Have you ever felt a connection so deeply strong to someone that you feel secure just knowing that it's there? You know, a real connection where you feel you are impregnable because the love this other person has for you and you have for them survives a distance of miles and a difference in time zones? I have been fortunate in my life to know people that I love dearly and who in return love me deeply too. I first became aware of long distance relationships and the kryptonite strength of the invisible umbilical cord that exists between people who are intrinsically linked, when I relocated to London from my home city of Glasgow to take up my career in Information Technology.
In my excitement at arriving in the capital I gave so little thought to what was left behind. My parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and great friends; One of those great friendships was made way back on that first terrifying day in junior school. A day when my bottom lip trembled as my mother turned around for the very last time that morning, tears in her eyes as she smiled forlornly then waved at my tear stained face and snotty nose before turning her back again and disappearing through the classroom door. I thought my heart would break and no matter how many times she tried to reassure me that I'd be coming home at the end of the school day, I wouldn't nor couldn't believe it. I will never forget the deep feeling of sadness on that first day, but neither will I forget Jenny Burns.......
……….. I sat on the tiny grey metal S framed chair at the tiny wooden desk and being so completely ego centric as all children are I hung my head and assumed I would never ever recover from being abandoned. As my own sobs began to subside, so did the sniffling and sobbing of the other abandonee next to me that until now I had only been vaguely aware of. Slowly I raised my head and turned to see a wee lassie, much the same size as myself but with a shock of curly ginger hair and red eyes with a red nose to match sitting on an identical chair, swinging her wee legs for like me she was too short to reach the floor.
"Hello.......errr, wiz that your mammy then?", she asked in a small nasally Glaswegian accent as she stared at me with her huge tear laden brown eyes framed by the longest lashes I'd ever seen.
"Aye it wiz,", I answered, before choking back another sob at being reminded she'd abandoned me only minutes before. I took a minute to blow my red nose on my by now very soggy hankie, "So……so where's your mammy then?", I asked with all the curiosity and naivety of a tiny wee five year old wondering how all these mammy's could abandon their weans and then leg it out of the place.
She's no here, she didnae come wae me", she said in a voice even smaller than before.
"No here? Whit dae ye mean she didnae come wae ye?" I asked, wide eyed with legs swinging away wildly on the chair as I stuck my thumb in my mouth for a suck whilst she answered this conundrum.
With her huge brown eyes fixed tightly upon mine, tears welled again and began to trickle down her rosy cheeks. "Ma mammy's deed", she spluttered out before letting out the loudest wail of utter heartbreak I had ever heard.
"Oh no, yer mammy's no really deed, is she?" I asked, getting all weepy because even though my mammy had dumped me there, at least I had one. The shock almost did for me for I knew nothing of death except that sometimes I would get scared that my wee mammy might die one day. So there it was, wee Jenny Burns didnae huv a mammy and I wiz heartbroken fur her. We sobbed our wee broken hearts out in unison until Mrs Murray, our lovely sweet teacher came over, put her arms around us both, calmed us with soothing words and dried our tears. Shortly after, down at the bottom of the school yard for playtime break we sat on the ground on our coats drinking our free milk through a straw and scoffing a digestive biscuit.
"Jenny?", I asked her in between slurps and chomps.
"Aye whit Annie?", she asked after swallowing the ice cold milk.
"Will ye be ma new best pal?"
"Aye, aye a wull", she said turning to look at me with the biggest smile I'd ever seen. Bless her, all of five years old and she had teeth like a bar chart thanks to her brother who 'encouraged' her to pull her wobbly milk teeth out so they could share the sixpence she'd get under her pillow from the tooth fairy.
"Great", I said delighted that at least one good thing had come out of the day, "and seein' as yer gonnae be ma best pal and seein' that you've no goat a mammy, ye can share ma mammy tae, that's IF she comes back fur me ye understand"........ The jury was still out on that one and I'd need a lot more convincing that the woman I knew as mammy and had dumped me here this morning would actually come back for me. Still, I reasoned, it was the least I could do for ma best pal who unquestionably had been bonded to me for life in our shared grief and loss that very same day.
Six years later after much tears and laughter; after sleepovers at each other's homes; after shared hours of playing 'kick the can' in summer until it got dark and we were dragged inside exhausted but still delirious with joy; after climbing trees and returning home with bumps the size of golf balls on our foreheads because we lost our footing and much to the merriment of our brothers, swan dived out of a tree hurtling head first towards earth; after having our hair doused in nit killer because yet again we let wee Gladys who lived next to the dump come and have a sleepover in our homemade tent in the back garden where we were infested within an inch of our lives; after rolling doon the hill outside ma hoose in summer on a homemade geggie, (go cart) - three pieces of wood knocked together like a big letter H with big auld wheels off a pram at the back with two smaller one's at the front, no brakes and a long piece of string attached to the front bit of wood for steering. There we were getting splinters in our arses as we ricocheted downhill at speed right into the path of the parish priest's new car; After sliding doon the hill outside ma hoose in winter wearing our plastic beach sandals that polished the compacted snow into an Olympic standard ski slope so dangerously slippy that we could get a fair bit of speed on before crash landing through auld Alfie's garden fence and into his allotment at the bottom of the road; after making faces with me at the grumpy old folk who moaned as they slid down the road on their arse and then swore at us and threatened to go straight to oor parents to tell them we should get a hiding for being so bloody cheeky; after laughing even harder at the ill-tempered old biddy's when they tried to chase us as their moaning reached epic proportions and not one of us getting anywhere because we were all running on the spot; after nearly melting the ice with hot yellow pee as we laughed ourselves stupid at the whole scenario; after promising to be best pals for ever and ever and ever and after her da, a skilled carpenter, a tired, skint single parent announced that they were off, off to the land of opportunity.........
...........A land of opportunity where he could earn enough to buy them new shoes and clothes instead of second hand clobber from the jumble sales; where a working man was paid a decent wage without having to scrimp and scrape his way cap in hand through life just to feed the weans; where the sun shone so much that life would no longer be grey with arctic like winters for them to struggle through with nae money fur their heating. He'd found a beacon of hope and a step up from the near poverty that threatened to overwhelm him and his young family. Australia and the Ten Pound Pom emigration scheme was the answer to his prayers and he'd been planning it for a while but said nothing for fear it wouldn't work out and expectations were dashed or even thwarted by those who would make a fuss and not want to go. By the time Jenny had been told, it was a done deal and she came to tell me, stayed for a sleepover and reminiscent of that first day together at school, we both cried the night away in total grief. In two months she was gone but we never lost that connection, well not for a long time but as with all distance relationships, pre email and affordable telephone calls, contact by written hand that was fervent in the beginning became sporadic as the years went by and our adult lives moved on from those relatively carefree childhood days.
I will never forget her but life moves on and I have made other friendships that have had the same deep connection - some of these made after just one meeting which has been a delightful surprise over the years. Ella was a work colleague and a real Jolly Hockey sticks kinda gal. She had all the eccentricity of the very rich, which she was after her parents shuffled off their mortal coils leaving her a multi millionaire. You'd never know it though for what I loved about her was the way she lived modestly almost impoverished with a sofa that her four cats shredded on a daily basis. With huge lumps of sponge filling missing and other pieces hanging down onto the carpet, it was a work of art that Damien Hurst and the Tate gallery would have been proud of. We worked on different projects much of the time but we knew each other through the vast social scene that was inherent to our work life. She lived about five miles from me and when I heard that she had cancer I made a point of going to see her. Our friendship developed over the year during which she went into remission and returned to work with her no nonsense approach to take on the huge projects she was famed for managing. But her good fortune wasn't to last. Excruciating pain in her spine and a sudden inability to walk back from the coffee machine to her desk told her something was drastically wrong. In the midst of her colleagues carrying her to her chair, Ella's heart sunk lower than she had ever imagined it could.
The oncologists report identified secondary tumors in her spine and other major organs. I was naïve and positive and hopeful that she'd beat these monsters down yet again. "You'll do it again Els", I reassured her brightly. "You did it before, you can do it again and this time you know what you're up against, so half the battle's won okay", I flannelled on, hoping to inspire her. I didn't know then that her only hope was chemo and radio therapy to shrink the tumors, to slow their growth. I didn't know that when these didn't work anymore that her end was nigh and that palliative care was all that could be offered. I didn't know until I was finally taken aside and told by a wonderful MacMillan nurse that secondary tumors are terminal and that I should prepare myself for the loss of my friend.
I took my turn, along with closer friends that had known her much longer, in doing practical things she found difficult to undertake as time went on. Her husband, grateful of our help, support and friendship thanked us profusely but we didn't need thanks for you don't do you?; not when it's a pal. But, it wasn't at all miserable and certainly not all one sided. No matter how ill Ella became she kept her sharp dark wit and we would often roll around trying not to dampen the chairs in our great shared mirth.
I'd boss her around and remind her to take her medication. She'd grumble and tell me she was rattling away thanks to the overabundance of pills she had sunk so far that day; "What did forgetting to take a few more matter?", she'd ask crossly, annoyed that her life had been overtaken by schedules, pills, appointments, taking urine samples along with the indignity of being prodded and poked at by doctors and nurses and anyone else called a specialist. She'd tell me to get lost when I was of no more use to her and she needed a nap. She'd become argumentative as exhaustion and pain took over. I'd tell her to watch her manners or she could decompose without me. On one memorable outing, I took her to pick up her NHS freebie wigs that she much preferred over spending good money on privately made wigs that she said she certainly wasn't going to take into the next world with her. I nagged at her and called her mean because I said that a good wig made all the difference and anyway, I wanted them after she was gone because they'd come in handy for Halloween parties and such like. As usual she ignored my advice, tried on a plethora of cheapo wigs and solicited my opinion on which was best. She was none too pleased when I said she had all the allure of a blow up rubber doll.
One Sunday soon after, when she was roasting a chicken for lunch that by now she had no appetite for but wanted to prepare for her husband, she opened the oven rather too quickly. Whilst bending down to check on the contents an excruciatingly hot blast of air hit her full on the face and welded the nylon NHS wig to her forehead. "Cheap is as cheap does", I said when I saw her still wearing it a few hours later. "Christ Ella", I continued as I stared at her. "You could take the fecking thing off, it looks like a rancid bit of old road kill on yer bonce". She registered my comment just as she was taking a drink and I heard her snort heavily before two streams of water and other gooey stuff trickled down her nose as we laughed our heads off at this vision of loveliness she had become.
No matter that when I returned the next day, I scolded her for still wearing this year's 'fascinator' as a hairdo. "I'm not", she said looking straight at me, waiting for reality to set in. "Now don't be so bloody cheeky", she said, as she watched my horrified reaction turn to deep sadness as I looked at the wisps of fine hair left after several bouts of chemo. She'd done well to keep the effects of the chemo under wraps with her wig until her disaster made her go commando as it were. She teased me relentlessly at her little joke for she knew perfectly well that her hair and wig were on a par and that I'd mistake her hair for the burnt wig. I played along and smiled but in my heart I was haemorrhaging emotion because her life was ebbing away in front of me.
