview once, while the director took notes, then we ran through it again, section by section, to make sure they had two shots of everything for editing purposes. My souvenir programme was shown to the camera, as well as an old press photo of myself aged 22, standing beside the architect’s original model of the Festival Gardens.

They seemed delighted with the way I had conducted myself, and they all signed a book of local photographs for me to bring away as a souvenir. Then they sent me off again in a taxi, with some notes to pay for it. The experience had been interesting and enjoyable, despite the tediums of waiting, and the resulting 2½ minute interview did not cause me any embarrassment. (Pity it turned out to be a lousy programme!)

An aunt's-eye view of my wedding

My mother Barbara had a sister Fay who kept a journal for many years, and when she died I inherited 66 exercise books full! Her observation was acute, and her take on events and people was often entertaining. This is her account of my wedding in 1956, with a few comments by me.

Judith is married. It seemed a completely successful wedding - Barbara’s skill at giving parties never lets her down, she is a true Bragge.

I didn’t really like Judith’s dress; it seems such a pity not to have been a real bride when she had the chance. The material was so thin that I felt the frock was not decent enough to wear to church for a solemn ceremony. [But it was lined, except over the shoulders.] The hat, all white wide-brimmed and dipping to the left shoulder at the back was enchanting front view but nothing special seen from the back. Judith herself looked quite lovely; serene and self-possessed. She is actually shorter than Michael.

Mrs Burke had done the flowers in the church beautifully and Ruby Hutchison the ones in the hall even better - she had apparently gone round Alfrick demanding whatever flowers she wanted and simply taking them if the owner was out! John and Theo played organ and viola during the signing of the register. ‘Sheep will safely graze’ played so, in a small, old, country church, sounded inevitable.

Peter Moore took the service better than I have ever heard it taken and one knew already that he could not be less than someone. [He later became Dean of St Albans Cathedral.]

The highlight I thought was the man who announced the guests, highly efficient, he looked superb in a scarlet jacket. If I heard Barbara aright he is the toast-master for Worcester. Barrow’s had made the cake and it was exquisite; a pity they did not use the little one on top of the big one. It was so beautifully decorated that it seemed like something permanent. The flowers had been tinted to match the delicate cream-colour of the icing and the little leaves were pale gold.

There was sherry to begin with and soft drinks and afterwards champagne and then tea and coffee which seemed a little odd but catered for all tastes. The ten-seater bus which collected guests who came by train had a huge cardboard notice in the window saying
‘Alfrick Wedding Party’. When J and M drove away there was a dustbin lid and other ironmongery tied to the back of the car. Pink paper rose-petals were showered over them.
[Also chopped chaff from a local farm, which itched like crazy!]

Ursula invented a new ‘Old Saying’. If a cock is heard to crow during the wedding celebrations, as many times as it is heard to crow so many children will the couple have. Urs and I heard the cock crow 5 times! [And I did in fact have five pregnancies, though I lost one of them in a miscarriage.]

A general atmosphere of success and competence pervaded the wedding. It seems to me a very good thing to have a church service before all the gaiety. How solemn a thing a marriage is, how quickly made as far as the law is concerned.

Barbara should be very proud of a successfully organized event and we hope that the marriage it has launched will be as successful and happy. It is such a relief that Judith is married at last. [I was only 28!]


[Photographs by Harriet Crowder]

NOTE :: Click on the 'my life story' label below and all my autobiographical posts will come up on one page.

The Corner House

Our garden at Henley-in-Arden was detached. We had to cross the back lane, walk through the garage yard, and down alongside the repair shop, and there it was – a charming walled garden with a pond, and also a stream running at the bottom. [The pictures were taken in the garden.] The land rose gently from the stream up to the house and across the high street and up to some high ground known as The Mount. I think there may have been a stream at a higher level too, because I dimly remember a year of great rains when floods came down the hill, and the stream in our garden flooded too and rose up, so the two met in the middle and the whole high street was flooded.

During my earliest years at The Corner House we had two live-in maids, who sometimes wore white caps and aprons. Dorothy and Jenny were sisters, and rather silly and giggly if I remember aright. I recall screams from the kitchen when one of them discovered a mouse floating in a pan of milk, set to separate on the slate slab in our walk-in larder. But I should not be unkind, for they doted on me and enjoyed nothing better than a romp. They used to rouse me to such a pitch of hysteria by tickling my tummy and ribs that my mother was forced to intervene, with all the severity of which she was capable.

One of my favourite memories of my early years is of running along the landing and leaping into my father’s arms as he sat at the top of the stairs. Later when I was older he taught me to ride a bike in the lane at the back of the houses. He would run along behind me holding the saddle to steady me. I remember the day that I managed the whole length of the lane without coming off. I turned to him to share my pleasure, and found that he was still standing at the other end of the lane where I had started. I could ride – and without help too!

There was a back staircase from the landing which led down into the shop, and it was an exciting treat for me to be allowed to go down those rather creepy seeming stairs occasionally. I imagine the door to it was kept bolted most of the time.

An annual event in Henley was the mop or fair (descendant of the old hiring fairs). This took place in the market square in front of our house, and was a source of great excitement for me. My father allowed them to run a cable through a window into the house to supply power, and in bed at night I could lie awake delightfully, listening to the raucous music from the roundabout. There was an old lady who had a stall selling brandysnaps just outside the house, and I can remember my eagerness to spend my pennies with her.

In 1935 there was great excitement for the celebration of King George V’s Silver Jubilee. I remember the souvenir mugs all the children were given, and the bonfire after dark on The Mount, the hill behind the village. I also remember running down the hill on the way home afterwards, and falling into a bed of nettles. I spent an uncomfortable night that night!

