by Sonia | Nov 10, 2021 | Uncategorized
All out of sweets, money box empty and candle wax all over the hall floor. Yes, Halloween was a popular one this year. Fully made up in “Bride of Frankenstein” look, I opened the door to two snickering teenage boys and a father who jumped when he saw me. “Excuse my dad – he’s a wimp!” declared one of the boys, fixated on the bridal cleavage. It was so nice to see gaggles of giggling kids running up the path and recoiling in mock terror when I asked them if they were the take-away dinner I’d just ordered. One little girl said (rather indignantly) that she wasn’t for eating, neither was her brother, mummy or daddy – thank you VERY MUCH. The emphasis on the “very much” made me laugh so much I lost an eyelash and sent them away with a couple of pounds each. My adorable husband stayed out of the drama and was rather miffed that I had to start dishing out his favourite dark chocolate Hobnobs when the cash and sweets ran out. The laughter and doorstep drama rather made up for it though and he regretted not doing his dastardly Dracula makeup to enter into the spirit. There’s always next year.
All this reminded me of how I used to be pushed onto doorsteps by my darling departed mum. Quite often I’d be sent to knock on doors with a charity fund-raising box or a pamphlet that Mum had created about whichever religion she was road-testing that week. Sometimes she’d accompany me and speak on my behalf. “Can my little girl have a glass of water please?” or “Can my little girl tell you all about (insert religious belief here) please?” or -worst of all – “Can we have some of your flowers for an old lady we’re visiting in hospital please? We don’t have the money for a proper bunch and my little girl was so enchanted with your flowers she wondered if you’d let us have some?” She was, of course, making it all up, I’d never said any such thing and I knew that this was a terrible cheek, but somehow Mum melted hearts and people did what she asked. Maybe it was the flame red hair, slightly manic look of the eye and the sheer surprise of the request that made them relent. Or maybe, as I’ve come to learn in later life, people are just kind and are often very happy to help if asked. The absolute worst bit of the flower begging story is that I had no idea that the house she’d chosen belonged to my arch nemesis at school who poked her head round the door and had that “Ooooh, just wait till I tell the other school bullies what Sonia’s mum did today” look on her smirking face. Many years later we met at a school reunion and we laughed about Mum’s antics. She didn’t remember the flower story though, but did remember the elephant feeding story which I’d forgotten. When we had school outings, three or four parents would volunteer to be helpers and I prayed that Mum never volunteered. She was nearly always busy and constantly working extra shifts to buy extras I later discovered. However, at the time I was relieved she’d never volunteered, so I could enjoy the trip. One fateful day – yes, you’ve guessed it – she volunteered and I spent two weeks in high anxiety wondering what would happen and how her crazy antics would contribute towards even more bullying and sniggering finger-pointing. We arrived at the zoo and were ushered to the front of the queue thanks to Mum declaring that we all needed the loo and should be allowed in first. When we got to the elephant enclosure Mum disappeared for a few minutes and re-appeared with a bag full of pastries which we all fed to the elephants. Nobody questioned it and we were all about to move on when a security guard “had a word” with Mum and looked quite serious. It turned out that she had gone into the canteen, found people who were eating pastries and convinced them to hand them over so we could feed the elephants with them. Somebody complained, hence security guard, but as nothing had been stolen and people had actually handed over said pastries, there was no case to be answered. Mum had apparently called the security guard “Grumpy guts” as we all made our way to the penguins and it wasn’t until Sara re-told the story that I vaguely remembered the incident. All was forgiven and she also told me that one day she’d been at school with a torn cardigan and Mum had asked my nan to knit a new cardigan, supposedly for me. I never received it because Mum secretly took it to Sara’s house because she obviously needed it more than I did.
Isn’t it bewildering sometimes to hear stories about people you love and how their actions have impacted on other people? I love the fact that my precious mum’s antics were widespread outside the family and that people remember her with great fondness and laughter, mixed up with a bit of “the sheer cheek of it!”
