The World According to Autumn…

‘DEMETIA & SPAM’

Autumn we call that a stage in life too… It has been a hell of a year so far! It’s quite poignant for me as I have been dealing with some of the elder members of my family, some of which are just forgetful and others suffering from memory loss or dementia.

Yesterday, my phone rings again, I am on the phone to someone else, but this won’t stop him. I flick the red ‘ring-off’ button and carry on my phone call. And the phone goes again, I ignore it, only for another bling to go on my phone and it is a text telling me I have a voice mail message. The fourth message in the last ten minutes, I ignore it and carry on with my call even though I am distracted. When I finish my legitimate call, I look at the call log and see they are all from the same person, from him, an elderly relative. I no longer listen to the answer phone messages as they are always the same…. ‘Hello…. Hello… Natalie is that you…. Hello’ … I just delete them off. Depending on what time of the day it is, I either put the kettle on or open the fridge and pour myself a glass of white wine, on this occasion, before I finish pouring the glass the phone rings again…. I pick it up ….

‘Hello…. Hello… Natalie is that you…. Hello’ …. I respond that it is me, but I think this time they are not sure …. So we have to go through a few more Hello’s until he is satisfied with the fact he is now talking to the real me. I have stopped saying to them - just leave one message and I will get back to you… Because they don’t remember - so there is no point…. They are like an insistent child that wants a biscuit because they know they will get one if you are on the phone, and he is the same, he wants to talk to me now, so he just keeps ringing until he gets an answer from me.

When I ask how I can help him, it foxes him and he has a little giggle to himself, ‘Now what did I want? What did I ring you for? …. Two ticks …. Two ticks.. it will come to me… Hang on a sec Natalie … ‘ And there is silence whilst he thinks about it…. The silence on the phone suddenly throws him after a bit …. ‘Hello…. Hello…. Are you still there Natalie … Hello… ‘ I reassure them that I am… ‘Oh that is nice of you to call Natalie, how are you?’ Whatever emergency he had has gone and he is just happy to have a chat. This ‘chat’ is on a loop as it goes around and starts from the beginning again and the same information is repeated. He is at the moment, totally fascinated by how old he is… ‘How old am I Natalie? .. I forget… ‘

‘You are 87’

‘Good Gracious… Well that is a good age… I am an ‘old boy’ … I’ll be … I’ll be …. ahhhmmm…’

‘90 in three years time.’ I know he likes this conversation …

‘That is good, Natalie .. I think I have got another good ten years - ‘innings’. I think and I will go and live in Venice… Did you know I was going to live in Venice? I have to write things down now .. I forget … How old am I?

I don’t tell him he is repeating himself, I just start back at the beginning again, which seems to keep him happy. I have learned this type of memory loss, dementia, for the most part the person is the same, if anything this ‘old boy’ is nicer, kinder than he used to be, but something in his brain has just put him on repeat. Having listened as required for a while I find a reason to come to the end of the call and that is that for the time being, unless he forgets that he called me and the whole thing starts off again, which is happening more frequently. Of course it is very sad and must be very frightening for them, but mostly he does not remember. Thank Goodness. We can hit on a subject that he enjoys and we can have a really good laugh - I like hearing him laugh... I am not sure I could cope with it .. If he were sad… Occasionally when he is a bit more, shall we say ‘testy’ … Hammering home his point with gusto on the usual loop, I just try and placate and agree with him, recently he had the audacity to tell me crossly - ‘You already said that Natalie!’ .. And I have to apologise for repeating myself!!

At the moment - I don’t only have one relative with this issue, I have acquired a few! They are all at different level and stage and all require quite different handling. My eccentric aunt, truth be told … I have quite a few! She refuses to move out of her enormous house which is unsuitable for her and is falling into rack and ruin, she has annoyed her own children with her ‘curious’ and unacceptable behaviour so much that they refuse to talk to her, so for the last ten years and more she only has me to speak with, outside of social services who think that she might become a danger to herself. Her obsession is with filing any bit of paper that she can find in this big house, she has lived there for about 25 years and she and her husband had a habit of keeping every scrap of paper, her husband has long since died, but she insists that she must file all his papers in order; some papers date back to the 1980’s. I try and tell her to just throw them away, but she won’t have it - she is convinced that the are of historic value and that her children will want to read them at some stage. I can promise you they won’t.

Along with keeping bits of random paper, she cuts out articles from her beloved daily paper and places them in the piles around the part of the house she is living in, their are paper stacks everywhere, in the hall, in the rooms, open the cupboards and you will find even more, God forbid there is ever a fire! She believes that the future recipient of ‘said’ pile of paper will find the article very informative - She believes that she is the only one with any ‘proper’ intellect and infantilises anyone else with her superior knowledge, which is another reason her children won’t talk to her. She can be exasperating…

Fairly recently she sent me a newspaper cutting about the actress Beryl Reed and actor Hugh Paddick, she insisted that my husband was related to him - ‘He must be related Natalie … It is the same surname … You must know … Paddick … Paddick .. It is the same surname!’ I tell her that they are not related, she starts getting quite cross and so in the end .. I just either put my foot down and change the subject or I agree with her and she seems satisfied, and tells me with a giggle that is the replica of my Grandmothers, ‘I told you so .. Natalie..’. The phone calls can go on for hours and if I try and get off the phone she will hold fast and try and find another subject in which to clutch onto the never ending conversation.

Social services are another one of her bug bears - she loathes them as they are in her ‘lofty’ opinion like everyone else ‘below her intellect’ and she can’t understand why they won’t help her with filing her piles of paper - ‘after all Natalie what else have the got to do? … If they keep turning up they might as well do some work!’ Needless to say this type of approach does not endear her to them. She has ways of dealing with them if she is bored of them being in her house; at the end of last year her small fridge gave up the ghost and she left the food in it and got another new fridge, when she got around to dealing with the defunct fridge the food had rotted and the smell was disgusting, so she removed the food and kept the fridge in the kitchen, but shut, and for many months if the social service lady irritated her too much she would open the fridge door in the full knowledge that the smell was so revolting the lady would have to leave. Mad … But I have to admit rather canny!

Over the summer social services rang me to complain that my aunt had behaved very badly! It turned out that she had been told that the water board were coming to her house to undertake some vital work as there was a serious leak in her grounds that needed mending. I had reminded her of the date so that there would be no confusion. However on the day, the workmen turned up they found her sunbathing in the nude! The lady next door was called over and she tried to persuade my aunt to put her clothes back on… She was having none of it… It was after all a lovely sunny day! My phone went and I was asked to tell my aunt to put her clothes on so that the men could work - unimpeded!

She was loving all the fuss - ‘Natalie it is fine .. I have put my top back on and I am talking to the men from behind my bush!’ She knew exactly what she was saying, but pretending to be all innocent as she conducted the call from behind the Rhododendron bush. I was quite busy that day - so I sharply told her to put her clothes on and eventually, some normality prevailed, and the workmen finally go back to work - Hopefully not to traumatised! My aunt likes to take her clothes off, she has been doing it all her life. One late night conversation with her she suddenly told me that, I should always put a piece of Blu-Tac over the camera on my laptop… I asked her why? ‘So the Russians can’t spy on you when you are in the nude on your computer!’ ….

‘I am sorry??? But why would I be in the nude at my computer talking to Russians?’

‘Natalie …. You should have been around in the 60’s everyone was taking their clothes off then! And the Russians spy on you via your camera'! They are always looking at me!’ I tried to tell her that the Russians actually don’t spy on people like us, they are not interested … I mean what would they be looking for on an old ladies laptop? But she wasn’t having any of it and I agreed to get the Blu-Tac out!

There have been some really challenging times this year, when one elderly relative signed over his Power of Attorney, Will and a Trust dead to a scammer! It was utterly terrifying to deal with and I only found out by coincidence what had happened and had to fight tooth and nail to get all the documents back. Or dealing with my dear aunt, who is convinced that her telephone company, have employed a bunch of teenagers who’s only job it is, is to cut her off, there is no point telling her that a big corporation would not be interested in her telephone account, she won’t have it. I keep telling her it is because she has not set up her direct debit correctly, but she won’t have that either and she is cut off again and again. So in desperation and fear she called 999, asked for the police and an ambulance, both of which blue lighted to her property only to find a frightened old lady who wanted them to put her phone and internet back on for her. Eventually after much negotiation on my part with the local council I managed arranged for her to have a alert button that she could wear around her neck if she had any further issues, this would alert the local authority that she was in trouble, she like the idea when I first discussed it with her, that was until it was organised and OF COURSE - she refused to have it! ‘Natalie I am not ready for something like that!’ It is exasperating!

My mother, who is in her middle 80’s and I am glad to say does not suffer with any illnesses, However she has always been more than a bit ‘whacky’, but is full of good advice to me on how I should be dealing with all these aged relatives, ‘Natalie the only kindness, would be for ‘them’ all to quietly pass away in their sleep… that is the what you should do!’ I don’t think she means murder them, but I can never really tell with my mother! My mother completely disregards that she is of a similar age to them and is in denial of her own age, if my own age is ever mentioned, she will argue that I am not the age I am, ‘Don’t be ridiculous Natalie - YOU ARE NOT THAT AGE!’ I have given up arguing with her over my age, I realise that if she takes on board my age that would mean she would have to calculate her own age - ‘AND SHE IS NOT HAVING THAT!’

I did have a curious conversation with my mother over the phone this week. I was telling her that one of my elderly charges had somehow got hold of counterfeit stamps and I had to pay an extra fee of £2.50 for a document that they had sent me. My conversation was distracted by my mother using her mobile phone, she is not tech savvy at all, so will walk around whilst using it and it keeps cutting in and out. ‘Mum, are you moving? You keep cutting in and out … Stay in the same place … Please!’ Her response was my mother classic!! ‘Of course I have not moved .. Natalie! I just walked into another room, I would tell you if I have moved!’ I don’t bother to respond, ‘ There always seems to be something wrong with your phone Natalie! Whenever I use my mobile…. Your phone does not work, you should get it mended!’ I carry on with my story about the counterfeit stamps, ‘I wonder mum, where did they get counterfeit stamps from?’ My mother has now lost interest in this conversation, for her it is boring, it is about old people and not something more exiting. ‘What are you saying Natalie? What are you talking about?’

‘Counterfeit stamps - Mum… ‘

‘Counterfeit Spam - Natalie?’

‘Stamps … Mum … Stamps … Can you hear me?’

‘I can’t hear you Natalie … I have told you, you need to get your phone sorted out..’

‘No mum … Can you move back into the other room there is better reception… And I am talking about … S…T…A…M…P…S….Stamps!!’ She thankfully moves back into the other room … ‘Can you hear me now mum?’

‘Yes Natalie, I can hear you now … Have you changed your phone, it is a much better line? So why have they got counterfeit Spam, where did they get it? We used to have it in the war…’

I know that I should not get irritated, but I do…. I have to re-explain that I am not talking about Spam, but Stamps and by the time I have explained it to her … I really wished I hadn’t started … Sometimes after a day of it I start questioning my own cognisant behaviour. Me and my husband have become hyperalert, to any of our own language or memory lapses ... I sometimes think it is me that is going mad ….

Someone I am not responsible for is …. My eldest uncle 94, who has full blown dementia and is in a home in Australia, his devoted elderly wife goes in to see him each week. One week when she was unwell and did not want to take any germs into the home, being tech savvy enough she set up a zoom call to my uncle. The nurses wheeled in the large computer screen on a trolley and set it in front of him, my aunt happily spoke to him via the screen covering various topics of joint interest including the day to day minutia of life, including news about their children and grandchildren. My uncle watched the screen with interest, his eyes widening at times in response to what he was seeing on the big TV screen in front of him; having covered all the general points of interest she thought she would bring the conversation to a close. She blew him a big kiss and said ‘Good Bye my love for now… ’ My uncle who had not said anything for the entire Zoom conversation eyes bulged in outrage. ‘How dare you Madame …. I am a happily married man!’ He turned to the nurses, ‘that woman on the telly is making a pass at me!’….

The Wheels keep on turning ……..

The Red Pot

The Red Pot is on the bottom shelf of the kitchen cupboard, being cast iron it is a good workout to pull it out and get it on the hob, there it sits, in its shiny splendidness with the tiny chip in the red enamel and the deep black interior. It always makes me smile, not least because I quite often cook mussels in it, which are one of my favourites and the reason it was given to me by my late mother-in-law, Renee.

Renee on any level was not a good cook and the pot sat on her shelf in her small kitchen ‘lean-two’ as she called it. We were sat there, one day looking out at her sweet garden, having our customary glass of wine. Renee only drunk whiskey, except for a while she took to drinking a glass of red wine at lunchtime after reading an article in the broad-sheets stating that it aided the digestion and had physical and mental well-being qualities. I did point out to her that the article did not mean to add a glass of red to the near three-quarters of a bottle of whiskey that she drank each day, as this rather contradicted the point of the article!

That weekend I was going to cook us all mussels and Renee wanted me to take the red pot as she said it was the best thing to cook mussels in and she was fed up with it sitting on her shelf collecting dust. Ben got the heavy pot down for us. Renee was insistent that she did not want the pot back it was mine to keep. So we all agreed – Moules Mariniere – mussels in their shells with onions in white wine – Yummy x

Renee liked a tipple or two, it was part of her character and something that she had done all her life, she grew up in an era where drinking was not frowned upon as it is today, sometimes she would talk about her past life when her and her husband used to start their drinking day off early with a good ‘Pinkers’, this was a drink made up of Gin, Angostura Bitters, sparkling rose wine with a garnish of ice cubes and red berries. Drink was part of her lifestyle. We were all used to it and almost all of us accepted that this was the way Renee was. It is easy to ‘right-off’ a drinker, as just a drinker, this is not always the case, Renee had been a school teacher and her skill with children was still called on even after her retirement, where she would go and teach special needs children and children with mental health issues, when she was not doing that she would read avidly; the only other person I have ever met that reads as much as Renee did is our daughter Tallulah. Renee was always on topic with the news and had very strong views on almost everything. She was very much more than a drinker.

I am not saying that after a day when she had more drink than most people would be able to cope with, particularly as she got older that this could affect her, obviously it did at times. One terrifying occasion, when the door knocker went at our house at about 2:30 in the afternoon, when I opened the door it was Renee standing there. She told me that she had just been in town and her car was now making the most dreadful noise, so as our house was the closest to town she came straight here. I went out to the car which was a very old two-tone brown mini. The trim on one side had been partially pull off and there were scrape marks down the side of the paintwork. I turned to Renee and asked her if she had hit anything? ‘Oh, that!’ she said smiling and pulling on her nose, which was a habit she had; ‘that, that is just bad workmanship, Eric put that trim on and it has come away.’ I looked at the damage again and looked back at her? ‘Might have been made a bit worse, when I had to swerve on the Wargrave Road to miss the bus and went up onto the curb into the bushes?’ she offered, just a little bit sheepishly, pulling on her nose again, then waving her hand. I pulled off the trim as it was sticking out, but realised this could not be the reason for any noise coming from the car. So I bent down and looked under the car, and there it was the culprit. I stood back up and asked her where she had been in town? ‘I haven’t been anywhere yet, I came over Henley Bridge, they are doing work on the road by the town hall – did you know? Anyway there were all this men in the middle of the road digging a hole as I went by them that is when the noise started and I came straight here.’ I bent down and looked under the car again, I couldn’t dislodge the offending article. There was a broom leant up against the house, so I got it and used the handle to manoeuvre the traffic cone out from under the car. Renee screamed with laughter at the mangled cone and said that she had looked in her rear view mirror and wondered why the work men were jumping out of the way an all the cones were knocked all over the road! Alcohol and driving do not mix!

Over the years there are many occasions that I cooked mussels in that red pot for Renee, the meal would always start off with her noticing the pot and saying that it was hers! I would say you gave it to me Renee and by the time she left I would feel a bit put out that she thought I had kept her pot and I would have it ready for to take back when Ben took her back home, obviously not letting her drive! She would then remonstrate that she had given me the pot and did not want it back! After many years I got used to the process and didn’t bother to offer it back. So I still have ‘my’ red pot and I do love it, it cooks so many things so well. And I always remember Renee whenever I use it. Cheers Renee….. x

A Twist on Mussels in White wine

I change the Moules Mariniere recipe occasionally, I add Chinese 5 Spice, paprika and chili flakes. Replace the wine for a tin of coconut milk. It is delicious!!  

TWO SHOTGUN WEDDINGS …

‘THE BATEMANS & THE JONES’ –

AND HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR KNICKERS IN A CRISIS!

Chapter 3

Natalie publishes chapter 3 of her stories about Weddings based on ‘What’s in a Snowball?’ As she explains some of her childhood experiences of her childhood home

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My mother, Josephine, youngest brother Bruce was a twin; he was the first born and was placed downstairs in a pram, out of the way, whilst the midwife dealt with the second more complicated birth of his sibling, which sadly did not survive.

There was a huge amount of commotion and panic going on upstairs when Josephine came into the kitchen and came across this small being in the pram, pink and wriggling. A girl in her early teenage years she decided that she would take the baby for a walk to take it away from all the drama that was playing out upstairs. Walking the baby along the road she entered the gates to the park and followed the foot path alongside the brook, stopping to cuddle the baby in her arms and chatting away to him. The little boy had been tightly wrapped in a blanket to keep him snug. Whilst playing with the baby Josephine was unaware that the blanket had begun to unravel and become loose, so as she tried to get a better hold on the baby the blanket became completely loose and the baby fell free, in her panic grasping and grabbing at the child he was propelled into the air and straight into the fast running brook. She watched as the baby went underwater before bobbing to the surface of the water again, face down. The small creature bounced along following the water. Fortunately for my mother, who could not swim the stream was relatively shallow at this point, so she jumped in, soaking her shoes and the bottom of her dress and chased after the child. Grasping out at the baby and making jabs at his limbs but unfortunately was unable to get a good hold on Bruce, if anything her attempts were propelling the infant forward out of her grasp. Splashing around in her panic chasing down the stream she made repeated attempts to get a hold on the baby but his skin was wet and slippery. Eventually she managed to hang onto one of Bruce’s legs and hoist him upside down out of the water, pulling the bundle to her chest with both arms she waded back and scrambled onto the bank, with this now screeching baby.

Josephine quickly wrapped him back up in the blanket and put him back in the pram and walked him at fast pace back home with the baby still howling. Arriving home she hastily put the pram back in the house and went off to find her other siblings leaving Bruce, unhappy and alone. In my mother’s retelling of this story she remembers that the ‘grown up’s’ coming down to see the baby and could not understand why the child was freezing cold and wet, she never owned up to what had happened. Bruce never stopped screaming and grizzling for the next few years causing a visiting aunt to observe; “does that child ever smile?”

Josephine is the eldest sister to five unruly brothers, ‘the Bateman boys’. I am told that she had a metal rod that she used against her brothers if they stepped out of line. They were at best a handful, rough and ready and uncontrollable, quite the opposite of their delicate and demure mother, my Nanna, the family of eight squeezed into their 3 bedroomed semi-detached Barnet council house, 178 Fallowden Way, London, NW11.

178 backed onto the ‘well kempt’ Northway Park Gardens, a beautiful large green space with a bubbling brook running through the grounds, here the children had lots of places to run free and play, hiding underneath the beautiful weeping willows. Fortunately for the Bateman children there was a large tear in the wire fence at the bottom of their long garden allowing them immediate access to the park all day until the park warden chased them off home in the evening back to Nanna, their adoring mother with her blond curled bob, slim fitting clothes. She was a beautiful woman, who when I remember her had very slightly bow legs and a small pop-belly, due most probably to having so many pregnancies, her hands had been damaged by years of working to feed her family in the freezing butchers department of Waitrose / John Lewis giving her arthritis. She was the happiest person you could wish to meet, simple, kind and joyful, she loved her fashion and was always well turned out in the styles of the moment, or her interpretation of those styles, she always wore the brightest of colours mostly made of nylons. Her nails were always painted and she liked her sparkly makeup. Because of her financial circumstances, Nanna was a fan of a thrifty purchase, which meant that she quite often bought things on price not necessarily on their suitability, which was to amusement of me and my mother in later years, for example she had purchased a pair of mauve sling backs in a sale, and they were shinny with a kitten heel, on one of our many visits to John Lewis Partners, Peter Jones, Sloane Square, Chelsea, which my mother adored to go to and trawl the floors, for necessary items to buy. Which was encouraged by the fact that Nanna had a John Lewis partnership card which meant a good discount. My mother’s idea of heaven! After an extensive route march of the shop, Nanna was complaining that her feet were sore, and she was visibly walking differently. So we found a place for her to sit to take her shoes off, which she did. Josephine shook the shoe hard and a number of squashed up cotton wall balls fell out of the shoe. It transpired that Nanna had like the shoes, but they were not in her size so she bought them and had stuffed cotton wool in the toes so that they would fit her, this apparently had worked the first time well, but Nanna had forgotten that she had put cotton wool in the shoe so she had stuffed more in the toe, this meant that the shoes were actually too small for her, hence the pain in her feet! We had a similar experience with a pair of boots that she had bought, somehow she hand managed to spill a bottle of pills in them, so that when we investigated what the problem was that time it turned out to be squashed powdered pills all attached to her feet.

Nanna, despite some of the antics of her sons always remained soft natured and sweet, which to me was unusually considering she was married to Ted. Edward was to me a mean character out of a children’s TV series, his face was hollowed and his mouth always ‘very’ turned down and shiny because it was always wet, he had a salt and pepper moustache which was in a sort of elongated Hitler style, he was very pale and his hair that was sparse and greasy in a comb over style. He was to me a tall man but his frame was eaten away by illness, he too had bow legs? He was fiercely jealous of anyone that was near his wife, even his small grandchildren.

It was never really on the books that my Nanna would marry, she was the daughter of a bank manager with two older brothers, she was the apple of her father’s eyes, but was considered to be perhaps too simple to marry and was content to spend time living with her parents. She told me stories about her childhood of sitting on the stairs, watching large platters of food going up and down the stairs to the dining room above, where her parents would be holding parties. When plates come back down stairs to the kitchen the cook would allow her and her brothers to clean up the rich pickings of leftover food. Grand times indeed!

Sometime in her middle to late 20’s she was on a bus this was where she meet my Ted, against the odds, considering Ted’s lack of charm, however love blossomed and subsequently they got married. Nanna’s father was not particularly keen on the union and was concerned how Ted was going to look after her, given his background.

From what I know Ted he was the son of parents that worked on the trains dealing with the coal deliveries. As a small child when entering my great grandmother’s house in Cricklewood, it made a great impression on me, the house was situated on a grey dusty street, that even to my small view on the world, appeared as if everything was created in miniature and in hues of black, grey and white, these tiny terraced houses had been stained by years of being backed onto the railway tracks were trains brought in the coal, backward and forward. When you entered the tiny house, it was truly from another era, in the small living / kitchen room there was a tiny open grate with embers shinning, a pot on the side that whistled when it was boiled, lace curtains at the window, that had seen better days and to the left a stairwell with an open door and a curtain hanging over the entrance to the steps. Everything in the house had been tainted with soot dust over the years and nothing appeared in colour, there was a small table in the middle of the room where we were going to have our lunch, which I was very dubious about. My great grandmother, tiny, stooped with her hair in a thin bun at the back of her head, barley acknowledge us, she just went over to the grate pulled out some wood from a scuttle bucket at the side of the room and snapped it in half over her knee and threw it on the fire, this enthralled my brother Laurie, who took it upon himself to take a piece of wood and try and do the same. It was clearly a skill as Laurie bash and cracked the stick of wood on his leg, unable to dent it let alone break it! When she turned around she took the wood from Laurie and snapped it with ease over her knee and threw it on the fire. I think she smiled at him I am not sure as there was the most enormous sound of a beeping horn and then the dirty dense acerbic smell and noise of a chuffing train arriving at the back of the house behind the wall, blowing air into the house via the back door, which lead to a minuscule cobbled yard. It was like a scene from a Hitchcock film, everything rattled and the tatty lace curtain quivered in the breeze. Great Grandmother never heard a thing she was by that time quite deaf, and most probably immune to the regular arrival of the foul smelling train. Ted’s father by this time had died and I never met him, to my knowledge, but was told by my mother that he was the nicest of people with all the time in the world for his granddaughter Josephine and her siblings… So no-one knew where Ted’s grumpy nature came from.          

Ted and Nanna went off on their honeymoon and that night her father died, and so she was now left with the miserable, ill-natured, bad tempered Ted. They started their married life living in rented rooms in a large house. Within the first year of their marriage they had Josephine my mother; over the years it became obvious to me that Nanna did not like anything sexually orientated, I am not really sure if she really, at least initially understood how babies were made, she was and remained completely unworldly. If an advert came on the television about women shaving their legs, she would start to sing in order to divert our attention! Sex was an enigma, this was really a mantra amongst my parents and grandparents. It was something to be frowned upon at all times and was only used as a form of procreation – if indeed that is how babies were made. It was an every present underbelly of something that was quite disgusting!  Yet there was all these children!

Nanna found herself at home alone with this small bundle, my mother, doting on her feeding and singing to this new beautiful child, but she had no real clue on how to look after a baby. Fortunately for my mother an early intervention by an aunt saved my mother’s life, she came to visit and view this new child, looking down at the baby the aunt realised something was very wrong. Josephine was puce and having difficulty breathing, she asked Florence what she was feeding the baby. “Milk and little bits of chopped up liver.”  The sweet and kind hearted Florence, had assumed that she was doing a kindness in feeding the baby small pieces of liver, as you would do to perhaps a weening puppy. My mother spent days in hospital recovering and Nanna was taught how to feed a new baby, which was good news for my mother’s five brother’s survival!