In January 1936 the King died, and my parents came to take me home from my primary school in the middle of the day, though I am not sure why. That same year we had to leave The Corner House. One of my father’s business associates had made off with all our money and we were in dire straights. Some time that year we went to live with my maternal grandfather in Handsworth in Birmingham.

An addition to my page

I have added links in my sidebar for my autobiographical posts, so that they can be read more like a single continuous piece of writing.

The narrative posts listed are a quick canter through my life in a chronological sequence. Within the texts I hope to put links to other autobiographical posts that have been written as stand-alone pieces. They are generally more carefully written, and tend to be pieces of special interest, humour or feeling.

I am also planning to put at the foot of each post a link to the next page. This will mean you will not need to return to the sidebar list as long as you continue reading, but only to find your place if you have stopped, and wish to start again.

This is an attempt to make things easier for my readers, and also to organise my material a bit better, and see whether it might justify having a separate blog of its own, or even, eventually, if it might expand into a book. Comments on this experiment will be greatly appreciated. Let’s hope it works!

Late news :: With the new blogger, it is now also possible to gather all my autobiographical postings together on the page, by clicking on the label 'life story' where it appears at the bottom of a post. They will not however appear in chronological order by this route.

My life begins

I left my narrative with my parents in July 1925, when they went out to a tennis match and got married instead, much to the surprise of their families. My father had wanted to emigrate to New Zealand and farm sheep, but his family opposed the idea, and in fact with hindsight I doubt if it would have suited my mother. My father therefore had to find himself some work to do. He had no formal training for anything, having lost the years from 19 to 23 interned as a civil prisoner in Germany, during the first world war.

So they took over a garage business in Henley-in-Arden, near Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire. There was a corner shop selling spare parts and accessories, with the house over it - known at The Corner House. There were petrol pumps out front, and then across the lane running down the back of the house was a big yard and motor repair shed. My dad loved cars, though he was not much of a business man, sad to say. However, he did show himself in the succeeding years to be an excellent mechanic and handyman, with skills which I believe he developed during his years in prison camp. And as he was happiest when working with his hands, this suited him well.

By early 1927 they were expecting their first child, and I recently came across a beautiful love letter which my mother wrote to my father one night, when she was already in bed, and he was still in the bathroom. What she was writing about was their joyful anticipation of my arrival, though of course they did not know it was ME at that stage. On 29th November I was born, in a nursing home in Birmingham. When she returned home, my mother had what was known as a “monthly nurse” : a live-in nurse to look after the baby, allowing the mother a nice long rest and recuperation period in bed! I believe it was the nurse who imposed the rather rigid babycare discipline of the renowned specialist Dr Truby King, but despite its rigours I seem to have grown up healthy and conscious of being loved.

My memories do not go back to a very early age. Probably my first one is the arrival of my brother when I was three and a half. I remember my father taking me to visit him and my mother in the nursing home, and I decided that the proper thing to take to a new brother was some of my farm animals. My father said he thought we should take some flowers as well and bought a bunch of daffodils

I remember sleeping with my brother in the very large nursery we enjoyed in our first house, and even when I had a room of my own, I used to move back into the nursery with him over Christmas. This had obvious advantages for Father Christmas! Of course we used to wake up much too early, and our parents would come in and take our stockings away from us and tell us to go back to sleep for a while.

I also remember occasions in the nursery when our parents would creep in late at night to check on us, after they had been at some party. How wonderful they looked in their evening dress! They were such a handsome couple, and I think even small children know and appreciate when their parents are looking good. Sometimes – oh delight of delights - they would bring us back balloons and other party favours!

The nursery was the scene of my first lessons too, and you can read about my early learning experience here and here.

[Next page]

Picture gallery - second wind

OK then - I'm going for the triple!!!

When my youngest left school I was on the school's governing body, and continued to be a school governor for many years. I also worked closely with the Local Education Authority in governor support and training. It was very gratifying when in 1993 the County Council created a new non-voting seat on the Education Committee for a representative of school governors, and invited me to be the first one co-opted. This is the photograph on my ID card for County Hall.
In 1996 I joined Growing Old Disgracefully, and embracing the ethos whole-heartedly, created this Christmas card to send to my new friends in the organisation. (This is by no means its first airing on the web!)

In 1997 I won a joyride in a glider at a charity auction, and am here preparing for take-off. By the end of the trip I was looking green and miserable, after being catapulted almost vertically into the air, and feeling as though I was going to black out and lose my stomach contents. It took me a long time to recover.In the year 2000 my husband and I decided to renew our marriage vows. We had been living apart for 15 years, and did not propose to change that arrangement at this time, but wished to acknowledge our continuing commitment to our marriage and family. This picture was taken in the church.
In 2002 I joined an on-line group of people promoting the songs of Jake Thackray, a Yorkshire schoolteacher turned composer and performer, who was on our TV screens mostly in the 70s and 80s. This was taken a year later by Keith Donovan, (who has since become a good mate), when I met up with some of the group for a pub lunch. It makes me feel good every time I look at, and is not new to my blog either.

This is another of the rare nice pictures I have of me in my second childhood! It was taken by David Harris, another Jake Thackray mate, and was taken in 2005 when we went up to Leeds for the launch of a new musical based on Jake's work: "Sister Josephine kicks the habit". You can see more of David's photographic work if you follow the linke to his site in my sidebar.

When the Jake Thackray Project holds its annual get-together to sing and celebrate the work of the composer-songwriter, the stage is almost exclusively held by male performers. The female members need therefore to assert themselves in some other way, and have developed a nice line in "illustrating" one of the songs on each occasion. This was the nearest we were prepared to get to "frantically dancing naked for Beelzebub", as described in The Castleford Ladies Magic Circle.