The Status Quo

I went a bit mad in 2019. My parents were dying, my son had unwillingly moved in. Work seemed impossible. Little did I know I was rehearsing for the global madness that erupted a year later. Just as well. By 2020 my son was stuck – desperately wanting to move out couldn’t; my parents were distanced by dementia and lockdown; I hated WFH but was scared to go to work. At least I’d had some practice at madness. In the middle of this turmoil – and we all have a story – I found solace in a peculiar place: the life and work of Status Quo.

I’ve always liked Status Quo. They were the first live band I saw – at the Market Hall Carlisle in May 1979. It was their If You Can’t Stand The Heat tour and – as Cumbria had yet to catch up with punk and New Wave – was the social event of the year. I was a fortnight away from my 14th birthday and it seemed impossibly grown up to be in the midst of a patchouli scented denim clad crowd. I wish I could say I remember it in detail, but apart from the noise – Christ it was loud – and the shadowy figures swirling across a smoky stage, my main recollection is having my face pressed against the studs on the back of the jacket worn by the giant grebo in front of me.

I achieved a glimmer of school-wide fame later that year by delivering an assembly with my pal Daryl. The headmaster’s bargain to the Fourth Year was he’d play Status Quo in assembly if SOMEONE would stand up and explain what all the FUSS was about. We sealed the deal, quivering on the school stage with a stilted rundown of 10 top facts about the Quo gleaned from the1979 Top of the Pops Annual. We sat down smugly – mission accomplished – while the music teacher played the opening bars of (I think) Caroline on the record player. If I’d expected the hall to explode in a frenzy of headbanging I was sadly disappointed. My peers sat in rows, as stone faced as they were in any assembly, my reputation as a shameless attention whore confirmed.

I didn’t give Quo much thought after that — although they cropped up with cheerful regularity on my playlists – until 40 years later stuck at home with an unhappy line-backer and the prospect of orphanhood, when I watched a three hour documentary – Hello Quo . It takes the viewers on a journey from 1962 South London school kids to national treasures, via Butlins, cocaine addiction, divorces, double denim, Live Aid, break ups, reunions and heart attacks. It took me back. Most of my contemporaries reference punk as their coming of age era, but my rite of passage was deeply mainstream. For most of my adolescence, my chief goal was to marry John Travolta (still would, to be fair). Yes, I liked the Police but they looked too serious; I didn’t get Siouxie and if I’m going to be honest, to my mind, the Sex Pistols took it too far. All that spitting. Every now and again, Status Quo would turn up on Top of the Pops and Rick Partfitt’s shirt, unbuttoned to the waist and mane of Viking locks were enough to push dreams of dancing up the aisle with John Travolta to one side for a moment. Then there was Francis Rossi, the pony tailed cabin boy all grown up with a glint in his eye and a lass in every port. They were thrilling.

But they are so British. So blokey. So straight: sledgehammer chords and one syllable lyrics. And yet – that (and I’m sorry to use this word – but nothing else will do) they have that bromantic chemistry that worked for Bowie and Ronson, Pete and Carl, Gerard Way and Frank Iero and countless other lead singers and guitarists … Watch a YouTube video from one of their 70s hits, where Francis swings his waist long hair aside and flashes a smile at Rick; their schtick during Roll Over Lay Down where they meet stage right to whisper and chuckle together before parting to explode into the final chorus; the interviews where they finish each other’s sentences – or where one is sulking with the other – and you’ll see the kind of sexual tension Torville and Dean would have sold their souls for.

My friend Sarah and my daughter Jessie openly object to my deep love for Quo. Jessie considers it her moral duty to stop Alexa dead in her tracks if Roll Over Lay Down comes up on shuffle. But there’s something primal about my reaction to those mid 70s hits. As the intro of ROLD progresses to the bluesy chorus – before a word is sung – my hypothalamus floods dopamine into my system in the same way the bars of a hymn might comfort a nun. This goes against every ideological cell in my body. I mean – come on – three imperative verbs for a kick off ‘roll over, lay down and let me in’. Yet even though it’s hardly the most sophisticated foreplay, the warm bed, the tired grubby bloke back from a gig expecting a quick shag for the least effort, still kind of appeals even to this most hardened 80s feminist.

They met at Butlins in the 60s – the month I was born: Ricky was in cabaret with identical twin girls he was – depending whose version you believe – knocking off at one point or another. Francis was an intense mod and they struck up a partnership – marriage they called it – that lasted until Rick in 2016. I’d love to write that story for one of those three part biopics BBC Four do so well. Frame and Ricky: A Love Story.

I have sometimes wondered if my Quo Obsession (or Quobession … I know … sorry) is a form of displaced grief. To tell you the truth, there were times when I’ve felt more bereft at missing out on a fling with the late Mr Parfitt (his chat up line was ‘my name’s Dick, do you like it?’ I mean, what girl could resist?) than the death of my own parents. It’s certainly a wallow in nostalgia when life seemed simpler. Whatever it is, it’s a puzzle. I need to get cracking on my screen play and even if it never comes to anything (mind you, I bet the writers of Bohemian Rhapsody though the same …) it might provide a little therapy.

Twenty-two

Last night I dreamed I went to Chiswick Street again. To be honest, I didn’t just dream it: for the past couple of months, I’ve schlepping backwards and forwards to Chiswick Street every other day. Four years after my dad tripped down the stairs, broke his shoulder and ended up in a secure dementia ward with a charming young security guard called Brandon to stop him taking his clothes off and wrestling naked with the male nurses – then hastily bundled off to a care home in the Lake District on the eve of lockdown – my parents’ empty house is up for auction.

They bought it in 1980 for twelve grand. It has three storeys, six bedrooms and a front room with a chandelier and a wood burner that the man from Border Cookers proudly told me is the size they’d usually install in a castle. It’s now a terrace but was built as an individual house in the early 1800s. My mum said it was the builder’s house and is extra large with a huge front door and a staircase in the middle of the building rather than at the front.