It’s coming up to Christmas season and I wanted to share something that I remembered whilst putting on makeup for Halloween. For about three years Mum had badgered my school into considering me for the part of the Virgin Mary in the school nativity and they always chose a Catholic girl for the leading role. Then one year they gave in and I found out that I was chosen to be Mary when it was announced at school assembly. I was very excited, even though they told me that there were no plans for a solo ballet routine. I had the blue robe, a white head covering and learned my one and only line like a trooper. We did a couple of rehearsals and my “Oh Joseph, I’m tired. Can we rest here a while?” line was going to be get me an Oscar. The night before the show I checked my costume, spoke my lines to a mirror, remembered to smile and was confident that this was going to be a triumph. My Joseph co-star was my first crush – with his StartRight sandals, knobbly knees and huge sticking-out ears. Yes, Kenneth Williams (not THE Kenneth Williams – stop messin’ about!) was going to be my real husband one day, despite not showing me the slightest bit of interest and refusing to hold my hand in rehearsals. On the day of the nativity Mum took me out of school for the morning and sat me down. I had to close my eyes while it felt like she was brushing my face with big soft brushes and dusting things around my eyes. It took ages, but as I’d grown accustomed to zoning out when Mum was in full-on strange behaviour mode, I was probably singing the songs from Cinderella in my head or trying to remember the latest ballet dance. It all finished, I put on my costume and she marched me into school, much to the relief of the teachers who must have been lining up my under-study. Well, at least I thought it was relief as they were smiling a lot and one of them laughed before clasping a hand to her mouth. When I walked on stage, parents stared, kids started laughing and I, like a trooper, tried not to be put off and said my line. Kenneth Williams didn’t say his next line, because he was staring at me open-mouthed. I had to say it for him to recover the situation – a skill I’d learned very well whenever Mum was involved in anything. When it was all over I saw myself in the mirror. Staring back at me was The Virgin Mary in heavy stage make-up, complete with blusher, blue and silver eye shadow, bright red lipstick, mascara and heavy brown eyebrows. Mortified wasn’t the word. I think she’d even given me a Marilyn Monroe beauty spot. As a grown-up I did tease her about it and she laughed at the audacity of it. Even she could see that a tarty Virgin Mary wasn’t the look my school were going for. But we made up eventually of course, although at the time it took me two days to speak to her again after the nativity play.
Years later, when taking my English O-level exam we were presented with three titles to choose from for a fictional story. My choice was “Making Up” and I told the story of a little girl whose mum took her stage makeup a bit too far in the wrong circumstances. My English teach told me that I’d got the wrong end of the stick and the title referred to making up after an argument. Miffed, I beat myself up about misinterpreting the title and obviously failing my English. Imagine my absolute delight when I passed and the school were sent a note saying that they applauded one student’s fascinating interpretation of the phrase and recommended that I pursued a career in writing. Well, it’s taken me forty years to take their advice and I’ve decided to create a children’s picture book inspired by the wonderful feedback I get from this blog and it’s all about a little girl and her naughty mum who has good days, naughty days and sometimes goes away for a few days while granny and grandad come round. Watch this space and if the book catches the imagination of children who can see from the story that strange behaviour in a parent is nothing to be ashamed of – job done. And if grown-ups use it as a funny story from which to springboard into conversations about mental health and their own issues – job done too. So many incidents to choose from of course when it comes to naughty mum stories – you couldn’t make it up!
by Sonia | May 2, 2019 | Uncategorized
It is five months since my precious mum passed away and I realised this morning that there are so many life-changing things happening at the moment, some of which I’ve seen and some of which other people have helped me see. Although I think I’ve been seeing life with my eyes wide open, have I been trotting along with my blinkers on?
Yesterday I met up with best friends, old friends, work friends and made a new friend. And as I’ve got a head full of drama ideas, screenplay developments and time management issues, I put my listening ears on so that I could soak up other people’s lives and see life through their eyes. I recommend it if, like me, you’re a chatterbox. I think it’s rare to find best friends working successfully together. Everyone tells you that a) you need to have distance and neutrality in the work environment, b) familiarity can often breed work contempt and c) you should never hire your friends. Not true in my case with one of my besties. Sure, we’ve had a couple of creative wrinkles at some point in the past, but nothing that wasn’t ironed out immediately we listened to each other. Now we’re collaborating on big drama ideas and I have to pinch myself to think that a mad idea from a few years ago might actually be making its way toward the screen. It made me think back to the plays and panto scripts that mum used to write and send off to the biggest West End players she could think of. Fearless and confident in her efforts, even though she had no training and no experience of writing. I’ve still got the letters from some and one in particular sticks in my mind.