As time went by and Ted’s health deteriorated, so Nanna had many jobs to help bring up her large family, one was working at the local bakery, where there was another staff member also called Florence, so it was decided that Nanna’s new name would be Jean, I never heard her called Florence by anyone including Ted, who liked to shout her name a lot, in gruff unedifying sneers; ‘Jean, Jean! For God sake Jean, where are you woman, Jean you are so stupid”. And on it would go.  Jean would come running, “Yes Ted, what can I get you?” Nanna always at his beck and call always wanting to help, Ted never ever with a kind word for her. Smelly Ted was always there wheezing away, I say smelly Ted, because he would come close to your face when he wanted to talk and his breath had a sort of sweet antiseptic smell like old fashion ‘TCP’, which was a medicine that you gargled if you had a sore throat which had an overwhelming smell. Ted by this stage was suffering from a non-curable emphysema a lung condition causing shortness of breath. He was always gasping for breath and as time went on the condition worsened. When they used to visit us at our home Dutch Gardens, Nanna would arrive all happy and Ted by then would arrive in his wheel chair with his enormous heavy metal canister of oxygen being wheeled along behind him by Nanna. It was believed that Ted’s illness was caused when he worked in the upholstery industry where it was believed that he ingested fibres that caused his ill health condition after that he never worked again…. He just shouted at Nanna.

One of the more peculiar things I remember Nanna telling me, a story about the next door neighbour, a young man who had taken a liking to the young Florence, they used to chat convivially over the garden hedge, this young man was looking after his elderly mother, when Ted became aware that they were talking he would call Jean away and tell her not to talk to the young man. As time went on the young man would wave at her over the fence when he was in the garden. One day there was a large attendance of police in the garden of the house next door, apparently ‘the nice young man’ had killed his mother cutting her head off and leaving it in the sink? I never made head nor tail of this story as it was such an out of character story for her to tell? She was usually full of silliness, fun and kindness. So much so that even my young cousins would try and differentiate between their two grandmothers, my aunt’s mother smoked a great deal, I heard one cousin saying to the other, ‘which one? Who are you talking about Coughing Nanna or Silly Nanna?’. Which kind of summed her up, she wanted to make people happy.  She was incapable of being anything but nice. She scrimped and saved all her life, when her children were small, she did her best to make it a home, she was a terrible cook, couldn’t sew, in the winter the pipes would freeze and burst so that the children would wade through icy water across the kitchen floor. Nanna believed her boys where the sweetest things, in real terms as they grew up they were part of the swinging 60’s and as wild as they came, happy to be in a pub drinking the night away and never shy of a punch up at the end evening.

When Ted died, it meant that Nanna had the house to herself, which allowed her the freedom to indulge her love of all things pretty and developed her interest in interior design, she had always enjoyed decorating the house, when her children were younger she would even use wrapping paper as wall paper and flour and water as glue to brighten up the house. One particular design that I remember was her Edwardian look. She redecorated her lounge area, over the electric fireplace she had hung six gold sprayed picture frames set in a circle. She had cut pictures out of her Edwardian magazine and put them in the gold frames, at the top was an elegant picture of a young Lady, representing my mother and then the rest bar one were of male figures, representing her boys. The bottom picture was of another female. I asked who the other female picture was supposed to be. She told me that there were not enough images of men in the magazine so the other female picture was of Chris, this was a great source of amusement to Christopher her son. 

In her later life she developed dementia and eventually needed to be put into a home. One afternoon when she had been unwell she was being helped by one of the staff in her room. Her boys came to see her and were invited to sit in the old peoples lounge and wait while they sorted out Nanna. They quickly realised that there was a free open bar for the elderly residences. For the next hour or so they ‘piled’ their way through the alcohol and in the process got rowdier and rowdier… Nanna upstairs in her bed, turned to the nurse and said, ‘what a lovely sound of my boys playing downstairs’! As a result of this particular event and to stop Nanna being thrown out of the nursing home, my father Trevor was quick to restock the bar and buy the nursing home two large TV’s, one for the residents lounge and one for the matrons office! There were many occasions like this with the Bateman boys and it was not at all unusual for Trevor to receive a call to his office asking for one or other of them to be bailed out of the local ‘nick’!

My mother was quite a different character to her brothers, like her mother she too liked all things pretty and beautiful, having lived with all these boys, she wanted another lifestyle, like her mother was stunningly beautiful, but Josephine had a will to change her future and she was bright. She won a place at a secretarial college, to learn touch typing and Greggs shorthand. She went to the top of the class, but there were some small fees to pay to meet with her studies. So Nanna took the ‘boys’ around the local area carol singing to raise cash for their sister. It was at Greggs secretarial college that Josephine met Elvira Jones, who came from Neasden NW10.

Elvira Jones, was the third youngest of seven surviving children, five boys and two girls. The fourth youngest being Trevor, my father. On a journey home Elvira brought her fellow student back with her, and so Josephine meet Trevor Wynne-Jones.

The Jones family were worlds apart from the Bateman’s. Well educated highly pompous and highly motivated, they are all dramatic and highly strung. The Jones siblings were extremely strong characters and were exceptionally competitive against one another, which has continued throughout their lives. The eldest son Ivor, a tall man, a whopping 12lbs at birth, became the youngest ships captain in the Navy, he was the favourite of his mother’s children and the two girls Elvira and Dilys idolised him. Elvira a strong bright and independent woman who was Trevor’s nemesis, married into the film industry, lived in a whopping house near Brighton where I spent many happy months marauding around the grounds with my cousins, building dens and finding hidden cupboards in the old house. Hilbrey and Roger, were as thick as thieves and had both been evacuated together, their endless conversation took the form of a sort of desperate comedy duo act on speed, both bouncing off each other, making stupid digs at their siblings, eyes popping out of their heads. Roger and his wife Barbara emigrated to Australia, turned into Mormons and had seven children, whilst Hilbery joined Trevor his younger brothers construction company, where there was a falling out between the two brother’s and for years they never spoke again, nor would Hilbery and his wife Nora come to any family event that my parents were at! Eventually they emigrated to Canada. Trevor, a maverick, a schemer and a tactician, was his mother’s least favourite, always at the front of the deal, he manage to get himself a scholarship to the London academy of art, but his father Harry said, ‘no’, he had to get himself a proper job. So he did a sales apprenticeship, which he excelled in and launched himself into the construction industry making himself millions, not always in the most moral way! The youngest boy Ellis, extremely highly strung and nervy, like all youngest children desperate to follow and emulate his older brothers, particularly Trevor, which in his young life got him into all sorts of complex trouble, not least in steeling lead off the local church roof! Ellis emigrated to Canada. And then the baby Dilys who all the boys and parents doted on, she was indulged and simply went along with the rest of the brood.

Their mother, my grandma Pidgie, Doris Margareta Jones, the daughter of a Swedish master tailor Carl and his wife Rosina, my name sake, who I am told was Italian, was one of his seamstress’s. Carl Franzen had fled Sweden in the First World War and set up shop in London. They had three children, the youngest of which was my grandmother, Cyril her brother was a renowned gambler who had houses all over the place in order to hide from any potential creditor and or wife/girlfriend and their older brother Leonard was some sort of steward of car racing tracks. Doris was well educated, beautiful and very strong willed. She was a first class pianist and delighted in all things that were wild, being a young woman growing up in the 1920’s. Some of Doris wilder behaviour upset her mother Rosina. According to Grandma Pidgie, she was part of a swing band, which used to practice in a shed in her parents garden much to the irritation of the neighbours. She played sax and piano, she also used her piano skills in the local cinemas for the musical accompaniment of the black and white films.

Doris fell in love with one of the other musicians, who she claim to have lived with for a while, [not at all sure how accurate this bit is?]. He died of tuberculosis on Friday 13th – a date that she hated and it was on the re-bound she met up with a handsome ship’s captain, Hugh Jones who she fell in love with. His ship sunk and he was lost at sea, so again on the re-bound she fell for Hugh’s brother Henry, Harry to all who knew him. She fell pregnant with their first child Ivor, so Doris and Harry were married, a shot gun wedding. My paternal grandparents the Jones. If you are wondering why she was known as Grandma Pidgie, the reason is because my mother did not want me to get confused between my two grandmothers. Grandma had a cat called Pidge and so my mother referred to her for my understanding and clarification as Grandma Pidgie as opposed to Nanna! Yes I know what you are thinking, I thought the same at the time even though I was small. It makes no sense as neither name nor person were similar – but somehow it made sense to my mother, so I did as I was told. 

Doris and Harry could not have been more different if you had tried to make them so. She was very highly strung, intelligent, socially educated and part of a London crowd. Harry a complex man was from the North near Newcastle had simple values and found his wife demanding and hysterical. Once Doris left Harry at home to go to the shops, when she came back she found him washing down the hallway, having been in the navy, he was slushing down the hall with buckets of water and a brush, pushing the water into the hall then brushing it through from the front door to the back. Doris was not amused!

Grandma reminded me a little of the cartoonist Giles depiction of a Grandma, she was small, a little round and had as she called them Charlie Chapman feet, both turned out, she was very proud of her turned out feet. Her hair was auburn, wavy and long tied in a bun until she had an accident damaging her shoulder and decided to have her hair bobbed. She wore to my mind grandma style practical clothes, there was always a flesh colour girdle with suspenders attached hanging drying somewhere in the house. Grandma was highly industrious, always doing something, mending, making and creating she had an artistic flair. Her main hobbies were knitting and crocheting at super-fast pace whilst watching the television or having a conversation, often I would stand hands out stretched holding her wool whilst she turned it into wool balls. There was always a project on the go, knitting something for someone, quite often for my mother.

At Dutch Gardens our new home, my mother went through her decorating a toilet roll phase, my mother has many design phases, this was one of the earlier and less successful ones, in all the bathrooms and toilets with the exception of my brother’s and mine, Grandma had been deployed to knit flamboyant woollen dresses to fit over hideous plastic Cindy dolls, the dolls legs were then shoved into the centre of toilet rolls and their dresses were used to cover the main body of the toilet roll. They were knitted out of odd bits of wool that were left over from other projects, one had a silvery purple and red dress, and even to my young mind they were revolting in the extreme.

These creations were used mostly for the spare roll that resided on top of the loo. The problem was with these creations, that once the spare toilet roll was needed the dolls would lay prostrate on the toilet showing their bare bottoms, legs akimbo, at parties when the Bateman boys were in the house, we would find the dolls all over the house in the most unflattering poses! So thankfully after a season or two the dolls were disposed of, thank God!

In my mother’s mock Victorian lace period, Grandma was billeted into crocheting lace tablecloths, these were the most elaborate creations, with lace flowers attached to more lace flowers, some so complicated that they were raised, they were deposited all over the house on tables of all sizes that my mother had acquired, once my mother gets an idea she takes it to the maximum. The tablecloths dropped to the ground, you had to be careful not to catch your shoe in them, when you walked by. They could be really irritating, you had to be really careful how you put a glass or a plate down as there was not a level surface to be had in the house, quite funny if they were entertaining as wine glasses would be falling all over the place.        

Outside of my paternal grandparents having all these children they never saw eye to eye on anything, she was a Conservative and he was pro-Labour, which would cause all sorts of problems. Once my father was on the phone to Grandma’s best friend Mrs Fox a spinster and she made the mistake of saying to Trevor – ‘I really don’t understand why they dislike each other so much, they must have liked something about each other look at all the children they had!’ This was met with short shrift from Trevor! But let’s face it Mrs Fox had a point!

5 Mead Plat, had two bedrooms and a box room upstairs with a bathroom and separate WC, so very modern by comparison with Nanna’s house in some ways, which had an outside toilet and a tin bath under the kitchen sink, the Bateman family must of taken their lives in their own hands bathing in the tin bath because all the electrical appliances were plugged into one overhanging light bulb in the ceiling!

Downstairs at Grandma’s house there was a front room which was Grandma’s and a back room which was Grandpa’s with a separate kitchen all separated by a freezing cold hall as there was no central heating in the house and a small pantry at the front of the house, which grandma kept her collection of crockery and other special items. When visiting my grandparents in Neasden there was order, no attempt at interior design, I don’t think the council house had been decorated since they moved in, everything was in its place and it was spick and span. In Grandma’s room there was an old fire with green tiles, which was her only form of heating, an old wooden extendable dining table with a white lace table cloth place on it at an angle so to show the corners of the table, plot plants on the window sill and a large glass ashtray in the middle of table, even though she did not smoke, it was a curtsey for guests and also served a purpose of keeping the table cloth in place otherwise it would have slipped off the highly polished wooden surface. There were a couple of worn out arm chairs, a leather Moroccan style pouffe, which I loved and her upright piano. Grandpa’s room was always freezing as he rarely had his electric fire on. He also had a wooden dining table and chairs, his arm chair in the corner next to his huge wireless which he used to listen to military music, against the wall by the door was a cabinet with pictures of both his daughters when they were young, Dilys and Elvira, none of his sons. There were other military pictures doted around the room. We didn’t very often go into this room, unless it was Christmas then all hostilities between the two of them, ‘in the main’ had to be put on hold, because all the grandchildren would be there, this meant my grandparents were temporally allowed to go into each other’s rooms. Christmas dinner when I was very small was served in Harry’s room. Grandma’s room was where all the Christmas decorations and tree was housed and where we would open our presents and mostly sit. Grandma had hundreds of decorations and stings and strings of electric lights, I particularly remember the pink prancing reindeer that would dance around the room. Every Christmas without exception there would be a ‘pop’ and to me the lovely smell, like at lighted match and the house would go black. One of grownups would run to get the electrics back on whilst the rest would pull plugs out all over the place. Then started the process of plugging each string of lights back into the plug until they worked out which was the culprit string that has a blown light, once identified, and the electricity had been turned on again, Grandma would rush off to her pantry and return back with her huge tin box full of spare fairy light bulbs and the process of unscrewing each bulb and putting a new one in to check if that was the blown bulb would start, blowing the electricity each time until the culprit bulb was found. It was not unusual for this process to happen a few times over the day. It was a hard day for Grandma when she was finally persuaded to give up her Christmas lights as they were quite frankly a fire hazard.  

Outside of those early Christmas’s strict rules were kept at all times at the Jones house, there was no fraternizing with the enemy. Grandma’s favourite saying when referring to Harry was that ‘he makes me spit’, she said it at least once a day and on bad days a lot more. As a child this was extremely exciting to think that my grandmother was going to do something quite so disgusting and I would wait with excitement to see her do it, she never did, it was just something she said and her own children never even batted an eyelid at the comment, she had said it so often. After a very serious accident, which left Harry unable to speak, such was the severity of his injury, he would stammer and get so frustrated, Doris took it upon herself to teach him to speak again, she would write out great lists of simple arithmetic and spellings and leave him at his table, to do the maths and copy the spellings, sometimes, rarely he was even allowed at her table to learn all the work she had set for him. It took her well over a year to get him able to speak again and as he got better, and when she would infuriated him, he would whisper under his breath, so both she and I could hear, ‘bloody bitch and bloody Swedish bitch’. Nothing had changed, you could think that in the end this was a great show of love on her behalf, but it turned out that she could not stand the idea of him being totally reliant on her, so he had to get better, which he did and that meant that their ridged regime of how they lived their lives and all hostilities could continue, as before.

Harry, when he was younger looked to me, like Stan Laurel from the old black and white films of Laurel and Hardy, but a bit broader set. As an older man, he was to us grandchildren a strict man, ridged in his habits but not unkind, he would frog march Laurie and I out the house around the streets and we would end up at the pub where he would go in leaving us in the car park on the North Circular road, whilst he nipped in for a quick pint, before marching us back, quick pace home to Grandma for lunch. As we got older, I found him quite funny, his knowledge of London was immense, due to his many years as a bus conductor, once when we were at the top of the post office tower in London, now BT tower, I stood outside on the balcony and he could tell me all the history of the city, I joked with him, that his knowledge was via all the pubs. This would cause his typical, hissing laugh through his teeth and his iron grip would grasp my arm, this was all part of his character as was his desire when we were out to shout at the top of his voice to his wife when he saw a sign to the ladies toilets. ‘Doris there is the lavatory’… only to be followed by … ‘he makes me spit!’… Then would come his hissing laugh.

He died a few years before Grandma in his late 80’s, but up until then she made his egg and bacon every morning which would be delivered to the door of his room, always begrudgingly. Then at about 10:30 he would either cycle or get the bus to the local bus depot, were he had worked all his life as a bus conductor, he never learned to drive himself. At the depot he would chat with his mates and colleagues, have a ‘light’ boiled egg and toast and make it back to grandma for his lunch, usually meat and two veg followed by pudding, in the afternoon he would sit in his chair, listen to his rousing military music on his large radio, early afternoon he would walk to the local pub, have a pint and a chat with whoever was there and make it back home where Doris had prepared his second meal of meat and two veg with pudding! Delivered begrudgingly to his door.  A simple life some would say!

I think that in my younger life it was coloured by grandma’s animosity toward him, and he could be very difficult, however in the main as I got older I realised that he was a man of his generation, ill-suited to someone like Grandma as she was to him. He was extremely knowledgeable about history and politics, he loved the program ‘Spitting Image’, no irony there! And would try and engage me in conversations on topic. He would sit in his garden which was split into two, one half a small lawn with a tree, the further part of the garden was dedicated to growing vegetables, which must have been necessary to feed his large family. There he would listen to the bands of my generation playing at Wembley Stadium as the sound would travel to his garden and when he saw me next he would give me his opinion on the performance.  

I have fond memories of him standing with one foot into the door of Grandma’s room, when I used to visit, she tooting loudly that he was anywhere near her room, he smoked rollups which he had a little machine to make them, but he would say to me ‘what about one of those cigarettes for you grandfather’, I smoked at the time, I would offer him the packet and he would take two cigarettes, put them in his top pocket and Grandma would want to spit and he would be delighted and go off back to his room, with his hissing laugh.

There was something for me as a child that was magical about Grandma, she was the centre of everyone in a way and as pivotal to what went on in the family. She would encourage me to be creative and would always have a story about everything. I felt safe around her. She was in a way always there. She would give me advice on just about everything, and she would be comforting in a crisis. She had time for me, she could also be quite stern if she felt the need. She was her own person. Some of her stories were quite out there, which I suppose is what made her interesting to me as a small child. She would repeatedly give me advice on things, such as, ‘if I was ever in an accident, to make sure I had clean knickers on; keep a spare pair in your handbag’. When she first told me this, I just took it like much of the things she said as ‘verbatim’, but as time went by and she repeated it as ‘sage advice’,  I couldn’t help wondering why after an accident anyone would be looking in my knickers? Surly they would be more interested in dealing with any wounds I had sustained? Also it confused me as to how I would know the moment before I was going to have the accident which would then prompt me to put the clean knickers on, or where I was going to change into them? And as I got older I just hoped that if I had an accident that anyone that was trying to help me was not a raving pervert! Another ‘sage advice’ was, ‘if your knickers ever fell down when you were walking along the street, just step out of them and keep walking, if anyone catches you up and tries to give you them back – just say politely they are not yours’. Again I could not see a situation where my knickers were going to suddenly fall to the floor and I thought it absurd that anyone would want to pick them up and run after you and offer them back?

So, after Elvira’s introduction, the relationship between my mother and Trevor continued to blossom and Trevor bought a tandem bicycle, and he and my mother would go on cycling holidays. Honestly, if I had not seen the black and white pictures I would never have believed that you would get my mother on a bike. At some stage they decided to get married and my mother had a wedding photograph book with a big padded cover that I used to look at when I was little. For some reason my mother would always comment when I was looking at the album that she was 18 when she married Trevor, she was quite persistent, so much so that when I used to show the album to anyone else, the minute I saw my mother I would point at her and say she was 18. In real terms it made no odds to me, but it was something she was very keen on me understanding. When I was about 11 or 12, I was looking for something in the cupboard and came across the album again, leafing through it, I started to notice a few things, like my aunt Dilys who was younger than my parents, however if she was as old as she looked in the pictures how could my mother be 18? I flicked though to the back of the album and there were various telegrams with dates on them wishing the happy couple good luck, I then did more sleuthing, of which I was particularly good at. Found some other dates in the album and … ‘Bingo’, I realised that my mother was in fact 20 years old. Then being the sort of child I was, mainly I think because there were always secrets in the family, I did a few more calculations. And I realised what the situation was.

   My parents were home this particular afternoon, which was rare. I marched up the stairs with the album under my arm and presented my case to what to be fair were my bemused parents. The date had been drummed into me that my mother was 18, was because she had actually married Trevor when she was nearly 21, pregnant with my brother Laurie! Trevor was ‘sort of amused’, my mother was not at all amused, I was ejected from the room and told under no circumstances was I to tell my brother that he had been conceived out of wedlock! A second shot-gun wedding. I was impressed. I never did say anything to Laurie. Not really sure if he knows now?

Opening Christmas presents at my mothers house, much later in their lives….

Where did the time go … And Who Am I?

Photograph on a mug taken at Hamley’s sits in my dressing room…

I kissed him goodbye, then a big hug… Then everything I had been practicing all morning, well for the last nearly 26.9 years, really ..Which is Not to cry! .. To keep it all in proportion … I was lost… As a huge supressed, blub forced its way out of my mouth without my agreement… He laughed, “I will be back soon Mummy” said our beautiful middle child, our son … I thought to myself - For God sake Natalie, I know this … I know how to do this.. Pull yourself together… I pulled away .. dabbed my eyes, right that is it, I went left and he went back upstairs to continue his ad hoc packing.. Last minute as ever, which is his style. Time was ticking before he had to leave to go and stay with his sister in Newcastle…  I had planned how I was going to deal with this latest exodus of one our children, the last one that was living at home. I was going to go shopping so that I would not see him leave, not see him walk out the house, leaving me behind… God knows I have done that enough times before, watching them walk away … That is hard… It does not matter how happy you are for your children as they move forward in their lives.. I feel that I am left behind wondering ‘Who am I?’ without them.

Seven years earlier we had done exactly the same thing for the first time.. Walking away from our 19 year old daughter in Westfield shopping centre when she moved to London to study English Literature at University. We had been sitting in a restaurant, just before, whilst she ate ‘mac & cheese’, we had just finished set up her student bed-sit and went for a bite to eat. I knew we were going to have to walk away from her and leave her to start the beginning of her own semi-independent life… She was full of anticipation, nervousness and excitement.. Thankfully when we were setting up her room earlier, one of the other students in the quarters had called to her to come into the kitchen and have a drink with him… Our daughter is nothing if not a socialite … She has always loved people, getting to know new things about them, embracing them into her life… So it gave me comfort to know that once she had finished her food… She would walk away from us and into something new, with someone new… Standing outside the restaurant, we hugged her goodbye with our backs to the way she was going to walk, her father released her and she walk in a semi-circle around us away down the concourse of Westfield … I walked forward my mind scrambling but trying to be strong … But then like a strong magnet pulling me and forcing me to turn my head to look back in her direction, she too had turned to look back in our direction and our eyes met… I smiled a strong smile, nodded with a bit of a wave and forced myself to turn away again.. It was a long journey home.

So today, I was not going to be in the house when he left… Four days before today, we had been saying goodbye to our youngest son for three months as he does a trip with the army to Kenya. The night before he left we had a big adult hug.. Me being as strong as I could, his enormously long arms wrapped around me, I left the room as fast as I could and the quiet tears rolled down my cheeks by the time I got to the top of the stairs… It is gruelling saying goodbye. The next morning when he left I had decided to stay in my bedroom so as not to upset him with any emotional goodbyes. I lay in my bed at 5.00am…. I had been awake for hours … Waiting for our beautiful youngest boy to leave the house and disappear on his exciting trip… I listened as he charged at full pelt from his bedroom flying up the stairs into the bathroom … At equal speed he flew back down the stairs to the front door, glazed doors were ripped open then the front door and out onto the street the door clunking behind him… I listen to the footsteps fading away into the distance … His gone…

All of your life you are encouraging your children to go forward in life to try things – be bold don’t miss the opportunity to try something new, driving them all over the place, cheering them on to embrace a new and exciting experience, encouraging them to be a happy independent person … But when they leave it is hard… ‘What is my purpose?’

Having avoided the last goodbye I find myself in a daze as I walking around the supermarket looking at all the things I usually buy, pizza’s that they can chuck in the oven when they come in hungry in the early hours of the morning after a long night out on the tiles, only to find when we come down in the morning the tray sitting in the hob, with bits of cooked cheese still stuck on it, left for us to wash! In reality this irritated me, now I am already smiling at the memory. I turn the corner and walk down the next aisle, I resist picking up 5 packs of bacon and the huge joint of meat that would feed us all to a good Sunday lunch with plenty of left-over’s to use in various ways and or for another midnight/early morning feast for the children. That is my job, isn’t it? Feeding the household making sure the fridge is full for any potential raiding that may happen day or night. I look down at the ‘small trolley’ I am now pushing, another first – the small trolley! I have put some organic Earl Grey tea in the trolley, I have no idea why, I don’t drink organic tea usually?  I wander up the next aisle – the booze aisle. This reminds me of the many, many parties and celebrations that we have had over the years and the fun and laughter we all had together; on the other hand it also reminds me of the children arriving back at the house long after we had gone to bed to party somewhere within house with their friends, these clandestine parties mostly start off good naturedly, with hushed voices and the odd loud giggle, but as the drinks flow the participants begin to get louder and louder and the traffic to the nearest loo takes on a stampede, with the endless sound of a flushing toilet from some corner of the house. I have never been a good sleeper until I know all the children are in the house, and by this I don’t mean all the young adults in the local area, which sometimes happens, I mean our children. So I lie in bed and hear the party getting revved up, I try and be a laid back parent and think ‘let them have a bit of a party, their friends will go soon’, but the party continues and I watch the clock as the hours tick by. My husband has an uncanny knack to be able to sleep through these events or so he says! Because in the mornings he looks just as knackered as me! I think he just says he sleeps - so he is not the one that has to go down and tell the revellers either shut up or ‘bugger off’! I do the ‘bugger off’ bit in a huge white towelling dressing gown with the hood up. This look has become synonymous in the children’s view to a horror event – I am in effect the white version of Grim Reaper coming down to ruin their fun!

