Home

Today

Lately I've been been thinking about the things that are the most important to me and found that "home featured large in my mind for many reasons.

I think that I have always felt that it was important that, not only should wherever we live should feel like home, but that other people should also feel the same way.

We may have carried this idea to an absurd level as several friends and family have at times used our home as theirs, living with us for various lengths of time, without, I think, ever paying any rent!

In My Day


The most extreme of these was when we invited a complete stranger to share our home.

I think it was back in 1971 or 72, before Lizzie was born, and when we were living at Belmont in Brighton. We were very poor and the flat had no carpets and hardly any furniture.

One day Paul was leaving the flat when he saw two women in tears outside one of the other buildings in Belmont. They were a mother and daughter who had, it seemed, been evicted and had nowhere to go. At least the daughter didn't. I've an idea that the mother was able to go to her other daughter who lived some way away, but the daughter with her had a job in Brighton and couldn't travel so far.

"Come and live with us!" said Paul without any hesitation. He brought them up to the flat and presented me with this fait accompli. 

I don't think that I so much as blinked and Leslie Clay became part of our lives, bringing with her her bed, a cooker, some armchairs and some strips of carpet.

Leslie, was a small, dark, somewhat anxious woman. She was, if I remember correctly, a teacher and was engaged to be married to a Steve. She told us harrowing tales of her father's unkindness to her mother and his meanness. She was a real sun-worshipper, spending every spare moment in Summer on the beach turning herself a deep shade of glistening mahogany. I used to express concern about possible damage to her skin, but she was deaf to all comments.

I remember her as a part of our lives for about six months (I was probably pregnant with Lizzie for part of this time) and don't recall any quarrels or difficulties. I also can't remember her paying any rent!

Eventually she left to marry her Steve (we went to the wedding which was somewhere in the Wokingham area), leaving behind the cooker, bed, carpet and chairs, all of which were very useful.

I think that we lost touch almost immediately, I don't know why. Maybe I was too embroiled in having Lizzie and being a new mother. But I do slightly regret that.

I hope you've had a wonderful life, Leslie, wherever you are, and that you hold a tiny warm spot in your heart for us.

Kitted out

Today

More on my memory lane trip to Chichester. I found, to my delight, that Clothkits had a shop in the City Centre. I decided that I wanted to make one of their classic garments (which is still available) for Carmen.

So Cherie and I set off to find this place, which had such fond memories for me. I have to confess that I was disappointed. Now a small, mainly haberdashery and sewing machine shop, there was just a handful of kits, all very basic. There was fabric, mostly of the overpriced Liberty print category and not a bargain in sight.

In My Day

The home of Clothkits used to be in Lewes, where I also worked for a number of years. There was a shop in the high street and its window display indicated quite clearly that this was a clothes shop. There was a very wide range of charming clothes for children and adults. Most of them were available in kit form, although there were some knitted items and ranges of tights etc to co-ordinate with the kits as well. I used to look at the items with longing, but they did all seem rather expensive, given that you had to sew them as well. I have for many years been a fan of remnants, reluctant to pay full price for fabrics.

Every now and then there would be a Clothkits factory sale and I would trot down to the factory to see what they had. There would be bundles of notions: zips, buckles, buttons and tape and I would gleefully stock up. 


The real bargains would be the bundles of damaged kits. The kits would have maybe a flaw in the layout, a slight hole or similar, and there would be no instructions or notions. The bundles would contain three or fours kits and would cost £1. That's right £1. I would buy as many as I could carry and would either make up the kits anyway, using the bargain bin notions, or use the kits to make other things. 

Here are some pictures of the girls wearing Clothkits outfits, one a ready-made knitted dress, the other dresses I made for a friend's wedding.

Given the renewed enthusiasm for stitching, could Clothkits be missing a trick here? 

The designs, with their emphasis on border prints, may be a little old-fashioned nowadays, but many people who mistrust their ability to follow a pattern, might love it!

Anyway, I bought the quilted jacket at the exorbitant price of £35.00 and just hope that Carmen loves it.

Best Laid Plans

Today

I've just come home from a weekend in Chichester. It's a pleasant easy-going city with a very interesting cathedral.

"I haven't been here for forty years", I commented to my companion. "Not since I was at art college."