My parents loved a big house and a challenge. When they bought Chiswick Street it was a shell and they did it up themselves with their typical energy and complete lack of regard for even the most basic creature comforts. We lived in it at times without floorboards, without hot water, without heating (although that was a permanent feature – to my knowledge, the castle sized wood burner was only ever lit twice and then it melted the varnish off the dining room chairs) and without a working toilet. Amidst this chaos, they not only carried on as usual but hosted family and friends for extended visits. This included a French exchange student, daughter of a wealthy dentist, who lived in a pre Grand Designs era steel and glass palace at the foot of the Pyrenees. I’ve never forgotten the look of horror on Marie-Pierre’s face as my mother laughingly pointed out the narrow plank we had to navigate like tightrope walkers to get from one side of the room to the other. The poor girl spent the two weeks of her stay repeatedly refilling a hot water bottle and sobbing; it’s no coincidence I wasn’t invited back to her splendid bidet-rich house the following summer.

My dad did all the DIY and my mum did most of the decorating. They never seemed to be bothered about when or whether it was finished and I’m pretty sure when I left home for Uni in 1983, there were still components of modern household essentials missing. I hated DIY and was hopeless at it. My parents gamely encouraged me to slap on wallpaper paste and tighten nuts and bolts but after I accidentally pulled the sink off the wall while helping my dad tile the bathroom (my dad shrieked in exasperation ‘You really are the most unfortunate woman’ – a phrase that has echoed down the decades as I’ve written off cars, sliced off bits of myself or simply found something has crumbled to dust in my hands) I was relegated to handing non-sharp implements to someone at the top of a ladder or making the tea. That suited me. Although I once got so homesick when I rang them from a call box in Manchester and heard them hooting with laughter at a device that detected pipes and wires under the plaster (there had been at least one life threatening electric shock and a flood) I had to borrow a tenner from my pal and get the train home.

Eventually, it was beautiful. Huge, cold, draughty – apart from the kitchen where they had a renovated Rayburn that belted out heat. My cousin described the kitchen’s literal and figurative warmth with the faint undercurrent that something unexpected and dramatic could happen at any time.

I have written before about my parents’ unstinting hospitality. While Liz would effortlessly serve up a roast for 20, Pete was the short order king. Nothing beat sitting in the kitchen while my dad rustled up toasted cheese, bacon sandwiches or poached egg all made to the most excellent point of sizzling crispness, melting creaminess or whatever the key feature of that dish was. He’d often have made the bread himself – he specialised in a wholemeal brick that was delicious toasted – and he’d carve off a doorstep. There would be a splash of Worcester, a grind of black pepper, a perfectly laundered and ironed napkin (Liz was a fanatical ironer), a minor mishap – he’d drop something or spear himself or set fire to a tea towel (misfortune runs in the blood) – there’d be some swearing and finally, just as your cup of tea was cool enough to drink, he’d hand you something delicious. He’d always make one for himself to keep you company.

Liz died in 2021; Pete died in 2022. Since probate was granted and we’ve had the house on the market, my brother and I have been clearing the final bits and pieces. I’ve rescued the last of the crystal and my brother has taken the oak kitchen table. It’s fit for nothing but firewood but for so many years it was the centre of the house. One drawer was Granny’s office. She kept all her paperwork, cash, a torch and a range of torture implements – ‘for doing your father’s bunions’ she explained – which she’d rummage amongst and whip out in emergencies. The shed was an extension of the office drawer with everything in it. When my brother strode in one day and asked if there was a piece of leather – not too long, maybe six or seven inches – he could use a knife strop, there was: of course there was. Onn the door panel between the kitchen and the utility room with all the grandchildren’s, the cousins and the cousins’ kids heights marked on it. My niece Molly’s height is first recorded December 1996 – two weeks after she was born. Jessie and I went back last Saturday and measured and dated our heights and dates for posterity. She was the smallest; she’s now almost the tallest.

The kids had the run of the house. There was a dressing up box in the attic and Jessie and Lottie would quarrel over the length of gold lame while Molly patiently waited to see who won the argument to be the princess so she could be the princess’s dog. Two year old Jessie scribbled on the wall paper in the hall with felt pens and was rewarded with indulgent chuckles. In later years, when she was about seven, I came home from work to find Jessie – completely unsupervised – cooking her own tea over a brazier in the back garden.

On Thursday, I will close that massive front door for the last time. The door we held the kids up to to shout ‘O-P-N!’ through the letter box when we visited; the door Liz and Pete would open and say ‘no thank you, not today’ and pretend to slam in our faces (this lifelong habit considerably slowed down the dementia diagnosis), the door they’d latterly snib from the other side so I couldn’t unlock it with my key and then I’d ring the doorbell and couldn’t hear it, so I’d stand on the step debating with myself whether it wasn’t working (it usually wasn’t) or whether they were slowly tottering up the hall. If I rang again – no point phoning because they’d routinely leave the phone off the hook – I’d risk my dad eventually getting to the doorstep, furiously flinging the door open and bellowing ‘will you stop ringing the fucking doorbell!

On Thursday, someone else own the shell it has become and make it gorgeous again – a family home that cousins and in-laws and grandchildren and friends can’t wait to visit. They’ll put in heating, fix the doorbell and plane the bottom edge of the front door so they don’t have to shove it with their shoulder to open it.

Chiswick Street will breathe again.

Offstage Characters in An Inspector Calls

Eva Smith (aka Daisy Renton and Mrs Birling) is the central character in An Inspector Calls. However, she never appears onstage and is reported to be dead before the action of the play begins. As well as Eva, there are several named and unnamed offstage characters and three groups of unnamed characters in the play. Priestley creates these characters to build a world outside the Birling household, demonstrating the values of the wider society in Brumley and beyond.

The offstage characters and groups are listed below:

Cook

A servant in the Birling household referred to only by her function ‘Cook’. Mr Birling publicly crediting her is considered by Mrs Birling to be bad manners. She is not only anonymous – and genderless – but expected to be invisible. Her success as a cook is negated by Mrs Birling’s skill as the hirer of a good servants. Priestley does not use pronouns to describe ‘Cook’ however a male cook would be known as ‘chef’ and would be beyond the means of the bourgeois Birlings.

Mr Birling’s friend who tours the Titanic

This character reveals Birling’s privilege – he has friends in high place who have access to important information and events. However, Mr Birling’s friend’s hubristic ‘unsinkable’, cheerfully echoed by Birling himself, represents the complacency of their class which becomes their downfall.