Some months later I had to attend a software conference in Minneapolis, USA and it was a three line whip as far as my job was concerned. She understood and scolded me for considering not going and insisted she was much more interested in hearing all the fun tales and gossip from our shenanigans abroad. I knew she missed the vibrancy of work and promised a warts and all report upon my return. To my shame, I felt relieved and quite a bit selfish because her deterioration was rapidly causing her more and more distress and I wondered if I would be strong enough to hold out for her at the end. I was grateful for my friends permission to go and I relished the conference and the chance to socialize with colleagues and friends as we worked hard but also partook of a great deal of alcohol. I had so much to tell her when I returned that would have her heaving with laughter and looked forward to hearing her fantastically wicked laugh. We were in the thick of it all and jolly merry when I was suddenly stopped in my tracks, as though a Tom and Jerry frying-pan-in-the-face kind of moment had happened. I stood still and felt a wave of emotion so strong that I was overwhelmed with the need to cry. I took a moment to register my astonishment at such a depth of feeling.
"Oh God, it's Ella", I blurted out to my drinking buddies as tears welled in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. "She's gone, I'm sure of it. Oh Christ", I wailed, "and here I am enjoying myself when God knows how she must have been". The guilt of laughter was hanging heavily upon me.
"No she hasn't, she can't have, how on earth would you know?", they asked whilst looking at me as though it was time to cart me off to bed after ten drinks too many.
"She has, I know she has, I just know okay?", I said tetchily for I was filled with a deep sadness and confused at my inability to explain what I was certain of.
When I returned to the UK some three days later, I returned her husband's voice mail message. "What time did she pass away ?", I asked him as he gave me details of her last hours with him."Oh, at six am", he said. "I know because we were in bed together, and for some strange reason the alarm on the clock, which hasn't been set since Ella came home from the hospice, came on to wake me. Shortly after that she let out her last breath. It's incredibly strange but I'm just so grateful that it woke me in time", he said, as he went quiet, reflecting upon those last few painful moments together.
My blood ran cold for a moment for the time that I had felt and known that Ella had gone was 1200am in the USA. - six hours behind 6am in the UK. Sometime after the funeral and when we were able to talk with an amount of acceptance and peace within us I told him what had happened. He felt comforted by my story and I was glad that I had shared it with him.
Although I believe in God, or at least a higher being, I am not inclined to believe in spirits and such like and with a science background tend to be pragmatic about what happens after death but this 'visit' from Ella I cannot explain. I felt the strong disconnection from her after that visit in Minneapolis. I believe in my heart that she came to say goodbye but my head disputes this. I knew she had died and I couldn't be moved on that conclusion even though I couldn't explain it. And now I feel the same overwhelming disconnection from Jenny. Just recently I felt a wave of loss so deep that it threw me. It made me think of Ella but it was Jenny that flooded my mind and stayed with me for days after. Perhaps, it was a goodbye. I don't want to know. I'm too sad to think of her passing, but if it was that I hope she's content and happy and that she's caught up with that mammy of hers after all this time. You see, I am a dichotomy, a person of conflicting views and beliefs as my certainty on things crumble as life teaches me otherwise. As I get older, the more I learn the less I know and the more inclined I am to open up my mind to new orders and possibilities.
I hope she relished her wonderful new life as a Ten Pound Pom; she and her family certainly deserved a better future and God, there are worse places to grow up than paradise. But I hope too she never suffered the hopelessness of the tyranny of distance, of the dislocation of family and of homesickness and knew that somewhere back in the UK, her wee pal held her as dear to her heart as she had always done for even though the memories faded, the friendship and love never did. And finally, I just hope she didn't call any of her kids Kylie or Jason.....
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Thursday, 8 January 2009
To kip or not to kip, that is the question....
Happy New Year tae ye all! I had a great festive season. I restricted my visits to the pub to a couple of hours only on Christmas day - big effing result! Those of you that might read this blog occasionally know that himself likes to spend some time in our 17th century village inn. Personally I can't be arsed much of the time and like to stay at home instead although a Friday night up there for the odd sherry here and there has become a bit of a ritual in this household. Having said that, I truly cannot be arsed drinking through the day and suffering a hideous hangover as I start to sober up around tea time - much better in those situations to drink your way through and wake up in hospital the next day after having your stomach pumped and feeling smugly superb as though you've been on a detox weekend. You also don't give a monkey's as to whether the food turned out okay or not and as such enjoy a completely stress free day where the only memories you have are the ones you care to manufacture out of that jumbled pile of vague flashbacks that haunt you every two minutes or so over the following week.
And so, determined that I would resist the constant moaning of himself that, "the pub had been opened about an hour or so already and that if we didn't get up there soon some cheeky no-mates kind of sad looser type who only visited the pub on Christmas day would have nicked our table by the inglenook open fireplace and we'd have to stand all day", I encouraged him to swan off up there with our good pal Mr P who with his lady wifie and other good pal Mrs P was due to come to dinner with us later in the day anyway. Having waved himself off before slamming the door on his arse to make sure he had cleared off, I continued with my planned ritual to remain at home thus peacefully bathing in ass's milk and contemplating prepping a few bits of nosh here and there so as to cut down on the domestic stuff whilst our guests were here later on. It was a civilised and joyful start to Christmas day as ever I have had. After a leisurely couple of hours, I made my way along the three minute journey between home and inn and entered a pub full of good cheer, high spirits and red nosed drinkers with contented almost sleepy smiles and glassy eyes making their slightly unsteady preparations of winter coat donning and the wrapping of chunkily knitted winter scarves around necks before warily braving the cold in the crisp but sunny day towards home for the Christmas lunches awaiting them.
Working my way through the by now thinning throng of drinkers, I soon located himself and Mr P sitting happily by the inglenook fireplace with contented little Guinness laden bellies, both sporting red Santa like shiny faces engendered from the heat of the fire and the consumption of mucho pinto's of beero. 'Twas a sight to behold - two wee happy bezzie mates filled to the brim with festive cheer and the anticipation that a belting big dinner was awaiting their consumption to round off the day. Soon Mrs P joined us and we each snaffled two small glasses of wine before heading off home to get the dinner on the go.
It was a terribly good natured day with lots of laughter and good will from friends and strangers alike as we made the short journey home. Unfastening zips and poppers and removing coats and hats, a knock on the door meant that more good friends and neighbours joined us for an impromptu drink around our kitchen table. As Robbie Burns is oft' quoted, from his To a Mouse poem "the best laid plans o' mice and men, often go awry". But not in this case for it was the first festive season that Mr and Mrs P were not slaving away managing our local inn as they had done for the previous four years before it was sold onwards to our current new owners; it was the first festive season as happy punters on the right side of the bar and as such, free to enjoy the day as the rest of us had done so for many a year before; it was a delight for us to share the day with them and the inclusion of our other neighbours into the mix was a delightful addition to the merriment and hilarity of the day; it is a happiness that our door is open enough for people to feel comfortable in paying a visit without a formal invitation to do so.
Dinner was grand and we ate too much but not so much that we were unbearably uncomfortable. A top up of the wine glasses and a mutual agreement to have the pudding later on, we left the table and settled down in our hugely comfortable recliner chairs to do nothing more taxing than idle contented chit chat and to watch a bit of telly. The twinkly glow of the white fairy lights of the silver, green and red baubled decorated Christmas tree, the soft shadowy light cast by the various burning candles coupled with relaxing scent of the real pine tree and the essential oils of the candles alongside the open coal fire created an atmosphere so tranquil that you'd be hard pushed to find any better an environment for which to de-stress and unwind. Such was the soporific effect of the food, wine, heat, scents and exhaustion from laughter it wasn't long before Mrs P, who works the hardest and longest of all of us, was gently slumbering with her head slumped back, feet up and a huge enigmatic smile on her face. This is not an unusual occurrence as Mrs P never stops until she stops and then she stops good - a wham bam thud like she has hit a brick wall at full pelt. For this she is forgiven; for this she is loved because it is simply her and the way she is; that she feels so comfortable in our midst is entirely right and proper to us for our home is her home for the short time she is conscious in it.
It wasn't long before I became aware that Mr P too had headed the same way as Mrs P. Given he had been drinking rather earlier in the day than myself and Mrs P he could be forgiven for needing a restorative nap. His chosen position was head slumped forward with his chin resting on his chest, arms resting by his side with his feet tucked in towards his body - he looked rather like he had been shot in a hit and run drive past. Himself and I smiled gently to each other for we like nothing better than our guests to pass out so that there is no squabbling over the remote control and we can get on with the business of watching what we want instead of being polite to them. Err, actually what I mean is that we are delighted that our two great pals, Mr and Mrs P are like family in that if they want a nap, then as with all of us, they just go ahead and no need to worry what others think as there is simply no need.
I sank back further in my super duper recliner and felt enormous contentment as I sipped my red wine and enjoyed the companionable silence broken by the low telly dialogue and the odd snore or two from the unconscious guests. It wasn't long though before a snort to my left indicated to me that himself had also taken a stroll off into the land of nod, no doubt frequenting with Mr and Mrs P in that hinterland of alcohol induced coma. Well, bugger me, Himself's chosen position to nod off in was with his body in full recline, head slumped to one side with his arms flailed outwards, two dogs slumped over him and acting as a further heat generator - and God only knows how he didn't start convulsing with a probable body temperature that would melt steel. It crossed my mind that he reminded me of a fallen murder victim and I was fair tempted to get a piece of chalk and make one of those chalk outlines on the black leather recliner for him to have a look at when he came round later on.
I sat up in my chair a bit and reviewed the scene before me. Feeling jolly merry from the wine I started to laugh and then the more I tried to stop it lest I wake them all, I started to laugh even harder to the point I almost wet myself trying to hold the laughter in. I kept stopping and starting and each time it became harder to keep any kind of control. "Fuck me", I said to myself through the laughter as I bit on my balled fist in an attempt to stem the rising hilarity. "It's like a fucking care home in here". The only thing missing was the smell of boiled cabbage and wee but I imagined that if I sat there any longer I would no doubt be supplying one of those odour's pretty soon if I couldn't control the laughter.
I needn't have worried about waking any of them. They were much too comfortable and content as was I. Y'see Mrs P and I have had a hard time of it over the past few years what with our simultaneous and joint suffering of the menopause. We have narked at each other, avoided each other when we wanted to rip each other's heads off. We've commiserated with each other about our severe symptoms, shared tips on what works and what to do when it suddenly doesn't and so on. We started off as great friends, our husbands are good friends and it works terrifically well. That's the thing about great friendship - it survives changes, trials, challenges and comes back together if it was ever worth a toss in the first place - we've successfully stayed the course and it is a better friendship for it. Now that we have things more under control, we laugh again, tease each other, help each other out and just enjoy the friendship. There is no one more like family or has earned the right to kip in my home after a good meal and a few drinks. God knows, if himself and me worked as hard as she does, we'd have no trouble falling asleep in her company and feeling no ill about it either.