“Dear Margaret, Thank you for sending in your amusing script which we’ve all enjoyed reading. Whilst we have had a lot of fun trying to engage with your storylines we don’t feel that ‘Sonia and the dancing angels’ is quite right for us and are you sure that your 6-year old daughter actually wants to be an actress and ballerina? We wish you all success with the idea and encourage you to attend writing classes or a dramatic writing course to help you focus your creative thoughts. Yours (name left out for obvious reasons), Theatre Manager, The London Palladium”
Re-reading it recently I marvelled at the passive aggressive tone and could almost see the room full of creatives laughing hysterically at Mum’s script. Fair play as it’s not very good and her diagrams for lighting cues and ideas for special effects leave a lot to the imagination. But then I wondered if that letter left a deep impression on me as a child as she was in tears when she showed it to me and apologised to me for getting my hopes up. I took on her sadness and added a tinge of guilt even though I had nothing to be guilty about. I had so many stories and ideas floating around my head when I was little, but I didn’t write them down for fear of getting a similar letter and it could upset Mum again. Later in life I had dreams of writing books, plays and films, but stuck instead to radio production and factual television as I wouldn’t get a letter about them when people sat around laughing hysterically at my silly stories. Often I’d talk about an idea and people did indeed laugh at me, but in a nice way which didn’t make me feel guilty or stupid, just brave and creative. But drama? The idea of having your personal, imaginative story laughed at was unthinkable.
Next up, I saw someone I haven’t seen since his wedding nine years ago and his subsequent move to America. The cliche of ‘it only seems like yesterday’ made us laugh as we recalled our experiences of live radio shows that went wrong, that one extra bottle of red wine, just missing being arrested in Cairo and that we’re both at a place where new ideas and new career breaks are coming at us. Our trio was made up with a man who is now my new work friend. A fascinating, bright and creative man who is a drama producer and used to manage one of the UK’s biggest stars. Another person at that place where the world is beckoning us in a different direction. If we’d all been working on conventional paths we wouldn’t have had the time to meet for a mid-afternoon drink – thank you, Universe. Lots of listening and quite a bit of talking at this point focussed my mind with one of those BANG! moments. Heartbeat in the ears, clarity of vision and the sound of a giant penny clattering its way to the floor. How didn’t I clock this until I articulated it out loud? My New Yorker buddy and his mate (new friend) were waxing lyrical about my adventures in bus driving. It was great regaling them with the stories of my first lessons and subsequent run-ins with youths who wanted to board my training bus (never mime an “L” from the driver seat when you’re trying to show them that you’re a learner driver and they can’t board your bus). The inevitable “WHY DRIVING A BUS?!!!” question came up and I found myself answering it with a philosophical thread that was only emerging as I spoke, although it was obviously deep in my psyche. Flashback to ten years ago when things were going so horribly wrong in Mum’s life and I was in pieces trying to manage work, trips to the police station in Littlehampton, mental health workers and doctors. I broke down a bit with my step mum and dad as it was all getting on top of me. My step mum offered to come down to the coast if that would help and my dad leant back, closed his eyes and drifted back to a painful past, saying “Sometimes I don’t why you bother with her, I’ve often wished her under a bus.” He didn’t mean it literally, of course; he was using the bus as a metaphor for trying to forget. I think back now to any times I’ve left hand-over notes or travel plans. What have I pre-empted it with? “Just in case I’m knocked over by a bus or something… ” So now I realise exactly WHY I decided to drive the bus. I have turned that upsetting, negative thought into something positive that I could own and enjoy, rather than keeping the bus as a trigger to memories of plate smashing, yelling in street and being plonked on other families while things calmed down. Yes, that’s exactly why I did it and until I listened to new voices and really heard their question, I hadn’t realised it.
The final meeting was with two fabulous women who are loud, proud, role models and go-getters. One of whom is helping me build up my public speaking career and the other with whom I’m starting a new venture, based on the idea of sharing experiences and stories with other people who’ve had “alternative” parenting. Both of our mothers were called Margaret and both of them were crazy, but wise in their own way. Watch this space.
What a day – what fantastic people – and my ear drums need a rest. The best part of the day was coming home to my beloved husband who has given me the confidence, peace of mind and support to be able to pursue things I never dreamed I could do.