Our youngest child was given a part in the Nativity play in his first year at primary school, on the car journey home from school, he announced that he had a great part in the school play… the Grim Reaper! I was obviously a bit confused by this revelation, but thought that perhaps the school was very progressive taking a more ‘ultramodern’ approach to the festive period? He was very proud of his character casting. His older sister was obviously as bemused as I was and continued to question him about the part, this investigation by her went on over tea, until she finally worked out what part he actually had – not the Grim Reaper but the Inn Keeper! Being only five he had never really come across an Inn Keeper, but we had had enough Halloween parties for him to identify what a Grim Reaper was. She naturally corrected him – He was utterly dismayed and cross at what he thought was a down-grading of his dramatic role and refused to play any other part other than the Grim Reaper, so when the time came for his dramatic performance with the tea-cloth on his head and dressed in robes with his shepherds crook, he was in his mind the Grim Reaper! A year later he was given the part of playing God. This meant that he had to stand on a chair with his arms held out. When I asked him at the end of the play if he liked playing God – He said ‘no it makes your legs hurt being God!’     

Now I was staring at the olives and hams, which are a favourite of our middle child, who really has quite the ‘fine palate!’… Of course, like any family there have been trauma’s along the way and many trying times – But much more funny memories..  Our middle child learning to ride a bike, the frustration that he found in doing it, backwards and forwards down the road trying to gain his balance and learning to ride in a straight line, not weaving all over the road…. ‘Come on you can do it ….’  We both shout at him… And then he did … Brilliantly, however, by this time he was so irritated by the whole process, that he suddenly executed a perfect stop, dismounted from the bike throwing his leg expertly over the bike… Bent down and with all his might picked the bike up in the air and threw it over the gate and into the field!... Which we found hysterical which irritated him even more…

One house we lived in had a long corridor, our daughter who was and is an avid reader knew that all the adult books were kept in my office which was at the end of this corridor, she was about 12 at the time, we would be sitting outside in the courtyard adjacent to the corridor and we would watch her sneaking along the corridor ducking down at each window to get to my office so that she could take one or two of the books upstairs to read secretly, on this particular occasion it was, ‘the silence of the Lambs’!

I have walked around the supermarket and managed to fill my trolley with a few bits and a great number of bottles of wine. Now queuing at the checkout still over thinking things and being very self-indulgent in wondering what the point of me actually is now? The tears started to well up in my eyes. I had to pretend that I was going to sneeze, when the cashier asked me if I was alright.. Really I am too pathetic…

Back home putting things away and pottering around the kitchen it is so quite I can hear no noise, no eruptions like our youngest bursting into the house at break-neck speed and charging up the stairs. There is no loud music coming from our other son’s room whilst he does his workouts. No daughter sitting in the kitchen regaling me with all her news and gossip.. All the plates are in the cupboard and the cutlery is in the draw as it should be, when they are here I am constantly telling them – dramatically – ‘I can’t cook if no one brings their plates, knives and forks back down here, where are all the glasses?’ The more I think about it the more -  I feel redundant…

I turn to the fridge it is 4.30pm, I am not the type of person who waits until it is six o’clock for a glass of wine.. 4.30pm is fine for me today… Before I get to the fridge the phone rings, I look at the screen – it is our daughter – I pick up .. ‘Hello Mummy – I am just ringing you to tell you that I have booked my flight to come back next week and we are all coming back with some friends to stay for ten days, there are some Halloween parties that we want to go to…’ We had a long conversation about everything she and her brother were doing in Newcastle and planning to do. I had to smile to myself… I realised that, of course they will always be back and I am so very thankful for that … Even though it will be party central here once again and the cutlery draw, particularly with forks will be empty  … It is who I am their mother … And so proud to be so …      

There’s Always One!

What is in a ‘Snowball’?

A story based on Bridesmaids & Weddings

-        It is not as dull as it sounds! -

Chapter 2…

There is always one!

I have been an actual bridesmaid five times in my life as well as playing many other ‘bit parts’ along the way! There was always a wedding going on when I was younger, huge great events with all the pomp and ceremony thrown in! My mother is the eldest and only girl of six children and my father - Trevor is one of seven his place in his brood was number four. So there was always the possibility of a wedding amongst the family and failing that, you could always rely on the extended family friends to supply the nuptials! We were never short of a wedding to attend!

Weddings are weird events if you think about it, all rational thinking goes out the window. Sometimes, quite often really, you find yourself at a wedding, that really is not a good fit in terms that you have attended the wedding because of a family connection even though you have no real ‘connection’ with the people that are getting married, or because of past connections with a person and a past life that has since faded, but you still feel that you should go to the wedding for old time sake.

I am always surprised by the way people dress at these occasions, don’t get me wrong – You will be hard pushed to find someone that loves an outfit, as much as I do, I totally have a connection with my mother there, it is in my DNA! – At a wedding you see all sorts of outfits, worn by the key players that on most occasions they would not be seen dead in and the style is mostly based on another period in history. Some of the wedding dresses are criminal hideous, not only in their excessive cost but in their ludicrous designs. At one wedding I attended the bride was told by her super religious mother that she could not wear white as she had been living with her husband to be, it was in the late 1980’s! So the down trodden bride walked down the aisle in a blancmange style purple silk dress with ‘off-white’ trims more sepia if I am honest. When we got to the reception afterward, her husband was clearly so amused and or bemused by her ‘look’, which had been made worse by the uncharacteristic makeup style that was caked on her slim face; he changed his speech and devoted it to his new wife’s, ‘new look’ – he brutally mocked her outfit and her ‘polyfilla’ face, commenting that if he had not heard her voice he would not have a clue who he had just married – as she more resembled Co-Co the clown! This horrendously ‘naff’ commentary brought on huge laughter from his mates and stony glances from most of the women present, including myself. The laughter only encouraged ‘Turbo Pete’ the groom, who had been for the last 3 hours staggering around Bray, Berkshire with his entourage of mates consuming vast amounts of alcohol, in fact we had seen him in The Crown about 40 minutes before he was due to get married – I was quite impressed that he even made it down the aisle at all! Unfortunately the sniggering and laughter from his mates only spurred Turbo Pete on, embarrassing his new wife further, he made the most unwise comment, particularly considering the occasion, telling us he didn’t care about what the bride looked like it was not her face he was interested in! Except his words were not as delicately chosen!  - The bride burst into tears, obviously not seeing the funny side – as there wasn’t one. And her mother stood up and gave a fulsome list of all the husbands’ downfalls and failings and why he wasn’t good enough for her daughter anyway! Not the best of starts and all of this gave the reception a bit of a downer – as you might imagine!

In the mid 1990’s my boyfriend, my parents and I were all invited as a guests to the wedding of the sister of a childhood school friend of mine. So there was a sort of connection there. A super slick, super posh and super stylish event in a small ‘midsummer murder’ style village in the heart land of Oxfordshire, this wedding in effect was a re-run, of my childhood friend’s wedding which had taken place a few years earlier. The mother of the bride was the doyenne of the local social society, her husband was in the film industry and therefore there was a few ‘bob’ sloshing around to pay for this tasteful wedding feast.

My parents were invited to this wedding because they got to know this family because of me. They have the unique irritating habit of almost always adopting my friends or networking with my boyfriends or my friend’s parents. I introduce friends to my mother and father and before I know it I return home to find my friend/boyfriend and/or their parents happily ensconced in my family house usually carrying out a job for my father Trevor at the family home Dutch Gardens or Trevor would employ them in his business, they just adopted my friendship group one way or another. I would find a boyfriend then in the case of my mother, they would be found hanging on her every word whilst in the kitchen sipping wine with her! I found it extremely irritating! When I had a boyfriend that was a twin. Within weeks of my new relationship with this young man I found his twin brother Mark working at Dutch Gardens as one of the permanent gardeners? This was intensely annoying as Mark used his job at the house to spy on me so he could tell his brother what I was doing at any time of the day, which caused no end of arguments between his brother and I. On another occasion Trevor was delighted to find out that I had a new boyfriend who was studding to be a gas heating technician. At the time Trevor had an interest in the large gas fire installed at the local Holiday Inn, near Heathrow and had decided to install one at Dutch Gardens. A fire was purchased all it needed now was a gas technician to install it. And by chance I was going out with one! My boyfriend was still very much in the early stages of his studies, this was not a problem for Trevor, my boyfriend install this huge fire into the fireplace in our lounge. The lounge area had three different sets of doors going off into other rooms in the house and had what my parents called a minstrels gallery high up in the roof space which lead off to my parent’s room. So it was thankfully a very well ventilated room. 

Said boyfriend installed the fire under Trevor’s instructions, as ever Trevor changed the configuration of how the fire was supposed to work, moving the fire closer to the front of the fireplace, which was not recommended and changing the start the ignition button which was put at the back of the fire, it was supposed to be at the front for easy and safe ignition. This meant that when you lit the fire, you had to keep you finger on the button for a set amount of time for the fire to ignite, you had to make sure you were not wearing any clothes in case they caught fire as your arm was dangling over the flames, I have no hair on my arms but it used to ignite my brothers hair if he did not pull his hand away quick enough! Nothing was ever simple at Dutch Gardens! After the fire was fitted, for the next few years, my friends and I, my parents and their friends all developed dreadful headaches and nausea whenever the fire was on –  Obviously we all blamed the fire - but Trevor would not have any of it. Needless to say the installation had not been checked by a qualified gas installer which meant the draw on the fire was not sufficient to pull all the toxic fumes up the chimney and we were all suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. It is a wonder that we all survived for so long – Just another day at Dutch Gardens!

Going back to the wedding, my mother, particularly had made friends with the wife of this family and over the years as we children grew up, we had been on holiday with them as a family and they shared many events with us. My mother adored everything her friend did, she was a great entertainer and had a good sense of interior style which appealed to my mother. I never quite fitted in, but as happens when you are young, I was billeted off for stay overs and other events at this house, but as adults my friend and I had mostly gone our separate ways but retained a very convivial long distance friendship. I was now viewed by her mother the mother of the bride at this wedding as more than a little wayward! To be fair I did have my moments and I was a little wild! Strangely enough they always thought they were a little cut above the Wynne-Jones, my family, particularly my father, the mother loved to give me her opinions about my family and they were really quite bitchy at times, some of her observations were possible quite true, but it is never easy as a child listening to someone criticizing your parents.  Trevor, was an extremely successful self-made man, yes a total eccentric, a maverick with a utterly ruthless megalomaniac edge with very few scruples unless it fitted the demographic of how he was going to make his next million. Apart from that he was obviously just a normal man – not! Trevor did whatever he liked in life with little regard to anyone else and spent his money lavishly on his lifestyle, most particularly his property – Dutch Gardens, which he has spent a lifetime building and designing then re-building and designing spending vast fortunes, he was ably supported by my mother who was a willingly participant on spending on all things lifestyle particularly clothes. They were the new bourgeoisie. This meant that they were good gossip value! As it happened the mother of the bride husband had made all his initial money from directing porn films. Once when I was staying at the house, there were a bunch of grown-up’s sitting at the breakfast bar one the evening drinking and laughing. We were playing and we ran through the room on our way to another room, we were stopped and introduced to the various guests, one of them was Linda Lovelace star of a film called Deep Throat, I said hello and we continued on our way through the room. It was then that my friend told me that Lovelace was an actress who appeared in sexy films. This made a huge impression on me, not because she was in sexy films, I could not have given a damn about that, but she was an actress everything that I wanted to be! Little did I know at the time! 

Despite my very complex relationship with Trevor, I have to admit I did admire on occasions his straightforward attitude toward this family, he could see that the mother of the bride had social pretentions as they found him socially inferior. Trevor would bait her from time to time. To my great amusement when I was about twelve years old and we were at one of their gatherings, my friend’s mother was holding court, as usual shouting at the top of her voice to the minions who were listening; “If I were Princess Anne… I would be a real … Bitch.”  There was general amusement and agreement around the room and much nodding at one another. Then came Trevor’s voice from the back of the room, “You don’t need to be Princess Anne to be that!” My mother was mortified … I was rather impressed….   

The Wedding ceremony that we had attended was to take place in a beautiful small church on the green on a beautiful sunny day, my boyfriend and I were standing on the lawn outside the church, waiting for the wedding to get underway, just watching all the guests laughing and chatting, pretty young people who had attended the right universities, knew each other since childhood and wore the right clothes for this type of wedding, all super at ease with this type of event – think … Hugh Grant and ‘Four Weddings’. In some ways it dawned on me how far I was away from this crowd and how I had only been associated with it by a happy accident of a childhood friendship.

Standing there like a couple of lemons, me nodding at the one or two people that I recognised, whilst my boyfriend remained in the main politely hostile to the occasion on all fronts. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Trevor marching towards us, flustered as ever, this was never a great sign, but on the other hand quite a reassuring normal one. Looking beyond Trevor there was my mother picking her way carefully on her high heels across the uneven thick grassland, curiously they had arrived together, they had in fact separated some years earlier, but to my ever increasing annoyance they could never seem to leave each other alone when it came to social occasions or any occasions really – which usually meant a scene of some description or other mostly in spectacular style – I don’t like being with them together – it’s a dangerous place to be. Trevor caught up with us,  I turned my attention back to the wedding crowd I could see that we were now all beginning lined up into a que ready to enter the quaint little church to take our seats before the wedding started.

“Your mother has been doing the tour of everyone, Natalie, in the car park, she thinks she’s the bloody bride’s mother!” We glanced around in my mother’s direction and true enough she had arrived in the main throng of some guests and was working the crowd like a ‘pro’, air-kissing and shaking people’s hands and making topical conversation. There is no one that can dress for the part like my mother – no one. Today an amazing off-white streamlined tailored outfit, with small shoulder pads than usual, my mother loves a shoulder pad. Her beautiful figure showing off the couture costume to its best effect with buttons down the front, nipped in at her small waist by a matching belt, the hem being thigh length with a lace decoration around the edge, finished off with fingerless lace gloves, and despite the heat she had tights on. Well actually, they are more lightly to be stockings and suspenders, she was going through another phase of being ultra-sexy, particularly in the wake of her separation with Trevor. This obviously would wind Trevor up, as she would behave like a terrible flirt in front of him which could send him off the deep end in certain situations. I know how it pans out at these type of events. He will have collected her from her home and as she got into his car the hem of her skirt would ‘accidentally’ rise up a little too high reviling the top of a stocking and her naked thigh. I never really got the sex thing with my mother, she was like her mother to some extent ‘sex’ did not exist and nothing rude or overt on the matter could be said around her – yet put my mother in a social scene with men there, of any age really, 8 to 80, it did not really matter and then she turned into a vixen. She knew that she was the attraction in the room and that all eyes would be on her.

I once asked her after hearing a great deal of conversation at school about sex, how it happened? It was quite an innocent question as I was only about ten at the time. We were in my parents’ bedroom, upstairs. She had her back to me when I asked her and I knew that I had asked a difficult question because her shoulders stiffened and she stopped for a second what she was doing. There was no sitting down with me and telling me some ‘birds and bee’s’ story, she continued from her bedroom into her dressing room, so she was just out of sight but I could still clearly hear her. ‘It is when a man put’s his willy up a ladies bottom.’ I was utterly disgusted, no ….. Mortified and repulsed. She offered me no further explanation, she continued doing whatever it was that she was doing in her dressing room and I left her bedroom to retreat back into my own bedroom in utter revulsion – it was most probably the most repulsive thing that I had ever heard or could possibly imagine, I certainly looked at my father and my uncles that had children in a very different light after discovering this piece of information, I could only believe that there was indeed something very wrong with them indeed! Clearly all perverts! My mother never offered any other information on the subject of sex to me, the conversation, such as it was, was never mentioned again. So I then had to glean any further information on the subject from spotty teenage girls in my class at school like Debbie Cook who seemed to know a great deal on the subject and was only too happy to impart it, though her explanations on the subject were somewhat less grotesque, they involved a lot of mouth to mouth resuscitation according to her called ‘French Kissing’, the very idea of doing this with any boys I knew I found equally repulsive -  I vowed from a very young age that no matter what – sex was not something I was going to indulge in!    

Trevor joined us in the que to get into the church. My mother was still spinning on her nude sling back shoes in her social conversations with various guests. Occasionally she touched the rim of her statement two tone straw hat with an off white brim the crown being in a dark caramel colour which was draped with a scarf to look like a veil. You could not miss her she looked stunning! Imagine Crystal Carrington from the 1980’s Dynasty TV program;  in reality, it could actually be one of Crystal Carrington’s outfits, my mother had been at the auction of the clothes and had purchased a number of items warn by both the leading ladies, Crystal and the iconic Joan Collins.  

Getting closer to doorway of the church Trevor beckoned to my mother to come and join us in the que, she totally saw us, but ignored us and continued with her mother of the bride duties! So we entered the church leaving her outside in the sun and in her element, Trevor was gritting his teeth and muttering about her behaviour. We squeezed through the door and shuffled into the small churches pews allocated to us, people were chatting and waving at each other, some people acknowledging Trevor with thumbs up and mouthing ‘you okay?’ We all shunted down the pew to give the guests more room at the other end, Trevor trying to hold a bit of space for my mother to sit on once she arrived. The ushers charged about trying to organise everyone, a women at the front of the church by the font started singing a very jolly song, and the general hub-bub started to quieten and people now started to turn their attention to the order of the service.

“For Christ sake, what is she doing, where is your mother, Natalie?” Trevor hissed into my ear loudly. Looking around the bride’s family were now filing into the church, smiling and waving at the selected guests, followed in by the ‘actual’ mother of the bride, who looked lovely, but was acting less like the mother of the bride than my mother! The family took their seats three rows in front of us at the top of the church, as the mother of the bride sat down she turned around and ‘mouthed’ to Trevor – ‘where is Josephine?’ Trevor put his hands up to either side of his face and shrugged going red. The singing started in earnest and I turned to watch the back of the church toward the door. Finally, my mother was in sight, stopping at the door to talk to someone. Then she started her slow decent toward her seat, stopping at relevant intervals to wave and chat with people. I tuned to see the mother of the bride eyes following my mother as she posed her way toward us, she was not amused, but to be fair to her was resigned to my mother’s behaviour. My mother was going to make the most of her moment, she was in auditions for my wedding after all! When she had reached the end of our pew, the seated guests had to stand and shuffle back into the pew to make room for her to pass, at which point the ‘here comes the bride’ music began to play, the entire congregation turned back to look at the church door where the bride and her father had entered the building. Trevor was a mixture of embarrassment and rage!

After what was a very sweet wedding service we all made our way out of the church into the summer sunshine and walked in clutches of people away from the church and down the drive to their house, as the photographers, one taking pictures and one filming, both scurried amongst the crowd. – We approached  the rambling family house where the vast marquee was set up on the lawn for the wedding reception. The house screamed quintessential English country house with all the windows of the property looking out at the wedding, with fabulous sprawling roses and climbers picture framing each window. As the guests assembled at the back of the house, you could hear the gravel crunching under people’s shoes, which reminded me of my childhood running around barefoot at this charming old house and the pain of walking from the lawn to the house across the gravel chips. Echoes of my past, I never really fitted in here, but I have good memories. The family had since converted the garage extension into a ‘granny’ flat that was attached to the house, they now referred to as ‘The West Wing’! And it was in the West Wing that all the catering was taking place, this was all very ‘Four Weddings & a Funeral’ …  

Drinks were served as we milled about on the gravel terrace, loud guffawing came from certain clutches of people. Beautiful young woman ran from one set of people to another screeching and laughing holding onto their hats as they ran, bags and scarves were tossed aside, this was a place that these young people were comfortable and familiar with, it was a very British scene. It was a sea of pastel coloured haute couture ‘Sloane ranger’ outfits and crinkled linen designer suits intermixed with floral yummy mummies in their pretty printed dresses and soft silk sling back shoes. I have never been one to run with the crowd, it’s not that at one stage in my life that I haven’t wanted to – I had. But it just was not my style. But it would be fair to say that I certainly stood out in a crowd! Dressed in velvet black platform shoes from Liberties, the rest of my outfit was purchased from Roz at Mango in Windsor, the same shop that I was later to buy my wedding outfit from. Today I was in the iconic black Helen Storey ankle length ‘swirling crinkle’ skirt, that moved in rhythm with your body, paired with a figure hugging black turtle neck body with black net sleeves, this ensemble was held together with a Helen Storey fitted black and red silk blazer. My dark brown hair was cut in a sleek lopsided bob topped with a black leather beret, drop chain earrings styled with a red enamel stones. Put it this way, you could not miss me amongst this crowd!

Easels had been erected all around the marquee at various entrances which advertised the seating plan for the guests. My boyfriend and I were at the table of brother of the bride and his wife, whom I also knew well, I can’t help thinking that we were the booby prize and that they had only agreed to sit with us out of the goodness of their hearts. We were the oddballs at this event! The marquee was ‘spot on’ beautifully designed elegance without being too ‘ott’ and the table settings were magnificent, no expense had been spared, the catering staff busied themselves serving the wine and food which just kept coming from the West Wing. As the day wore on speeches were made and many happy tears were shed. As always with these occasions, tensions and emotions are high, my boyfriend hated everything about it and decided at the first opportune moment that it was time for him to leave, which left me nursing many glasses of wine, feeling sorry for myself, ‘you always get one don’t you!’ And it was me!

Glancing around at the large table at the top of the marque where my parents were sitting, I could tell even from a distance that there was friction and irritation between them, this type of situation was perfect storm for a spat between them. They never really worried if they had an audience, sometimes I wonder if they preferred it? It usually ended in tears, my mother’s! On occasions there can be broken china and furniture sometimes the odd neighbour can be involved. There scenes can take many forms … Once at Dutch Gardens, our home, we were all having a lovely evening, a new green barbeque had been bought and family friends had been invited to the first use of the green machine. Mostly the evening was going well, but the usual picking at each other had started to enter the evening. Trevor picking at my mother’s love of dressing up, he had taken to calling her dresses – frock’s, which irritated her enormously. The other couple were doing their best at trying to head off the bickering between them, without much success – once my parents were off and running that was usually it! Feeling incensed at the next insensitive comment Trevor had made to her, my mother got up from the table on the terrace and went back into the kitchen presumably to get some more drinks, she reappeared with the enormous Victorian jelly that I had made from a new jelly mould that my mother had bought. It was so large that it required many packets of jelly to fill it and as such was a multi-coloured ‘splendour’. I was very much looking forward to presenting it to the guests later in the evening, it was to be served with strawberries which were being marinated in Pimm’s and were sitting in the fridge. Purposefully my mother walked across the terrace toward Trevor, she was holding the jelly with one hand underneath, waiter style and balancing the wobbly item with her other hand on the side of the plate. We all watch with interest as she marched toward Trevor, then to use one of his phrases ‘the penny dropped’ – Trevor jumped up holding one hand out toward her in a defensive style – ‘No Joey, No … Come off it now !! … Joey..‘ Whereupon she charged at him. The guests looked on open mouthed unsure of what was about to happen, Trevor moved quickly knocking the chair over just as the jelly launched into the air. One thing you should know if you ever decide to become a professional jelly thrower – is that the weight of it when it is this huge size means that it does not fly through the air as you would expect, it sort of goes up in the air - forward a little and then drops out of the air directly downwards, hitting the edge of the table and splattering large shards of jelly across the table toward the guests who instinctively pulled back in their chairs as it splattered towards them, the other half of the jelly having been given a bit of propelled motion by hitting the table splattered towards Trevor, it hit the floor and splattered up his legs and all over his shoes. ‘Good God Joey!’ My friends and I who were down the steps on the next level watched the performance with open mouths – I was scowling, I was really fed up that my jelly had been treated like this and if my mother was going to use it as a weapon the very least she could have done is had made it hit the target! My mother turned on her heal having picked up the now broken melamine plate that the jelly was on, with it she scooped up some of the jelly on the floor and returned to the kitchen. Minutes later she returned with the cut glass bowl that housed the marinating strawberries and a jug of thick double cream put them on the table. Picked up great chunks of the jelly that were glistening on the table and slopped and blobbed them in the middle of the table like a sort of Jelly Mountain. Walked over to her ‘hostess trolley’, which was not switched on but being used to house various cutlery and crockery and napkins, cleaned her hands and brought dessert plates and napkins back to the table and offered strawberries and cream to the stunned guests. Who quite appropriately accepted! That was the thing about Trevor and Josephine and being at Dutch Gardens, their behaviour was all part of the show. And people just acted accordingly.

Sitting at the wedding table all by myself now staring down at my black platform shoes, in my addled mind I had decided that it would be a good idea to make my way up to my parents table and rescue any situation between my parents that might arise! I had after all become quite accustom to this! Picking my way through the dancing party on a slight incline as the flooring had been laid directly on the grass I was suddenly grabbed from behind by one member of the bridal party, a man of a certain age who had equally like me drunk too much! I jigged around on the spot to the music with him trying to keep a distance between his ever encroaching arms, then the record changed to a slow song. All guests around us assumed the clinch position, reluctantly I was forced to do the same with this gentleman. It is quite horrid when you don’t want to be this close to someone, but feel you should so as not to make a scene.  As the song droned on his hand which originally started in the small of my back, moved ever lower and more insistent as he tried forcefully to pull my bottom towards his still gyrating groin, purposely bumped his crutch into me; for the record his thrusting movement was not even in time with the music! What else do you do? I am young and I don’t want to be impolite! So I try to dance with my bottom sticking out to stop him making contact with me, this unfortunately only seemed to encouraged him to use both hands on my bottom, his fingers splayed and sticking into my flesh, he was now fighting to control my movements and forcing me towards his thrusting genitals, I do wonder what it is about this type of man, it is like the more you resist the more they enjoy themselves? On what planet does he think that I have any interest in him? Now I was fighting to get free, but trying not to make a show of what was going on … The ghastly record continued as his salivating mouth was making its way towards my face, turning my head as quickly as possible his sloppy lips collided with my ear, I was so revolted that my ‘gut’ reaction was to push him away, thankfully he released me and staggered backward into the dancing crowd, which caught him before he fell the revellers ‘yelling’ approval and he disappeared into the dancing guests.