Order was restored an hour or so later and we all retired to bed. They respectfully left around 8am the next morning and let us sleep in. We'd arranged to meet up at their place later that day where she returned the favour and made dinner, plied us with drink and was a terrific host. So there it was then, their first festive season as Joe Public instead of landlords and hopefully, they will remember it as fondly and with affection as we do. We've talked endlessly in the past about the four of us buying a retirement home in a hot country and retiring together. I saw a glimpse of that on Christmas day night, and do you know what? There's worse that can happen than to hole up, decrepit and disabled but with mates you can drop off in front of and have a laugh with when you come round again.
And so, determined that I would resist the constant moaning of himself that, "the pub had been opened about an hour or so already and that if we didn't get up there soon some cheeky no-mates kind of sad looser type who only visited the pub on Christmas day would have nicked our table by the inglenook open fireplace and we'd have to stand all day", I encouraged him to swan off up there with our good pal Mr P who with his lady wifie and other good pal Mrs P was due to come to dinner with us later in the day anyway. Having waved himself off before slamming the door on his arse to make sure he had cleared off, I continued with my planned ritual to remain at home thus peacefully bathing in ass's milk and contemplating prepping a few bits of nosh here and there so as to cut down on the domestic stuff whilst our guests were here later on. It was a civilised and joyful start to Christmas day as ever I have had. After a leisurely couple of hours, I made my way along the three minute journey between home and inn and entered a pub full of good cheer, high spirits and red nosed drinkers with contented almost sleepy smiles and glassy eyes making their slightly unsteady preparations of winter coat donning and the wrapping of chunkily knitted winter scarves around necks before warily braving the cold in the crisp but sunny day towards home for the Christmas lunches awaiting them.
Working my way through the by now thinning throng of drinkers, I soon located himself and Mr P sitting happily by the inglenook fireplace with contented little Guinness laden bellies, both sporting red Santa like shiny faces engendered from the heat of the fire and the consumption of mucho pinto's of beero. 'Twas a sight to behold - two wee happy bezzie mates filled to the brim with festive cheer and the anticipation that a belting big dinner was awaiting their consumption to round off the day. Soon Mrs P joined us and we each snaffled two small glasses of wine before heading off home to get the dinner on the go.
It was a terribly good natured day with lots of laughter and good will from friends and strangers alike as we made the short journey home. Unfastening zips and poppers and removing coats and hats, a knock on the door meant that more good friends and neighbours joined us for an impromptu drink around our kitchen table. As Robbie Burns is oft' quoted, from his To a Mouse poem "the best laid plans o' mice and men, often go awry". But not in this case for it was the first festive season that Mr and Mrs P were not slaving away managing our local inn as they had done for the previous four years before it was sold onwards to our current new owners; it was the first festive season as happy punters on the right side of the bar and as such, free to enjoy the day as the rest of us had done so for many a year before; it was a delight for us to share the day with them and the inclusion of our other neighbours into the mix was a delightful addition to the merriment and hilarity of the day; it is a happiness that our door is open enough for people to feel comfortable in paying a visit without a formal invitation to do so.
Dinner was grand and we ate too much but not so much that we were unbearably uncomfortable. A top up of the wine glasses and a mutual agreement to have the pudding later on, we left the table and settled down in our hugely comfortable recliner chairs to do nothing more taxing than idle contented chit chat and to watch a bit of telly. The twinkly glow of the white fairy lights of the silver, green and red baubled decorated Christmas tree, the soft shadowy light cast by the various burning candles coupled with relaxing scent of the real pine tree and the essential oils of the candles alongside the open coal fire created an atmosphere so tranquil that you'd be hard pushed to find any better an environment for which to de-stress and unwind. Such was the soporific effect of the food, wine, heat, scents and exhaustion from laughter it wasn't long before Mrs P, who works the hardest and longest of all of us, was gently slumbering with her head slumped back, feet up and a huge enigmatic smile on her face. This is not an unusual occurrence as Mrs P never stops until she stops and then she stops good - a wham bam thud like she has hit a brick wall at full pelt. For this she is forgiven; for this she is loved because it is simply her and the way she is; that she feels so comfortable in our midst is entirely right and proper to us for our home is her home for the short time she is conscious in it.
It wasn't long before I became aware that Mr P too had headed the same way as Mrs P. Given he had been drinking rather earlier in the day than myself and Mrs P he could be forgiven for needing a restorative nap. His chosen position was head slumped forward with his chin resting on his chest, arms resting by his side with his feet tucked in towards his body - he looked rather like he had been shot in a hit and run drive past. Himself and I smiled gently to each other for we like nothing better than our guests to pass out so that there is no squabbling over the remote control and we can get on with the business of watching what we want instead of being polite to them. Err, actually what I mean is that we are delighted that our two great pals, Mr and Mrs P are like family in that if they want a nap, then as with all of us, they just go ahead and no need to worry what others think as there is simply no need.
I sank back further in my super duper recliner and felt enormous contentment as I sipped my red wine and enjoyed the companionable silence broken by the low telly dialogue and the odd snore or two from the unconscious guests. It wasn't long though before a snort to my left indicated to me that himself had also taken a stroll off into the land of nod, no doubt frequenting with Mr and Mrs P in that hinterland of alcohol induced coma. Well, bugger me, Himself's chosen position to nod off in was with his body in full recline, head slumped to one side with his arms flailed outwards, two dogs slumped over him and acting as a further heat generator - and God only knows how he didn't start convulsing with a probable body temperature that would melt steel. It crossed my mind that he reminded me of a fallen murder victim and I was fair tempted to get a piece of chalk and make one of those chalk outlines on the black leather recliner for him to have a look at when he came round later on.
I sat up in my chair a bit and reviewed the scene before me. Feeling jolly merry from the wine I started to laugh and then the more I tried to stop it lest I wake them all, I started to laugh even harder to the point I almost wet myself trying to hold the laughter in. I kept stopping and starting and each time it became harder to keep any kind of control. "Fuck me", I said to myself through the laughter as I bit on my balled fist in an attempt to stem the rising hilarity. "It's like a fucking care home in here". The only thing missing was the smell of boiled cabbage and wee but I imagined that if I sat there any longer I would no doubt be supplying one of those odour's pretty soon if I couldn't control the laughter.
I needn't have worried about waking any of them. They were much too comfortable and content as was I. Y'see Mrs P and I have had a hard time of it over the past few years what with our simultaneous and joint suffering of the menopause. We have narked at each other, avoided each other when we wanted to rip each other's heads off. We've commiserated with each other about our severe symptoms, shared tips on what works and what to do when it suddenly doesn't and so on. We started off as great friends, our husbands are good friends and it works terrifically well. That's the thing about great friendship - it survives changes, trials, challenges and comes back together if it was ever worth a toss in the first place - we've successfully stayed the course and it is a better friendship for it. Now that we have things more under control, we laugh again, tease each other, help each other out and just enjoy the friendship. There is no one more like family or has earned the right to kip in my home after a good meal and a few drinks. God knows, if himself and me worked as hard as she does, we'd have no trouble falling asleep in her company and feeling no ill about it either.
Order was restored an hour or so later and we all retired to bed. They respectfully left around 8am the next morning and let us sleep in. We'd arranged to meet up at their place later that day where she returned the favour and made dinner, plied us with drink and was a terrific host. So there it was then, their first festive season as Joe Public instead of landlords and hopefully, they will remember it as fondly and with affection as we do. We've talked endlessly in the past about the four of us buying a retirement home in a hot country and retiring together. I saw a glimpse of that on Christmas day night, and do you know what? There's worse that can happen than to hole up, decrepit and disabled but with mates you can drop off in front of and have a laugh with when you come round again.
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Happy Christmas everyone..........
............except the deranged Politically Correct movement who would rather burn a couple of thousand Christians at the stake instead.......
I'm still seething, even after reading it over two weeks ago; can't quite believe it really, can't quite get my head around it all; I'd happily borrow my neighbours rifle and go out and hunt down a few politically correct eejits and bag a few heads for my collection - not that I have one but I am seriously thinking of starting one - you know, a rogues gallery of heads of the seriously dim-witted, the seriously misguided, the perennially arrogant, ignorant pompous idiots that promote bigotry and censorship under the name of 'political correctness'.
I live in a beautiful Northamptonshire village in a picturesque part of what is quintessentially English - surrounded by sprawling green farmland that is sometimes laid to waves of intensely beautiful yellow rape flowers as far as the eye can see; long scenic walks shared by people, horses, dogs and wildlife alike and tranquil woodland with a carpet of crisp fallen leaves and twigs underfoot that crackle as you tread carefully through it. The village is populated with the usual mixture of thatched and Victorian cottages, a large manse now privately owned, a general hotchpotch of individually designed 70's 80's and 90's housing and a smattering of social housing - mostly all very tastefully, sympathetically and architecturally accurate for the soul of the village. We are blessed with our beautiful parish church, of which the chancel is built in the decorated style, and parts of it dating back to the 12th century. The church sits resplendent atop a hill at the west end of my village whilst overlooking our sister village; both flanking its beautiful grounds and well tended grave yard. It is a building of immense history, meaning and tranquilly. Just inside the south door stands the Norman font of which the base and cover is Victorian. The tower houses 6 bells and a Sanctus bell, which can be heard pealing when the dedicated campanologists gather for their weekly practice in readiness to call those worshippers to come forth for those early Sunday services before repairing to our 17th century inn for a well deserved snort or two after practice completes. In addition to the five 17th century peal bells, a treble was added in 1946 as a memorial to those brave men and women who died in our name in the second world war; it was also dedicated as a thanksgiving for those who returned home safely.
The central tenets of the church and Christianity have informed the way of life around here for centuries. It has presided over the union of lovers making a commitment in God's eyes. welcomed the newborns to be christened into a way of life that will inform their every moral decision, allows the faithful to give thanks for life and its blessings and to pray for the sick and disadvantaged, it gives the grieving a place to hand over their loved ones to God for safekeeping until they see them again; the church service being a deeply meaningful and healing requirement for helping a family, a community come to terms with a loss whilst finding the strength to support each other, move on with their lives and bring up the next generation. The grave yard houses ancient and imposing family vaults through to simple plaques attached to a discrete wall in memory of a loved one lost. Generations of the same family names can be seen etched on faded and newer gravestones clustered together around family plots. People walk their dogs through here and often there is a lone figure tending to a grave of a loved one as they are lost in their reflections, oblivious to our intrusion in their grief. The rustic pathway through the church grounds and onto the warren links the two villages that are intrinsically related through poverty, hardship, economic growth, a sense of history and a church and society that preached a sharing of beliefs, goals, values and culture; simpler times where the statement 'it takes a village to raise a child' was at the very core of its commitment to the family. To all intents and purposes that maxim still has some value here today.