The Kaiser

Kaiser Wilhelm II was the King of Germany in 1912. Mr Birling dismisses the Kaiser’s threat of war as ‘nonsense’. Priestly, again with the knowledge of hindsight, thereby reveals Mr Birling’s complacency and establishes him as a character of unreliable judgement.

A few German officers

Dismissed by Mr Birling along with ‘scaremongers’ as foolish for prophesising war, Priestley’s irony would not be lost on the war-weary 1945 audience who were well aware that the first of two devastating world wars is only a couple of years away from 1912. In 1914 Eric and Gerald would be the right age to join up and although conscription would not be introduced until 1916, it is would be considered their duty to sign up as officers.

Sir George Croft

Gerald’s father. He could have been knighted or it is possible he has a hereditary title. Either put him at a higher social status than Mr Birling. Mr Birling hopes to receive a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list. However, scandal or an exposure of his treatment of Eva could threaten this.

Lady Croft

Gerald’s mother. She is the highest socially ranked character in the play from ‘an old country family.’ This implies her wealth and status are inherited, this contrasts with the new earned wealth of the Birlings who have ‘furniture of the period’ rather than antique furniture that has been handed down through the family. However, despite her status, she is not referred to by her own name; only that of her husband.

HG Wells

A late 19^th/early 20^th century novelist and social commentator known for his Socialist views. Mr Birling disagrees with him.

George Bernard Shaw

A popular late 19^th century/early 20^th century playwright, social commentator and founder member of the Fabian Society – which developed into what became the Labour Party –  known for his Socialist views. Mr Birling disagrees with him.

Eva’s parents

Unnamed. Dead. Eva is ‘country-bred’. She is alone and a long way from home in urban Brumley. Eva’s country connections suggest she comes from a family of farm workers – unlike Lady Croft whose ‘country family’ are landowners.

Colonel Roberts

The Chief Constable of Brumley Police. He’s a friend of Mr Birling’s; they socialise and play golf together. Mr Birling addresses him as ‘Roberts’ suggesting they are equals. Birling implies to the Inspector that his friendship with Roberts outweighs the Inspector’s authority. As policing was seen an aspirational working-class profession, Colonel Roberts is likely to have risen in status (like Birling). However, his title ‘Colonel’ implies military rank which could suggest he is an ex-army officer and from an upper middle-class background.

In 1912, the police was an all male profession. The first female police officer in England joined the force in 1915.

Eva’s co-strikers

One of three groups of unnamed women in the play. They are patronisingly characterised by Gerald as a homogenous group. He implies they are only striking as they are broke after a Bank Holiday: irresponsible and frivolous. Together they have some potential power. Birling disperses the group – fires the ‘ringleaders’ including Eva, thus isolating her from a source of support and protection.

Miss Francis

The assistant at Milward’s. She is towards the bottom of the hierarchy of workers at Milwards (with Eva below her) and defers to Sheila who knows ‘the owner’.

The manager of Millward’s

Not the owner, but an unnamed manager who, again, defers to the request of a customer as his job and his boss’s business rely on the custom of women like Sheila.

Alderman Joe Meggarty

Described by Gerald as ‘old … obscene … fat … womaniser … sot’ Meggarty is a man of high social status with a similar role on the Brumley council to that of Mr Birling who was once ‘Mayor’. Meggarty frequents the Place Bar and is known as a drunken molester of women. Gerald is openly revolted by him and positions himself as Daisy’s rescuer even though he too intends to coerce her into a sexual relationship, although – in his eyes – a little more gracefully. Meggarty’s behaviour is an open secret in Brumley and he is able to abuse and sexually attack young women without fear of reprisal.

Mr Birling has worked with Meggarty and although Mrs Birling is shocked to hear of his behaviour, the other characters are all familiar with him and are unsurprised.

His surname suggests that he is from an Irish background (‘Joe’ could even imply an Irish Catholic background) which Priestley may have selected to imply, that like Birling, Meggarty has risen socially; like Birling, he uses his relatively new power and privilege to abuse.

Sheila’s friend – assaulted by Meggarty

The ‘torn blouse’ suggests a degree of shocking sexual violence on Meggarty’s part. He attacks the young woman in his workplace at the Town Hall. As the woman is a friend of Sheila’s, she is likely to be middle-class. No woman, therefore, is safe from Meggarty and everything he represents – even in the middle of a working day in an official building. Brumley Town Hall is a seat of corruption, double standards, sleaze, misogyny and violence. Priestley portrays the hypocrisy and cruelty espoused by the Birlings as endemic. The woman reports her assault to her friends like Sheila, but the implication is that she does not report the offence to the police or to the staff at the Town Hall. Women who are sexually assaulted have no power or protection.

Daisy’s Palace Bar friend

Daisy’s role as a sex worker is implied by her new surname ‘Renton’; however, it is unclear to what extent she is involved in sex work. He friend ‘an older woman’ could be a madam, hoping to encourage Daisy into prostitution and who might take a cut from her earnings.

The sex workers at the Palace Bar

Again, characterised by Gerald; ‘Hard eyed … dough faced … fat …old’ the euphemistically labelled ‘women of the town’ are a contrast to ‘young … fresh … country-bred’ florally named Daisy. They are described scathingly, ‘hard eyed’ suggesting like Mr Birling’s ‘hard head’ they are calculating and in business. ‘Dough faced’ suggests they older, possibly drinkers, with pale puffy faces.

Charlie Brunswick

Charlie is a friend of Gerald’s with a ‘set of rooms’. He gives the ‘keys’ to Gerald. Charlie’s rooms are specifically for the purpose of keeping a mistress. As Mr Birling acknowledges later on in the play, it would be commonplace for upper-middle class man to have somewhere to conduct an illicit sexual relationship. The ‘keys’ suggest an element of control and isolation – again, Daisy is removed from the group of women she was with at Palace Bar. Gerald ‘installs’ her – like a piece of furniture – in the rooms for his own private sexual recreation. Charlie, like Gerald, is unmarried, privileged. He travels to Canada. Like Meggarty, he symbolises the unspoken sexual corruption at the heart of Brumley society.