Wiping my ear and face in utter revulsion then rubbing my wet hand down my crinkle skirt, I continued on my way through the guests to my parents table the wine was hitting me now. At the large table of guest where my parents were sitting. I was greeted with a smile from Trevor, who beckoned me to an empty seat next to him, I manoeuvred my way around the other guests holding on to the back of chairs, looking over at my mother who was at the other end of the table with a number people holding court happily, it would appear that all was well with my parents after all! Finally reaching the vacant chair, which Trevor pulled out so as to let me in to the space. I held onto the table and squared myself up steadying myself from the journey to their table; as I went to sit down, I just seemed to keep going. Unbeknownst to me Trevor had spied the previous owner of the seat coming off the dance floor and back toward the table, so as I went to sit down he moved the seat away from me and offered it back in the direction of the original owner. I just kept going, in my mind slowly it started to dawn on me that there was nothing there to stop me, then it all started to move in quick time – I speeded up, my natural reaction was to grab at the table in front of me, seizing the white table cloth in an iron like grip, it happened pretty quickly from there! As I crashed to the floor my grasp on the table cloth pulled over my head along came half the contents of the table - glasses, empty plates, knives and forks and the floral centre piece along with other detritus! The noise, even with the loud music playing was pretty spectacular. As the smashing stopped I heard an audible gasp. Momentarily I wanted to stay where I was. ‘Oh my God – is she alright? …  Get her out’..  Trevor and another man pulled me out by my arms and as quickly as I had gone down I was now being launched into the air at a spectacular speed. As my feet touched the floor and my eyes managed to re-focus, everyone in the close vicinity was staring at me. And as luck would have it the official wedding videographer was catching it all for prosperity! My mother was still sat at the table with her wine glass in hand. ‘Really Natalie!!? What are you thinking of – I will deal with this – Trevor take her home?’

Not needing to be asked twice Trevor grabbed my arm and we were at the nearest exit before I knew what was happening, he stopped to put his jacket on that he had grabbed from the back of his chair and we were off up the drive like rabbits being chased by a fox.

My mother stayed making, I assume profuse apologies for her daughter, enjoyed the aftermath of my performance. Not understanding how her daughter could make such a spectacle of herself! I wonder where I got that from?

The good news is the video of me still exists, sadly this marriage did not last long they divorced and she re-married someone else fairly shortly afterwards. My mother and Trevor were invited to the next wedding, I was not!

What can I tell you my mother loves a wedding!

The Wedding Outfit…

What is in a ‘Snowball’?

A story based on Bridesmaids & Weddings

-        It is not as dull as it sounds! -

Some passages contains language that some people might find offensive. This story is based on my life & these are the first draft chapters of a particular part of my life – But mostly it is about the peculiarities of growing up in my family … Don’t judge me until you have read it all!

The Wedding Outfit

Chapter 1

Circa – late 1990’s

Standing in front of the ‘thin’ mirror, in my favourite shop, Mango, St. Leonards Road, Windsor, looking back at the reflection of myself, I would like to say admiring myself, but that is not for me I struggle with how I look. But ‘I think’ this is an ‘OK’ look and it is what I want; a long black large sparkly jumper that fits over my now seven month bump.

I have been standing in front of this ‘thin’ mirror for just over thirteen years, or so, on and off, it is one of my favourite places to be, trying on bespoke clothes, in this little boutique, in the town I went to school in. The buzz has never abated and I hope it never will. Clothes are one of the very few things that I can honestly say that my mother and I have in common, otherwise we have very different opinions on most things, which makes our relationship complicated – to put it mildly!

I find that it is always important to give the outfit a second glance and some balance so I move across the floor to the ‘fat’ mirror, which I never liked standing in front of for precisely the reason the name suggests – it makes you look fatter than the thin mirror! But it is an important barometer. Before being pregnant, I would look at myself in the thin mirror first, then if I liked the look, which inevitably I did, I would move to the fat mirror, to check out how bad I would look in the outfit if I looked fatter. To most people this would not make any sense, but to me it makes perfect sense, I think it might just be a female thing? It is like the feeling you get when fitting into a new outfit that is one size smaller than the size you usually go for, it is a free positive!! Today it seems a bit mad standing in front of the fat mirror as I am heavily pregnant, so I am obviously going to look fat/pregnant in either mirror, but I have to do it, it is part of the process!

My mind wonders and I glance at the reflection behind me and I watch my mother rootling through the clothes on the display stands. I brought my mother with me on this occasion, we are not good shopping buddies, for many reasons which I will explain later or will become apparent as I tell you this story.

My mother is working the dress shop as she usually does with a sort of forensic mania that you only see in someone who has a compulsive obsession to find something first that no one else has seen, her eyes are flickering and scanning from one item to the next, rummaging at speed through the careful hung clothes; she reminds me of Guilty our cat when he has enthusiastically pounced on a mouse, he just throws his paws around in all directions, punching the ground trying to catch something that has already escaped. This is normal behaviour in a dress shop from my mother.

Earlier today, another customer who was in the shop had a lucky escape. The lady had come in to try on a very expensive thin blue leather coat that had been put by for her to try. This elegant young woman had excitedly and carefully put the coat on, rolling the soft leather sleeves up her arms, she then swayed in delight at her image from side to side in the fat mirror, she looked stunning. This was not lost on my mother, who had stopped searching for a minute and was observing with interest. This young woman, was clearly weighing up the cost of this expensive ticketed couture item, it was certainly an investment piece. She made the fatal mistake of taking it off and carefully tossing the coat on the chair in the boutique. Rookie mistake! My mother was across the room like a sprinter, snatched the coat up and was forcing it on over her arms onto her shoulders. My mother is a tall slender woman, the coat size was for a petite frame, but that did not stop my mother’s efforts in try it on. This poor young woman was shocked as she had not relinquished the coat, she was just simply enjoying the moment of toying with the idea of purchasing such an expensive item. It was an embarrassing moment, I was going to have to intervene.

Moving closer to my mother, with my back to the woman and the shop owner, I mouthed, I think more than clearly; “Take it OFF!” My mother looked at me, and did her usual thing, shrugged her shoulders in defiance, pulling the collar up around her neck, the thin leather straining… I am used to these episodes of resistance so I repeated, “Take it off,” she swung backward and forward, the powder blue pelts following her movements; “take it off – NOW!” I am pretty sure that the ‘NOW’ was audible to the two people standing behind me … Nope I could tell she was in ‘non-compliant mode’. This happens with my mother if she feels I am challenging her in any way, a small example of this is when my mother tells me that I will like something, for example a film; I will say that I have seen it and I did really like it. She will tell me that I did like it, I will say I didn’t and she will move onto the actor in it who she insists I like, I will say yes he/she is okay and my mother will say I knew you would like that film! There is no easy way out!

I move to ‘low tactics’! Turning to the young woman and the shop owner Roz, I say, “You haven’t finished with this coat, have you? You really must buy it, it looks amazing on you.” Turning to glance at my mother, half smile on my face; “Take it off – Mum, this lady is going to buy it!” I have embarrassed her now, this is not going to end well!

Throwing her head to one side smiling, she peals this beautiful coat off, leaving one arm inside out and tosses the relieved coat back on the chair from where she had stolen it… “So sorry, I didn’t realise you were still interested in it.” She did! Balance is restored albeit with a bit of an atmosphere left in the building, Roz picked up the coat, pulled the arm back through. The young woman, who had nearly been deprived of her coat decided immediately that she wanted to purchase it and the deal was done with Roz – I think my mother’s hijacking had most probably helped seal the sale!

In Mango, the clothes are always displayed beautifully with the hangers each placed exactly 2 inches apart, there is usually only one of each piece on the rail, the other sizes are kept upstairs out of sight for when they are needed. My Mum had now resumed her forensic investigations of the display, pulling each item of clothing from right to left, the hangers scraping against the rail above as she sorts through them at an alarming rate, having got to the end of the first rail of clothes they are all swaying hanging on the left side of the rail as if in a summer breeze all symmetry gone. My eyes moved across the white interior of the shop to the owner Roz, a petite lady with wonderful short spiky hair, she is beautifully dressed in one of her outfits that she has collected over the many years of owning the shop. She too is also watching my mother, with I think, relatively good humour considering her carefully laid out clothing display was being deconstructed in front of her, but I guess that is her job.

Reverting back to my reflection… I like this jumper and it is what I want for the occasion and it has stood up to the fat mirror test and just made me look pregnant which is what I am, after all! I think it will work well with my tight fitting maternity black skirt, with a slit up the side. I inwardly smirked, she will go mad when she realises that I am actually choosing my wedding outfit…. devilment takes over. “Mum, I think this jumper would be great for my wedding day outfit.” She stopped ferreting for a tiny moment, turned to look at me

“Don’t be so ridiculous Natalie, you are not wearing anything like that when you get married!” Roz glanced at me and pulled a face and shrugged her shoulders. I guess she was thinking the same as me, I am after all a fully grown adult, pregnant with my first child, not living with my mother but with the man I am about to marry!! – And I will damn well wear what I please. My mother, you see has obsessed over my wedding day for years, meticulously planning each detail, depending on what year we are living in and what are the current trends when it comes to Bridal wear. I have never been consulted!

I realise of course that I am going to have to tell her and Trevor, my father at some stage that I am getting married in just over a weeks’ time in a registry office. It is not going to go down well and it will come as an enormous shock to my mother particularly. Inwardly I shrug, I am not telling her today, I will wait a bit longer. I am buying this jumper as my wedding outfit. “I will have this Roz, thank you.” My mother continues to ‘frisk’ the clothing, she is not interested in the black jumper. She’s moved to the glass shelves where Roz displays all her accessories, Mum bends down to the floor under the shelves and picks up one of a pair of fantastic orange and pink shoes with a splayed out heel, flips them upside down to check out the size, mum has large feet a size 7-8, she kicks off one of her shoes, balancing on one leg and forces the too small shoe over her toes, then puts her foot on the ground with her ankle hanging over the back of the shoe, she bobs her head from one side to the other observing the ‘look’ and the shoed foot moves in tandem with her head from left to right. I look at her face and she pulls that all too familiar upside-down grimace. To the uninitiated, they could take this look as a confirmation that my mother does not particularly like this shoe, but I know better – she likes the shoe a lot, but is internally downloading if she will buy it and what is the best deal she will get if she does buy it and what will she wear it with. In the same moment she kicks the shoe off and it lands haphazardly back in the same spot where it was originally on display, but this time it is on its side, I wince, but Roz ever the professional, is over there in a shot carefully up righting the shoe and putting it back on display. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that my mother is intentionally being rude or disrespectful, it is just that she is in ‘feeding frenzy mode’, with the clothing, the pretty things on display in front of her, she is in the zone! And she has clearly spotted something else.

She has moved onto the third shelf up from the ground, this is where Roz keeps the belts and handbags, top shelf is usually reserved for smaller items like sunglasses, gloves and jewellery. Hawk like, Mum has seized and unravelled a dark brown thick suede belt, holding it to her waist, this type of accessory is a staple of Roz, my mother already has a number of these, but in different colours, she has even given me the colours of the ones she has bought and does not particularly like. This is something that amuses my soon to be husband. Mum will very kindly offer to give me some of her clothing, on occasions when she has had a clear out, I love this when it happens, lots of the items are not for me, Mum is tall I am short like Trevor. Trust me, there is no one that shops or has a wardrobe like my mother, it is like going to Selfridges, she has everything in every colour. So, occasionally, she gives me items of clothing and I adapt them to suit me. I will then wear the adapted item when I see her and she is always be a bit fed up that she gave them to me in the first place! And wants them back! It is normal!

I move over to the rail that has been disrupted by my mother, sliding the outfits back into, more or less the position close to where they were originally. Lingering on a couple of items that I lust after, however with my baby bump I have no chance of fitting into, I am at that stage in pregnancy where I want my shape back to where it once was.

Mum is standing at the thin mirror, and there is! The grimace face, she moves to the fat mirror to take a look at the belt against her, she crumples up her top over the belt, to give it ‘a look’ then pulls her top back down and goes for the ‘nipped in’ waist look. Yup!! I can tell she really likes this, she is twisting to the right and left admiring the look. The fat mirror does not matter to my mother, she has supreme belief in her looks, and she is and has always been thin and stunningly beautiful.  “What do you think Natalie?”

“Yes it is nice mum – but don’t you have lots like that?”

“No Natalie, not like this – not in this colour!” – Then it is out of her mouth I can’t stop it and I did not see it coming!!  She said it, loud, bold and clear – The *N* word. But in its full literation!!! And she continues; full throttle; “It is *N*-brown Natalie.” The women behind me that had entered the shop a short while earlier and who was up to this moment also moving the hangers from side to side, froze. Roz, usually the consummate professional, mouth has dropped open….. Oh God no…

“Oh my God, Mum you can’t say that!!!” On reflection I realise that this is a grave mistake! Saying can’t to my mother is never a good thing and we have only just got over the blue coat incident, I know she will argue the point to the death, no matter even if she knows she is wrong.. This is the most acutely alarming moment… 

“What do you mean Natalie – of course I can say it! This belt is *N* brown!” She waves the belt at me! “That is what it is called, Natalie, *N* brown, *N* brown!! That is the colour of it!”

“Oh My God!! Stop saying it – you can’t say that!”

“For Goodness sake, what do you think I am saying? That is the name of the colour, really Natalie!”; she shrugs her shoulders, at the nonsense I am making of it, - yes really! She continues to enlighten me; “I had pencils called *N*brown when I was a child! It is a very nice colour, don’t look at me like that – stop making a fuss!” There is a look on her face it is impossible for me to distinguish, if she has realised that she has made a colossal hideous mistake or if she really is that ignorant to what she has just said and keeps repeating? She continues, slightly flustered, but she is determined at all costs to fight her corner, “Natalie, everyone knows that is the name of a colour, it is quite normal! *N* brown!” Oh for Fuck sake STOP!! – I give her my hardest stare – I hope it looks like ‘Shut the fuck up mother’ sort of stare…. She opens her mouth …

“MUM – STOP SAYING IT!!! YOU CAN’T SAY THAT NOW IT IS NOT A COLOUR ANYMORE!!!” I charged her and try to wrestle the belt out of her hands, in the vain hope that this might just stop her from continuing, but she’s not having of it, she is holding firm as I yank one way and she yanks the other. She snaps the belt away from me and moves away.

“You think you know, everything Natalie, but you don’t, I can tell you that for years they have been calling it …. “ Oh my God – what the fuck, she is saying it again, what is the matter with her?

“STOP!!” STOP –“ And for real emphasis; “STOP IT - NOW!”

She responds calmly to me glancing toward Roz and the other stunned shopper, by way of an explanation. “Natalie, you are being silly! Everyone knows …..” And she repeats the word over and over again for clarity I presume? “This name is used all over the world”, Oh my God now she is going ‘global’! “On colour charts, paint cans, chocolate for example, haven’t you ever seen it on paint cans? It is used all over the world – as a colour, it is perfectly normal – everyone uses it!” This is one of my mother’s things, she is now trying to broaden the appeal! I am beginning to think that she has either lost her mind completely or has been in my brother’s bedroom one to many times smoking one of his funny smelling cigarettes… When she comes out of his room, happy and dancing, usually this prompts Trevor to ask me – why is your mother so happy? Which is to be fair a rare occurrence in their relationship!

As you can imagine I am acutely embarrassed… I just want to get out of the shop and shut her up! “Please stop Mum! And no you haven’t seen it anywhere recently, stop saying it!!” Her hands have gone to her hips and she is shrugging her shoulders. Again she starts rattling off various items and products that were dark brown, except she did not call them dark brown! It is excruciating. Now I am getting cross, I give her my best stare, you know the one that your parent gives you when you are young and it means be quite or else! It is not working she is adamant that she is right! Shouting now, “LOOK MUM!!! You can’t say it now, on any level! It is offensive, very, very offensive AND it is RACIST!! STOP!!”

This seemed to shake her from her endless listing, she looks shocked, finally!! “Racist – Natalie, what on earth do you mean, I can promise you it is a colour and there is nothing wrong with that? Me - a racist, don’t be so ridiculous, everyone knows I am not a racist!” To use Trevor’s phrase when he wants her to stop – ‘I think the penny had dropped!’

“You can’t say it Mum, it is racist and it is rude and it is unacceptable, we are going, now!” She stopped and stared for a moment, she looked generally a bit shaken. She turned to Roz, who had now moved over to her other customer and was trying to ignore the scene that was unfolding in her shop.

“For Goodness Sake Natalie, how could anyone think I am racist? I mean, I go on holiday to Barbados every year for nearly six months of the year!??” Yes you could not write it – except I am! Oh God this is not happening to me!

“You young people!” Now I knew that she wants a way out, my mother never calls anyone young, she is one of the young people, I don’t think that she has really ever seen herself over the age of about 30 – at a push! “You young people are always changing things, one never knows what is going on, all this new language, you are always changing meanings, making people look silly, I have no idea why you do it Natalie, it is very difficult for people!!” It has clearly escaped my mother that changing any meanings of any words is nothing to do with me – But somehow she skilfully makes it my fault!

And now for the curved ball! A complete change of direction!

“Roz did you know that Natalie won’t let anyone read her Vogue magazines?” To be fair this statement is absolutely correct, even if it had little to do with the belt’s colour. Roz and her customer just looked from me to my mother. “What person is so mean as to not let people read their magazines? Natalie won’t, she hides them out of the way.” I have no idea why I attempt to defend myself in these situations, but I always fall into the trap!

“I don’t hide my magazines!!”

“Yes you do Natalie! You always say that I can’t flick through your Vogue magazine, when I am at your house! Look Roz has some Vogue magazines there on the shelf,” my mother again turns to Roz; “Do you stop people from reading your magazines Roz? – I am sure you don’t?” Roz just looked bemused.

“Of course Roz let’s people read her magazines Mum, that is what they are there for! For God sake!”

“Oh that is kind Roz, Natalie can’t bear anyone to even touch her magazines, and she doesn’t share!”

For God sake – “I do!” This is classic ‘my mother’ – And what is worse is that I engage with it which makes me look like a 5 year old!

“You don’t, look what happened last week – You took the magazines out of the room!”

Just for the record I am not a – Magazine hider! – In the main!

“I DON’T HIDE THEM MUM! I JUST HIDE THEM FROM YOU!!” She winces for dramatic effect at my statement. I mean really, what sort of a daughter hides her Vogue magazines from her mother? I am a monster!

I try and calm my comments; “Look I don’t hide them from you, mum, I take them away from you because you lick your fingers when you turn the pages, which smudges the ink and you fold down the edges of ‘my’ magazine before I have even read them, you know I collect them!” Roz and her customer wince, now, looking slightly revolted. This honestly does not make my situation any better, I now look like I am making out my mother to be unsanitary – which she is not!

The outcome, after a few more harsh comments about my lack of magazine sharing and we are heading for the door!

If only I had had half a brain cell I would have just paid for my jumper and forcibly removed my mother from this poor woman’s shop after the first incident, about an hour and a half ago. My mother to Roz and her bemused customer is still listing all the other magazines that are not in my collection that I don’t let her read either! I can’t win!

I purchased the black jumper as my wedding outfit, I am going to tell her one day very soon that I am getting married, a week on Friday. Based on today, now is not the right time to approach it. My mother purchases a number of other items, not the belt and nothing further is said to me and I think that Roz was happy to get us out of her shop.

Never a dull moment!! …

Chapter 2 – Coming soon!

My thoughts on entering September…

To be honest I am not sure what I really think of this time of year, on the one hand I like it, because I like seasons.. I like to see the beautiful colours of the autumn trees & the romance of the leaves weather permitting having been dried to curly crisps by the wind, they then scuttle in all directions in the breeze… In the past, when the weather was more settled - back in the day! … I relished the dry bright cold mornings with blue skies that make for good walking weather, or just looking out the window if you can’t be bothered to go walking.

Like my daughter, I also like winter clothes, for me there is something so much more elegant, the layering of different items to make a look… I love the winter boots & the thick felt hats… The open fires always makes me feel safe… I am just so much more comfortable with more clothes than less … So for me that is another plus to the on coming season..

I am always also sad to wave goodbye to summer, if only we had a summer this year! I am particularly reluctant to part with summer this year as I have had little opportunity to use my new barbeque… Also sad to say goodbye to summer because it means so much to my husband, who loves the sun!! It is always a summer holiday choice for him, for me my favourite holiday is a ski resort …

Like most mothers, even of older children, this season means a different type of work as autumn quickly edges into winter… We are a big family with all sorts of ‘extensions’ so there is always a great deal to organise, with many birthdays leading up to Christmas & the Halloween party to organise that means so much to the children - yes even these days… It is all such a lot of work… And I must admit to sometimes, particularly when the children were younger finding the work load overwhelming.. It made me a ‘tad’ - irritable at times & I could be a bit of a humbug!! … But when we get to the end of the year & all the work is done and works well… I enjoy it! But sometimes it is just ‘the’ getting there! This year I intend to be a bit more laid back & totally enjoy the process, just let it all happen!

I am reminded of one of my friends young daughter, who having finally made it from nursery school to ‘big school’ - primary school, at the end of her first day, with all the excitement that it holds for a young child, she was asked by her grandmother; ‘How was your first day at big school?’ She shrugged her shoulders, ‘I liked it a lot, but I spent all day there - & I still can’t read’! …

Life is like that one new challenge after another …. This year I am going to take it one step at a time!

ELVIRA …

Elvira at her sister Dilys wedding some way back in the ‘70’s

It is always the same… White sticky address labels stuck at an angle on brown C5 size envelopes. The white address label typed in bold black, with my name & address, each line starting & finishing at different places. Then there is the tell tail sellotape, stuck firmly over the entire white address label, I presume this is because she does not trust the efficacy of the stickiness of the address labels.

I know who this letter is from, but I flip it over, just for good measure; another white label cut in half, stuck at an angle with her name & address in bold, & just in case, her email & land line number also very visible on the label, sellotaped to the opening flap of the envelope. If you didn’t know better you would assume that this envelope contains some really important documents. But I know different, this letter is from my aunt Elvira.

Elvira, the only constant elder member of my family that has been in my life, she is my father’s sister. I spent many happy summer holidays at her house. She is the archetypal British eccentric, from a long line of them.

Pronounced EL-VI-RA. My mother-in-law used to love telling me that we were not pronouncing it correctly, “It is Ell-veer-a, Natalie! That is how you pronounce it!” I didn’t take any notice, I assumed that my grandparents knew how they wanted her name pronounced… My mother-in-law Renée, was prone to giving her opinion on things; she delighted, usually after a few whiskies, which could be from any time after 10:30am, on telling me that my parents were ‘up-starts’ as my maiden name was hyphenated! Certainly my parents were part of the new bourgeoisie.. I went out of my way not to introduce my parents to Renée, despite living with my now husband for 11 years at the time, which irritated both my parents & my mother-in-law, which now I think about it was a bit of a result! However my parents being my parents, decided to boycott my requests, I mean really what business or point was there in them all meeting? My mother & Renée, would exchange Christmas cards, for what reason I have no idea? In these cards they both put their telephone numbers & thus a meeting was organised. My mother to Renée’s, home… I found out about this meeting, not from my mother as she likes secrets but from Renée, who after a few more whiskies announced that my mother “was a social butterfly”. I was therefore to take from this that she was not to Renée’s, tastes as she was a former teaching & an intellectual! Somehow Trevor, my father also arranged a secret meeting with Renée, this time at his house, a chauffeur was dispatched to pick Renée up & deliver her to Trevor’s house Dutch Gardens. The chauffeur was a good idea, because by lunchtime Renée would have had at least half a bottle of whisky whilst she read the morning papers & did the cross word; so not surprisingly by lunchtime her driving suffered under this influence! Renée once turned up at our house complaining that her car was making a dreadful noise, blaming her daughter’s boyfriend Eric for the offending noise as he had been doing some work on her car. I looked at the car & the metal trim was at right angles to the car & there were scratch marks all the way down the side of the car. “What have you done Renée?” She glanced at the damage, “Oh don’t worry about that - that is Eric’s bad handy work!” “Renée that is not Eric’s fault you have crashed into something & ripped off the trim.” “Yes!” She replied, “I had to avoid hitting the bus so I veered off the road into the hedge then went back on the road & hit a few bollards where the men are working on the road.” I looked under the car – there was the source of the loud scraping noise, a cone jammed under the car!” Never a dull moment…

She meet Trevor at Dutch Gardens, Renée turned up as she always did with a glass bottle of Coca-Cola filled with whisky, for some reason Renée thought that the disguise of a soft drink bottle would hide the fact, mostly from her daughter that she was drinking whisky, no-stop! Why I have no idea as we all knew that she drunk whisky! On this occasion she mixed the whisky with generous portions of Trevor’s wine, thus got more *pissed* than normal, spilled all her families secrets, which Trevor duly noted for his own possible use in the future…… When Renée told me she had met Trevor, she told me he was a dreadful Svengali [something I think that he would secretly like to be called], none of them ever met each other again! For the record, Renée liked to be controversial, on most topics, which at times made her extremely unkind but at other times a riot to be around! I digress!

Back to Elvira’s document. You can’t easily open her envelopes due to all the sellotape! Sitting down with my cup of tea & a knife I prize open my brown envelope which buckled under the strain of its confinements. Pulling out the content which was a bundle of selected magazine pages taken from The Sunday Telegraph paper, which is Elvira – ‘must-have’ newspaper, it is a religion to her, she collects them & bundles them together in piles all over her house, 1000’s of them & whatever is said in them is gospel, except she is not keen on the Sunday Telegraph magazine attachment, I think it would all be a bit too modern for her! Elvira, on regular occasions will find an article from one of these newspaper piles of something she thinks of interest or relevant & sends out the copy with added notes to the recipient, something that incenses her children! …. Today was my turn … The tatty tear sheet pages stapled together at the centre to act as Elvira’s own publication to me. On the first page attached at an angle is two yellow post-it notes, which states; “COVER – Special STel Mag usually aimed at people with funds.. Usually flipped thru & angrily dumped. However Interest for you – my specific discussion area  MORGANE PULANSKI Probably a future in films she is fresh ----- untainted by the past. Xx E Now Thursday 8/4/21’  It is not immediately comprehensible what she is trying to say or what I am supposed to be interested in, but then these missives from Elvira rarely are, I plough on!