The church is much too big now, for the village attendance numbers, once substantial, have dwindled greatly over the years. As a result, services are shared alternately between a few other village parishes served by one vicar where before each village luxuriated in the services of a dedicated one. Although this is the case, also at the centre of our village is the beautiful C of E junior school which still teaches and operates to the tenets of Christianity. People may not attend church as they used to but they fight tooth and nail to have their children taught at one of the best schools in England; a school so quintessentially English that you would believe that time had stood still and that it was preserved in the aspic of the genteel beliefs and practices of the 1950's generation; by this I mean it is bang up to date in its teaching of the national curriculum but class sizes are small, results are very good, the children are well mannered, parents who live in the village walk their children to school and collect them at the end of the school day; the children participate in the village fete, dance around the maypole, raise funds for the school with cake baking days, open evenings and it is a safe environment for them to play out after school until being hailed indoors exhausted and starving to gobble down tea at a rate of knots. The children learn a sense of community, a sense of belonging, a true sense of Christian values and what it means to be a good member of society. The people who buy into our village and indeed the surrounding villages, our churches and schools are buying into a lifestyle that has worked for thousands of years. We live by a belief system that isn't perfect because human beings are imperfect and some will interpret laws to benefit themselves, but it is a system and culture that is largely kind, caring, inclusive and a jolly wonderful thing quite a lot of the time.
The demographics of this village and surrounding villages are predominantly white with Christian values. There is not a huge influx of diverse ethnic minorities, (I hate that term - it is exclusive by its very name and creates cultural divisions so much loved by the politically correct - it gives them a demographic of people to patronise where they were never asked to interfere on their behalf in the first place). There are two market towns that flank our villages where locals shop to support our local economies where possible - a variety of people own and manage the shops. The minority of people who chose to move here, or are born here to second and third generation immigrants embrace the lifestyle, values and culture and believe themselves to be British. They do not wish to be singled out for preferential treatment or to be patronised because they are 'different'.
But here's the rub, our village newsletter contained the following message:
'Those of you who wish to buy postage stamps from the town post office, please note; If you wish to buy stamps with a Christian theme, you must ask for these as they are not allowed to advertise them' .
Dear God almighty. I find this politically correct abuse quite awful. These people are tyrants who are bigoted against their own kind, see inequality where it just doesn't exist and create inequality by making Christians feel dirty somehow for following a belief system that this country's culture was founded upon and is still practiced today. I am deeply offended by the PC's reckless belief that by allowing us to celebrate Christmas is somehow offensive to others who practice a different religion and as such we are driven underground to ask for some effing stamps under the counter. Before you know it we'll be holding secret meetings and practicing Christianity in hovels while the PC brigade torch our homes and meeting places as they attempt to destroy the very fabric of our society.
I am more than happy to not just recognise but to join in the celebrations of Dewali - the festival of lights where Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism, adherents of these faiths, celebrate freely and in joy. I am certainly not offended by other faiths or the people having the freedom to worship in whatever way they wish. I truly embrace the differences that cultural and religious beliefs bring but underpinning that tapestry of differences is human nature; a need to be loved, wanted, embraced, included and accepted no matter what you believe or practice. All religious beliefs should be tolerated and incorporated into British life. But I am deeply bloody offended however that I am being censored by idiots who have deemed Christianity offensive. These are scary fucking people who are oppressive and dictatorial in their approach. To subvert the Christian religion on my behalf when I wasn't even consulted is not their right. Neither do they have the right to insist their bigoted small minded viewpoint is superior to mine and as such impose it upon those of us with a more tolerant, educated and open minded approach to life. Christianity is about tolerance of all creeds and colours and cultures, not the subversion of any. I believe the subversion of a culture and belief system of a large demographic of several million people was responsible for major atrocities that started the second world war - recognise the signs anyone?
Our freedoms of speech are being eroded daily. The PC create divisive communities and intolerance where alternatively, good sense, human nature, tolerance of others absorbs all into one community - one that can have diverse beliefs but one that allows all and sundry to practice their beliefs without destabilising the community as one religion is promoted at the expense of another.
I am sickened that to voice my disgust against such subversion is called racist. These PC eejits are being racist against me by subverting my belief system, by taking away my freedom of speech to rail against that and as such my my right to accuse them of being the real racists by their verbal acts of vandalism. They are intellectually incapable of a proper debate on how we create an inclusive culture - they somehow believe that to subvert Christianity and the celebration of our holy days is to create equality. How the hell do you work that one out eh, when every other religion can celebrate theirs but we Christians cannot? By all means take religion out of politics and create a secular society if you must but don't tell me that I cannot openly buy a religious themed stamp from my local post office unless I wear a disguise, whisper my intentions, go around the side entrance and recant my religious beliefs as I hand over the dosh in exchange for such illegal booty. Should I now worry that perhaps some guy working at the sorting office is of a different religion and as such he will be deeply offended by handling my letter with the stamp of the baby Jesus on it? Should I feel deeply apologetic that the same stamp might make the non-Christian postman or indeed the agnostic postman fly into a rage and claim compensation at having to deal with the scarring after effects of having to see a religious symbol on an envelope and been totally traumatised at having to handle it?
Perhaps I should lead a campaign to have the war memorial outside our church bulldozed because our war dead hero's were remembered and celebrated under the auspices of Christianity? Perhaps we should sell the church and convert it into exclusive flats for the PC to live in so they can remind themselves how they destroyed a civilisation of loving tolerant people by their own hateful, intolerant doctrines. Thank God for the sensible, calming, educated voice of Trevor Phillips at the Commission for Racial Equality. He is almost a lone voice and champion of the sensible amongst a sea of nutters.
Two fingers to the lot of you PC numpty's and shame on you.
Happy Christmas and good cheer to all denominations and a very unchristian plague of boils on the arses of the politically correct movement and may your next shit be a hedgehog. May your Trotskyite tendencies be eradicated as quickly as your hot air nonsense dissipates.
I'm still seething, even after reading it over two weeks ago; can't quite believe it really, can't quite get my head around it all; I'd happily borrow my neighbours rifle and go out and hunt down a few politically correct eejits and bag a few heads for my collection - not that I have one but I am seriously thinking of starting one - you know, a rogues gallery of heads of the seriously dim-witted, the seriously misguided, the perennially arrogant, ignorant pompous idiots that promote bigotry and censorship under the name of 'political correctness'.
I live in a beautiful Northamptonshire village in a picturesque part of what is quintessentially English - surrounded by sprawling green farmland that is sometimes laid to waves of intensely beautiful yellow rape flowers as far as the eye can see; long scenic walks shared by people, horses, dogs and wildlife alike and tranquil woodland with a carpet of crisp fallen leaves and twigs underfoot that crackle as you tread carefully through it. The village is populated with the usual mixture of thatched and Victorian cottages, a large manse now privately owned, a general hotchpotch of individually designed 70's 80's and 90's housing and a smattering of social housing - mostly all very tastefully, sympathetically and architecturally accurate for the soul of the village. We are blessed with our beautiful parish church, of which the chancel is built in the decorated style, and parts of it dating back to the 12th century. The church sits resplendent atop a hill at the west end of my village whilst overlooking our sister village; both flanking its beautiful grounds and well tended grave yard. It is a building of immense history, meaning and tranquilly. Just inside the south door stands the Norman font of which the base and cover is Victorian. The tower houses 6 bells and a Sanctus bell, which can be heard pealing when the dedicated campanologists gather for their weekly practice in readiness to call those worshippers to come forth for those early Sunday services before repairing to our 17th century inn for a well deserved snort or two after practice completes. In addition to the five 17th century peal bells, a treble was added in 1946 as a memorial to those brave men and women who died in our name in the second world war; it was also dedicated as a thanksgiving for those who returned home safely.
The central tenets of the church and Christianity have informed the way of life around here for centuries. It has presided over the union of lovers making a commitment in God's eyes. welcomed the newborns to be christened into a way of life that will inform their every moral decision, allows the faithful to give thanks for life and its blessings and to pray for the sick and disadvantaged, it gives the grieving a place to hand over their loved ones to God for safekeeping until they see them again; the church service being a deeply meaningful and healing requirement for helping a family, a community come to terms with a loss whilst finding the strength to support each other, move on with their lives and bring up the next generation. The grave yard houses ancient and imposing family vaults through to simple plaques attached to a discrete wall in memory of a loved one lost. Generations of the same family names can be seen etched on faded and newer gravestones clustered together around family plots. People walk their dogs through here and often there is a lone figure tending to a grave of a loved one as they are lost in their reflections, oblivious to our intrusion in their grief. The rustic pathway through the church grounds and onto the warren links the two villages that are intrinsically related through poverty, hardship, economic growth, a sense of history and a church and society that preached a sharing of beliefs, goals, values and culture; simpler times where the statement 'it takes a village to raise a child' was at the very core of its commitment to the family. To all intents and purposes that maxim still has some value here today.
The church is much too big now, for the village attendance numbers, once substantial, have dwindled greatly over the years. As a result, services are shared alternately between a few other village parishes served by one vicar where before each village luxuriated in the services of a dedicated one. Although this is the case, also at the centre of our village is the beautiful C of E junior school which still teaches and operates to the tenets of Christianity. People may not attend church as they used to but they fight tooth and nail to have their children taught at one of the best schools in England; a school so quintessentially English that you would believe that time had stood still and that it was preserved in the aspic of the genteel beliefs and practices of the 1950's generation; by this I mean it is bang up to date in its teaching of the national curriculum but class sizes are small, results are very good, the children are well mannered, parents who live in the village walk their children to school and collect them at the end of the school day; the children participate in the village fete, dance around the maypole, raise funds for the school with cake baking days, open evenings and it is a safe environment for them to play out after school until being hailed indoors exhausted and starving to gobble down tea at a rate of knots. The children learn a sense of community, a sense of belonging, a true sense of Christian values and what it means to be a good member of society. The people who buy into our village and indeed the surrounding villages, our churches and schools are buying into a lifestyle that has worked for thousands of years. We live by a belief system that isn't perfect because human beings are imperfect and some will interpret laws to benefit themselves, but it is a system and culture that is largely kind, caring, inclusive and a jolly wonderful thing quite a lot of the time.
The demographics of this village and surrounding villages are predominantly white with Christian values. There is not a huge influx of diverse ethnic minorities, (I hate that term - it is exclusive by its very name and creates cultural divisions so much loved by the politically correct - it gives them a demographic of people to patronise where they were never asked to interfere on their behalf in the first place). There are two market towns that flank our villages where locals shop to support our local economies where possible - a variety of people own and manage the shops. The minority of people who chose to move here, or are born here to second and third generation immigrants embrace the lifestyle, values and culture and believe themselves to be British. They do not wish to be singled out for preferential treatment or to be patronised because they are 'different'.