The ladies of Brumley Charity Committee

The third group of women mentioned in the play, who, like Eva’s co-workers at Birling’s factory and the sex workers at the Palace, have power in numbers and could, potentially offer Eva protection. However, they are led by Mrs Birling who has ‘influence’ over them. It is possible that her own social standing (she is Birling’s social ‘superior’) and Birling’s wealth – and status as former Mayor – mean she is the highest ranked woman in the group.

As there is no Welfare State and no benefits system, the only way for Eva or those in desperate poverty to avoid the workhouse, was to seek support from charities. Like the workhouse, asking for money from a charity was seen as shameful and degrading. Eva tells Mrs Birling she ‘refuses’ to take money from the father of her child. These ‘scruples … and fine feelings’ are dismissed by Mrs Birling who cannot believe a girl of ‘that class’ has any right to dignity or esteem.

The Charity Committee would be made up of upper middle-class married women who volunteer and dispense money raised from donations to those in need. Poor, vulnerable woman would be required to make a case to prove they are genuinely worthy of help. The judgements made by the committee would be based on interrogation and their own personal opinions. Mrs Birling freely admits to the Inspector that she is ‘prejudiced’ against Eva ‘from the start’ and sees nothing wrong with this. There appears to be no accountability for the committee who rely on the word of the applicant and their own values in order to make a decision about who deserves support and who does not. Mrs Birling sees it as her ‘duty’ to ensure that money and support and withheld from the undeserving. As she is described as ‘cold’ in the opening stage directions, like her ‘hard-headed’ husband, she prides herself on her emotional detachment.

The Charity Committee would be a public organisation and Mrs Birling would be respected and admired in the community for her charitable work. However, like the Town Hall, the Brumley Charity Committee is a hotbed of hypocrisy.

The policeman Gerald meets and asks about Inspector Goole

A police constable on the beat would be commonplace in 1912 and 1945. This character serves as a minor plot device to confirm Gerald’s suspicions about the identity of the Inspector. This piece of information forms part of the plot twist at the end of the play.

The operator at the Infirmary

Towards the end of the final act, Gerald rings the Infirmary to make an enquiry – ironically – about an ‘employee’ he says he is worried about. He gives his name but similar to the conversation he has with the policeman, he is careful to couch his language to ensure no one links him to the death of Eva. The operator confirms there ‘hasn’t been a suicide in months.’

The caller from the police station

The final twist is delivered by an unseen caller from the police station via the Birlings’ telephone. Birling receives the news that ‘a girl has died … after swallowing disinfectant …’ and that an Inspector is on his way. The echo of the death of Eva leaves the play on a resonant cliff-hanger.

The Inspector who is ‘on his way here’

Priestley leaves the Birlings and the audience in a state of unresolved tension at the end of the play. Who is this Inspector? Is Inspector Goole going to return? Another inspector? What is he going to say? What lessons – if any – have the Birlings learned?

The List from 2014

The alternative to getting older is being dead. With that in mind, and in order to ward off the significant dread I’m experiencing at having one numeral at the start of my age rather than another, I’ve made a list of fifty things to do before I’m 50.
Considerable thought and consultation has gone into this. I haven’t just written down the first fifty things that I – or anyone else – has thought of. Those of you among my FaceBook followers will remember the giddy morning my friend Kate spent deferring her OU assignment by posting suggestions on my timeline: ‘sit in a bath of baked beans … adopt a baby … be sung to in a gondola in Venice ….’ It was only a matter of time before ‘Kill a man’ or ‘Drive a 1966 Thunderbird convertible into the Grand Canyon’ occurred to her, and I was determined to establish some kind of selection procedure before my list turned into an elaborate suicide note.
My list is made up of things that I have never done or thought I could never do again. For example, ‘Ride a horse’ appears at about number 15. I have ridden a horse, or at least a grey pony called Little Fella, when I was about nine. However, having become very fat in my 40s – possibly equalling Little Fella’s body weight – it looked like my horse riding days were over. Since then, I’ve lost a lot of weight and although I need to lose some more in order to make #15 a challenge for me and not the horse, the notion is no longer a wistful fantasy.
When I asked for suggestions, just about everyone suggested skydiving or bungee jumping. I have ruled these out. My relationship with heights is not a good one. I can barely drive in a car up a steep hill without feeling sick and crying, let alone allow myself to be harnessed to something flimsy and plummet from a precipice. I’m not going to change my hairstyle, live abroad or take a job out of my comfort zone; I’m not going to enter Masterchef or write a novel. I’m keeping the list affordable and practical. I’m pretty sure everything on my list is achievable within the space of a year and on my current income. In order to keep this balance, some of my challenges are carefully – some might say ambiguously – worded (Number one in particular). I don’t care. It’s my list.
The list is below. It’s roughly in the order in which it was compiled, but not the order in which the challenges will be done. When I have completed a challenge, I will write about it and hyperlink the item on the list to the blog entry.
I’ve got until 9th June 2015 to get this lot done. Wish me luck!
1. Complete a 5km land based event
2. Get Russell Crowe to tweet me
3. Visit the most Northerly point of Britain
4. Visit the most Southerly point of Britain
5. Finish reading Madame Bovary
6. Visit Richard III
7. Visit the Tate Gallery
8. Get to the top of Pen y Ghent
9. Watch an episode of Dr Who with each Doctor – in order
10. Build a castle out of Lego
11. Perform Karaoke in public
12. Make and decorate a fancy cake
13. Go to the top of The Shard
14. Attempt to water ski
15. Ride a horse
16. Sew something
17. Have afternoon tea in a swanky hotel
18. Finish knitting my scarf
19. Swim in the sea in the full moon at midnight
20. Be an extra in a film
21. Watch a sport that I’ve never seen before at a live event
22. Lose two more stone
23. Learn how to play Mah Jong
24. Play a round of golf
25. Grow a plant from a seed or bulb
26. See the Kelpies at Falkirk
27. Wear false eyelashes
28. Go a day without swearing
29. Make a piece of jewellery
30. Walk a portion of Hadrian’s Wall
31. See a band I’ve never seen before at a live event – preferably a new genre
32. Learn to tap dance
33. Create origami birds
34. Write a fan letter to Jilly Cooper
35. Go Ape!
36. Complete a cycling challenge
37. Extend my tattoo
38. Learn the alphabet backwards
39. Walk around a lake
40. Go to an island
41. Own a car that works
42. Plant a tree
43. Start a blog
44. Brew an alcoholic beverage
45. Drive a tank
46. Exhibit an artefact
47. Have a day off line
48. Organise a fundraising event
49. Explore McCaig’s Tower
50. Drive through Paris, in a sports car, with the warm wind in my hair

2022 – Letting Go

Last night, the final night of 2022, I had a series of crazy dreams. The queen featured and so did my dad – my subconsciousness’ round up of those we have lost in the last 12 month.