In My Day

Between 1967 and 1970 I was a theatre design student at the Worthing College of Art and Design. Part of our training was in the making of scale models.

In late 1969 we were given a project to design a set for "Everyman" using the main aisle of Chichester Cathedral as a backdrop.

To do this we travelled over to Chichester and set about taking measurements of the aisle, the pillars, the steps up to the choir and through to the reredos.

We sketched the carvings and ornamentations. Then back to college to turn the measurements into accurate plans using the whole panoply of technical instruments. 

Then we were expected to produce a balsa wood and card scale model and add our set, also in scale, in its right place on the model. I doubt whether I came up with a breathtaking new insight into "Everyman". However, always one to do things at the last minute, I set about making my model in an exhausting all-night sitting the day before the deadline. At last I was done! I glued the final piece into place and stood back to admire my work. A quick check with my original drawing revealed the horrid truth: I'd done the whole thing back to front. Was this the insight I was looking for?

It was much to late to do anything; the glue was well stuck and I had about an hour to get into college and present my work. I think I carried the model on the bus and can't now remember whether anyone at college noticed my error or, indeed, what mark I received for it. 

It was a very accurate and neat mirror image model though, and I still know how to make a scale plan. I haven't found that this hard-won skill has stood  me in much stead through my adult life.

Janet and John

Today

Carmen is learning to read, sometimes with confidence, sometimes stumbling. It's very exciting to see how she is making sense of what is a very difficult skill. It's not something that comes naturally, like walking and talking, and it needs constant practice. In addition Carmen is learning to read in Spanish and English at the same time. "When you stay with me over the Summer", I told her "We'll do a little bit of school each day before having fun. That way you won't forget what you've learnt."

In My Day

Many people say that that they can't remember learning to read, but I can remember my first steps very clearly.

Mamma had refused to send me to the nearest primary school because of the over-crowding and was holding out for a place in a school slightly out of our catchment area. In the meantime, however, my education was not to be neglected.

Daddy erected a large blackboard and easel in the living room and sat me on the dining table opposite. He then wrote various letters, words and sentences on the board. He didn't ignore the rules of grammar and made no allowances for my age in explaining them. I well remember him explaining to me why "dinner" is pronounce one way and "diner" another. Because the following double consonant shortens the vowel, that's why.

I might have been the only child in South London that went to school (after the truant officer had caught up with me) fully conversant with vowels, consonants and parts of speech.

There I was exposed to the  joys of Janet and John, whose banal adventures did not, fortunately, put me off my love of reading and literature.

Keep going, Carmen, there such an exciting world waiting for you!

Parky

Today

For some time now we have been living with Paul's diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. It's the commonest form of neurological degenerative disease after Alzheimer's. Sometimes a diagnosis for a disease is a death sentence. In this case, since it doesn't kill you, it's more of a life sentence.

In My Day

I first met someone with Parkinson's when I worked at Orchard Lodge back in 1969. Ostensibly, I was a cleaner but I was soon asked to assist in the men's sick bay. I cleaned, helped old geezers to the toilet and helped to serve meals.

Many of them were in the last stages of dementia or type 2 diabetes but there was one old gentleman who had Parkinson's. This was explained to me by the nurse in charge, a burly man who managed to combine brooking no nonsense with a tender care for his charges.

The gentleman in question was a gentleman: unfailingly polite and very apologetic about his condition, as though he could help it. He was skeletally thin and shook from head to foot. He was given the same meals as everyone else and most of the food seemed to land at his feet or down his trousers. I would wrap him in a large napkin and help his hold his soup bowl steady and guide the spoon to his mouth, hoping that at least some food would get into his body.

"I'm sorry, girl", he would say, over and over again, as though he was just being difficult. I rather liked him and was always willing to give him what help I could, steering him to the toilet when he needed it and letting him tell me about his life.

Then, as now, there was no cure and there were not even palliative treatments. There was also what would seem now to be a rather lax approach to self- help. Physiotherapists, these days at the heart of treatment, were unheard of and, in the midst of all the bustle of men's sick bay he was slowly shaking himself to pieces.

I am very glad to live a a time when there are effective treatments to manage the symptoms and constant support from Neurologists and physiotherapists to ensure maximum independence. This ensures a reasonable quality of life for much of the duration of the sentence. And I will be there for the duration.