But here's the rub, our village newsletter contained the following message:
'Those of you who wish to buy postage stamps from the town post office, please note; If you wish to buy stamps with a Christian theme, you must ask for these as they are not allowed to advertise them' .
Dear God almighty. I find this politically correct abuse quite awful. These people are tyrants who are bigoted against their own kind, see inequality where it just doesn't exist and create inequality by making Christians feel dirty somehow for following a belief system that this country's culture was founded upon and is still practiced today. I am deeply offended by the PC's reckless belief that by allowing us to celebrate Christmas is somehow offensive to others who practice a different religion and as such we are driven underground to ask for some effing stamps under the counter. Before you know it we'll be holding secret meetings and practicing Christianity in hovels while the PC brigade torch our homes and meeting places as they attempt to destroy the very fabric of our society.
I am more than happy to not just recognise but to join in the celebrations of Dewali - the festival of lights where Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism, adherents of these faiths, celebrate freely and in joy. I am certainly not offended by other faiths or the people having the freedom to worship in whatever way they wish. I truly embrace the differences that cultural and religious beliefs bring but underpinning that tapestry of differences is human nature; a need to be loved, wanted, embraced, included and accepted no matter what you believe or practice. All religious beliefs should be tolerated and incorporated into British life. But I am deeply bloody offended however that I am being censored by idiots who have deemed Christianity offensive. These are scary fucking people who are oppressive and dictatorial in their approach. To subvert the Christian religion on my behalf when I wasn't even consulted is not their right. Neither do they have the right to insist their bigoted small minded viewpoint is superior to mine and as such impose it upon those of us with a more tolerant, educated and open minded approach to life. Christianity is about tolerance of all creeds and colours and cultures, not the subversion of any. I believe the subversion of a culture and belief system of a large demographic of several million people was responsible for major atrocities that started the second world war - recognise the signs anyone?
Our freedoms of speech are being eroded daily. The PC create divisive communities and intolerance where alternatively, good sense, human nature, tolerance of others absorbs all into one community - one that can have diverse beliefs but one that allows all and sundry to practice their beliefs without destabilising the community as one religion is promoted at the expense of another.
I am sickened that to voice my disgust against such subversion is called racist. These PC eejits are being racist against me by subverting my belief system, by taking away my freedom of speech to rail against that and as such my my right to accuse them of being the real racists by their verbal acts of vandalism. They are intellectually incapable of a proper debate on how we create an inclusive culture - they somehow believe that to subvert Christianity and the celebration of our holy days is to create equality. How the hell do you work that one out eh, when every other religion can celebrate theirs but we Christians cannot? By all means take religion out of politics and create a secular society if you must but don't tell me that I cannot openly buy a religious themed stamp from my local post office unless I wear a disguise, whisper my intentions, go around the side entrance and recant my religious beliefs as I hand over the dosh in exchange for such illegal booty. Should I now worry that perhaps some guy working at the sorting office is of a different religion and as such he will be deeply offended by handling my letter with the stamp of the baby Jesus on it? Should I feel deeply apologetic that the same stamp might make the non-Christian postman or indeed the agnostic postman fly into a rage and claim compensation at having to deal with the scarring after effects of having to see a religious symbol on an envelope and been totally traumatised at having to handle it?
Perhaps I should lead a campaign to have the war memorial outside our church bulldozed because our war dead hero's were remembered and celebrated under the auspices of Christianity? Perhaps we should sell the church and convert it into exclusive flats for the PC to live in so they can remind themselves how they destroyed a civilisation of loving tolerant people by their own hateful, intolerant doctrines. Thank God for the sensible, calming, educated voice of Trevor Phillips at the Commission for Racial Equality. He is almost a lone voice and champion of the sensible amongst a sea of nutters.
Two fingers to the lot of you PC numpty's and shame on you.
Happy Christmas and good cheer to all denominations and a very unchristian plague of boils on the arses of the politically correct movement and may your next shit be a hedgehog. May your Trotskyite tendencies be eradicated as quickly as your hot air nonsense dissipates.
Saturday, 1 November 2008
A Blast From the Past.....
I opened my desktop email as I do every morning and on seeing the ‘Receiving Mail’ message kick in on the task bar at the bottom of my screen, I waited for the usual mix of round-robin jokey mails that mostly I can live without because they are about as funny as lacerating your piles on a broken glass; couple those with the odd spam about enlarging my penis, (nope I don't have one in case you are wondering), to the length and girth of a Jedi Knight’s lightsaber, (imagine that girls – massively erect, lit up in the dark and being waved at you from five feet away; you could probably have the orgasm of your life followed by a quick hysterectomy and superb cauterisation to minimize the bleeding, come to think of it you could probably have a fairly successful tonsillectomy into the bargain and not even be in the same room as your well endowed lover); add to that a selection of pointless marketing shite about everything you will never need in this life like a fake Rolex watch with an X Factor winner’s face on it and of course besides some wee thieving arsehole trying to con you out of your Abbey savings account balance there is always the ultimate in emails – the fecking death threat chain emails promising you great suffering from the relatively simple boils on your arse infliction to a total wipe-out of your family, business and life as you know it threat if you don’t forward it to 3.2 million people in the next 5 nanoseconds. Like I give a rats ass about them but it does cheese me off that people perpetuate the fear factor and forward them to people they profess to love and care for – oh yeah? So how come you’ve just sent me an email promising torture of unimaginable proportions if I don’t send it on and then you finish off with a salutation of:
‘Hope all is well with you,
Talk soon,
Love,
The mental case that just sent this’.
So erm, how does that work then eh?
But hey, all that crap aside, you might just get lucky and eventually get a golden nugget of an email from family, good friends and old acquaintances that are a joy to read. Lets face it, for all its misuse, email when used for its intended purpose can be magical. It is quite simply the naughties version of the love letter and has encouraged millions driven apart by circumstances to put pen to paper or at least key to document and articulate things they might not have thought of saying in our time poor society.
Well anyway enough pontificating, bugger me, there I was last week firing up the desktop to welcome this array of communication excellence into my home whilst I sauntered off to brush the old gnashers in readiness of having a smile here and there or at the very least a grimace at some old crap that I had to delete - actually if I could get my hands on the wee sods that think I am stupid enough to send them all my bank and family details ranging back to the early 19th century so they can perform an online mugging of my bank accounts I would gladly pull their teeth out one by one in the style of the dentist in the Marathon Man movie where poor old Dustin Hoffman doesn’t look much like he’s enjoying it. For feck sake, that movie set back dentistry about thirty years, as if it needed it. Personally I like to cling to my dentist’s nuts with a tightened bulldog clip whilst he insists on drilling into some deeply soft tissue and jaw bone with a piece of hardened steel that was last used on a construction site. We usually come to an understanding that if he hurts me then he doesn’t get off too lightly himself. Actually this is a piece of artistic license here because my dentist reads my blog and I want him to see it in black and white that I'll come after him and there is no hiding place in this world if he hurts me bad - ever again. It took him ages to find the blog - he kept looking for Genocaushaloldgag - well Christ he'd ask me what it was called when he had a whole fecking denitistry tool kit lodged in my open and by now three foot wide stretched gob - what the hell did he expect? Perfect enunciation whilst I was choking on my own spit?
Anyway, as usual I digress. Incoming email trickled in one by one and settled into a list of twenty or so. One caught my eye simply because it was so unique. ‘ Calling all LDCers’ was the title. My heart skipped a beat and I re-read the title before double clicking on it. “This is going to be interesting”, I thought and I was right. LDC was Sperry Univac’s London Development Centre from the early seventies through to the mid 80’s before it was then dismantled and moved to Milton Keynes. During that time, over 200 of us worked as computer software programmers, hardware engineers, analysts, designers, operators and a big support staff for one of the most exciting and innovative American I.T. manufacturers of its time. It was a place that housed such immense talent and skills and incredible personalities that it would be hard to replicate it today.
HEALTH WARNING - NON TECHNICAL READERS SHOULD SKIP FORWARD OVER THE NEXT PARAGRAPH HERE PARTICULARLY IF YOU OWN A GUN - DON'T READ ON BECAUSE YOU MAY WANT TO SHOOT YOURSELF SHORTLY AFTERWARDS.
It was unique in its time in that the centre was at the forefront of technology, science and physics in inventing and developing the early I.T. systems that are the great great grandparents of the totally sophisticated desktops and laptops of today. Crikey, when we started programming we used Assembler, ASM, then Meta Assembler MASM, Plus, PL1 and eventually FORTRAN and COBOL, 1st, 2nd and third generation languages but then to talk about this technical stuff really is to bore for Britain and America about programming languages. But those with an interest will fondly recall having a punch room full of girls who translated coding sheets onto 80 and 132 column punch cards which were the programmes of the day. These soon gave way to the terminal – a green Cathode Ray Tube with a keyboard which allowed us to type our code into files and run them as a batch run. We were known as the ‘Green Tuber’ generation of I.T. and those green tubes, thanks to the likes of Bill Gates, evolved into the PC’s that we use today.
GOT THIS FAR WITHOUT TOPPING YOURSELF? AWARD YOURSELF 10 GOLD STARS AND DO THE SENSIBLE THING, DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR AND FECK OFF AND READ SOMETHING ELSE OF CONSEQUENCE THAT WON'T STRIP YOU OF THE WILL TO LIVE.
Sperry Univac being the multinational corporation that it was employed a plethora of cultures, nationalities and people from the very wealthy to the very poor but all had a lust for computers and a talent to match - I couldn't believe my luck being employed alongside these great people. London Development Centre, (LDC), had a reputation for excellence, working hard and playing hard and copious amounts of alcohol were consumed over at Charlie’s Prince of Wales, (POW), pub just a skip away over the road from the office. Just for a change now and again, we’d all head off to the Queens Railway Tavern, (QRT), to snort a few gallons of booze there. We firmly believed in keeping the local economy on an even keel and spread our embarrassingly large earnings between the pubs that let us partake of lengthy lock-ins to the extent you practically just rolled back to work the next day rather than go home first. Such was our reputation, people clamoured to get assignments to this place which was a grand melting pot and only language we needed in common was the programming languages we used and a common bond to create the best products in the world - or so we thought anyway!
Humour played a huge part in keeping us going on the long days we worked. Friendships were forged that last to this day. Relationships were made and broken and made again in the biggest dating agency going at that time. I married my first husband, divorced him, met and lived with my second long term partner then broke up and fell in love with another who was never going to be mine because neither of us was free at the same time - and all of them from the same work environment. This was typical of the environment as we all worked long hours and travelled a lot and we saw more of anyone from work than we ever did of friends and family. It was simply an extended university environment and we had some of the best years of our personal and career lives whilst working there.