In one dream, I received a message from my dad – a series of memes entitled ‘watch me die’. There was a sequence of pictures of Pete progressively – well – dying, like a speeded-up reel of the year’s visits and events.

I dream about my dead parents all the time. Mainly my mum, spiky, angry, annoyed at something I’ve done wrong. In one Frasier-esque farce, she came round to mine and I had to prevent her from spotting the urn with her ashes in it. Within the etiquette of that particular dream world, reminding someone they’re dead was considered the height of bad manners – not to mention the disruption to the time and space continuum if a living entity encounters its dead self. So I juggled the urn, made up outlandish excuses about why she couldn’t access certain areas of the house and ended up offending her more than if I’d just gone ‘face it Liz: you’re dead. And these … are your ASHES …’. What would have happened? A frantic shriek and a whirl of fire?

Meanwhile, I often dream I’m waiting for them both on the platform of a station. As time ticks on and their train gets later and later, I become increasingly anxious about their safety. But, it’s a dream, so I can’t text or phone. And even if I could, in real life, in their final years, they couldn’t manage texts and habitually left the house phone off the hook, making it impossible to get hold of them. Mobile phones were rarely answered. I once sat in the kitchen with Liz and her mobile rang. She ignored it. It rang out and rang again. She looked up from what she was reading and said ‘that alarm keeps going off. I don’t know what it is, so I don’t pay any attention to it.’

‘Mum, it’s your phone.’

She didn’t answer, just made that ‘what a fucking idiot you are’ face she had.

‘Listen.’ I dialled her number. The ringtone sounded. She looked around startled. The phone rang off. I dialled again and her phone rang again. ‘How are you DOING that?’ she said.

‘I’m ringing your phone.’ I explained. She made the face again. ‘No need to do that.’ she snapped. I’m right here.’

My dad was better at answering his phone although it was usually a drama. It would ring out. I’d ring again. He’d answer on the last ring. There’d be a scuffling and a yelp and a thud; the line would go dead and I’d have to go round anyway.

So even if, on my anxious wait at the station in my dream, I did have the power to phone or text, they wouldn’t bloody answer anyway.

My life over the last five years or so has been dominated by my parents’ dementia and their gradual effacement. The last eighteen months have been bound up with their deaths. After a calm period in the care home, in her final week, my mother erupted in profanity and broad Glaswegian: ‘here’s this fat cunt come tae visit me …’ she said to a mortified nurse when I went in to see if I could tempt her to eat (Liz, not the nurse) with some salty porridge. They weren’t quite her last words to me, but very close. She fell into a coma the following day and died a week later just when we thought she was going to remain in stasis forever.

There were no sudden gear changes for my dad. He drifted for months rather than days, eventually failing to recognise us – or even know we were in the room – and be capable only of speaking the occasional word. ‘Are you ok dad?’ I asked him one time. ‘Nearly …’ he breathed, making eye contact. But the recognition was so fleeting, he’d forgotten I was there by the time he looked away. It was the last time he spoke to me.

When I was called to his deathbed, he looked so alarmingly like my mother in her final hours, it shook me. Those of you who have attended a death will know. I wondered if, as newborn babies all look similar and may as well be interchangeable to anyone apart from their own mothers, the dying are stripped down to their generic human features.

In life, Pete and Liz did look alike: small, dark, intense. But dying, they didn’t look like themselves at all but like every dead person that’s ever been.

In Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, there are graphic pictures of a Native American chief … Big Foot aka Spotted Elk … slaughtered in battle and frozen on the battlefield at Wounded Knee. When I went in to see my dad after he’d died – like my mum, I missed the actual moment of his death – he looked like a mighty chief had fallen. Of course, he didn’t die in battle next to a frozen creek; he died in a warm bed in a care home. But his spirit was everything; his body cast off and useless without it. I wondered if it was the final struggle between life and death that created the impression of a man clawing back his final moments.

I visited both my parents in the funeral home with my daughter Jessie, the day before their respective funerals. They might as well have been dead for a thousand years. The stillness, the gauntness, the cold, took them to a distant place where we can no longer reach them.

The adrenaline surge that took me through the glorious, joyous, anarchic funeral (why, WHY, WHY, is there a button on the lectern at the Crematorium that says ‘do not press’? How Pete would it have been for one of us to have pressed it and his coffin to be catapulted through the ceiling?), crashed a week later and I’m only slowly emerging now. I’ve spent a lot of my time asleep, communing with the dead.

It’s time to move on. I have plans for 2023. Nothing ambitious: some redecorating, a new sofa, a couple of targets for lift, a menopause finale, a steady path towards retirement, some writing, maybe a holiday somewhere hot.

My biggest plan for 2023 is in the autumn, when our two families – Gillespie and Ledger – will meet on the shores of Loch Nell to scatter Liz and Pete’s ashes into the dark water. I will use this time before we physically let them go, to let them drift away from my consciousness and give myself a little peace.

Project Palace

I haven’t written for a while. Not that there hasn’t been anything to say: there’s been madness, death, dying, a resumption of a galloping eating disorder balanced by a newfound love of weightlifting; a glacial menopause, one dog, two dogs, three dogs then two dogs again – nothing dreadful happened, the third dog just went back to live with his owner – a podcast, a couple of hysterically (see what I did there?) awful gynaecological investigations, two monarchs and – checks watch – three prime ministers. Plenty to say, just not the wherewithal to say it.