“AMPLE BODIED ROUND MODEL”

Under the yellow post-it note inscription is a picture of a beautiful black model in a midnight blue low buttoned dress with a fine ample bosom on show. Next to her written on the magazine, upside down & at an angled in Elvira’s handwriting with an arrow pointing at the model in blue biro, “AMPLE BODIED ROUND MODEL” – There of course is no particular relevance to this comment, but it is clear that my beloved aunt thinks that I might not notice the picture & what she believes is the relevance, so it is necessary for her to scribble on the image for my clarification. Elvira is not up to speed with the general trend in magazines to use models of all types, to ‘level-up’ the fashion industries stereotypes. She clearly thinks that this is a revelation that I must immediately be informed of? Elvira always likes to think that she is ahead of the curve & the first to notice a trend! Once sitting in her kitchen, when I was young, she exclaimed that it was amazing that platform shoes were ‘on the way out’ – This was news to me as my mother was/is a fashionista of the class ‘A’ type. Platform shoes had in fact gone out of fashion at least two years earlier! On another occasion Elvira was trying to explain to the French au pair, how to body board, she jumped up from the table, announcing that, “you must make yourself into a complete ‘flotation’ – in order to balance!” & then, as she often did, went into the ‘arabesque’ ballet poise, which instantly irritated her children, who complaint that Elvira had never even been body boarding! Reality or truth of these things never really bother Elvira, any opportunity to announce to any person whatsoever that she was a dancer was always at the top of her list; you see according to Elvira if you are a dancer you can do anything, even of course if you have never, as in Elvira’s case! “If you are a dancer Natalie – You are a medical phenomenon! Doctors ask me to advise them”…. Once much to my cousin Sarah’s utter horror & embarrassment on school sports day… Elvira took to crawling on her hands & knees after her baby son who was also crawling down a nearby slope, wiggling her bottom in the air as she went, whilst wearing the shortest mini with blue frilly knickers which were on full display for fathers! I thought it funny, my cousin was mortified.. The difference here being I am not her daughter – I am her niece!   

“LAST LOOK - TOP OF THE WORLD…”

I opened up the stapled pamphlet to the next page, the title was, LAST LOOK, this article was about a 17 year old schoolgirl who won a beauty contest that changed her life. To be honest I am not really sure what the relevance of this page is as there were no scribbled instructions or post-it notes advising me? I flipped the page again; my heart sank! ‘SHOW BREAST IN … nipple enhancing ‘tweakments’ are on the up, reports Sarah Kennedy… Was the story line – ‘MAKING NIPPLES LOOK PERMANENTLY ERECT IS A REQUEST WE RECEIVE OFTEN’!! Next to this bold statement Elvira has written in red biro, obviously this is the key article! ‘Been there!’ E x I am totally unsure why my aunt felt the need to send me this article – or why she needed me to know that she needed pert nipples, all the time? She is after all 83 – But hey who am I to be ageist! I must tell you; it has never ever crossed my mind that it might be useful to have permanently erect nipples? If anything it sounds rather uncomfortable & more than a little unbecoming, particularly if you are doing the weekly supermarket shop. The article continues – ‘When it comes to shape & size, some clients have very specific requests’, below this quote are pictures of a ten pence coin, a strawberry & what looks like clay cooking beans… ‘Dear God!’ I have just had another glance at the pictures – Please tell me those are not hard boiled eggs? To be frank, I now feel a bit revolted at the thought of having cork stop nipples at all times! Why? I have, for a person of short stature a more than ample bosom that can enter the room before the rest of me, how terrifying would it be for the occupants of that room to have to suffer a ‘Carry On’ comedy pair of breasts entering the room, ‘avec – Oeuf’ or for that matter with nipples the shape & size of strawberry’s! Revolting!

“SHOW BREASTS! - IN!!!!”

I am now reminded of sitting watching the TV at Elvira’s house with my many cousins, Elvira had been out & had drunk some wine & Elvira does not drink. It was a light summer evening, with a torrential down pouring of rain. In a fit of pique – Elvira said to us all watching TV that if we gave her a £1 fee each then she would run down to the lake & back in the nude. To most children particularly these days I think this would have caused great alarm & embarrassment, if not a bit of terror, for an adult to be making such a strange offer, but we children just glanced up at her & then continued to watch the TV. Later that evening she had us all outside running in & out of the muddy puddles in the rain, which I can assure you was more entertaining to us than her previous offer & less expensive!   

WHAT CAN I SAY????

– But to Elvira, it is all about being sexy at all times, I think that working in the Film industry all those years means that she thinks that women have to look permanently ‘on heat’ – It is really important to her, I don’t know if it is a generational thing? As my mother once told me that she felt invisible now being older when she walked into a room of men & they don’t all look at her – Which I think is quite a sad statement in its self – That the only thing that is important to her is that all the men are looking at her? If not these days a bit creepy!

Flicking the switch on the kettle again – In slight trepidation, I flipped to the next page, the next 3 pages had been stapled back to front starting with the back page first – This article is about Roman Polanski’s actress daughter Morgane. Here Elvira for ease of my comprehension had slashed the article with red biro, quite randomly as none of the so called high-lighting actually hits the words she is trying to high-light; I glance through the article – it really is not my thing – But I show willing… I closed the pamphlet. On the back page is a further ‘nonsensical’ message this time like the front page in blue biro; “IGNORE ALL RED MARKS – TRYING TO FORCE ME TO CONCENTRATE - X E X”  I know that this is not true, Elvira has just decided that she has perhaps over-egged what she thinks should have been important to me… I stuff the content back in the ripped brown envelope…

I HOPE THEY ARE CLAY COOKING BEANS NOT EGGS!!

I received periodical a few weeks ago, I have not read any of the pages, to be honest they are not really my kind of thing – Not to mention that when it comes to reading matter - I have a daughter who’s favourite thing is books, which she brings to the house in their hundreds, each day she will turn up with some new books, like she has found a little lost puppy to play with …

RED HIGHLIGHTS - MORE IMPORTANT THAN BLUE!!

Today I have received another none-seneschal email from Elvira – with the note stating that when I call her – we simply must discuss the topics sent to me in her recent correspondence… My heart sinks a bit! I have already dodged that bullet once in a recent call. Elvira lives by herself in an enormous house that is falling into disrepair – But she refuses to leave despite many urgent requests from her son. I think we have all come to the conclusion that she is going to stay there to the bitter end. I have written this piece, which is just a snap shot of some of the things my aunt has done & it is written with much affection & love for my aunt, she has been very ill with ‘long covid’ for almost a year and she has been very difficult to help, she refuses medical help & thinks she knows best about everything – At times she has been very confused, which has been difficult to deal with, but when I received these magazine articles with the mad comments, I know that she is back to her old self, so although the content is quite bonkers it is just as it should be with her. She has been a thread through my life & she never turned her back on me. We are as opposite as could be in many ways. When I was little, she would laugh at the fact that I was the most like her in terms of colouring, light skin, mine for the record is almost porcelain & my hair was light brown at the time, Elvira is pale skinned & blond, where as her beautiful children were/are all darker skinned have beautiful brown eyes & hair, like their father. This made me, the little ugly duckling of all the family very pleased. When Elvira went to the Royal premiere of ‘Entertaining Mr Slone’ in April 1970 so beautiful was she that she knock Princess Margaret off the front of the Newspapers – This was quite some achievement!

WELL AT LEAST SHE IS ON THE MEND!

Some years later in the summer we were sitting outside at Elvira’s house with an unrealistically huge bowl of broccoli in front of us covered in butter, with the normal, what my mother calls ‘plastic bread’ & butter as an accompaniment - Elvira is not known for her cooking, the broccoli was also covered in angry wasps from the nearby wasps nest. Suddenly Elvira jumped up, picked up the enormous serving spoon & started to smash it down on the offending wasps smashing the overcooked broccoli to a congealed palp, scattering shards of grey-green broccoli everywhere, including splattering my cousin Sarah & I with the green mush. Once she had finished this outburst she sat down again & expected us to eat the remnants, of the mush now added to the dish were the dismembered bodies of wasps – I hated broccoli for years after that!   

Left to right, Trevor, Elvira, Taller boy Laurie, my brother, Tall lady with beads, my mother Josephine short fat bridesmaid with ringlets not looking at the camera pulling my bloomers up - Me! What was my aunt Dilys thinking of with those outfits?

Prince Philip - My small encounter…

I was sent to school in Windsor from the age of 9; Windsor is a small town which meant that you could very often come across a patron or two in a Royal cart or car with the little flag flying from the front bonnet & a regal occupant inside. The Royal family were always around & about it was not unusual to come across them occasionally. Not least my school - I loosely mention it as a school it was in fact a convent - Brigidine Convent, Queensmead House School, located on the edge of Windsor Great Park, right bang smack in the middle of the long mile to be accurate. Despite the schools affiliation with Roman Catholic nuns it accepted pupils of all faiths.

For the record, I am of no faith, my mother was religious to a degree, I know that in London she was courted by the local vicar who was according to my father ‘in love’ with her? However she turned to the dark side & married my father, leaving said vicar broken hearted.

It seems that I was yet another of my parents ‘surprises’ & as such I was not christened, which never bothered me as it was never on my radar as we were not a church going family, except when one of the family got married or for that matter got christened.

When we moved to Berkshire & I was sent to the private convent school having previously been schooled in London at non fee paying Brookland Primary School - East Finchley, NW11, or as my mother would call it Hampstead Garden Suburb. I can promise you it was monumental & quite a shock to find my self surrounded by at times the brutal negative regimes of the Roman Catholic nuns. I was ill prepared for such a regime, not to mention the endless curtailing of my character & natural exuberance. I was a modest child & eager to please, it seemed to me that you were taught that everything was considered a sin which at such a tender age was quite difficult to comprehend & extremely challenging. Of course there were much lighter moments when ‘normal’ teachers would take the classes & those I enjoyed.

On the second day of attending the school my mother dropping me off at the front door of the convent, which unbeknown to either of us was not to be used by the likes of the lowly pupils, but was reserved for special people & his reverence the local vicar visits, which to my memory when he pulled the front door bell sent all the nuns scurrying to see him even some of the elderly ‘mothers/nuns’ it was as if a rock star had arrived on a pack of screaming teenagers, the nuns dropped their haughty repose & descended on the poor man like bees to honey their faces turning red in hot flushes of slightly hysteric yapping & giggling, it was curious to me & even at that age - I considered it vulgar. Little girls can be very judgemental!

Back to the front door of the convent, my mother pushed me out of the car, shushing me with her hand to go up to the front door, I was hesitant & staring at her, then her face changed, clearly she had a second thought.. Anxious, she scooched over into the passengers side of the car reaching out to wind down the window, “Natalie, whatever you do - Do not tell them that you are not christened!!” .. Then as only my mother can do, she wound the window back up re-seated herself in the driving seat & shot off, hair & lipstick immaculate, no doubt off on a shopping expedition, that she so excelled in…

I was terrified, as a child you get a sense that something is very wrong, my mother was prone to just dropping me in it & hoping for the best & buggering off!! I rung the door bell, after a moment or two, one of the over excited nuns ripped open the door, there were audible the sounds of clattering feet scampering, running, jogging to get to the front door first. As the other nuns arrived in the hallway to their disgust & dismay they only found a tiny pork pie shaped child with a maroon pork pie hat on & maroon striped equally ill-fitting blazer at their front door - Their reaction to me was very much in the negative. I never entered the building through that entrance again. Also, thanks to my mother I spent my younger years in the school utterly terrified that in some way I would be ‘outed’ as ‘non-christened’ - sinner! It left quite an impression.

The school because of its location to Windsor castle would regularly get calls from the castle staff to request the convent school pupils to line ‘the long walk’ & cordially wave at the very many cars carrying the Queen & various members of her family & entourage, when they were going on visits to Ascot & the like, we would cross the road dressed in our blazers & straw boater hats, it was a requirement of the school uniform to also be wearing white gloves, mostly we all had lost one of the pair of gloves, so we would group together loan out what we had & as we walked past the nun checking our uniforms we would have one gloved hand on show the other non-gloved hand shoved in our pocket, when I see the old St Trinians films made in black & white it reminds me of what we all looked like! It was even then archaic!!

We stood on the edge of the long mile & waited, sometimes for ages for the Royal procession to slowly go past us as we politely waved & the Royals & their guest waved back at us sometimes looking a bit board, occasionally you would get a sort of smile, but at other times they would look stern or even to my mind a bit cross. We did this so often & were so close to the Royals, I just assumed that all schools did this type of greeting.

My mother very soon tired of taking me to school & quickly organised to get me off loaded with various lifts & school rotas from other parents in the local area where we lived. Eventually my lifts to & from school were taken over by one particular mother who did the school run with her own two children, her name was Gay & she was more than a bit eccentric, she was actually mad as a March hare. She was always talking & expressing an opinion, shrieking at the top of her voice to us three girls, she was excitable & would quite often wave her arms around to make her point, sometimes both arms, which obviously meant that she had no hands on the steering wheel, which would mean that her tiny car would weave madly to one or other side of the road, occasionally clipping or mounting the curb & often being hooted at by other vehicles on the road. To be honest as a child this type of driving never really bothered me that much, as my father had a penchant for falling asleep at the wheel of his six litre car, whilst speeding, before being brutally awakened by my mother. Gay’s driving was normal to me!

One morning we were off on our normal route to school, we passed through a small village called Datchet, just outside Windsor & there was the usual backlog of traffic, so Gay decided to take the residential ‘rat-run’ to get us back on the main drag into Windsor in an attempt to avoid the traffic jam, she didn’t turn the corner, she just bounced on the pavement at an angle & nearly hit the car coming the other way & had to slam the breaks on as did the large blacked out official car coming the other way. The car had the usual little flag waving on its bonnet, which was to signify that a member of the Royal family was in the car & on official duty. The car edged forward a bit around Gay’s car then came to a halt alongside of us, the back tinted window of the car came in line with Gay’s window, the electric window slowly came down & out came a long arm slightly bent - Which then very stylishly give - ‘the two fingered salute’ to Gay’s opened window. You could clearly see it was Prince Philip & he was cross, he held his arms & fingers there for a few seconds, then his arm withdrew back into the car, the window went back up & the car drove on.

I can not tell you what joy this gave me! I sat there in the back of the car in my little pork pie hat with matching body & striped maroon blazer, I was delighted …. The nuns would have found this behaviour an abomination, to me in my small mind it was so exciting… As I grew up through that school, I did become a bit of a wild child & rebellious to all it stood for, I can’t say that Prince Philip was is any way responsible for this - But I can say - To a small child at least he kept it real…

The Egg Game…

When I was a child, my parents took us on a holiday to Lanzarote. We were staying with their German friends in their holiday home at Easter time. It was a revelation to me, when on Easter morning we arrived downstairs and the table was decorated with all manner of Easter styled chocolates & flowers, in the centre of the table was a huge bowl of rich shinny brightly coloured real boiled eggs. They had been dyed in boiling water & then polished with bacon fat! To my nearly ten year old mind this was chocolate heaven. I have never particularly liked sweet things as I have told in my story, clink the link below…

But I was partial to the odd Easter egg, the smarties one, although I once had my entire chocolate Easter egg collection given to me by the family for a whole year & a bit without any of the sweet confectionery ever being touched or taken out of its packaging . I do however love eggs, boiled eggs are my favourite, I still have two boiled eggs for breakfast every morning & on special occasions smoked salmon & fried eggs with mushrooms. So this table setting with its beautiful centre piece was right up my street!

You may have a heart of gold - But so does an egg!

On this bright sunny morning in Lanzarote our genial host also introduced us to the new game of an Easter Egg hunt … Childhood bliss, even if the chocolate was a tad on the melted side due to the hot early morning sun. We charged around the garden & collected all the chocolate that had been hidden - In plain sight!… Once this was completed, we entered the house for breakfast …

The table was laden with the normal German fare; beautiful sliced hams & cheeses were on offer, crisp toasts & orange juice all served with scrambled eggs & sweet smelling pickles & jars of what looked like to me small cucumbers which I now know to be called Gherkins! Having consumed our fill, our host introduced us to the egg game. We each chose a couple of eggs from the bowl, turned to the person sat next to us & took it in turns to smash the other persons egg with our egg! There seemed to be no particular rules you just kept picking up an egg & smashing it against the other persons egg? This amused our hosts no end & I enjoyed the strange game too…

Whatever the reason for this behaviour it left an indelible print on me.

The next Easter at home and for every Easter after that, we have played The Egg Game. However I developed my own version of this extraordinary game, & made some rudimentary rules, which you can find below.

My children have grown up with this tradition, we still do it now, & it takes president over the Easter Egg hunt! They have over the years enjoy decorating the eggs, if not cracking a few on the way & trying to choose the winner!

But I warn you!! It does get very competitive…

It is a bit of fun & if you are lucky …

You can enjoy egg sandwiches, later!

You can buy egg dyes on line …

Eggs ready to be decorated …

‘Lost in Translation …’

Is it me or is it difficult being a ‘mum’ in lockdown?

Once in ‘discussion with my husband’, I made the statement – “Well I come from a long line of over-reactors”, his response - “No, Natalie! – YOU ARE THE NUCLEAR REACTOR!” Initially I viewed this as a compliment, I am passionate about whatever I do, but I can’t always be easy to be around, because I am so passionate.

Lockdown - we are all having to change the way we do things, adapt to others that are now occupying on a permanent basis our space. My family have done amazingly well with this, because we get on & in the main we all have our own space to retire to…  

However, my daughter calls me obsessive compulsive, because I like the things the way I like them, in place! She on the other hand feels more comfortable with all her things around her at all times, even if she is not in the room at the time!

Recently I have become increasingly frustrated within my ‘space’ and what I am doing, in terms of being house maid, chief bottle washer, head chief, laundrette & shopper. AKA. The menial one!

The children, young adults, conversely have used the lockdown to improve their skills/hobbies, work prospects & generally promote their lives going forward, as of course they should! We are six which includes an extra body in the form of a massive lovely young man who is our daughters boyfriend; his special skill, apart from being charming; is eating - he has the ability to eat his body weight in food a number of times over in a day, if he lived in the 1840’s, Barnum would have offered him a place as a side show entertainment in - The Greatest Showman.

I am a good cook, but it has been an endless task, food plus snacks on a daily roll – It’s like running a small canteen – I have to remember to put labels on food in the fridge, - eat, don’t eat, don’t touch, don’t even think about it! Some food in the ‘larder’ has disappeared completely, with no culprits owning up!

I am working in the hub of the house the kitchen, as my office is otherwise occupied. Naturally everyone comes & goes with snack or cuppa in hand; so interruptions are endless if not completely justified, but it means I get little or nothing done. An example of this, whilst I am writing our eldest son comes to ask me a question about our daughter whom he had just walked past, I asked him, “why don’t you ask her?”, his reply, “She is working!” Actually what she was doing, was painting, with her headphones in, dancing whilst listening to music, whilst pursing her lips & reciting Japan’s phrases as she has decided to learn Japanese for her working tour of Japan that has been postponed due to the pandemic.

It got me pondering, why for example can no one else in the property open or close curtains? It’s not really a special skill, perhaps they just want to walk around all day in semi-dullness or they just don’t notice? Loo rolls these have become another obsession of mine, when you come to end of a loo roll, would it not be obvious to just put it in the bin provide? Instead of balancing the roll on the nearby radiator, for someone else [me] to put it in the bin? Bringing all their shoes down into the hallway & leaving them in a random mathematical style on the floor for me to move so that you can walk down the hallway without fearing for your life in terms of falling. Coats is another fascinating dilemma, how many can you hang on a single hook in the hall before they all fall off & hit the passer by?

Once, after cleaning the downstairs loo, I removed the hand towel & took it to the utility room, collected the clean towel & was on my way back to replace it, in the hallway I came across a person holding their washed wet hands in the air, confused & shocked - “there is no towel in the loo, where has it gone?” - taking the clean towel from me, they dried their hands, gave it back to me & went on their merry way! I made my way to the loo only to find splash marks up the wall, across the mirror & on the floor where they had attempted to dry their hands off! The simple conundrums in my life!

Over this last year we all sit together every evening with fine food to eat & lots of wine. I get to the table last, by which time most of the evening debates are underway & conversation is in full swing. No matter how hard I try to interject in this lively debate to my mind I am either over talked, ignored or marginalised by a tolerant grimace in my direction - I mean what do I know? This ‘irks’ me a – I am not just the house elf! – I have a brain & an opinion.

The next morning, I composed an email & pinged it off to the children, my main complaint was not about the amount of menial work I was doing, it was about my fragile ego, that I had something to contribute other than – being ‘General Dogs Body’ – Let’s face it on reflection it is always a bit of a risky business to complain to your children & try & pretend that you are in any way on their intellectual level or at times even relevant!

First responder; our middle son by text – a kiss emoji with a note saying ‘I love you’. Quite a clever response, it says little but also says everything a mother wants to hear! A tear came to my eye! You see Natalie – They do appreciate you on an intellectual level! Really it is laughable how shallow my ego has got!

Our eldest; I am assuming she just read the email, most probably thought I was over reacting & continued her behaviour as normal… In the hope it would all blow over…

My phone pinged again, title - ‘Rebuttal’ – A message from our youngest son; you had to be a thicker skinned person than me to read it! You know that saying, ‘ask a young person something whilst they still know everything!’ Two of his suggestions that gave cause for thought & I can reveal here.

1. He considered that we drank too much wine over lockdown – ‘enough to sink a small whale’ – Apparently! Well under the current stress, I guess it beats main lining heroin, which is something I can’t do as I am allergic to morphine, so on reflection wine seemed the better option!

2. My bad language – I am not adverse to the odd ‘F-bomb’ when the moment suits, but it is not habitual! I don’t swear at anyone - you understand! Also a bit rich coming from someone who plays expletive driven PlayStation games & full blast music with lyrics that would make Gordon Ramsey blush!

I confess – to the odd expletive, for example when I walk past their rooms & the door is open – I spy the magic carpet of clothes. Clothes that I have recently washed/dried, folded in sorting order of items, socks, pants, joggers, hoodies, jeans – placed in neat piles upstairs outside their corresponding bedroom door. On prompting, they are collected by the owner & deposited on the nearest surface in their rooms. Over the course of the week items of clothing are picked from the pile at random causing the clothes on top to fall to the floor creating a modern day – thick ‘shagpile’ carpet, which stays there, until they are all deposited back into the laundry basket a week later & brought downstairs to be washed again!… I confess I swear!  

On a walk with my husband, I discussed the contents of my email & the responses, he laughed, we both laughed! The conclusion was - they all are just normal, lovely young people & because of lockdown we have had the privilege to have spent some quality time with them, apart from the odd hiccup we have laughed our way through this year together... They are kind & generous even if they can’t put clothes away & they do other stuff! Perhaps writing the email when they too are going through so much was another nuclear reactor moment?

Some days later - I was handed a dissertation by our daughter, she has decided to apply to do a master’s degree in English Literature on the psychopathy in literature. ‘Could I look it over & see what I think? My chance!! Did I add any insightful comments? Yes, I found two full stops missing! Natalie the pseudo-intellectual – At last my moment in the spot light!

Sitting at the kitchen isle my husband went to the fridge, opened the door, glanced around at me – “Hey Whale – Fancy a glass of wine!”

KEEP MASKED UP!

A bit of Fun - Lock-Down is sending us all mad!

Sometimes you have to have a bit of fun in these Lock-Downs - This is about wearing a mask & staying safe, modelled by the beautiful Tallulah - Can you imagine going out looking like this a year & a half ago? You would look like you were house breaking! Sign of the times! I bet David Cameron feels safe about saying “Hug a Hoodie” now!

Lock-Down Hair

None of us have found it easy, this endless lock-down in the UK. I have taken on cutting my youngest son’s hair, my husband & my daughters … Today my daughter took on the task of cutting my hair… She did a grand job… Stay safe and Happy … If it goes wrong just remember it is hair & it will grow back … X

Having your Cake & Eating it!

Victoria Sandwich cake

If you have read any of the Me/Myself & I ‘blog’ stories then you will know that I have an extraordinary relationship with my childhood… Perhaps we all do? This memory came to me when I was making a large Victoria Sandwich cake for the family the other day..

I’ve never liked cakes, ever, even as a child, the very idea of putting that sickly sweet, glutenous mouthful of tacky wall paper glue into my mouth to find that it then sticks to the roof of my mouth & coats my tongue & teeth with edible adhesive .. It’s really not my thing! Agreed, not a great ‘intro’ to a story about cakes …

However I do love making cakes! Also, I’m not half bad at it! I don’t taste them, but to be fair who does taste the uncooked version of cake? I rely on a fantastic sense of smell & an overall understanding of the ingredients & the process, also I have many willing participants who taste the cakes along the way & enjoy testing the ultimate results.

My window into the world of cakes was via my mother who loves cakes & pastries, all things pretty, sweet & nice. Deserts give her great pleasure, she is a good cook herself, now in her latter years, she will happily spend a great deal of time making a good cake, she enjoys them and never puts on weight as she indulges in her home made cuisine! Having your Cake & Eating it very much apply’s to my mum … Occasionally she will ask my advice on a particular recipe. So it is something we have in common on some level.. Having enjoyed herself making a cake or four, she deposits them to grateful recipients in her local area. Often to “the old lady upstairs”, as it happens ‘the old lady upstairs’ is in fact younger than my mother, a minor point in my mothers world!