I saw the world from that office in London Paddington. Both in terms of the differing cultures working there and on the assignments we were sent on overseas. No matter where you went on assignment there was usually someone based there that you knew and nights on the town were the order of the day. There are a thousand adventures I could write about but I won’t bore you with these right now.
And so, yes this email is a golden nugget, a real gem and one that makes having all the other old tat come in worth it in the long run. This email has generated a thousand memories, smiles, reflections on a time gone by and it’s raked up some deeply buried moments that are a joy to rediscover. The point of the email?.........There is to be a reunion next year. As I read through the list of email names it has been sent to, I felt the most immense joy at the thought of seeing so many of these people again. In particular, one name stands out - the second person that I fell in love with. He’s on the list, flew in from overseas for the last reunion which I couldn’t attend so will more than likely be at the next given the amount of notice we have been given this time round.
Will I attend? You bet I will but I think Himself will probably attend with me! He trusts me and is comfortable with me going along on my own but you know, I'd like him to meet some of the finest people that I have known that influenced me greatly in my most formative years; people that I have so much in common with, a shared history and a chance to renew those friendships that got shelved as our profession and industry took a battering and we moved onto pastures new.
And what of those death threat chain emails that I get sent? I usually email the sender and ask them not to send me these emails but if they ignore my requests, then I just send it back to the person that sent it to me.....Keeps them paranoid wondering what the hell to do with it now and I get a laugh out of it!
‘Hope all is well with you,
Talk soon,
Love,
The mental case that just sent this’.
So erm, how does that work then eh?
But hey, all that crap aside, you might just get lucky and eventually get a golden nugget of an email from family, good friends and old acquaintances that are a joy to read. Lets face it, for all its misuse, email when used for its intended purpose can be magical. It is quite simply the naughties version of the love letter and has encouraged millions driven apart by circumstances to put pen to paper or at least key to document and articulate things they might not have thought of saying in our time poor society.
Well anyway enough pontificating, bugger me, there I was last week firing up the desktop to welcome this array of communication excellence into my home whilst I sauntered off to brush the old gnashers in readiness of having a smile here and there or at the very least a grimace at some old crap that I had to delete - actually if I could get my hands on the wee sods that think I am stupid enough to send them all my bank and family details ranging back to the early 19th century so they can perform an online mugging of my bank accounts I would gladly pull their teeth out one by one in the style of the dentist in the Marathon Man movie where poor old Dustin Hoffman doesn’t look much like he’s enjoying it. For feck sake, that movie set back dentistry about thirty years, as if it needed it. Personally I like to cling to my dentist’s nuts with a tightened bulldog clip whilst he insists on drilling into some deeply soft tissue and jaw bone with a piece of hardened steel that was last used on a construction site. We usually come to an understanding that if he hurts me then he doesn’t get off too lightly himself. Actually this is a piece of artistic license here because my dentist reads my blog and I want him to see it in black and white that I'll come after him and there is no hiding place in this world if he hurts me bad - ever again. It took him ages to find the blog - he kept looking for Genocaushaloldgag - well Christ he'd ask me what it was called when he had a whole fecking denitistry tool kit lodged in my open and by now three foot wide stretched gob - what the hell did he expect? Perfect enunciation whilst I was choking on my own spit?
Anyway, as usual I digress. Incoming email trickled in one by one and settled into a list of twenty or so. One caught my eye simply because it was so unique. ‘ Calling all LDCers’ was the title. My heart skipped a beat and I re-read the title before double clicking on it. “This is going to be interesting”, I thought and I was right. LDC was Sperry Univac’s London Development Centre from the early seventies through to the mid 80’s before it was then dismantled and moved to Milton Keynes. During that time, over 200 of us worked as computer software programmers, hardware engineers, analysts, designers, operators and a big support staff for one of the most exciting and innovative American I.T. manufacturers of its time. It was a place that housed such immense talent and skills and incredible personalities that it would be hard to replicate it today.
HEALTH WARNING - NON TECHNICAL READERS SHOULD SKIP FORWARD OVER THE NEXT PARAGRAPH HERE PARTICULARLY IF YOU OWN A GUN - DON'T READ ON BECAUSE YOU MAY WANT TO SHOOT YOURSELF SHORTLY AFTERWARDS.
It was unique in its time in that the centre was at the forefront of technology, science and physics in inventing and developing the early I.T. systems that are the great great grandparents of the totally sophisticated desktops and laptops of today. Crikey, when we started programming we used Assembler, ASM, then Meta Assembler MASM, Plus, PL1 and eventually FORTRAN and COBOL, 1st, 2nd and third generation languages but then to talk about this technical stuff really is to bore for Britain and America about programming languages. But those with an interest will fondly recall having a punch room full of girls who translated coding sheets onto 80 and 132 column punch cards which were the programmes of the day. These soon gave way to the terminal – a green Cathode Ray Tube with a keyboard which allowed us to type our code into files and run them as a batch run. We were known as the ‘Green Tuber’ generation of I.T. and those green tubes, thanks to the likes of Bill Gates, evolved into the PC’s that we use today.
GOT THIS FAR WITHOUT TOPPING YOURSELF? AWARD YOURSELF 10 GOLD STARS AND DO THE SENSIBLE THING, DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR AND FECK OFF AND READ SOMETHING ELSE OF CONSEQUENCE THAT WON'T STRIP YOU OF THE WILL TO LIVE.
Sperry Univac being the multinational corporation that it was employed a plethora of cultures, nationalities and people from the very wealthy to the very poor but all had a lust for computers and a talent to match - I couldn't believe my luck being employed alongside these great people. London Development Centre, (LDC), had a reputation for excellence, working hard and playing hard and copious amounts of alcohol were consumed over at Charlie’s Prince of Wales, (POW), pub just a skip away over the road from the office. Just for a change now and again, we’d all head off to the Queens Railway Tavern, (QRT), to snort a few gallons of booze there. We firmly believed in keeping the local economy on an even keel and spread our embarrassingly large earnings between the pubs that let us partake of lengthy lock-ins to the extent you practically just rolled back to work the next day rather than go home first. Such was our reputation, people clamoured to get assignments to this place which was a grand melting pot and only language we needed in common was the programming languages we used and a common bond to create the best products in the world - or so we thought anyway!
Humour played a huge part in keeping us going on the long days we worked. Friendships were forged that last to this day. Relationships were made and broken and made again in the biggest dating agency going at that time. I married my first husband, divorced him, met and lived with my second long term partner then broke up and fell in love with another who was never going to be mine because neither of us was free at the same time - and all of them from the same work environment. This was typical of the environment as we all worked long hours and travelled a lot and we saw more of anyone from work than we ever did of friends and family. It was simply an extended university environment and we had some of the best years of our personal and career lives whilst working there.
I saw the world from that office in London Paddington. Both in terms of the differing cultures working there and on the assignments we were sent on overseas. No matter where you went on assignment there was usually someone based there that you knew and nights on the town were the order of the day. There are a thousand adventures I could write about but I won’t bore you with these right now.
And so, yes this email is a golden nugget, a real gem and one that makes having all the other old tat come in worth it in the long run. This email has generated a thousand memories, smiles, reflections on a time gone by and it’s raked up some deeply buried moments that are a joy to rediscover. The point of the email?.........There is to be a reunion next year. As I read through the list of email names it has been sent to, I felt the most immense joy at the thought of seeing so many of these people again. In particular, one name stands out - the second person that I fell in love with. He’s on the list, flew in from overseas for the last reunion which I couldn’t attend so will more than likely be at the next given the amount of notice we have been given this time round.
Will I attend? You bet I will but I think Himself will probably attend with me! He trusts me and is comfortable with me going along on my own but you know, I'd like him to meet some of the finest people that I have known that influenced me greatly in my most formative years; people that I have so much in common with, a shared history and a chance to renew those friendships that got shelved as our profession and industry took a battering and we moved onto pastures new.
And what of those death threat chain emails that I get sent? I usually email the sender and ask them not to send me these emails but if they ignore my requests, then I just send it back to the person that sent it to me.....Keeps them paranoid wondering what the hell to do with it now and I get a laugh out of it!
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Love is............
Love is....
How you blend in some misapplied make-up on the side of my nose and then just keep caressing it because you love my nose, then you bend to kiss it no matter who is around to see.
The way you take care of me and protect me when I’m vulnerable and need your arms as a shield.
When I mention a song that I like and you come home with the CD for me a day or two later.
That you laugh at my humour then make me laugh more at yours until my sides ache and tears run down my face.
The way your love acts like a balm that washes over my bruised and battered heart and strengthens it.
Staying around for the long haul through the menopausal struggle and supporting me because you knew and loved the real me first and knew I’d come back.
How when I was in the midst of the menopause and in the bad old days before the HRT started to work we went to Costco and I realised I was out in my slippers like a bewildered old fart who had escaped from a care home you just smiled, told me I looked great and said at least I'd be comfortable strolling about the big store then hugged me.
The way you wrap me in gossamer and make me feel secure when things feel wobbly from time to time.
The way you anchor me to life; the way I’m grounded by just being with you; the way your strength is contagious.
Your forgiving heart that loves me almost unconditionally no matter how horrible I was in the last three years.
The way you teased me because I said I was going to cry when we made our vows and on the day you were the one who choked and couldn't talk because you got all emotional. You almost ripped my heart out because I was so touched that you could show such emotion in front of so many people.
Watching you sleep and hearing you breathe next to me and making me grateful for the extra heartbeat that you bring.
Snuggling up to you in bed because you radiate heat like a furnace and let me warm up my frostbitten tootsies on you.
Trying not to moan that I have to wear breathing apparatus and get like a firefighter because you are forever cremating food when I let you loose in the kitchen.
Getting excited that I can hear your key in the front door when you come home safely because I know when I'm not in the car with you, you drive like you are in the Monte Carlo rally.
Trying not to wrap my hands around your throat because for the umpteenth time you took your used cup to the kitchen, left it on the newly cleaned worktop over the dishwasher. Love is trying to understand how you got all the way in there and fell at the last hurdle by not actually getting your cup into the dishwasher. What's that all about then eh?
Always lowering the toilet seat and realising you must get just as frustrated that the seat is always down and having to raise it.
Having separate bathrooms, separate toothpaste tubes and no moaning about who squeezes the tube from the middle.
Love is knowing that if you are taken before me that every habit I find annoying will become a reminder of the person who is no longer here, a reminder of the loss I have to bear, a sign that each habit was a bit of you that populated my world and that instead of grumbling about it, I should have embraced it and celebrated it. So my dear husband, for one day and one day only you get to do every annoying thing you ever wanted to do and have complete amnesty thereafter but for 24 hours only......... Oh sod it, do your worst for as long as you want. One day the clear worktop with the missing cup, the lack of black acrid smoke and the burnt food odours, the toilet seat always being down and the ensuing interminable silence will taunt me that I wasted time moaning at you needlessly when all I should have done was love you.