So why now? Well, it looks like my housemate of four years is coming to the end of his tenancy. Which means I can transform my shared student house into a fucking palace. After living the first 25 years of his life semi-independent, not home much even when he was in his teens, my adult son was forced to come and live back with me in 2018. A combination of dreadful events, not least a life-changing injury, made this a necessity. He didn’t want to come home. I didn’t particularly want him living with me. Then, just as he was thinking about moving out, Covid struck and paralysed the world. There were some steps forward and several steps backwards. To say we drive each other fucking mad is an understatement. He’s always too cold; I’m always too hot. Just imagine that’s the beginning of every interaction we have and leave it at that.

Now, however, although there is no official date, he’s looking for somewhere to live with his partner. That day will come soon. Which means – and I can hardly contain my GLEE – I will get my house back. And I have PLANS. Boy, do I have plans.

Six years ago, I replaced my kitchen floor which had come off worse in a battle with the washing machine drainage system. So far, so good. However, what I hadn’t factored in, was that the washing machine – the bitch – had been surreptitiously pumping water into the living room floor as well as the kitchen floor. I realised this too late. Over the last couple of years, the living room floor has gradually collapsed and now looks like a terrain map of the Sahara Desert.

Taking up the floor and replacing it is a big job, so I’ve held off until the household will consist of me and one dog, rather than me, two dogs, a son and his + one. But finally, that day is on the horizon. I’ve accumulated funds, paid off a loan or two and booked my heroic builder who will do the job with the kind of dignity, reliability and grace one doesn’t always associate with construction industry. I have also booked the guy who does my painting and decorating – equally reliable and possibly the most cheerful man in the world.

I realise, in the realm of ambitious hopes and dreams, having good quality LVT installed throughout the ground floor of the house is pretty low on the chart. But today, after a visit from a disapproving carpet measurer who did a horrified double take when he saw my living room floor (‘Yes of course I’ve bloody noticed …’) and then a visit to his much more enthusiastic colleague at well-known flooring outlet, that dream is about to become reality.

My shamelessly suburban heart pounded as we leafed through laminate samples, my housewifely brain dizzy with offers of 20% off Premium Underlay and I willingly handed over a huge wad of cash simply to hear the words ‘the offer is locked in.’ Shaun – we’re mates now – has advised me to ‘keep track of deals’. The updates are every Wednesday and I expect to be glued to the website like an addict, giddily calculating the possibility of an upgrade to Platinum Grade Coating or even (oh my God) the chance to switch from vinyl to LVT upstairs as well. It’s so fucking exciting.

There’s more. The small spare room will be converted into an office, no fighting for dining space over the debris of WHH; the room currently occupied by my son will be converted into the most delightful spare room a human could imagine. By March 2023, the 170k of weight plates, cat food, plastic bags and a hoover that doesn’t work in the cupboard under the stairs will be replaced by tiered shelving. The dresser I’ve had since 1990 and tricked my ex-husband into giving me in the divorce settlement – I lost the house, but you know, swings and roundabouts – is going on the tip and a beautiful new dresser will replace it. The sofa I bought before we owned dogs – particularly one small dog with an unruly bladder – will make way for a more suitable model. Over the last few years, I’ve been buying bits and pieces – a set of curtains here, a lamp or two there – and hoarding them jealously like Gollum until the big day arrives.

There will no longer be rings of protein powder on every surface, shoes piled on the windowsill, dirty dishes next to the dishwasher and every light in the house left on. There will order, calm, and elegance. You can come and visit if you like. I’ll cook dinner. You bring dessert. It will be soon.

Christmas Games

Carlisle Living: December 2019

For those of you looking for family fun over the Christmas period, I’ve curated a number of seasonal pastimes – with a 21^st century twist – that will keep you and your guests entertained from Christingle to Twelfth Night.

Hunt the Charger

Popular with all ages, this pits the older generation against the younger in a battle of wits. It begins the day before Christmas Eve when the householder is in possession of at least three working iPhone chargers and plugs. However, by 6pm on Christmas Eve, once younger family members have arrived and installed themselves, all the chargers will have disappeared. Players are ranked in order of % of phone battery and anyone over 20% has to forfeit their charger to the player who is below 5% and halfway through Nigella’s red cabbage and cranberry recipe. However, this can be trumped by the new partner of a blood relative who has ‘left his charger at his mum’s and his nan’s in hospital’. This player inevitably wins the game and returns to Newcastle on New Year’s Eve with all the chargers. A variation is where the householder discovers her fully functioning chargers have been replaced by a frayed red lightning cable which only works if it’s held in place with blutac and poses a significant risk of burning the house down.

The loser’s penalty is to queue outside Argos first thing on Boxing Day to buy a new charger which she must subsequently keep in a locked box for the duration of the holiday.

Keep the Dog in the Conservatory

This frolicsome game requires the players to own at least two boisterous dogs, one of whom – preferably – is a bitch on heat. The object of the game is to keep the dogs separate during Christmas dinner thus avoiding either one of them running away with the pigs in blankets or both of them fornicating vigorously on the living room carpet during the Queen’s Speech.

The challenge is to keep something unwieldy but essential in the conservatory – a spare high chair for example – necessitating the conservatory door to be opened and shut at frequent intervals. The householder’s brother has to wrestle the high chair back and forth to the table while barring the dog with an extended lower leg. Points can be lost by scraping the paint off the door frame and/or trapping fingers in the high chair. Further points will be deducted if one of the dogs is mistakenly shut in the pantry by a well-meaning elderly relative and sustains itself by eating the smoked salmon starter. The winner will be rewarded with a litter of cross breed pups some time in early March.

Vegan Emergency

This is great fun and a particular favourite with younger players. At around 8pm on Christmas Eve, just after all the shops have shut, one or more of the young adults in the party announces that he or she has renounced all animal products. This requires the householder to make a mental note of all ingredients in tomorrow’s festive meal and work out whether any of it passes muster. If not, she must forage in the kitchen cupboards and freezer for something suitable. The newly minted vegan must then confound all offers of ethical festive fare with withering scorn. It helps if he or she has in her arsenal the knowledge that Quorn contains egg and the pollination of avocados exploits bees.