As children my parents would take my brother & I out on long drives from London to tea houses in the country; another thing I was not keen on, long car journey’s! “Are we there yet?” Arriving at these always busy tea houses crammed full of tables covered in ill-fitting over-washed table cloths, we squeezing through the packed cafe apologising to the already seated patrons to finally make our way to the empty table that beckoned us. Shunting our seats rather too tightly under the table, as we were taught to by my father, which meant that you were pinned to the table & unnecessarily close to the proceeding, in my case being small by my neck, my father was obsessed by making sure we were “tucked in tight”? He would jump up hold the edges of the chair & use his leg & knee to make sure that we were well & truly under the table, it made it impossible for me to get my hands out from under the table so that I might at some stage eat the cake I didn’t like! Parents are weird?

My parents viewed the menu, scanning the many delights of the cafe cuisine. Menu’s in those days were either typed up, carbon copy style with cross outs or tippexed where spelling mistakes were made & then attached to maroon clip boards, the clip boards had always seen better days the plastic at the edges of the board was invariably split & the battered cardboard centre was peeking through. Or the worse menu; the encapsulated plastic menu always a bit sticky & the edges were sharp, they resided in a plastic clip set in the centre of the table, sometimes you would have to prize them apart from each other in order to view. Yuck!

This was my opportunity to scan the surroundings, the decor, the people, but firstly the table were we sat at, I had made a mental note on these many visits & observed that all tea houses seemed to suffer with the same hygiene issues? Being the smallest therefore my face was the closest to the table it was obvious to me that many customers had already sat at this table prior to us. Thus the cloth was invariably covered in other peoples crumbs; which grossed me out! The table cloths were littered with bits of over toasted tea cake, small pieces of crusty toast & cake that had missed the previous occupants mouth & worse of all on occasions slimy bits of butter & jam that were smeared across the fabric. Also Gross!

In some of the more forward thinking establishments, they had a remedy to this problem, a metal tool that they would scrap across the table cloth in an attempt to collect up the debris of the now discarded bun-droppings, but all it actually did was ‘ruche’ the fabric into gathered pockets that would hide the bun-droppings underneath; so when the waitress had finished doing this piece of drama & straightened the table cloth out again you were now left with wavy lines of crumbs, more artistic perhaps, but still equally revolting!

These parlours back in the day, were mostly run by oddly shaped older women wearing frilly floral aprons tied too tightly at the waist; it did not escape my notice that these rosy-red cheeked women also had uneven floppy bosoms hanging over the their waistband, it occurred to me at the time that these ladies could do with what was a phenomenon at Grandmas house, both my aunts never stopped talking about the new revolution a ‘Playtex cross your heart bra’ this apparently according to my aunt Dilys ‘separates and lifts the breasts whilst ensuring the perfect fit’.. Regrettably this invention came a little bit late in life for Grandma & these ladies waiting the tables. Grandma was an advocate of a ‘girdle’, I only saw it once, hanging on the line, I think it was a secret, it was an odd creation with ‘dangly’ elastic hanging at the base, in later life I discovered this was a ‘suspender’, not that fashionable then, but now very Madonna or Jean Paul-Gautier, now the height of sexiness! Although Grandma was not quite that shape or possibly never had the inclination? Given the fact that she already had seven children!

My sleuthing the table cloth was interrupted by mum, “What would you both like to eat?”, she said looking at Laurie, my elder brother; she actually meant what cake do you want to eat? Any public conversation with Laurie, left him speechless. Laurie did not like to talk, he was painfully shy & introspective. I came along a number of years later & took it upon myself to talk for him, something at this stage in our lives he was mostly grateful for! Food wise Laurie mostly only liked baked beans & Arctic Roll, which was ice-cream wrapped in jam & covered in sickly sponge cake, a limited diet to be fair but it kept Laurie happy & that in turn kept my mother happy & I suffered it. I have nothing against baked beans, with the exception of having to share a room with my brother, but I detested the Arctic Roll, I would peal the sponge off & give that to Laurie & try & eat the ice-cream from inside to out so as to not have to eat any jam.

Jam, on reflection I reluctantly accepted latter in my life it was contained in my favourite biscuits which for a short while were Jammie Dodgers, I like the taste of the biscuit bit, less keen on the jam, but I would suffer it. When we moved out of London into the country my parents bought me a four poster bed, which my mother loved. Having a substantially bigger house, my mother followed in the footsteps of my aunt Elvira & took to doing large shopping visits to ‘cash & carry’, the booty was distributed all over the house, if you opened the small high level bathroom cabinet you were quite likely to be bombarded with two gross worth of coloured loo rolls or if you went ‘snooping’ about the house you could well come across an enormous amount of tins of backed beans hidden in the guest bedroom cabinets, there was ‘booty’ stashed everywhere in the house?

For some strange reason best known to my mother she would buy boxes of 24 packets of Jammie Dodgers and stash them in the void under my bed along with multi packs of tin dog & cat food. I was at this time a ‘chubby’ child, so when it came to an after dinner treat, I was allowed to take 1 biscuit from the biscuit tin in the kitchen. Except when I went to bed later, I would hang upside down on my bed & pull up the lace valiance around the bed & view the boxes of Jammie Dodgers hidden underneath. I was not a naughty child particularly at this stage of my life, but if I saw that the box had been open & a number of packets had been removed I would take a packet out & regroup with it in my bed. Having eaten with gusto 3 or 4 biscuits I would feel sick, the only problem was that I was now left with the rest of the packet. This was an issue, it was not easy to hide anything in my bedroom as my mother was constantly re-arranging furniture in there & changing the theme of my room, I would often come home to find that my draws had been riffled through & the entire contents of my bedroom had been moved to a different space. She also had a penchant to raid my bedroom cupboard & throw all the ‘stuff’ in my cupboard out onto the floor, complaining that the cupboard was a mess! Which considering she had thrown the entire contents onto the floor in a heap seemed to me to have made any mess I had made in the cupboard considerably worse? I think it was a ritual for her? So there was no other choice for me to hide my uneaten biscuits & I was forced to consume the entire packet, which made me feel extremely unwell. After a couple of attempts as stealing them it put me off Jammie Dodgers for life! Another thing my mother found issue with as she now had a stash of Jammie Dodgers I was not going to eat!

Back to the cafe table; all eyes were on Laurie’s which made his eyes water up & his cheeks go red & shinny, he was never going to talk, I knew that.. Eventually my mother would say, “Okay Laurie, you have a think about it, Natalie what would you like?” Never backward in coming forward as a child, “I want a coke & a toasted cheese sandwich, please.” My mother would sigh & ignore my request, she would then order for me & Laurie & Trevor, my father. She was always trying to control my fathers apatite, as he was a chubby, & a bit of a glutton.

I have often wondered why parents ask you what you want & then just ignore your answer & order you something entirely different? What is the point of asking in the first place? To be honest I still have these conversations with my mum now. She tells me what she thinks I will like or more to the point what I should like, be it a film or a item of clothing, I say “I don’t like it, it is not my thing!” And my mum will say, “Oh you do like it Natalie!” And so the madness goes on!

On this occasion Trevor was allowed cheese on toast a favourite of mine, Laurie would get a chocolate cake mostly or on special occasions like today a chocolate eclair & I was presented with a Battenberg cake, like it or not! A multi-coloured chess board style of cake covered in sickly marzipan. That I could cope with as Trevor mostly would scoff his food & start on mine, but what really irritated me about these dining experiences & does to this day is that Laurie was always given a coke, despite having not asking for one & I was given a bottle of congealed, split sweet & bitter tasting orange juice? Because according to my mother - ‘I liked it!’.

Battenberg, was not my style of cake, either, so my mother moved onto Meringues glued together with whipped cream, I loved the cream but the over sweet Meringues were not my thing. Mum advanced onto donuts, I didn’t mind the ‘donut’ so much despite the fact that they left your face covered in sugar & stuck your fingers together but there was that glob of jam in the middle? Pastries were mostly not my thing either, but better than cake… Mum proceeded onto home made Lemon Meringue pie, this to be fair was a little better, I could eat a bit of the lemon but not the Meringue. If you are wondering why not chocolate cake, well because I I don’t really like chocolate .. either .. I like cheese if I was to have a dessert…. So I was a lost cause to my mother. And not for the last time!

Having finally accepted that I didn’t like all things sweet mum came up with another wheeze to keep cake in my life. On the understanding that “Other people like cake Natalie”. So now it was rude for me not to accept cake! Cakes were presented to me on my birthdays they were my mothers key gifts. Between the village we lived & Windsor was a village called Datchet. …&… Joy of joy’s there was a little tea shop there called The Astricot, run by two very affable old ladies, who in fairness to them had their bosoms in the right place, perhaps they had discovered cross your heart bras? These very talented ladies created wonderful ‘early days’ themed cakes. As far as my mother was concerned it was inspired. So for the next 6 years or so, these sweet old ladies made beautiful Birthday cakes for me mostly & very occasionally for my brother, who had now been exiled to boarding school, which for me was a bit like being bereaved & for him a total disaster… The cakes were inspired, [by my mother], a Ginger Bread house with a ‘smarties’ roof, was the first, I like smarties! Some of the other themes were, a frog band cake, I am not sure why? A ballet cake covered in ballerina’s, I was not so keen on this. A cake with a glass wishing well and one covered in silk flowers to name just a few. My mother just delighted in each & everyone of them, it gave her such enormous pleasure.

The Astricot ladies were also commissioned to make various cakes for the wider family, one being for my Grandmother’s 75th Birthday that was to be held at my aunt Elvira’s house. This cake was to be the centre piece of the celebrations, well that was the view my mother had! This opulent cake was decorated in silk purple flowers, [my mother was going through her purple phase at this time, there were many design phases such she went through such as gold, lime green & her leopard pattern chapter, I will cover these in another blog!], the centre of the flowers on grandma’s cake had black & pearl wired beads as stamens, these flowers were placed delicately on scalloped white royal icing, it weight a ton. At the grand unveiling of Grandma’s cake, to my mother’s utter horror, my younger cousins dived in & started to strip the icing sugar off the cake & consume it, before we had even lit the candles. My mother was furious & I agree with her… Sometimes you can have your cake but you should not eat it … Until it has been a little bit savoured that is the point in cake it is a frivolous sexy temptress, that needs to be admired.

When I had left home, I used to make a Christmas fruit cake every year, starting the preparation nearly 9 months in advance for my mother’s celebrity friends to enjoy on her annual five month holiday in Barbados. The Christmas cake was huge, opulent & drenched in alcohol for flavour, [much like my mother’s wealthy set of friends!] Each year, the cake was sent out via couriers at Christmas to Barbados, as my mother had long since departed & there was no way that she was cutting her baggage allowance for clothes down with a big heavy cake. So the cake was dispatched along with a trolley load of ‘goodies’ purchased from Harrods, this consignment also included a stash of 20 or so cans of tinned corn beef for Alan & Ray the main hosts who despite their wealth & the luxurious surroundings liked simple fare, they also liked a quality Christmas cake. One of Alan & Ray’s guest on many occasions was Bob Monkhouse, a well known English entertainer & good friend to the Barbados crowd, his passion too was the Christmas cake, however his crime one year was to eat the last piece of my Christmas cake, so irritated was Alan that he flounced off to his bedroom & was not seen again until Bob had gone back to his own villa! It is only cake … Right!?

Don’t think that perhaps I don’t like cakes because or that I was just given badly made cakes by elderly grandparents & hapless aunts. In the main I wasn’t, my parents took us to the best patisseries in London & the home counties, plus trips to Devon & Cornwall, in their pursuits of all things cake. However, one disgusting cake memory was my grandmother’s who was a very good ‘war-time’ cook, she had a penchant for making ‘junket’, a sloppy, wobbly creation like a jelly, made from sweetened & flavoured curds of milk. Grandma would colour it in vulgar clashing vegetable dyes, to entertain her many grandchildren, 20 to be precise. Grandma made this ‘slop’ particularly for my cousin Simon as he was her favourite grandchild outside two other male grandchildren, one being my brother. We all had to suffer junket at Grandma’s gatherings most particularly because Simon liked it and we were an obedient lot!

I have continued to make many cakes & I enjoy doing it, my own children have had some spectacularly wild cakes on their Birthdays & other occasions, I have never forced cake on my children, nor did I care if they liked cake or not, they all do by the way! But what I will say is that cake making was my response in some ways to my mothers love of cake. And therefore she inspired me in some way, I hope that she will take credit in that? So on the whole has been a success… So have your cake & eating it … I suppose I should thank my mum?

Please go to Food & Entertaining …. For all recipes on making Victoria Sandwich cakes & variations …. & ENJOY >>>>



Jewellery & Nordrach House

Nordrach House with a charcoal sketch behind of Nordrach. Model wearing my Jewellery.. [And of course drinking my wine!]

I have written extensively about Nordrach House, Somerset & it has appeared in a number of magazine articles, but to give you a brief outline. Here is one of the articles from Somerset Life in 2008… https://www.somerset-life.co.uk/homes-gardens/interiors/rural-retreat-restored-1-1632713

We purchased Nordrach House in 2005 as a refurbishment project, it was built as an exclusive TB hospital in the 1800, there are a number of Nordrach hospitals, mostly based in Germany where physicians pioneered a new treatment to try and cure TB by finding a location with the most pure air and building a purpose build hospital in that location, ‘our’ Nordrach in Somerset is built on the very top of the Mendip Hills and the patients would be housed in pavilions within the extensive grounds, with windows open all year around so that patients could take in the air at all times. The had a pavilion for the patients to eat in that was in the main building, a cricket pitch on one of the front fields, both of which existed when we purchased the property. Also they had a doctors surgery on the grounds which was converted into another private house at a later stage.

Nordrach House when it was a sanatorium

Nordrach House in 2010

Thankfully TB was effectively eradicated in the main and so the property was then used as a refuge for the Polish for a few years. Subsequently it was purchased by the Stokes family, purveyors of fruit and vegetables, who went about turning this purpose built hospital into a family home, with the use of a great deal of Laura Ashley wallpaper. The basic building remained in the same format with its two long hallways running along from the front of the house to the back on the two floors splitting the house into two parts.

Front door at Nordrach House

When we purchased the property, it was my idea of fun to completely refurbish the property which by now needed a complete overhaul, it was less my husbands idea of fun! But he kindly went along with it! The property was by this point in a desperate need for an update/overhaul and full refurbishment.

Nordrach House sitting room

The starting point for the 'refurb’ was to remove the oil tanks that were banked down the side of the property, every time one failed they just put another one in and left the old one in place, this meant that we had to get a crane in to remove the three old defunct tanks and have them taken away.

Another big issue was the jackdaws, the property was besieged with them; jackdaws are protected spices at certain times of the year. Part of the birds habit is to come back to the same property/place where they were born, they then rebuild another nest on top of the existing nest creating a sort of nest mountain. The nest were falling out of the rafters and out of the roof into the guttering as they had never been removed, it was quite disgusting. We took advise and were told that it would be in the interest of the birds if we thinned out the nests, we had no intention of getting rid of the birds but just to improve their environment as well as ours. So when the time was right and the birds were not nesting we set about cleaning up!

Nest debris is very toxic and required specialist removal company. It took two men two weeks in specialist suits and face masks and breathing apparatus to remove all the old nests!

And so the refurbishment went on, litres of paint, new kitchen cooker and hobs were installed, the property already had a double aga, which we had refurbished. New bathrooms and shower rooms were installed. The house looked magnificent.

In the gardens there had once been a ‘dingly dell’, for the patients to enjoy, effectively this was a grotto dug deep into the rocks, sadly this had been used over the years as a dump, with the proverbial, old fridge and sofa deposited in it ‘too boot’, all this had to be skipped away and the woods had to be tidied up, it was successful and in April the smell of wild garlic in the woods was superb and so pretty it reminded me of being a child and running through the woods near my grandmothers home.

Nordrach House .. This was the old driveway that had long since stopped being used.. Fabulous line of Beech Trees..

The gates at the front of the driveway had been found in a field with matted vegetation securing them to the ground, near our old home in Henley-on-Thames, we approached the owner and he did not want them so my husband, Ben, had them rebuilt at a local forge and for the fun he had an ‘N’ and ‘B’ set into the top of the gates, yes a bit ‘naff’ but funny anyway! So it was interesting that when we moved to Nordrach and had the gates installed on the front of the drive, we had complaints about them from the locals, saying they were to ‘posh’ for the area! People funny?? !! I told one of the mothers from the local school were our children attended about the issue with the gate, and she came up with the brilliant comment, “If they want to complain .. If I were you I would get your husband to put another ‘B’ on them, and then tell the locals that it is now Nordrach B & B, that will teach them!”… Brilliant we.. We never did it by the way!

So moving on from finishing Nordrach, I have always had an interest in fashion. Over and above of my work in Interior Design I had undertaken a number of commissions making jewellery and some of the items I made had featured in magazines, it seemed a no ‘brainer’ to use Nordrach for a bit of photography for promotion of my jewellery, it was a fun day …

Leather, wire mesh & feather necklace … Pictured in the Pavilion ..

The day was full of food and wine .. The girls all dressed in my cloths and shoes and it was a great way to document the jewellery…

Antique Chinese beads

These Chinese beads were bought from a local antique shop some were cracked and others smashed, so I took them apart and wired them back together to make a new necklace selection of necklaces…

Leather hand stitched bangles

I ordered on line a box of leather off-cuts, which incidentally came from a company that made sex toys! Most of the pieces were big enough to turn into these beautiful bangles, I used a local saddle maker, who cut them into the shapes and stitched them on a old machine ..

Porcupine & silver earrings - Top hat with feathers also made by me!

I was working on a modern interior design job in a private home and I was using the porcupine needles as a styling implement, they make an striking display put into a vase on a shelf, I had some left over so I decided to turn them into earrings, it was not as easy as I first thought, as the needles need to be pinned into position not glued as I had originally thought might be possible. But that pinning as you can see from the picture added to the architectural structure of the earrings.

The hat I saw in a Bristol shop in Park Street, so I bought it and purchased some feathers on line to make the look…

Leather belt with tassels ..

Leather scarf…

In the local market in Wells, there is a man who sells shoe laces and he had a box of leather off cuts, with them I made a leather belt and fabulous long belt, cutting great long tassels to hang down to the ground …

Coral, Amethyst necklace with silver and leather loops

I have not made much jewellery recently.. But watch this space as I will post some new items on this site … Please do contact me if you wish to have a bespoke piece made for you …

Necklaces bangles & coolness …

My Family Home….’Dutch Gardens’….

Part One….

Matilda based on my Beautiful mother…

The Reports of My Family’s Demise are Greatly Misquoted! 

I am writing this blog a bit prematurely, in fact it was not a story I would have under normal circumstances put on my site, but I feel my hand has been somewhat forced; by a newspaper article that went viral… About a poor old eccentric pensioner who tried to turn his drab bungalow into a Venetian Palace. You should know I am rolling my eyes right now! So here, I am going to “modify” the true tale to fit my sites demographic! The reality of my childhood is somewhat more complicated and resembles something of a black farce! I will tell that story another time… Here .. I feel the need to defend myself, my mother and brother who have once again been written out of our own history that was so ‘endemic’ to all our lives. I should point out that neither my mother or brother, have any part in this post it is strictly from my point of view … But I want to put the story of Dutch Gardens - ‘straight’ it is part of who I am and I refuse to be simply anaesthetised from the equation that is/was my life!

“Just because a picture happens to be erotic, does not make it pornographic”

Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh

I was alerted by a family member to an article that appeared in a national paper about the house I grew up in, by the time I read the feature… It had gone viral.. ”How I turned my £13,500 bungalow in Staines into a £4 million Venetian Palace” … At first … I was shocked by the article.. I mean I know the story well .. And I never thought the old boy would sell the place as it is central to his life, his existence, nothing else matters to him apart from that house – Dutch Gardens, he has given up and lost everything to build this monument to himself… Some would rename it – The Hammer House of Horrors, particularly if you happen to be one of the neighbours! As he has been building there for the last 50 years relentlessly.. The man at the centre of this spin is Mr Trevor Wynne-Jones, how do I know him? .. He is my father… Although for various reasons we are very much estranged.. But that is another much more complex story..

“If you knew the power of the dark side .. I am your father… “

Star Wars – Darth Vader

Here is the original article which is very good by Fred Redwood for the Telegraph … I think his comment … A first class fake! Speaks volumes!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/luxury/turned-13500-bungalow-staines-4million-venetian-palace/

So let me tell you a bit about the current Dutch Gardens, which as the article suggests is as far away from Italy particularly in terms of a Venice location … It is stuck in between two large towns called Staines and Slough, that is not a particularly inviting start. Granted there is water at the property more than is required at times and the River Thames runs on the other side of the road, but it is not quite the same as Venice and you rarely see a Gondola! However this so called Venetian Palace, built by a self-obsessed megalomaniac, does indeed have its own versions of Tintern Abbey, Rapunzel’s Tower and Dutch Architecture, the Gothic windows which are newly sited next to French style doors, suits of armour and paintings copied from the old masters in oils in the style of fresco’s on the walls; not to forget to mention the hideous commissioned ill proportioned copies of paintings of monumental battles with Trevor sitting at the helm… I cannot tell you how funny I find these paintings.. Everyone that worked for Trevor is in these paintings including family members, even though some requested not to be in the pictures, that made no difference to Trevor you either bend to his will or you were fired! .. If you look at them it is obvious who is in Trevor’s favour and who is not.. I should point out that I am not in any of the paintings as I am Trevor’s least favourite and he had long since air brushed me out of his life!

The current decoration and design of Dutch Gardens is eclectic to say the least, whatever takes Trevor’s fancy he builds, whatever he wants he does.. Simple.. Trevor’s every whim is indulged, he has been building at this development continuously since he purchased it in the late 1960’s.. Trevor’s passion for knocking things down and rebuilding is legendary he gets bored of things/people and so just moves on to the next thing/person… Don’t get me wrong, Trevor has an ability to see and recreate architecture, but he spins from one design to another and thus creates a mishmash of designs all fighting for their place against each other… Losing any sense of style or cohesion and more often than not he will push these design conceptions to their limit so that it no longer works. Most things became a parody of themselves.

As a teenager teetering on my high stilettos, swearing under my breath as I tried to make it unscathed to the front door without falling or shredding the leather from my shoes on the London cobbles that Trevor had laid with such undulations and gaps between as to make the cobbles impossible to walk on … Really the only thing that was lacking in this particular phase of his design creation of the Dickensian London cobble streets was his impression of Dick van Dijk singing ‘Me ol Bamboo’ as he tap dances down the walkways chasing after Mary Poppins!

“Toad talked big about all he was going to do in the days to come”

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The property was purchased for £12,500, in 1968, by my young Nouveau Riche parents, they saw it as a massive stepping stone to improve on their lives and make a new base for their family, but most importantly to fulfill their dreams. And why not! They were up and coming and my mother was certainly nubile, they were taking on and embracing a new world of opulence on a scale that they had never experienced before. Prior to the purchase of Dutch Gardens, we lived in a two bedroom second floor flat in a house in Finchley, North West London. This was certainly a change in circumstances for us all.

When I first set eyes on Dutch Garden as a young child; yes it was a pretty dowdy pebble dash bungalow but it was surrounded by overgrown gardens that reminded me of the film Secret Garden, it was all very exciting and to me the house was enormous, full of dark corridors and rooms that smelt of rotting damp; it reminded me of the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho; I speak retrospectively here as I had not at that time yet seen the film, my parents were ‘way out there’ but not that far, well not at that time anyway!! Dutch Gardens was owned by two old ladies…. I had no idea we were going to live in this place … I just saw it as another old house that my parents were looking at, it seemed to me, at the time that we spent an inordinate amount of time viewing old musty houses and having tea on the lawns with strange people, this particular tea party was not much different than the others except we had tea and sandwiches in the old ladies small sitting room.. Having got bored of the adult conversation … I was let out of the rickety old French windows into the gardens to explore on my own… My elder brother had been recently exiled off to a boarding school and so I was somewhat bereft and had to make my own entertainment…This I have never had a problem with!

 The bungalow was set in the middle of the plot and there was endless paving stone walkways to follow through the rambling gardens. Eventually I came to the corner of the garden were there was an old wooden gate covered in cobwebs, it was clear that it had not been opened in many years, I peeked through the wooden key hole and there appeared to be a gravelled drive on the other side and a few houses. This drive was actually the back entrance to the property that had not been used in many years, but all was about to change and this little drive way was about to be subject to relentless building delivery lorries that would cause great controversy including punch-ups between irate neighbours and workmen, not least on one occasion a neighbour pouring boiling fat over a delivery lorry engine, which inevitable, started yet another punch up… All in a normal day at Dutch Gardens and the pattern of how we lived our lives.

After peeking through the old door, I forged my way between the perimeter fence and a thick high hedge and followed the route for a while until I could not stand being whipped in the face with any more sticky spider’s webs so I made a break for it under a hole in the hedge back into the main part of the garden. Utopia!! I came across a large collection of animal pens and even better a horse stable, every child’s dream even though all the huts and cages were empty. I could now hear my parents calling for my return, I chose to ignore their polite calls, I was not to be removed from my investigations! After a few more calls of my name,they seemed to be getting closer, I decided to continue on my quest and move forward along another path around the other side of the house away from them, I picked up speed in order to make sure that I saw as much of this property as possible, I was now running toward the most beautiful purple flowering tree with enormous tendrils dangling down the intertwining branches. In the middle of this beautiful creature was an arch and I made my way through it to find myself back at the front of the house.. I now know that this magnificent specimen was a very old and impressive Wisteria, which was kept in the gardens until the gardener over watered it one year and it died of those injuries.

“We all go a little mad sometimes..”

Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock

So, my bourgeoisie parents, having purchase their new property, went on a frenzy of major renovation. They knocked down and rebuilt most parts of the property within pretty much the same footprint of the original building but on a grander scale. They were creating their perfect dream home. And why not? The ‘new’ Dutch Gardens was in the style of a 1970 – 1980 Spanish Hacienda. I mean there is a theme going on here! How many other countries architectural influences can we include in this property? The old bungalow had an enormous ‘lounge’ situated next to the small sitting room that we had had tea in with the old ladies. The large lounge had a shiny polished wooden floor, which my brother and I made the most of before it was demolished, by sliding up and down on the floor boards, before we complained of being covered in splinters… This large lounge and its small sister the sitting room next door was kept and modernised fully, with floor to ceiling panelled windows and shag pile carpets and the ubiquitous 1970 style purpose built bar in the corner of the room… Which was slightly unusual as my parents did not really drink at the time although later Trevor became rather partial to a nice warm ‘little hock’ … Or even the odd bottle of ‘Blue Nun’ …

Beautiful photograph taken by my brother Laurie T Wynne-Jones, in the good old fashion way. My mother sitting on the edge of the pond holding my cat Dizzy.

Like all houses built near the River Thames, the building regulations stated that the property had to be elevatedfour foot above ground level, to prevent flooding … This afforded an enormous amount of interesting opportunities for me when I looked down before the floor boards were laid, I would see large rats down there dead and alive. Very exciting when you are young, at the time I had not developed enough other hobbies to keep me occupied!

The rebuild took just over three years and we would travel backward and forward from our flat in London, to this large house set in three quarters of an acre of land in the country. We never once slept there overnight as back then the commute was largely without the traffic troubles that it suffers today so the journeys were easy. Whilst I was at Dutch Gardens I spent most of my time playing by myself in the large garden mostly in the water sprinkler that my mother had brought to the house to entertain me. On occasions the workmen played with me, throwing me in the air when no-one was checking on them and I ate more than my fair share of egg sandwiches sitting in the old horse stables in the garden.

 When I got too wet and cold I was despatched by my mother to change in the old pantry which was small and three steps down from the level of the main house, ignoring the rules about the water table and potential flooding! This room contained shelves with chicken net fronted cupboards in which there were old empty jam jars with their lids in neat piles and other empty dusty containers relics of a life lead before we purchased the premises, the jam jars were repatriated to my paternal grandmother who was an avid jam maker. In the restyle this small room was converted into the boiler room, were I was again despatched some years later to do my ceramic enamelling on an electric kiln, with the washing hanging over my head. Considering the electric fired kiln issue and that I was only ten, by today’s standard there seems to be a health and safety issue here... But that was never a consideration for my parents.. I was out of sight and therefore out mind! But it worked for me … Nothing was normal in my life…

While the house was under reconstruction, one of the places that I was not allowed to go near was two very large barrels in the corner of the garden, behind the garage… My name is Natalie and therefore I am naturally inquisitive and rarely to be put off the scent, particularly if I was asked not to look…I had to look … Obviously!! ..Of course I was going to inspect the barrels when no one was there to tell me off… I realised as I got a closer to the barrels, not least because of the smell… That they were the workmen’s toilets… It occurs to me now that perhaps the budget could not stretch to a Portaloo? Quite disgusting!

“It was as though the world had had a fresh coat of paint, and every heart acquired a store of illusions that made the burden of life less hard to bear.”

Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier

As the house transformed in the very early years, and when my brother was occasional released from his new school, we would play together on what was a building site. Once, we were allowed to go upstairs into what was to become my parents’ bedroom. We were told that we were only to stand on the joists as the floor boards had not yet been laidand the plasterboard of the ceiling below would not be strong enough to take our weight. My brother being oldersprinted across the joists to investigate the rooms. I attempted to keep up, my only problem was that I could not span the joists as easily, being much smaller. Having negotiated yet another joist, without falling through, I glanced up and thought that my brother had stepped on the ceiling boards, brilliant I thought and immediately did the same. It was instant, the ceiling gave away with the most almighty crack and I descended through it, hearing my mother scream from below as she fled not knowing what was happening… I landed cross legged on the floor and looked up to see my brother’s face peeking through the hole I had left above, it was brilliant…. Despite the trouble I was in.… This accident created yet another explosive tantrum from Trevor, not because I might have been hurt, but because I had damaged the ceiling.. Trevor was and is the most incredible tantrum thrower on a spectacular level… To see his temper tantrums is to behold.. A man who is out of control in his rage! Quite terrifying at times, albeit we were used to it… I come from a long line of over-reactors!

On another occasion early one morning… My brother and I came across one of the many motorised diggers that were used in the landscaping of the gardens. My mother is the most wonderful landscape designer as you can see from what is left of the gardens in the newspaper articles. As luck would have it some kind person had left the keys in the ignition, so my brother decided that we should take it for a spin … I eagerly clambered into the back of the digger … As my brother took the driver’s seat.. We were having great fun doing a tour of the garden at speed, enjoying the moment then my brother came up with the ingenious idea of driving the digger up one of the large mounds of sand and building gravel, obviously to add a bit of extra excitement and danger to the fun! It was going quite well until the sand gave way under the pressure and weight of the vehicle and it flipped over sending me flying into the air out of harm’s way but trapping my brother underneath… You know those moments as a child when you hope that if you shut your eyes tightly for a second or two, that when you open them again very quickly all would be back to normal and the damage you had just created would have gone away.. This was one of those moments.. But it was not to be the digger was definitely upside down and we were in trouble! My brother then emerged with a bloody nose from under the digger, but otherwise unscathed, as he got to his feet, he let out any number of swear words to illustrate his feelings on the matter… Which secretly I was very impressed by, I saw this as being the height of growing up!…. However there was no way we could rectify this problem and I can assure you that this evoked yet another ’Mount Vesuvius’ explosive tantrum from Trevor .. Perhaps fair under the circumstances! To some degrees ..

“Anyone for a bit of Denis Roussos?”

Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh

When we finally moved in to Dutch Gardens in the early 1970’s, I had assumed we were going to live in a tent in the dining room as to me the house was so big, the dining room was about the size of our flat in London therefore a perfect fit, and I could not conceive in my mind that we would need all this extra space, apart from to play in … It came as a surprise that I had my own room, predictably painted in a revolting shade of pink, a colour I would never have chosen, then or now! … But this was my parents dream not mine… Mostly the house was finished, their Pantile Spanish Hacienda dream house was about to take wings, it was really quite “on trend” at the time, believe it or not, as my mother was involved with the design there was cohesion and a trendy flow to the house… Venice was “still” a long way off and there were no medieval suits of armour anywhere, and most importantly we lived above ground… Not in the subterranean dungeons that you see in some of the pictures in the article..

The outside rendered walls were painted white with floor to ceiling panelled windows in every room, some walls were just windows, all very on trend … It had 3 inch high white shag pile carpets in the big lounge and my parents’ bedroom, so trendy was my mother that there were shag pile carpets in their bathroom and that carpet went up the walls! .. As Austin Powers would say, Shagadelic …. Yeah Baby!!

This carpet however, later became the bane of my family’s life when I took up sewing and continually dropped pins on the floor … Never to be seen again until someone stepped on them with bare feet.. Mostly my brother was afflicted with this torture, usually on one of his exeats from school, on one occasion the pin had embedded itself so deeply into his heel, that Trevor was forced to remove it with plyers and I was banned from doing any further sewing in any areas that were carpeted.. Of course I ignored this command, as no one was ever there to inforce this new and in my view largely irrelevant rule. However the shag pile caught me out too, on one of many occasions when I sneaked into my mother’s dressing room to paint my toe nails with her red polish.. When I swapped feet to paint the other foot, I did not notice that I was wiping the polish from the first foot all over the carpet…When I saw the mess I had made of the white carpet, I came up with the genius idea of trimming the carpet with my mother’s nail scissors to hide the damage except I got caught in the act by my mother! Not so Groovy Baby!!

“Oh lovely” she says “Cos Laurence likes a drop of wine, actually. Oh it’s Beaujolais.. Fantastic! .. Won’t be a sec, I’ll just pop it in the fridge”

Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh

My mother, a traditional follower of fashion, saw my father at this stage in their relationship more as a Roger Moore than an Austin Powers, which when I think about it is quite sweet as he is only half the size of Roger and does not really have the same physique? It must have been love as she would dress Trevor in Roger’esque style Safari suits, with the same comb over hair style, albeit Trevor’s hair was sparser… Trevor would wear this suit with his self-styled pocket watch and chain which sort of spoilt the look! My mother’s style and costumes became the stuff of magazine articles, whatever you saw in Vogue or Tatler … You would see on my mum .. A stunningly beautiful woman, with her own agenda… Most importantly they were enjoying being the ‘it’ people of Dutch Gardens and so they should have been they had worked hard to get where they were… Every weekend they would be designing the garden or a part of the house or visiting country homes or stately gardens… This was their life and Dutch Gardens was at the centre of it…

All the mod trends of the moment were applied and added to the design, including avocado suites in the bathrooms, including bidets, which were never used, well not for their actual purpose … I found them a source of great entertainment.. The sprinklers in the bottom of the pans were so powerful that they would water the whole room, subsequently I was banned from using them! As it would drench the carpets in the bathrooms… Can you imagine carpets in a bathroom now …. Yuck … All the tapsand faucets were gold plated, which very quickly discoloured and corrodedcovering the metalwith unsightly lime spots, which ultimately made them hard to use…

In the morning room next to the corridor kitchen was a glass circular dining table supported by tripod chrome legs and matching black leather chairs, which were lethal if you leaned too far back as they would slide on the tiled black and white floor sending the sitter flying … There was a lurid pink wall, and the very height of modern ‘chic’ was the 3D handmade wall paper of different sized pebble protrusions all painted in white.. My parents understandably would go mad when my young cousins came to stay and delighted in punching and squashing the protrudingpebbles… It was my job, with the aid of a screw, to pull theegg box pebbles back into shape, then the permanent on site staff would come in and repaint and fill the damage … It was also my job to repaint the chips in black and white floor tiles in the morning room, the damage being caused by the movement of thechrome chairs legs rubbing backward and forward over the surface of the tiles.

The house was full of Casa Pupo items, there was at the time a shop in London which my parents frequented, the house was stuffed with their lamps, vases, object ‘dart including metal bird cages and waist height china wild cats and snow leopards, all dotted around the house, which after parties would need to be washed down as my young cousin insisted on feeding them with cake.. In the wooden panelled dining room, which looked a bit like a set from the programme Columbo, one of Trevor’s favourite TV series at the time. In the room there was a black and white synthetic floor with inlaid black dots, it was synthetic because my mother having seen a TV programme had investigated into getting a special treatment for the floor, which involved coating the floor with a substance that would allow it to be used on occasions as an ice skating ring! This was in the period when my mother had visions of turning me into a top British ice-skater.. My grandmother had been billeted into knitting me a red ice-skating dress, which was hideous and stretched when it got wet because I kept falling over! I was forced to take weekly skating lessons, which I was extremely bad at and hated particularly as it was not my idea in the first place! … Thankfully eventually my mother gave up on this plan and turned to other ideas and formulas to plan out my future! And there is another story!

On the top of the black and white floor was a large Casa Pupo vivid green and white fringed rug, placed on top of this was the massive wooden candy twist refectory table, purchased from Harrods, which was now fast becoming their new ‘go to’ corner shop… Trevor was making money by the bucket load… My ever more wealthy parents, were making their mark on the world and Dutch Gardens was at the heart of their lives? Good luck to them I say ..

“That is the last time I play the Tart for You – Jerry” Margot – The Good Life

Later in Dutch Gardens design progress we had a full time architect who had an office attached to the garage, my mother worked closely with him whilst the never ending gardens and house works continued, changed and progressed. My parent’s lives were beginning to take different routes but Dutch Gardens continued to be their great love and perhaps the only thing that now cemented their fracturing relationship. The landscaping was now on the most epic level, with diggers and machinery excavating / creating more waterfalls and ponds, into which, my mother was introducing Koi Carp shipped in from aboard at great cost. To my delight all had to be named!

 One day a selection of mature trees was delivered to the end of the road because the lorry could not make it down the road as the trees were too tall and where knocking the overhead cables out, Dinky the gardener was dispatched to collect them, however my mother negated to advise him that they were full size and he turned up with a wheel barrow instead of the fork lift truck!

Everything was on full scale.. Bling! They never stopped working on the place, it was relentless, and the hammering, drilling, digging and sawing continued; the gangs of workmen, the endless changes went on and on. My parent’s design styles were beginning to rupture and they no longer saw eye to eye, on most things. And the neighbours hated us with a passion.. At this stage it had been over eighteen years of continuous building works .. Little did the neighbours know … There were many, many, more years of building to come… Which continues to go on to this day….

Trevor was sighted in two divorce cases, by neighbours due to the stress of them permanently living next to a building site. One weekend we were barricaded into the house by the neighbours who in their frustration erected concrete bollards to blockade the delivery entrance to the house. Undeterred but furious Trevor ripped them out and threw them back into the neighbours gardens, another quiet Sunday Lunch!… But to me it was all just normal …. Sort of … On the surface at least!

See Part 2 …..

My Family Home….Dutch Gardens….

Part two….

Matilda based on my mother … Which now belongs to me .. Matilda not my mother!

“There is nothing in human affairs that is a true subject for ridicule. Beneath comedy lies the ferment of tragedy; the farcical is but a cloak for coming catastrophe”

Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier

Trevor decided to close up the back entrance to the property and replace the gate to the back drive, it was time for him to seek his revenge on the neighbours. He built the base of the tower that you see in the newspaper article. A very large rockery was already built around the ‘Tower’ with stepping stones to the back entrance. The entire garden was flood lit in colour lights. It was the ultimate party house and it was at that time still alive.. Albeit that more cracks were beginning to show.. Trevor put in a planning application for a forty-five foot high‘look out’ tower which was to be constructed over the back entrance of the house, the prospect of which, understandably terrify and agitate the neighbours.. Once again! He wrote to every house in Wraysbury, the area, looking for support of his design and planning application, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for their response! We were inundated with press attention, again! Dutch Gardens was once again on the national news, everyone had an opinion about it. We were door stepped by press as we left the house, everyone likes a nutcase …. The Telegraph article success proves that...

 At the planning meeting to determine the planning application, which was held in nearby town of Windsor, police had to be called to deal with the crowds baying for Trevor’s blood and more punch up’s ensued between rivalling camps in support and against. We made all the papers and the press the next day! One Westminster MP who was interviewed by the press stated, “The whole thing is getting more like a scene from Clochemerle” – A French comic novel written about the battle between the Catholic and Republic locals over the erection of a urinal being built in the local square!” Very apt! Finally the planners decided that Trevor could have a 25 foot tower, much to the dread of all the neighbours and who could blame them! Once he had finally got permission, Trevor did what he always does and lost interest in the project, until some years later. …More divorces and new sets of neighbour replaced the last, like a never ending supply of new people for Trevor to irritate. My mother as ever was social climbing and moving on to her ‘new’ life seeing a better future for herself.. She wanted to move on to bigger and better things. Trevor saw this as a betrayed and refused to be moved and so the building went on … As the relationship faltered..

“Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll … Is all my brain & body needs ….” By Ian Dury

Massive pumps were incorporated into the ponds to create the streams which ebbed and flowed night and day. Super powered switches were wiredinto a control panel housed in a cupboard in the house so at the touch of a button you could ramp up the volume of the water and the noise should you wish… It was very Rock & Roll! ‘Knock me down with a feather.. Clever Trevor…Ian Dury & the Blockheads’… As wild young things.. My brother and I took advantage of all the facilities whenever our parents were not there; although my mother did sometimes join in our partying.. The house continued to evolveand devolve as Trevor began demolishing finished area’s to create his new found artistic design tendencies, this was a cause of much tension between my parents … Amongst other things!

After a visit to a golf course Trevor noted the beautiful lushgreen fairways, despite it being a very hotdry summer, all made possible by the golf course irrigation system. He decided they had to have the very same “commercial” sprinkler system, installed at Dutch Gardens. Trenches were dug into the lawn and pipes were laid, at strategically placed intervals prehistoric lookingsprinkler headswould emerge from the ground whenever the system was switched on. The first attempt at running the sprinklers, which was all very state of the art as it was unforgettable… The ground literally vibrated with the power of the water, there was the most wonderful whoosh sound as the long neck sprinklers emerged from the lawn making ticking sound as they rotated backward and forward. All very exciting the only problem was, no-one thought to investigate the power of the sprinklers or the coverage of water they would emit.. They were after all designed to water the vast acreage of the golf coursenot asuburban garden… To late … So powerful were the jets of water, they were knocking the garden staff over like nine pins as they tried to run away from the soaking .. The sprinklers built up to full power… Pandemonium … The window cleaner who had just finished cleaning the vast amounts of windows, was nowbeingpinned to the window panes by the force the water. Leaks of water were entering the house as the sheer pressure of the water was now unstoppable. I watched from the large lounge as water smashed through some of the panes of glass. I could hear my mother screaming in hysteria… Eventually someone managed to get to the switch and turn the system off…. The water jets from the sprinklers slowly decreased in power, the ticking sound slowed up and then the spouts disappeared back into the ground… Dutch Gardens very own Tsunami …

It subsequently transpired that one sprinkler put on top of the house would have watered the entire property, Trevor had installed eight in just a quarter of the garden! More complaints filed in from the neighbours, as we had soaked them, one man had left his open topped sports car outside his home only to come out and find it filled with water! Another day with all the madness!Over time the sprinklers would periodically have a mind of their own or Trevor would take revenge on someone and my mother would issue further apologies to the neighbours as their barbecues were ruined.

In my late teens on the long summer’s evenings, my friends and I would sit in the grounds, smoking and drinking and just having fun, enjoying the environment with the haze of the outdoor lighting and the sound of the waterfalls all around us. Trevor would return home from work hear us laughing in the garden and set the sprinklers off to ruin our fun, he hated anyone enjoying the space.. Everything was only on his terms …. As the sprinklers rained down on us, we would attempt to run for cover…. Usually into the house … Dripping water all over the place, which would further enrage Trevor into one of his legendary tantrums…He would evict us all… I was glad.. The house was losing its glory… My mother had moved on to social engagements of her own and only occasionally lived or visited Dutch Gardens ….. Their relationship like the house was descending into the stuff of nightmares …

“The Madness of King George” By Alan Bennett

If He swears and indulges in MEANINGLESS DISCOURSE... He will be restrained. If He throws off his bed-clothes, tears away His bandages, scratches at His sores, and if He does not strive EVERY day and ALWAYS towards His OWN RECOVERY... then He must be restrained. George III: I am the King of England. 

As Trevor madness and megalomaniacal tendencies became more prevalent and the money continued to roll in, which saturated his wildest dreams, and now there was nothing and no one to restrain HIM. He was possessed by what he could create constantly changing what he had already created, turning what once had some cohesion as a fun ‘home’ and transforming it into a gauche pastiche of miss matching homage to Trevor’s ego. It was now the only thing that Trevor could fully control.. Things that were unfinished remained unfinished … My bedroom for example, had been subject to a number of my mother’s interior design projects, much to my irritation as I grew up. It was never finished, the new lighting now consisted of a half-finished florescent tube fittings all around the top of the walls, hidden behind a half finished pelmet that flashed on and off incessantly. When I switched it on the continuous strobing effect, was like living in George Orwells 1984…

 We were all at war …. These were corrosive times.. Yet the building went on …There was no stopping the madness …

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

“You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs”

Trevor’s obsession with living underground had taken hold, he continued digging under the house now obsessively, 14 Irish labours dug and dug at any one time, more skips of soil were dispensed with, more aggravation for the neighbours. Inevitably the hole under the house filled with water. Trevor got bored again and works stopped and he started digging somewhere else… Where there was once a beautiful landscaped garden now half the garden was just a collection of big holes filled with water and half finished … Soul destroying for my mother..

I spent a great deal of time on my own in this property, everyone else was always out and about, I was used to my own company. One night, I was sitting in the big lounge with my stash of snacks ready for the evening, I did this so I didn’t have to venture back into the house, the two dogs who were with me were going mad, barking, growling, and digging at the shag pile... Dutch Gardens could be a very scary place to be inat night, particularly as my parents had an aversion to curtains, so you always had the feeling that you were being watched through these enormous floor to ceiling windows. Which I later found out was exactly what was going on .. But that is another story.

I was trying to ignore the dogs and watch TV but they were not going to have it, fussing and barking, this meant only one thing … I was going to have to make the very scary run, through the dining room into the hall then hang a quick left into the kitchen to get them some treats to shut them up, I was not keen … On the TV was a programme called Police 5, presented by Shaw Taylor, it was about catching criminals, this episode was a special on man dubbed, The Black Panther who had kidnapped a young heiress, it was all quite scary … Suddenly there was a massive whoosh sound and the floor gave way under me, I was thrown back onto the leatherChesterfield sofa by the force, the dogs shot out the room screaming and urinating in terror as they ran for cover …The naff 1970’s bar in the corner of the room moved and clunked as the glasses clattered together from their position on the shelves in protest, dust filled the room then the floor came to a short but abrupt halt and everything shuddered. Good old Shaw Taylor continued to give details about the Black Panther albeit that the TV had now moved position… I glanced around the room through the haze of dust nothing in principal had changed, but instinctively I knew it had. I pushed myself off the sofa; Shaw Taylor was doing his signature sign off of Keep ‘em peeled… Dust was sparkling in the light, looking up I saw a large gash in the wall above the bar, at some points at least four inches wide, the plaster that had fallen from the crack was now decorating the black bar top. On the other side of the room was even longer and wider crack, the sliding glazed panel door that separated the lounge from the adjacent small sitting room was hanging at a slight angle. Looking down at the floor line, there was now a gap were the wall and the floor had divorced each other, the skirting was splintered and cracked but still attached to the wall but not the floor, the black tile grout, that circled the bar was still attached to the skirting yet the tiles had remained unseated and scatted haphazardly to the floor. There had been a serious parting of the ways!

What had happened? The team of Irish navvies, Trevor had hired to dig the massive void under the house in order to create the underground dungeon’esque area, had not adequately propped up the structures and the floor under the house to sufficiently hold the house up! Only a minor detail, but as ever a crucial one! The water from the nearby River Thames had seeped into the void raising the level of the natural water table. The sheer force of the water whooshing and swirling around inthe large holehaddestabilised the stone and sand sides of the excavationthusdestabilising the foundations of this part of the house causing the groundfloor of the house to drop accordingly! Never a dull moment, but this, could not be blamed on me! But none the less there was the inevitable blood chilling tantrum from Trevor!

As the years rolled on Dutch Gardens imploded asTrevor’s obsession with living like a mole underground continued, digging endlessly under the house to create his own new space, creating issues with the water table and creating his own artesian well, the pressure of which causing theground water to increase to such a pressure that it forced the next door neighbours garage out of the ground. All in a day’s work! As you have seen from the article and VT on the net … Trevor has over the last thirty years created whatever has taken his fancy, with total disregard to some of the most basic design ethics and lack of care to many people … That said, some of his work is extremely clever … But to me none of it really works.. It looks like a theme park … The only thing that really works is the original bit of the garden and waterfall which was part of the redevelopment that both my parents undertook … But then it is not my house it is his and this is his baby – Dutch Gardens…

“Well, Clarice have the lambs stopped screaming..?”

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

This was a house that was once lived in, it was alive it had a pulse and a heart of sorts. Now in my opinion it has descended into one wealthy man’s mental health issue /disorder.

 I hope I have given you a small flavour of what it was like to be part of Dutch Gardens, it was an amazing house of its time and its period, and it was a credit to both my parents despite the darkness that lurked in every corner. I have a lot to be grateful for, for a start … I got out alive with a story or ten to tell…. Dutch Gardens in its ‘hay day’ featured in a number of television adverts and was very on trend for its time despite its very odd location in Wraysbury or Toilets-Ville … Which was my pet name for the area as a teenager ….

My mother had moved on, as had I. Trevor became more entrenched and more obsessed in his madness like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, said. “I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a few times since then”… He has made his way through tens of millions of pounds, recreating a property that he loves and turning his back on all else … And in that vein … Everyone should be able to create their own madness …. To a point ….

“You would have to be half mad to dream me up”

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Having read the article Trevor has once again changed the facts, to me it was like we were all airbrushed out of our own lives. As the article pointed out Trevor has based himself on Napoleon, a man who was exiled from all reality; and was eventually confined to the island of Saint Helena to live in a rat infested house called Longwood. Napoleon managed to persuade the Governor of the island to allow him to build a new Longwood House, a new beginning, if you will, but like Trevor he negated to reflect on the past? Napoleon died just before the house was completed and after the Second World War … It was demolished…. Napoleon is remembered as a tyrant ….

I will keep you briefed on the full story …

Turning ‘Grandma’ into a mud Pie…

‘Pie’ … Grandma is not in this one!

Normal ‘Apparently’ … In our family …

I have thought long and hard about writing about some 'bits' of my life. If I should? .. If I can? Like most people’s lives it has been an interesting journey, particularly with regard to my family and extended family. I have a great memory for detail sometimes the memories are too vivid, however and even better I have a good sense of the bizarre and the humour that is required to go along with it. Some of my stories are very black, but my survival technique is comedy. Turning Grandma into a Mud Pie, is the first of my stories, to be committed to public scrutiny. Here I can introduce you to some of the characters in my life! Enjoy ….. (I hope)…

So welcome to my musings on a mad world …

Turning Grandma into a Mud Pie

Ten years ago, or thereabouts, we were invited to my favourite aunts home, (my ‘fathers’ sister). Her name is Elvira, she has an eccentric rambling house outside Brighton, which rather matches her character. She was going to host a large ‘Jones’ family party, in addition to which, was to include the final resting ceremony of my grandma's ashes and to celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday. Well as near as dam it! To the senior members of the Jones family around about that time … Facts rarely influenced a situation and almost never get in the way of what they want to do and how they want to present a particular set of circumstances …… They just make up the pieces to fit and if they don’t they lie or shout! … To be honest …. I come from a long line of over-reactors! They only worry about reality if and when it happens! To my reckoning it would have actually been grandma’s 103rd or 104th birthday .. But hey-ho!