Love is.........Living with my best friend, lover, husband..........
So my darling for the 16th of October happy 4th wedding anniversary my hunkymanthing. Love is? Simply loving you warts and all as you do me.
Here’s our song.....Click on here and play it and if you don’t get all dewy eyed and sentimental within minutes, yer in for it okay?!
How you blend in some misapplied make-up on the side of my nose and then just keep caressing it because you love my nose, then you bend to kiss it no matter who is around to see.
The way you take care of me and protect me when I’m vulnerable and need your arms as a shield.
When I mention a song that I like and you come home with the CD for me a day or two later.
That you laugh at my humour then make me laugh more at yours until my sides ache and tears run down my face.
The way your love acts like a balm that washes over my bruised and battered heart and strengthens it.
Staying around for the long haul through the menopausal struggle and supporting me because you knew and loved the real me first and knew I’d come back.
How when I was in the midst of the menopause and in the bad old days before the HRT started to work we went to Costco and I realised I was out in my slippers like a bewildered old fart who had escaped from a care home you just smiled, told me I looked great and said at least I'd be comfortable strolling about the big store then hugged me.
The way you wrap me in gossamer and make me feel secure when things feel wobbly from time to time.
The way you anchor me to life; the way I’m grounded by just being with you; the way your strength is contagious.
Your forgiving heart that loves me almost unconditionally no matter how horrible I was in the last three years.
The way you teased me because I said I was going to cry when we made our vows and on the day you were the one who choked and couldn't talk because you got all emotional. You almost ripped my heart out because I was so touched that you could show such emotion in front of so many people.
Watching you sleep and hearing you breathe next to me and making me grateful for the extra heartbeat that you bring.
Snuggling up to you in bed because you radiate heat like a furnace and let me warm up my frostbitten tootsies on you.
Trying not to moan that I have to wear breathing apparatus and get like a firefighter because you are forever cremating food when I let you loose in the kitchen.
Getting excited that I can hear your key in the front door when you come home safely because I know when I'm not in the car with you, you drive like you are in the Monte Carlo rally.
Trying not to wrap my hands around your throat because for the umpteenth time you took your used cup to the kitchen, left it on the newly cleaned worktop over the dishwasher. Love is trying to understand how you got all the way in there and fell at the last hurdle by not actually getting your cup into the dishwasher. What's that all about then eh?
Always lowering the toilet seat and realising you must get just as frustrated that the seat is always down and having to raise it.
Having separate bathrooms, separate toothpaste tubes and no moaning about who squeezes the tube from the middle.
Love is knowing that if you are taken before me that every habit I find annoying will become a reminder of the person who is no longer here, a reminder of the loss I have to bear, a sign that each habit was a bit of you that populated my world and that instead of grumbling about it, I should have embraced it and celebrated it. So my dear husband, for one day and one day only you get to do every annoying thing you ever wanted to do and have complete amnesty thereafter but for 24 hours only......... Oh sod it, do your worst for as long as you want. One day the clear worktop with the missing cup, the lack of black acrid smoke and the burnt food odours, the toilet seat always being down and the ensuing interminable silence will taunt me that I wasted time moaning at you needlessly when all I should have done was love you.
Love is.........Living with my best friend, lover, husband..........
So my darling for the 16th of October happy 4th wedding anniversary my hunkymanthing. Love is? Simply loving you warts and all as you do me.
Here’s our song.....Click on here and play it and if you don’t get all dewy eyed and sentimental within minutes, yer in for it okay?!
Monday, 29 September 2008
The seven stages of grief....
Shock and Denial
Oh yes, the first stage; Shock at so many deaths together and one more at least to come as my adored step-father was dying of cancer. Shock that was so great I was completely overwhelmed; Shock and devastation and disbelief and emotional overload; One shock after another with no time to absorb the details of the one before. And denial? Oh just about as much denial as I could muster if it meant not having to absorb the awfulness of my situation and not having to feel the immense pain that was threatening to kill me from the sheer weight of it. But denial only lasts for as long as it takes you to finally turn and face it all. Life doesn’t let you deny things for too long, it prefers that you deal with the harsh realities head on otherwise how else would we grow, cope, move on?
Pain and Guilt
It’s simply too much to stay in denial. Nature abhors a vacuum. Now that my shock absorbers start to wear out and no longer deflect the reality of this desolate hinterland of death, my battered and bruised brain acknowledges each death, each loss, each severe kick in the guts raining ever more emotional blow upon blow on my heart, and I begin the process of experiencing pain of quite exquisite depth. How I will stand this is anyone’s guess. I cannot see how I have the emotional maturity or tools to cope with what God has given me now. There is an old maxim that God gives you only what you can handle. Oh really?; If that’s so then he’s screwed up big time here; he’s chosen the wrong person to test that theory out on for I am scared, so terrified that I will not cope, that pain and grief will engulf me and I’ll capitulate and throw in the towel just as my uncle did when he hanged himself.
Each second is an hour, each hour a day, each day a month, each month an eternity. I am bent double from the pain and I need to protect myself from any more agony. I am tormented beyond belief and almost forget to breath. I have reverted to being a helpless frightened child and I am lost in a hell that I can’t see a way out of or an end to. I need to run away from this excruciating unbelievable pain, just run as far away as I can, but it’s useless for what ails me will come with me no matter where I am and this realisation leaves me desperate, boxed in, a prisoner to grief.
And what of guilt?; Oh yes, plenty of that of course; remorse for being much too absorbed in my own life; remorse for being far too enamoured of my career and how it always took priority; remorse for throwing away the most precious gift I had been given – time with my family and it was much too late to claw even a second of it back; remorse at never having said I love you quite enough times. I know that I should fully embrace the pain, take it on and deal with it, not run from it but I think God will forgive me this time if I say to hell with it, curl up in a ball and wait for death. I don’t want to die but neither do I want to be alive. I wish I could die in my sleep, a nice peaceful passing and I can be with them all again. I can’t be the architect of my own demise because for now I lack what it takes to take my own life but I consistently ask God to take me. Dear God, if only I could fast forward past this appalling part of my life to somewhere painless and carefree; somewhere that promised peace of mind and where my heart had repaired.
Anger and Bargaining
Can you really be angry at someone’s death? I didn’t think so until I railed at my uncle for taking his life. I felt anger at how he could be so flippant about the precious gift he had been given and just thrown it away when my other uncle and mentor pleaded with God to save his. I felt anger that my mother should die so young; that I’d been robbed of so much time with her. I raged that God should take my parents together, that for someone so great and good and benevolent that he should do this to me. “What kind of God does that?”, I remonstrated over and over. My anger gave way to bargaining, frightened that I had been disloyal to a higher power, scared that I would have more emotional trauma visited upon me. Catholics, we graduate with a double first in guilt and fear. But I did bargain. I cried deep heaving sobs, pleading with God to let me see them again and if he did so, I’d be a better Catholic, a better person, a better whatever he wanted me to be if he’d just bring them back, just let me hug my mother one more time, let me hug her and never let her go. It was all in vain, he wasn’t listening. He was off buggering up someone else’s life and had left me to it, left me in despair.
Depression, Reflection, Loneliness
Christ, I have never experienced depression before; A black, black depression of such enormity that it weighs about 80 tons on my head and chest. I am buckling under the sheer burden of it all. I still cannot believe the course of events that my life has taken of late. The frequency and suddenness of death in my life leaves me a shadow of the person I was. I am diminished as a person, daughter, sister and niece. I am having difficulty grieving because I am confused. If I cry for my mother I feel guilt that I am not grieving for my father or my two uncles and I am also grieving for the loss that is yet to come. I stop in my tracks. I have no guide book, no instruction manual on how to grieve for so many at the same time. Nature demands a cycle of birth, life, death and a grieving process for the person who has gone; I can’t find anything designed to help me grieve in multiples of four. I don’t know how to do this, don’t know who to ask, don’t think anyone else could possibly have gone through such heartache and as such cannot be of any use; don’t have the energy to look for help as I spend my days curled up in the foetal position on the couch that I rarely move away from. I am at a standstill, can't move forward, backward, up or down, can't move an inch. Inertia keeps me stuck, unable to move. My world has shrunk to this couch, this room and someone has sucked the oxygen out of it. I keep trying to drag myself out of this state but I am simply too exhausted and heavy grief physically drags me back down. I’m not ready, not done reflecting on each person and their part in my life, the memories good and bad that they leave me with. Not done asking them to come back, not ready to let them go and to acknowledge they are gone from me forever. If I can keep them here, I’ll never experience the appalling loneliness that sweeps over me. But I can see people looking, read their minds as they think I should be getting over all of this and I want to scream at them to go to hell, that they will never understand my unique pain and that if they just walked ten steps in my shoes, they’d never think let alone utter such a thoughtless, stupid, puerile statement again.
The Upward Turn
Somehow bit by bit there is a chink of light at the end of the tunnel – it’s been so dark here for so long that I can hardly believe I can see it. My life has started to calm. My body is incapable of any more deep grief. It simply won’t survive any more heaving racking sobs. I can’t replay it all anymore. My heart and my head are toughened, stronger, covered in steel where they were once tender and vulnerable before. I find I can breathe with less effort as my depression eases and my chest begins to relax a little. My head is still weighed down but I find that I am able to bear it better than of late. Perhaps my self-inflicted isolation and purdah is coming to a close
Reconstruction and Working Through
Life must go on. I know this and given that I didn’t deny myself that even in the worst of my grief – I managed to stay the course, not down a thousand tablets in a quest to end it all - then it must be true, life must surely go on. I must reconstruct a way forward without these wonderful people in my life. I have to chart a course for the rest of my life that remembers what they gave to me and to use the best of what I inherited or was gifted through knowing them. My life is now different to what is was or was planned to be. I have to deal in facts, what is and not the fantasy of what it should have been. I can feel them willing me out of my purdah, telling me gently that it’s time to let go, that they’ve done what they can for me and they and I need to move on. I hear them giving me permission to start living again. Baby steps, one at a time, but faltering steps forward nevertheless; Progress of a kind. Immense sadness still pervades my every waking moment but despair is releasing its tentacles on me.
Acceptance and Hope
Reality stares me in the face. I must accept what has happened or stay trapped in a world of grief. To expect to be happy at this stage is a high expectation but it is enough to know that I will again laugh without guilt, be me again but with a few knocks and bruises that will heal. I am still me but a slightly tougher me because I survived the worst and came out the other end. But I’m a more vulnerable me too. I am wise to the fact that life can be cruel and deliver the most extraordinary blows and part of me will always fear an all too intense pain and a grief that I might not recover from. For the time being though it is enough to know that I had the strength to come through a terrible situation and the signs are good that I would survive it again. But mostly I have learned that life is to be lived and that I can’t live in fear of the worst. Life is risky and that’s what makes it so interesting and fun. Acceptance means moving forward and planning for the future again; it means experiencing happiness and joy and love. My life is wonderfully full and happy and I can talk about, laugh about the people that I loved so deeply and lost. The best parts of them are their legacy to me.