Blinkers off – ears open – I’m grabbing today firmly with both hands. What discoveries will today bring I wonder?
by Sonia | Jan 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
What does your name say about you? I’ve had the polite “could you spell that please?” and the insulting “Blimey – did you ever think of changing it?” Today I found the true meaning of “it’s got your name on it” when I saw my mum’s name on a brick in a wall. Not graffiti, you understand; engraved on a brass plaque attached to one of a hundred bricks to help raise money to maintain the beautiful grounds of a local park. “Margaret Beldom” – just that. Simple, uncomplicated, peaceful amongst other names and bathed in sunlight. When I spotted it I stopped and said out (very) loud, “Aaaah – here you are” and a huge beam spread across my face. Here you are, Mum. Part of me, part of this wall, a name that hundreds of people are going to see and wonder about. The lyrics to Pink Floyd’s song, Another Brick in the Wall, took on totally new meanings. “We don’t need no education.” Mum had very little and ran away from school all the time, but it didn’t stop her being incredibly creative, resourceful, anti-establishment (applause please) and helping other people live meaningful lives. “We don’t need no thought control.” Are you kidding? Mum, having her thinking repressed? I don’t think so. “No dark sarcasm in the classroom.” Well, SHE might not have done, but I did when Mum turned up with jumpers for me to put on despite it being summer, porridge to eat or her version of my homework. “Teachers, leave those kids alone.” Hmmm, yes. Having to stand on the desk while being told that ‘You kids from broken homes with crazy parents are all alike’ didn’t do much for my confidence. It made me an independent thinker though, where creating poems, stories and pictures was far more satisfying than learning my 6 times table or hearing silly nonsense about all-powerful deities forcing fathers to kill their sons or eat their own babies.
One brick above my mum’s was another surprise – one I had engraved for my wonderful step-grandmother and professional pianist, Audrey who used to live in Finchley. Weird, or is it, that they were engraved months apart and end up next to each other? Audrey’s first encounter with my mum was when a flame-haired, screaming banshee turned up on her doorstep with two little children saying “If she wants him, she can have his children.” This was after mum saw a random name on a birthday card, put 6 and 6 together to make 99 and thumbed a lift across London to wreak havoc. I don’t remember it, but it’s etched in my step mum’s brain as you can imagine. Such a dramatic event actually pulled her and my dad together to hatch a survival plan now that there was a real life vigilante on the loose, likely to turn up anywhere, dragging bewildered children along. They were colleagues, nothing had occurred between them, but mum, with her uncanny gift of foresight had predicted the future. With those wonderful hindsight glasses on I can see that this was Mum off-loading her kids onto people she thought had more space, money and sanity than she did. I remember there being an awful lot of arguing, plate throwing and door slamming at the time. Same old, same old. She used to tell me that our (future) step mum liked cuddles and being naked with my father, whereas she didn’t. Talk about a recipe for promiscuity and a deep-rooted confusion between love and sex in a young girl. That’s another story.
Funny that thirty years later I ended up buying a home that was on the same road where Audrey was married and round the corner to the house she was born. Not so random after all, maybe. What do you think? My sister thinks that it would amuse Mum and Audrey and she’s right. They both had a wicked sense of humour, disobeyed convention and made people laugh.
All in all you’re not just another brick in the wall, Mum. You’re my brick and it’s not just any old wall, it’s Grade II listed. Shine on you crazy diamond.
by Sonia | Jun 4, 2018 | Uncategorized
Sorry Seems to be the Easiest Word
Sorry – for walking in front of you. Sorry – for you letting me go first. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Why do we Brits say it all the time and rarely mean it? It’s a bit like ‘fine’ when we probably mean the opposite. Funny old thing, language. Tony & I have come to Spain for a couple of weeks and when I told Mum she said “Sorry you’re having to go all that way”. I smiled to myself and probed her a little more, trying hard not to ask direct questions or contradict her. “Yes, it’s a long way so it’s great that Easyjet go there from Gatwick. “Don’t go on holiday to Gatwick, it’s far too noisy with all those planes coming and going”. “We’re going to Spain, Mum – up in the mountains with clean air, the distant sound of cow bells and the coast a ten minute drive away”. “I love it when you get all poetic Sonia darling, did I teach you that?” “Yes, Mum. You did.” She’s always had such a way with words, even though she rarely picks up a pen these days. Mum has defaced every book she’s ever owned, even an ancient, once-very-valuable leather bound biblical encyclopedia with exquisite colour plates and hand-decorated capital letters to start each chapter. The man in the antiquarian book shop in Charing Cross shook his head, took off his circular gold-rimmed glasses and handed it back to me with a sad little smile and a sigh of disappointment when I enquired if it could be worth anything. “Yes, it would have been, but have you seen the scribbles?” Scribbles? What scribbles? There they were – Mum’s distinctive hand-written notes in various margins, page headers and on various gilt-rimmed blank pages. Most undecipherable, but one simply said “Sorry, I can’t” under a picture of Christ on the cross. I read the text to see if it referred to anything obvious, but I couldn’t find a connection. Mum was probably reading it when the thought popped into her head and if there was ever paper around, she’d write on it, jotting her feelings down. I know I’ve mentioned this before, so forgive the repetition. I’m about to visit a tiny church in Casares that, if I was religious, would be my own little Mecca and every time I see a figure of Jesus my mind always runs back to that precious book with Mum’s jottings. Sorry for what? What couldn’t she do?