Grandma passed away at the grand age of 98, whilst me and my husband and our then two children, we now have three, were on holiday in France. We did not attend her cremation, but like most of the family cremations it was held at Golders Green crematorium, all the organisation was as ever controlled by my biological father, known to me as Trevor…… I think I was asked by him to call him Trevor, which is his name, when I was about 13 and it stuck, for many reasons….. Suffice to say that there is a great deal of bad feeling between Trevor and myself!  But when you have money you have control and he was in control of grandma’s cremation arrangements. But Trevor is not the story today that is for another time. At the end of the cremation Elvira was handed the ashes until such time as the family agreed on a final resting place…. The ashes were to be safely stored at Elvira's and her husband Doug’s sprawling overgrown house for the next few years. Or so we thought! 

So, for this momentous family gathering various members of the Jones family clan were shipped in from all over the UK and from far flung corners of the world. The party was to be a two day event…  I did not attend the party on the Saturday as Trevor was attending… He cannot abide to be in my company … And it felt fair to me to give him and his long term partner Hilary some space with his siblings and others. My totally eccentric aunt Elvira kindly invited my mother and I to meet up with the rest of the family on the Sunday, as Trevor would have left the proceedings. So I took my mother and my nine year old daughter to meet grandma’s children, my aunts and uncles and her great aunts and uncles. I thought it would be an exciting occasion for us all … If not illuminating… 

Grandma I was told had thirteen pregnancies and seven surviving children, five boys and two girls. Which, in itself is quite an achievement as my grandparent’s contempt for each other was so extreme that they could not bear to be in the same room together, in their own home, so as not to come across each other, with the exception of bedtime, she had the front room he had the back room… When they were out together in public there was a heartfelt and palpable atmosphere of utter disgust between them…  One of my earliest and most shocking memories of my grandma Doris Margaretta Jones was that she would regularly have outbursts of a varying pitch and level at my grandfather publically. Saying in response to any comments he may have made…. “He makes me spit! He makes me SPIT!” She would during the day repeat this comment with unfettered distain toward him… As a young child this was quite shocking and alarming, as to me grandma was a pillar of society and the matriarch of the family, whom I felt safe around, which in my childhood was rare at times. To me she had the highest moral values. It was out of character to ever imagine that grandma would lower herself to spit… Like a navvy in the street! Simply shocking! … Although being the type of child I was, I was kind of excited to see her do it and wonder what effect it might have on my mother’s sensibilities … Wicked child I am!  I can confirm that to the best of my knowledge grandma never did spit and over the many years I just came to accept that is what she said when grandpa was around..… Another childhood dream of seeing her spit was dashed!

It was a further source of equal bewilderment to me that grandpa, with equal regularity, when we were all out, in a restaurant, in an airport or any public place, he would hold up his hand and point out the signs to the Ladies toilets? …Raising his pointed finger at the sign of the WC and booming at my grandmother ….. “Doris there’s the Lavatory, ….. THERE…  The lavatory Doris …The lavatory’s are there Doris.” I realise now, it was his way to irritate her and embarrass her…. But as a child it seemed very strange that grandma could not see and read the signs for herself and why would she not be equally interested in where the restaurant was, for example? I mean she was partial to a cup of tea?… Never once did he not do this …. He would then slide up behind me, grab my arm with the most painful iron like grip, which made my legs buckle under the pressure… And hiss his laugh in my ear through the front of what I think were his dentures, this gesture always ended in a quiet throaty whistle…  Her obvious response was that he made her spit! But still, to my irritation, no moisture was ever forthcoming! 

Growing up in this strange world, finally at the age of about four I realised that my grandparents could not stand the sight of each other but were tied to one another in some form or other … Possibly because it was a generational thing … ? They were never to my knowledge kind to each other, except on two occasions, Grandpa was knocked over on his bicycle on the North Circular Road, on arriving at hospital he was given a pain killer for his injuries; unfortunately he was allergic to the drug and he had a major stroke, which rendered him unable to speak … He would stutter, stammer and shake, however I do remember on occasions he was able, under his breath to hiss the audible words, at grandma .. Bitch and Fuck … At times of his frustration … Despite this …. She sat with him day after day, for over a year, such was the determination of my grandmother to coax him back to health. Writing endless sentences and doing sums for him to copy and say to her out loud. 

She would put a heavy glass ashtray in front of him to pick up, to try and reverse the paralysis in his arm and hand. After a year or so …. I think in order to get away from her he made a full recovery… He wanted to get back down the bus depot where he was a bus conductor and where there were men and free whisky! She had done her job and he was off her hands again. The second time there was some kindness from him was when he was dying and she was at his hospital bed and he wanted her to hold his hand …. She refused … 

For the party grandma’s ashes must be found … So the search was on … To put you in the picture and describe Elvira’s and Uncle Doug’s wonderfully shambolic and rambling home. You approach the property via a joint driveway shared with the large old house next door which has been converted to an old people’s home, their house is on the right as you approach. This Sussex property has beautiful views over the adjoining countryside. The house has a large number of rooms on the ground floor, on the second floor is a more open planned area, stuffed full of their life’s accessories, bits and bobs. To the back of the house there is a large acreage of overgrown scrappy lawn that has been vaguely tamed into walkways by a ride on lawn mower, to be frank it is really too much for two people in their seventies to handle, but this is the way they want to live their lives.  To the left of the house, on a lower level is a 1970’s style building housing a very old and rather frightening swimming pool, with water that has more than its fair share of shades of green and in one corner looks slightly like a swamp.. Beyond that is further bumpy scrubland lawn with a five foot hedge denoting the perimeter of their property to its neighbours, the old people’s home. However the hedge just stops and you can walk around it onto the neighbouring lawn. To the right of their property there are a number of scattered outhouses one of which is a dance studio, where my aunt has been a very successful dance professor. There are many glasshouses scattered around the main house, that are filled to the brim with overgrowing plants that have pushed their way out through smashed windows. Other outhouses are filled to bursting with more relics from their past, Doug who was in the film industry, has containers of scripts and reels of films billowing out of boxes in these storage huts. Under the house is my aunt’s collection, thirty plus years of The Telegraph newspaper, bundled into piles tied with string. Elvira needs these newspapers just in case she may require an article contained in these precious documents, she has a penchant for cutting out snippets of articles and sending bits of news to you in order to demonstrate a particular point or to inform you of something you might not have known or understood, in a previous life!  I have received a large number of cuttings over the years as have the rest of the family. Nowadays Elvira sends the information via email. Interestingly the emails arrive in the most unusual staccato format that is sometimes difficult to follow, she uses stars, exclamation marks and full stops like some people use emoji.  Without exception Elvira always signs off her notes or emails with; ‘So busy’ or ‘In haste’. Both ‘sign off’, comments over the years have really irritated and infuriated her brother Trevor. Because he likes to think that he is the more important and busier than anyone else! Families and their foibles … Don’t you just love ‘em! It makes me laugh!

Back to the party …. As ever with all families there is always a back story, ours is a black comedy drama. Grandma's final resting was agreed to be in the back garden of Elvira and Doug’s house. A marquee had been erected and vast amounts of food had been ordered from Marks and Spencer to see us all through the weekend, as Elvira now refuses to cook. Grandma's seven children and their respective wives and partners and some of the eighteen or so grandchildren and any vague relatives with the similar surname were wheeled in for the event. The Jones have a strange ability and need to find distant relatives to enthuse over, I think this is mostly as they don’t particularly like their actual close family who have seen them for whom they really are! Therefore new shinny relatives are always handy and welcome at any event. Having the common surname Jones you can imagine we have a lot of potential new family members to choose from! 

The final resting place for Grandma was to be under a newly planted tree, by the hedge adjoining the neighbouring property. The placing of the semi-mature tree turned out to be significant and was to be paid for by Trevor. Uncle Doug had confided to Trevor that the position of the tree was critical, as he and Aunt Elvira like to sunbathe in the nude, this had sometimes confused the old people in the nursing home next door. Particularly the Captain, who resided at the home, and whose window looked down on to my aunt and uncles back garden. Confused or not the Captain sometimes with other occupants of the home would wonder over into the garden, to join the fun, possibly in the hope of something more than your average cup of sugar? If you get my drift? ..

I suppose, if you think about it, sometimes the days in an old people’s home must drag a bit so the occupants must look for other ways to be amused? Elvira and Doug provided perfect adult entertainment in this regard! …. So to avoid unwanted guests the tree needed to be placed in a precise location. Some of Trevor's many staff were dispatched prior to the ceremony to plant the ‘modesty’ tree.

On the day we were there, drinks were flowing well and my uncles were making a great deal of fuss over our daughter who is always rather pleased to be the centre of attention and enjoying the fuss, and why not! As ever in the UK the weather was living up to the “not as summery as it should be” factor, in fact it was quite chilly and there was a hell of a wind. So instead of eating in the marquee, which was bellowing in the strong breeze, we were to eat in the main house. One of my cousins, Elvira’s child, was entertaining me, telling me all the gossip about various members of the family and all the goings on at the party the day before. Really is that not the point of these meetings … The gossip? My cousin told me to look at the fireplace, “we could not find grandma’s ashes anywhere in the house or in the out buildings!” Elvira had put grandma somewhere safe but she could not remember where? Therefore Elvira had had no choice and was forced to scrape out the ashes from the fire place for the event until she could lay her hands on the real grandma! I told you at the beginning of this story … facts or reality rarely affects what the Jones do! Totally irreverent of both us, but it added to the humour of what was to come! And it was most probably true!

After lunch we were all forced out of the house to undertake the main event and indulge in a little mud pie making! My beautiful mother dressed as always like a supermodel was asked by Elvira to make her way to the back of the marquee, where my mother came across a wheel barrow of soil and another wheelbarrow filled with dried manure! Elvira holding grandma’s ashes in a canteen in one hand and a desert spoon in the other explained to my mother that she had worked out, presumably into a kitchen bowl a night or two before? That each of the family had two and a half scoops of grandma’s ashes, to mix. The plan was to scoop out your allotted amount of grandma into a Tupperware box then take two spoon full’s of manure from the wheelbarrow deposit that on top of grandma and then sprinkle an appropriate amount of soil of the top of the mixture! Yes really!! There was a watering can on hand so you could pour some water over the grandma mixture and combine her into a smooth ‘roux’.  Finally, the wet human slop was to be deposited in another wheelbarrow located nearby, which had a net covering it, containing the contents of the day’s before ceremony of grandma’s “bake-off” mix congealed together by other members of the family!  … Quite literally turning grandma into a mud pie! 

I could tell something was up as I could hear shrieks of hysterical laughter from my mother, there is no stopping her once she gets started, and then you could hear loud chastising from my aunt who was trying to control my mother’s guffawing. To my aunts horror and my mother’s lack of reverence in the face of the ensuing ludicrous task. My mother’s attempts to deposit two and half scoops of grandma into a Tupperware box was being hampered by the wind and the ashes were being blown away. My mother, due to her violent laughter attack was not quick enough to secure grandma’s ashes under the manure and soil and slosh her with a gloop of water.... So as a result some parts of grandma became unattached, blown away by the wind and are now residing somewhere over the Sussex countryside, a lucky escape for that bit of grandma if you ask me!

When it came to mine and my daughters turn .. I went all haughty and said that I could not be involved in turning grandma into a mud pie, the idea was quite ridiculous! In hindsight, writing this, I think this was wrong .. And I should get a life!  Perhaps grandma would have found it quite acceptable ….. And funny … Let’s face it some memorials are boring!

The interesting thing was that once we had a barrow load of grandma’s mud pie mix. It sort of just sat there and no further progress was made on that day…. We just got chatting and the scattering of the ashes got put to one side! Grandma was immortalised into a mud pie, so I guess she could wait, other things were going on. 

A bit later, having gone into the house to hide from the weather, I had an interesting if not surreal conversation in the kitchen with my aunts and uncles, with the exception of Elvira and Doug, they took me to one side to discuss on where my aunt kept the breakfast cereal? Not exactly a scintillating conversation, but each to their own! My aunts and uncles, knowing how close I am to Elvira told me of her habit of repatriating the breakfast cereal back to the bottom cupboard in the kitchen, they were all taking it in turns to put the cereal into one of the top cupboards. However each and every morning, the cereal would find its way back into the under counter cupboard! … As you might imagine, I could not quite grasp the importance of where the breakfast cereal was housed, I mean did it really matter? But they were most insistent that I discuss the matter with her! Delving further to see what the actual problem was, why does it matter where the cereal is kept? Well you would think!!?? It transpired that Elvira has always kept the breakfast cereal in the lower cupboard… For my Uncle Doug’s delight and personal enjoyment!

Then the penny dropped … It emerged that my aunt does not wear underwear in the mornings a long standing arrangement between her and her husband, she wears the equivalent of what we would call a baby doll nighty, I guess having being a sex kitten of the 1960/1970, why not??.. Incidentally, to her credit at the opening of the premiere of the film Entertaining Mr Sloane by Joe Orton, produced by her husband July 1970, Elvira knocked Princess Margret off the front pages of the newspapers at the premiere  … So beautiful is she? 

However back to #cerealgate. In the mornings when Elvira enters the kitchen, to her siblings and respective wives horror, who are happily sitting at the table eating breakfast …. Elvira bends down, full ‘flash’ to get her breakfast cereal!??… What can I say??? And indeed that was my question to my aunts and uncles….. What do you want me to say to her? The general consensus was that I am close to my aunt and I would be able to make her see sense … Christ this is my family, no one sees sense! But okay … I will give it a shot …!

Elvira came into the kitchen to collect some more food so I seized the moment and took a deep breath. Whilst my uncle and aunts shuffled conspiratorially behind me to see what the response would be! “Elvira!” I gesticulated toward the assembled members peering on with childlike interest. And they shuffled back slightly, again! “Elvira why do you or Doug keep moving the cereal from the top cupboard where your guests are putting it, back to the under counter bottom cupboard? Did you realise they can all see …. Well, em see your naked bottom?” She turned around with condiments in her hands and stared at me, seemingly with her mind elsewhere, so I continued, as if to try and point out the obvious … “these are after all - your brothers?” Without even a blink she shrugged her shoulders, glanced at the assembled crowd and just confirmed.“ Oh they never see my front bottom they only ever see my back bottom, I do it for Doug!” And off she went out of the kitchen … To stunned silence … What can you really say? Well I am sure we can say a lot …. But I suppose the nub of the matter is that it was their home and she can have her cereal in whatever cupboard she wants to put it … I guess?? …. Each to their own! … I turned to my aunts and uncles, picked up my glass of wine and attempted to copy my aunt’s aplomb  .. Suggesting that they admired the ceiling in the kitchen when Elvira was deciding whether to have Rice Crispys or Co-Co Pops! What can you do! … Clearly they are nudists!

As I said, grandma, or what was left of grandma thanks to my mother’s hysteria was never on that day, consigned to the ground as on this family occasion talking and musing on life had taken over and the weather became windy and dull so grandma remained quietly in her wheelbarrow… As it turned out this happened to be a good thing … As some weeks later the ‘modesty’ tree which had already been planted with a hole left to one side for grandma’s ashes… Died before the ashes had been scattered! It had been planted over a Nissan hut which had restricted its root system and killed it off. I have to say another bodge-up by Trevor. 

So some weeks later another tree was purchase and delivered to the house for replanting in the same location… Two more Polish workmen were dispatched to my aunt’s house to undertake the planting of this fine new specimen. However before planting the Nissan hut needed to be dug out first, as you can imagine a fairly major job, particularly by hand! These poor men dug and dug, extricating chunks of concrete as they went. The weather had improved, it was now a heat wave and the sun was shining down upon their backs, making it not only back breaking work, but they ran with sweat in the heat. They dug and dug and dug over a number of days.… Eventually they were close to the end of the job.. Back filling the hole with manure and soil ready to plant the tree. The hole was deep enough at this point for the men to stand with just their head and shoulders above ground level…. 

In the house there was a knock at the door and it was Elvira’s teenage granddaughter; who had been taking a student gap year and had turned up to see her grandparents. To see her granddaughter was a great excitement to Elvira. She wanted to show her the progress of the final resting place of grandma, which her granddaughter had missed due to being abroad … In the ensuing excitement Elvira on the way out of the kitchen door to the garden, grabbed a canteen that was on the shelf, proclaiming to her granddaughter that she too could be part of grandma’s final resting place as these were grandma’s ashes … Elvira ran toward the two workman, slogging away, digging in the hole, glimmering with sweat … And in a moment of supreme dramatic gesture, ripped of the lid of the canister and threw the contents into the air directly above where the two workman were digging, both who had stood to watch what Elvira was doing…. Too late to get out of the way, the men were open mouthed at this performance, yes grandma’s ashes flew into the air in a blacken smoke only to land on the sweaty workman … Sticking and clogging to their wet skin …. The men spat and gasped and spat again trying to rid themselves of the dried ashes of grandma … Scraping at their bodies trying to brush off the dried powdery residue of grandma off their shiny wet bodies …. 

To this day I am unsure if the two workman were fully aware of what was thrown at them, really not nice … But a number of things spring to mind? Firstly, I do wonder at the quantity of ashes grandma managed to create, she was only a small woman. There was the measured out number of spoonful’s at the earlier family party occasion and a further canteen of ashes thrown at these two unsuspecting workman. And secondly, I feel somewhat gratified, as grandma had spent most of her life announcing that she wanted to spit and to my knowledge never managed to carry out this threat.. So at least in death she managed to make someone else spit and I secretly think that she would have been pleased… 

As a footnote to this story, some years later when my uncle Doug had been diagnosed with a mild form of Alzheimer’s. I called the house to speak to Elvira and Doug answered the phone.. We got chatting and he advised me to his delight that Elvira was riding on the lawn mower … Presumably mowing the lawn? He then told me that she was knicker-less! This is not the sort of thing he would have normally said to his niece under ordinary circumstances therefore I was desperately thinking of ways I could divert this type of conversation and so to speak … Get him off topic!! …. Then he announced that he was sitting watching Elvira with his Percy … To this day it makes my toes curl.. I mean what the hell do you say to that? I was stammering over my words ..  Anything to move on with a different conversation …. One of those dying moments… I carried on chatting about whatever came into my mind other than my uncles Percy! … Then over the line I heard a meow…. “What is that Doug?” … “It’s Percy my new cat … He was a stray and he has adopted me…” Well as you can imagine not only a welcome relief to me … But a lovely moment .. As Percy gave them both such delicious joy in the years to come and Percy, I am guessing had no problem with where the cereals were kept!  

I guess all families are like this right! ?? …. 

The Making of a Rockery….

The ‘Sketch’ Plan…

Back in the day a our home ‘The Temple’ ….

Sipping wine in our garden resting between two gruelling but exciting jobs, in a beautiful location in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire ... The immortal words were uttered........ “WE NEED A VIEW!” ... A light bulb moment!!!????

Our house which was the Folly in the style of a Greek Temple; had once been the 100th room of the McAlpine Estate. The original owner of the main house had counted all the rooms and found that there were only 99, disliking uneven numbers. He commissioned the 100th room to his estate with the construction of a Folly. We rebuilt and refurbished the Folly into a bijou but stylish home; but that is for another blog! ... The Folly is in the centre of a plot of land surrounded by enormous beech tree’s and manicured laurel hedges...... There was I thinking we were going to have a break from work... But no a plan was hatched ...  Immediately and detailed sketches and drawings were worked on... Conversations with local planners took place to check what building regulations are requirements were needed.... 

The first of a number of issues relating to the build was that we could not break through the underground chalk membrane as this would affect the Thames Water regulations. This is a problem if you are intending to dig deep! ....There was no way of knowing where the chalk started and the clay stopped, the only way this could be tested was to start digging! A risk as the project was very grand, the  dimensions of what at the time was referred to as the ‘hole’. Were 35ft deep, by 50ft wide, by 75ft long. We had already ordered and paid for 200 tons of rock that were due to be delivered from a quarry in Yorkshire. We decided to dig! Hell!! .... You don’t do this unless you are mad or committed, fortunately we are both and it was a landscape designers dream!  

Day One … It went with a ‘BANG’ … Literally!

Having checked with all local authorities to see if there are any underground utilities running under the property, The Southern Electricity Board (SEB), sent a team of people with all sorts of gadgets to make sure we were okay to dig. The paperwork came back with the green light ...... Day one the digger started, clearing the area getting it ready for the crane to come in..... The quantity surveyors calculations, stated that we would need three eight wheeled lorries in constant daily rotation for approximately three weeks..... The crane was capable of lifting one ton of soil per scoop. Boy it was going to be exciting!..... The digger started, I was in the Folly working when the was an explosion like I have never heard, and all electrics went off! Opening the front door .... All eyes were on the hole that the digger had just dug, there was much scratching of heads and bemused looks ... It would appear that we had hit a 4 inch high voltage mains electrical cable and put a nick in it!!

Within fifteen minutes you could hear sirens blaring, cars hooting and general mayhem off in the distance? ..... Then three siren blaring cars skidded to a halt outside our gate, a number of panicked looking men came flustering into the garden. The Southern Electricity Board had not identified a major electricity cable running across the garden. The digger had hit the cable and blown all the electricity at the local sub station; which had knocked out most of the electricity in Henley, not least the traffic lights and all the banks electronic communications!! ....  ‘Opps’!! The site was shut down, SEB workers arrived and there was much panicking!! Emergency cables were set up and order was eventually restored electricity wise to the local area!! 

The Crane dropping in the digger!

As you can imagine this sort of high lighted the project to the press and the locals. Not least delaying the project whilst we fought with the SEB as to who was to blame and who was to pay for the reinstatement of a new electricity cable. Eventually the SEB  agreed that they had not highlighted the cable to us and offered to go halves on it’s relocation!! ... We declined to pay for their mistake and they then spent a week relaying a cable at their cost! ... And so we started again!

As the ‘hole’ got bigger it became impossible for the digger to get any deeper so, we used the crane to drop the digger into the ‘hole’. Once we got to the desired depth and width, we shuttered the base with timber sheets in readiness for the pouring of concrete for the pool base. Because of the complexities of the design the company Ready Mixed Concrete had to mix a special concoction of concrete with a water proofing additive, the same mix that was used in the construction of the underwater harbour in Tokyo. When they came to pour the concrete they bought a camera crew, as they were going to use the project in their new sales promotion documents! 

And so the insanity continued …. But really what is wrong with a bit of ‘madness’!

We ploughed on, installing steal re-enforcement around the entire sunken construction.... But we had another problem, we had become a sight seeing location by interested locals...The Folly was on a private single track road, so viewing traffic along with our constant use of the road taking away spoil, was impacting on our neighbours .... It is always important to keep the neighbours happy where you can!! ... A local reporter turned up at the property to interview us.... It turned out that the rumour was that Michael Jackson had purchased The Folly and was digging an underground tunnel to the nearby Friar Park Estate, which was up the road to us and was the home of George Harrison .... Friar Park is the most beautiful landscaped estate, which has secret tunnels running under it from place to place... But we had no intention of digging into George Harrisons house... As you might imagine!!!

Back in the day!

So we were forced to erect shields to protect our new found fame! But this interest came at another cost ... One day the local authority's turned up unannounced; we had been informed on and if it was not to be Michael Jackson’s secret hide away, they assumed we were mining for minerals!! Give me strength!! ... I mean really can’t anyone do a bit of landscaping construction in their garden? After much discussion and grumpiness on their part, they agreed we could continue, but they were going to keep an eye on us!! At this moment and the memory of such negativity from others my quote would be Carp Diem .... And ignore the bank balance!!

There was one very frightening moment, (outside of the bank balance!) At 3 am in the morning; I stood at the top of the ‘hole’ and my partner stood at the bottom. It was pouring heavy rain and we needed the walls of the ‘hole’ to hold before the last pouring of the concrete. As the walls were made up of clay, the weight of the rain could at anytime undermine the sides of the construction. Now that would be expensive!! Fortunately we had put extra support on the road side of the construction in order to prevent us taking out the road in case we had this exact situation! The next morning one side had collapsed, in the process it had demolished all the steal reinforcement on that side of the ‘hole’ making it look like bent safety pins! ... More reconstructive work was needed ...

The Butyl liner arrived, which was made to a special size and was so heavy the crane had be used to get it off the lorry and in place.... All the rocks had been sized an numbered in order of where they were to be placed, the smallest rock was half a ton and the largest 7.5 tonnes; because of their weight there was no second chance in placing them, it was a very precise business!! ... Some of the stones had to be drilled so they could be held in place with stainless steal pins ....   

& So it takes shape ….

I can still hear the noise of the cranes loud alarm system screeching, warning lights flashing, when we tried to place the largest rock on the podium stone. The wonderful crane driver, rocked the boom so that the rock swung backward and forward; I thought the crane was going to fall into the rockery. But this crane driver was highly skilled, he placed the rock with perfect precision..... In a conversation with him afterward he said that it was an unnerving moment in his life, but he was used to pressure as he currently held the title of the United Kingdoms heavy weight bench pressing title!! ....

The rockery had three 100mm (4”) outlets, which pumped water loudly all day. It had a cut of switch at night, you could hear it firing up in the mornings.... It was an amazing site .... We bought in another digger to excavate a valley to the rockery and heavily landscaped the whole area ..... On one occasion we were woken in the middle of the night with helicopters and flood lights scanning at low level over the rockery... It was in 1999, after the appalling attack on George Harrison, by an armed intruder, who had stabbed him. The police were searching the area for any accomplices and they thought that maybe they were hiding in the rockery. We would also have the odd balloon flight going over the top of the house to take photographs, they would wave and call to us in the garden!   

View looking back at The Temple ..

It was beautiful in every way, it played the centre of stage at many a bohemian party and private events. We swam in the pool and climbed the rocks. I loved it and was passionate about it. We have done many other landscaping projects, but the rockery was for us! We sold the house to a pop star and moved on to our next project. But we had created a ‘Folly with a View’; that will remain there long after we are gone and always be in my heart forever! 

The Finished Product!