The householder’s opposing move is to list the non-vegan ingredients in the alcoholic beverages available and rustle up a gluten-free chickpea curry, thereby blocking any further ripostes.

The winner is the person who discovers the vegan wolfing down leftover roast potatoes dipped in cold gravy at some point late on Christmas Night.

Merry Christmas! Enjoy!

Christmas Quiz

Carlisle Living December 2016

The festive season is upon us. But how will you be spending it? Will it be a non-stop whirl of merriment from your Christingle Mingle to the final chimes of midnight on New Year’s Day? Or are you dreading the thought of preparing a meal featuring a disproportionately large breasted South American bird for seventeen people, eight of whom probably hate you? Take my scientifically devised quiz to find out what this Yuletide has in store.

What will you be doing on Christmas Eve?

a. Watching Elf with Nanny, Grandpops and the brood. I’ll be wrapping pressies – if I can lay hands on the sellotape.

b. Crying outside the locked doors of Primark.

c. After listening to the Nine Lessons from King’s College Chapel, we always pop round to Doug and Elva’s for fizz and nibbles. They love my home-made stollen and this year I’m taking my sloe gin.

How will you be wakened on Christmas morning?

a. By jammy little fingers prising my eyes open at 5.00am and shouts of ‘Father Christmas has been!’

b. The dog choking on and throwing up the carrot left out for Santa’s reindeer. And then the sound of a vicious squabble over a hatchimal placed in the wrong stocking.

c. By the joyful peal of church bells.

What are your plans for Christmas dinner?

a. We all muck in. My mum does the turkey and I do the veg, the stuffing and the Christmas pud while Eileen next door brings round her famous bread sauce. It’s chaos, but it’s fun.

b. If I’ve remembered to take the turkey out of the freezer, it should be ok. Otherwise, I’ll have to see if I can defrost it under the hot tap and keep everyone happy with Pringles and Matchmakers until it’s ready.

c. Delia’s Christmas countdown is my bible, so everything is organised with military precision. The goose and trimmings will have been prepped the day before; all I’ll need to do is put the finishing touches to my fig and rum morsels and keep on top of my timings.

Who’s joining you for dinner?

a. The whole tribe. About sixteen of us.

b. Well, this is complicated: me, my ex, my new partner’s ex-wife’s ex and her sons – the kids, obviously, my mum’s going to Alicante this Christmas after last year – and Steve (we’re not sure who he belongs to but he’s been turning up for Christmas dinner since 1989). We’re hoping my brother-in-law will be coming but his parole date isn’t until late December, so we’re not sure yet.

c. Our grown up daughters, their husbands and their cherry-cheeked tots.

And how will you round off the day?

a. Once the kitchen’s cleared up, we’ll have a good old sob over Toy Story 3 and then it’ll be time for a game of charades.

b. There’s usually a row over who’s sober enough to give Steve a lift home. And the dog might be sick again.

c. We’ll be joining the other villagers for carol singing and punch.

Mostly As

This sounds promising – if a little smug. Still, don’t let my cynical distrust of Christmas put a dampener on it – enjoy your day!

Mostly Bs

You may need to re-examine your Christmas strategy. If you can stand it, find someone whose answers are mostly ‘A’s for advice on planning ahead. Meanwhile, it might be an idea to find out who the blithers Steve is. He sounds like a chancer. And next year, don’t rule out Alicante: your mum’s got the right idea.

Mostly Cs

I don’t believe you.

Such a pretty face …

Such a pretty face …

I don’t want to take it personally, but decades of being fat and absorbing the hatred that exists towards fat people is so wearing. A layer of fat creates distance, reduces humanity, erases sympathy, absolves medical professionals of the need to administer care, invites insults. I’m glad to say, the public abuse has almost stopped now; perhaps it’s due to the relative invisibility of middle age, but I no longer expect ‘fat bitch, fat cow, fat cunt’ when I walk down the street. Those comments were, at one time, a daily occurrence. And of course, ‘fat’ is the intensifier. Being a cunt is one thing, a fat cunt is in a different league of rudeness.

Social media is comfortable for me because my fat is hidden. No one can make a judgement about my size; readers online will correctly assume from my name that I’m white so I am saved from the routinely painful prejudice that PoC, in particular, face before the viewer’s eyes have even finished scanning the name at the top of the post. My avatar is a lovely picture of me in the snow at New Year – flushed cheeks, twinkling eyes. The problem is, I took and rejected about six other pictures in the same five minutes that were not quite so flattering: it’s not just the Kardashians who protect their online image. Still, anyone who doesn’t know me in real life probably wouldn’t guess I am, in fact, morbidly obese (I love these medical terms – ‘morbidly obese’ is right up there with ‘incompetent cervix’ layered with judgment and doom), In real life, however, even from the furthest distance, no one would mistake me for anything other than a very large woman.

I like to think I wear it well. I’m used to it. I hate it though. I work hard to change and it’s one of the most bitter aspects of my life that my management of food and weight is such a struggle. It literally weighs me down.

Fat women are constantly scrutinised; weighed, measured, judged. ‘Have you lost weight?’ is considered to be a lovely compliment. No one intends to be rude by saying that. It’s a well-intended act of kindness, an acknowledgment that being fat is awful and anything that contributes to a human being less fat is a jolly good thing. I imagine thin people get this too. A couple of years ago I wrote about my horror that even Beyonce dreads weighing herself. The fear of fat is not only experienced by big ‘uns. It’s not just my size that receives comments; fat people regularly receive unwanted comments about what we eat: ‘should you be eating that?’ ‘oooh … that looks nutritious. Are you being good?’ Of course, the answer to the latter question is ‘well, I haven’t murdered anyone today’ and the response to the former is ‘mind your own fucking business.’ People make comments about ‘budging up’ or ‘don’t eat them all’. The oddest thing is that they think we don’t know. They honestly believe they are being helpful or considerate, as if we haven’t taken stock of ourselves, clambered into extra large foundation garments that very morning and worried abut who might say what.