I’ll be thinking of her later today when we go into the tiny, cool chapel that I first visited over ten years ago when my life was in meltdown and I had to escape to silence and beauty. A wonderful friend who I see far too little of (thank you Brendan if you’re reading this), recommended that I went away to somewhere peaceful to reflect and recover. The man I was seeing at the time had crippling depression, no matter what I tried to do or say to support him. Mum was drinking and driving me crackers, I’d lost my job and it felt like my brain had been replaced with cotton wool. I can remember apologising to everyone for everything all the time; Sorry to be so miserable, sorry I haven’t called you, sorry I’m such a rubbish friend, so it was a turning point when I could say thank you to my precious friend David for lending me his beautiful little Spanish house as a retreat. While there I ventured to different villages and stumbled upon Casares on a Sunday. There in my shorts, trainers and casual t-shirt I didn’t dare enter the church for fear of insulting the locals. But it was quiet and a little man beckoned me in, gesturing for me to sit down and wait. Unsure of why I was agreeing to sit alone in a church pew I did as he said and rested there, looking at the statues and crosses, thinking about the comfort they bring to people who genuinely believe. About five minutes later the door opened and the little man ushered a little lady into the church and she spoke a few words of English. “My friend, he told me you need peace. This … this … (she gestured around the church) … this … your sanctuary. Welcome. Stay. She handed me a glass of water and as I drank I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. I said sorry; sorry for the tears, sorry for interrupting your day, sorry for running away Mum, sorry for being a nuisance. I don’t think she understood, but they smiled at me, gestured around the church and shook their heads. “No sorry, no sorry. Sanctuary”. Such kindness and such a life-changing moment when I felt that I should stop saying sorry all the time. I didn’t need to beg these people to forgive me for anything. They were tender, caring people who saw a sad person and offered her a place to be at peace.
The last time Tony and I visited Casares, we sat in a café overlooking the tiny village square with the church on one corner and I told him about the reason I loved the place so much. An old green Rover car pulled up outside the church and Tony noticed that the last three letters of the number plate were BBC. Amazing, as it’s the place that Tony and I had met each other. How lovely was that? What he hadn’t noticed was that the preceding four numbers of the plate were our home telephone number. I was about to go and talk to the driver when the car disappeared, so who knows, maybe we’ll see it again today and find out who it belongs to. I told Mum about that number plate and she looked at us both and simply said “of course”. I’ll never know what was going through her head when she wrote in all those books, but I do know that she doesn’t have to be sorry for any of it. Not even the hat she drew on the Pope.
by | Nov 16, 2017 | Uncategorized
Clive, Colin & Olive are the only Snow White dwarves worth caring about, Michael Pillow is the best broadcaster about train journeys, my head looks like a giant sugar cube, scrambled eggs and toffee will keep you going till 100 and Piers Morgan is the best James Bond ever. According to Mum, these facts are all true and everything else is fanciful thinking on my behalf. She’ll often berate me for ‘getting above myself with the intellect’ and corrects me by giving me ‘proper’ stories to relate … and when you think about it, they all make sense – Mum sense. A load of old Mumsense and I love it.