My favourite comedy line of all time is in ‘Friends’. Mindy, Rachel’s one-time best friend, invites Rachel to be her bridesmaid; she’s considered Laurie Schaffer but rejected her because ‘she’s all bitter now she’s lost the weight and it turns out she doesn’t have a pretty face.’ How many of us have heard it: ‘…such a shame … you with such a pretty face too …’ We owe it to everyone else not to be fat; not to let that pretty face (‘beautiful eyes’ is another one) go to waste by having a fat arse. And heaven help you if you’re not pretty. What then?

I’ve worked as a teacher and been fat all my adult life, but I have to say, in 35 years, I can count on one hand the number of times ‘fat’ has been used directly as an insult by my students. Once a lad galloped past my room while I was presiding over a lunchtime detention and shouted ‘big fat Ledger’ through the door. The kids on detention convulsed with silent laughter and I had to maintain a straight face. On another occasion – detention again – a Year 8 student darted out of the room. ‘Run after him!’ one of the older kids shouted at me. This time, there was no reserve. Everyone in the room laughed. Later, I took him aside and explained I felt he’d been disrespectful to me; the image he conveyed of a fat woman running after a small boy was comic and his command to me had undermined me. He was aghast. ‘No miss – you’re not fat … I’d just say you’ve wintered well.’ A heifer who’s thrived in the byre might not be the most gratifying comparison, but I took him at his word and accepted his apology.

Every now and then though, we get to see ourselves as others see us. Not as good, lacking control, focused on short term gratification rather than the long-term benefits of restraint; immune even to the effects of long distance front crawl. It shouldn’t, but it hurts.

I can only imagine the pain, the weariness, the fear of threats and violence caused by racist language, ableist dismissal and the mockery and judgment of children who are poor or vulnerable or exploited. An apology is required.

Writing

Twitter has been an uncomfortable place over the last few days. The slow motion car crash of an author simply not understanding the offence her language has caused and the surrounding pain and outrage has been hard to watch. Until now, I have not commented. This is partly because I am, like the author – a middle aged, middle class white woman of power and privilege; but also, someone who needs to be reminded how my privilege and unconscious bias has an impact on others. I too am a teacher and some of the children I work with are vulnerable and need my protection. Actually, as I think about it, all of the children I teach are in some ways vulnerable; the very status of childhood makes them so. However, I too sometimes write about my students. I have always written about my own children and, more recently, my parents who are compromised by dementia – and I’ve gone through a tricky internal process this week, wondering if any of this is ethical.

Writing is for an audience is the ultimate indulgence. For a start, to write, I have to cut myself off from the usual human interactions and then I have to have the arrogance to assume that anyone is going to be interested in anything I have to say. I write to amuse myself and to receive the gratification of knowing I’m amusing others. That’s before I’ve even started: it’s selfish egotistical stuff. I do it because I want people to like me. And my guess is that most writers have a similar, nonaltruistic impulse.

It’s easy for me to say I cannot imagine how a well intentioned but seriously misjudged piece of work has gone through the process of drafting, editing, publishing, review and scrutiny by the panel of a literary competition without anyone saying ‘… wait a second …’ because I don’t want to sound like a sanctimonious arsehole who thinks she gets it right. I don’t. I know I don’t. But even saying that makes me look as if I’m up my own arse.

Social media has opened up discussion, so that people like me, within the whiteness of North Cumbria, can hear voices from many sources. There have been times when the more uncomfortable the discourse, the more defensive my own reaction, is when I’m aware that my own view most needs challenging. I’m learning my role as a white feminist is not a straightforward one. It has been the very act of reading responses like the ones I’ve encountered this week, that have allowed me to shift my own lens and accept that whatever my good intentions are, the impact is not positive (I know, I told you I was going to avoid sounding like an arsehole here and I’m failing miserably).

I’ve written for publication for a long time but only started writing about education in the last few years. This is partly because (arsehole alert coming up), it’s important my students and their families trust me. No one wants to sit through a lesson or a meeting thinking I’m saving up some juicy anecdote to write about. It took me a while to work out a way to do it – and I am sure that I don’t get it right. However, writing about my own two – Tom and Jessie (now adults) – was a good grounding. They found their experiences being turned into entertaining prose tiresome and at times intrusive. We established a rule: the kids had absolute power of veto, even – especially – when they were six and seven. If they didn’t want me to publish it, I didn’t submit it. Tom has said many times, ‘it’s only your version’. And that’s true. And I know it’s exasperating, especially when I get carried away with the giddy joy of telling a funny story about someone else being a bit of a dick.

Recently, I’ve written about my parents’ dementia. When they lived at home, I ran my columns past them before submission, but lately they don’t have capacity to give permission. Sometimes, the things they do or say are very funny. Would they want me to share this? Honestly, knowing them, I think they would. My dad, in particular, was often the butt of his own haphazard joke. Still, writing and delivering my mother’s eulogy was a massive responsibility – constructing her narrative in her absence and on behalf of those who mourned her was huge task. Above all, this has been my biggest lesson; the job of telling another’s story needs to be done as far as possible without ego. Let’s face it, that’s always going to be a work in progress.

Sadly, though, the recent debacle is part of a wider issue. We have a culture of exposing and categorising children through our own lens. I felt uneasy about the ‘Educating …’ series on Channel 4, even though it revealed some positive life-affirming stories. I have heard teachers complaining they have a class where ‘half the kids have different surnames from their mothers …’ or where a colleague has told me a child is ‘damaged’ or comes from a ‘rough background’ and I worry about the day to day judgments and pigeonholes we create.

I’ve seen teachers on Twitter snigger at the way a child spells a name, or announcing a child with a specific forename is bound to be trouble. There’s a parody account I’ve blocked where a fictional student named ‘Chantelle’ is regularly featured as being a smoker, promiscuous, rebellious. I prickle with irritation at this. I worry that when we write about children we sound like 19^th century missionaries converting the heathen. And we all know how that ended up.

There we go. I’ve lapsed right into virtue signalling. The very arsehole I didn’t want to be. Meanwhile, this has surely been such a painful experience, we have to learn from it. I’m thankful for Professor Sunny Singh’s rules which I have copied below . I am pretty sure that my answers to all of the questions below – applied to this piece – are positive.

If you read this – thank you. Now I’m off to make a loaf of bread.