We’ve all had those moments when someone says something hysterical in front of a crowd and when that person is completely unaware of what they’ve said it makes us laugh even more, even though we know we shouldn’t – but it’s fun isn’t it? It’s panto season coming up and Tony and I are the panto band again – this year it’s Bluebeard, not Snow White, but Mum won’t be convinced that there won’t be dwarves in it. She won’t be able to come and see it this year and that’s probably just as well. The last theatre experience I took her to was to see Tommy Steele in Scrooge and we had seats at the back of the gallery – always a sensible place for Mum as she can’t resist joining in and causing a few shhhhhh’s and menacing looks over the shoulder for those too scared to do a shhhhhh. Back of the gallery? Yes, good thinking as she was so far away from the stage, she couldn’t possibly shout out to the performers . Wrong. Shout she did. Loudly, waving arms, mentioning me in every sentence. “Whoooo-ooooo Tommy Steele ! My daughter here wants to marry you” and a little later “Whhooo-ooooo Tommy Steele ! Do you have a dog? My daughter wants a puppy.” Where did THAT come from? Neither of these heckles were true of course and even though I’ve told myself a million times that people will only be reacting to Mum’s antics and not associating me with the mayhem, I was wrong. They did and told ME to shut up and stop encouraging my Mum. Tommy Steele did eventually respond with a “Hello up in the Gods – I’m the star of this show”. It didn’t stop her and how we weren’t ejected I’ll never know. Scrooge was similar to panto with its jokes and crafty asides to the audience, so we managed to stay till the end. She went to the loo after the curtain call and then I lost her. She’d gone. Nowhere to be seen. It was about twenty minutes until one of the ushers asked me if I was THE Sonia? Oh dear, here we go, straight back to childhood horrors of being rounded up by policemen as Mum was unexpectedly taken into care. “Yes – is everything ok?” Yes, Mum says that she’ll only be 10 minutes or so as she’s hoping to get to see Tommy after the show. Luckily (for me) she’d not got past Stage Door and came back into the main foyer on the arm of a very camp, red-faced young usher who kept patting her arm. She’d loved every minute of Scrooge of course and said she’d felt part of the show. I think I shrunk at least 2 inches by compressing my spine and trying to be invisible.
When my brother was born, Mum had severe post-natal depression which was, as far as I can ascertain, undiagnosed and written off as eccentricity. She’s never liked her red hair and when my brother arrived with his gorgeous shock of ginger hair she associated him with herself and didn’t connect. She was a ballerina who’d been asked to dance with Nuryev, so she couldn’t possibly look after a new baby. She broke toes going up on pointe in the hospital ward and cut the hem of her hospital gown to look more like a tutu. I’d heard the stories from Dad and Pop as they were always brought up as funny anecdotes, but underneath I knew that things weren’t right with her at the time and although they were funny antics they were, as I started to realise as I got older, the result of severe mental health problems. The gap between my parents was 13 years – she was the older one – so it had its challenges as a marriage in the 60s when that age gap was more unusual than now. She was always very astute though in her own way and in between her muddled thinking and outrageous behaviour, there lurked a philosopher and deep thinker. I can remember going to the ballet and asking Mum who all the dancer characters were. I must have been talking out loud as there was lots of shhhhhhh’s dotted throughout this memory. “Sonia darling, what you have to remember in ballet is that dancing has to be very clear on who is a man and who is a woman otherwise people get confused. That’s why the men have their willies on show and the ladies wear short skirts. These were the actual words she said. Yes, willies on show. I was confused and asked her afterwards if it was ok for men to show their willies on stage? Yes she said, as long as they are in a ballet. I wasn’t convinced but went along with it. I asked her later if it HAD to be men and women getting married, or could men marry men and women marry women. Only in America she told me. Ah, only in America, ok that made sense to my 5-year old brain. Soon afterwards I remember meeting one of Dad’s friends at a concert he was playing in and this man had a funny voice. I asked him why he had a funny voice and he told me he was American. Ah – are you sleeping with a man? I asked. Dad spat out his Guinness and his colleague walked away after smiling at me in that I’m-smiling-but-I’m-not-happy way. Mum had told me that men marry men in America, so surely that made sense? Why were grown-ups so confusing?
Mum told me yesterday that the care home has a box of James Bond films and she’s going to watch the Piers Morgan one. Try telling her that it’s Pierce Brosnan … she berated me again with a friendly chide … Pierce? What kind of a man’s name is that? OK Mum, which film is it? Tomorrow Never Dies? The World is Not Enough? Die Another Day? “Oh do be quiet Sonia darling, you’re so depressing at times you know”. We’re having a couple of excerpts of the James Bond theme in panto – when the baddies gets chased by the goodies, so I’ll be thinking of Mum and her box sets at the next rehearsal, fantasising about Tommy Steele in the main role maybe, wondering if any of the flash, bangs or wallops will happen in the right places. It’s going to be fun – oh yes it is.
As for scrambled eggs and toffee … Mum woofed down a whole jar of Potter’s malt extract and cod liver oil when the carers weren’t looking and had the inevitable digestive ‘alterations’ to her normal routine and she’s on a protest … only accepting scrambled eggs or toffees to eat … to teach her carers a lesson. A lesson in what, I’m not sure, but with every day we speak I continue to learn from this extraordinary woman. Dum diddle-um dum, dum-dum-dum-dum, Dum diddle-um dum, dum-dum-dum-dum, Daaaaa Dum, Da dum dum .