My heart was dealt a final blow when five weeks after my mother’s death, my step-father passed away. I managed a journey home to finalise a few details that he needed completion on and just four hours after saying my last tearful goodbye to him, he let go. As his family said at the time, he somehow found the strength to wait for me that one last time, to make sure his affairs in this life were complete before moving on to take care of my mother in the next. Only then could he let go. I cried at his bravery and dedication to the last. A gentleman to the end, making sure he was there for my mother once more.
I remember talking with a good friend and telling her my disbelief that so many blows could be delivered one after another. "It's called the catastrophic effect", she said looking at me. "Just when you think life can't give you any more to handle, off it goes, again and again and again, until you can't stand up from the weight of it all".
In conclusion, the model above is a general guideline to the grief process. Each step will be visited at different stages, revisited again and again as stages cross pollinate each other, and each individual grieves at their own pace and in their own timeframe. I moved between them several times during my journey and I wish I had known at the time what I was experiencing and why.
Oh yes, the first stage; Shock at so many deaths together and one more at least to come as my adored step-father was dying of cancer. Shock that was so great I was completely overwhelmed; Shock and devastation and disbelief and emotional overload; One shock after another with no time to absorb the details of the one before. And denial? Oh just about as much denial as I could muster if it meant not having to absorb the awfulness of my situation and not having to feel the immense pain that was threatening to kill me from the sheer weight of it. But denial only lasts for as long as it takes you to finally turn and face it all. Life doesn’t let you deny things for too long, it prefers that you deal with the harsh realities head on otherwise how else would we grow, cope, move on?
Pain and Guilt
It’s simply too much to stay in denial. Nature abhors a vacuum. Now that my shock absorbers start to wear out and no longer deflect the reality of this desolate hinterland of death, my battered and bruised brain acknowledges each death, each loss, each severe kick in the guts raining ever more emotional blow upon blow on my heart, and I begin the process of experiencing pain of quite exquisite depth. How I will stand this is anyone’s guess. I cannot see how I have the emotional maturity or tools to cope with what God has given me now. There is an old maxim that God gives you only what you can handle. Oh really?; If that’s so then he’s screwed up big time here; he’s chosen the wrong person to test that theory out on for I am scared, so terrified that I will not cope, that pain and grief will engulf me and I’ll capitulate and throw in the towel just as my uncle did when he hanged himself.
Each second is an hour, each hour a day, each day a month, each month an eternity. I am bent double from the pain and I need to protect myself from any more agony. I am tormented beyond belief and almost forget to breath. I have reverted to being a helpless frightened child and I am lost in a hell that I can’t see a way out of or an end to. I need to run away from this excruciating unbelievable pain, just run as far away as I can, but it’s useless for what ails me will come with me no matter where I am and this realisation leaves me desperate, boxed in, a prisoner to grief.
And what of guilt?; Oh yes, plenty of that of course; remorse for being much too absorbed in my own life; remorse for being far too enamoured of my career and how it always took priority; remorse for throwing away the most precious gift I had been given – time with my family and it was much too late to claw even a second of it back; remorse at never having said I love you quite enough times. I know that I should fully embrace the pain, take it on and deal with it, not run from it but I think God will forgive me this time if I say to hell with it, curl up in a ball and wait for death. I don’t want to die but neither do I want to be alive. I wish I could die in my sleep, a nice peaceful passing and I can be with them all again. I can’t be the architect of my own demise because for now I lack what it takes to take my own life but I consistently ask God to take me. Dear God, if only I could fast forward past this appalling part of my life to somewhere painless and carefree; somewhere that promised peace of mind and where my heart had repaired.
Anger and Bargaining
Can you really be angry at someone’s death? I didn’t think so until I railed at my uncle for taking his life. I felt anger at how he could be so flippant about the precious gift he had been given and just thrown it away when my other uncle and mentor pleaded with God to save his. I felt anger that my mother should die so young; that I’d been robbed of so much time with her. I raged that God should take my parents together, that for someone so great and good and benevolent that he should do this to me. “What kind of God does that?”, I remonstrated over and over. My anger gave way to bargaining, frightened that I had been disloyal to a higher power, scared that I would have more emotional trauma visited upon me. Catholics, we graduate with a double first in guilt and fear. But I did bargain. I cried deep heaving sobs, pleading with God to let me see them again and if he did so, I’d be a better Catholic, a better person, a better whatever he wanted me to be if he’d just bring them back, just let me hug my mother one more time, let me hug her and never let her go. It was all in vain, he wasn’t listening. He was off buggering up someone else’s life and had left me to it, left me in despair.
Depression, Reflection, Loneliness
Christ, I have never experienced depression before; A black, black depression of such enormity that it weighs about 80 tons on my head and chest. I am buckling under the sheer burden of it all. I still cannot believe the course of events that my life has taken of late. The frequency and suddenness of death in my life leaves me a shadow of the person I was. I am diminished as a person, daughter, sister and niece. I am having difficulty grieving because I am confused. If I cry for my mother I feel guilt that I am not grieving for my father or my two uncles and I am also grieving for the loss that is yet to come. I stop in my tracks. I have no guide book, no instruction manual on how to grieve for so many at the same time. Nature demands a cycle of birth, life, death and a grieving process for the person who has gone; I can’t find anything designed to help me grieve in multiples of four. I don’t know how to do this, don’t know who to ask, don’t think anyone else could possibly have gone through such heartache and as such cannot be of any use; don’t have the energy to look for help as I spend my days curled up in the foetal position on the couch that I rarely move away from. I am at a standstill, can't move forward, backward, up or down, can't move an inch. Inertia keeps me stuck, unable to move. My world has shrunk to this couch, this room and someone has sucked the oxygen out of it. I keep trying to drag myself out of this state but I am simply too exhausted and heavy grief physically drags me back down. I’m not ready, not done reflecting on each person and their part in my life, the memories good and bad that they leave me with. Not done asking them to come back, not ready to let them go and to acknowledge they are gone from me forever. If I can keep them here, I’ll never experience the appalling loneliness that sweeps over me. But I can see people looking, read their minds as they think I should be getting over all of this and I want to scream at them to go to hell, that they will never understand my unique pain and that if they just walked ten steps in my shoes, they’d never think let alone utter such a thoughtless, stupid, puerile statement again.
The Upward Turn
Somehow bit by bit there is a chink of light at the end of the tunnel – it’s been so dark here for so long that I can hardly believe I can see it. My life has started to calm. My body is incapable of any more deep grief. It simply won’t survive any more heaving racking sobs. I can’t replay it all anymore. My heart and my head are toughened, stronger, covered in steel where they were once tender and vulnerable before. I find I can breathe with less effort as my depression eases and my chest begins to relax a little. My head is still weighed down but I find that I am able to bear it better than of late. Perhaps my self-inflicted isolation and purdah is coming to a close
Reconstruction and Working Through
Life must go on. I know this and given that I didn’t deny myself that even in the worst of my grief – I managed to stay the course, not down a thousand tablets in a quest to end it all - then it must be true, life must surely go on. I must reconstruct a way forward without these wonderful people in my life. I have to chart a course for the rest of my life that remembers what they gave to me and to use the best of what I inherited or was gifted through knowing them. My life is now different to what is was or was planned to be. I have to deal in facts, what is and not the fantasy of what it should have been. I can feel them willing me out of my purdah, telling me gently that it’s time to let go, that they’ve done what they can for me and they and I need to move on. I hear them giving me permission to start living again. Baby steps, one at a time, but faltering steps forward nevertheless; Progress of a kind. Immense sadness still pervades my every waking moment but despair is releasing its tentacles on me.
Acceptance and Hope
Reality stares me in the face. I must accept what has happened or stay trapped in a world of grief. To expect to be happy at this stage is a high expectation but it is enough to know that I will again laugh without guilt, be me again but with a few knocks and bruises that will heal. I am still me but a slightly tougher me because I survived the worst and came out the other end. But I’m a more vulnerable me too. I am wise to the fact that life can be cruel and deliver the most extraordinary blows and part of me will always fear an all too intense pain and a grief that I might not recover from. For the time being though it is enough to know that I had the strength to come through a terrible situation and the signs are good that I would survive it again. But mostly I have learned that life is to be lived and that I can’t live in fear of the worst. Life is risky and that’s what makes it so interesting and fun. Acceptance means moving forward and planning for the future again; it means experiencing happiness and joy and love. My life is wonderfully full and happy and I can talk about, laugh about the people that I loved so deeply and lost. The best parts of them are their legacy to me.
My heart was dealt a final blow when five weeks after my mother’s death, my step-father passed away. I managed a journey home to finalise a few details that he needed completion on and just four hours after saying my last tearful goodbye to him, he let go. As his family said at the time, he somehow found the strength to wait for me that one last time, to make sure his affairs in this life were complete before moving on to take care of my mother in the next. Only then could he let go. I cried at his bravery and dedication to the last. A gentleman to the end, making sure he was there for my mother once more.
I remember talking with a good friend and telling her my disbelief that so many blows could be delivered one after another. "It's called the catastrophic effect", she said looking at me. "Just when you think life can't give you any more to handle, off it goes, again and again and again, until you can't stand up from the weight of it all".
In conclusion, the model above is a general guideline to the grief process. Each step will be visited at different stages, revisited again and again as stages cross pollinate each other, and each individual grieves at their own pace and in their own timeframe. I moved between them several times during my journey and I wish I had known at the time what I was experiencing and why.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Stop the world, I want to get off......
There is a dreadful loneliness in grieving. Even though my whole family were grieving for the loss of a brother, sister, mother, father, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law, sister-in-law it became a strange solitary process where we were united in our tragedy but it all seemed so abstract, so detached and we were unable to console each other, such was the magnitude of our loss. My head kept replaying the awful truth - two deaths in one night, three deaths in a week and four deaths in a month. It was as though my brain needed to constantly replay the whole catastrophe in order for it to make some kind of sense before I could start to come to terms with my loss. I clearly was still suffering immense shock and I reeled from the intensity of it.
On the day that my mother died, the journey home to Scotland was arduous and protracted. I wept over and over as my partner patiently drove the four hundred miles or so in one long journey so that we could get there as soon as possible. I felt bad that my step-brother and his wife had to deal with undertakers and such like on my behalf and I needed to get there to relieve them of such a dreadful burden. It was particularly hard for them as my step-father lay dying whilst his wife had passed away in the next room. I couldn’t imagine the torture this must have created for them all.
It was with a very heavy heart that I knocked on the door of my mother’s home. Knowing that it wouldn’t be her opening the door to me as she had done a hundred times before made me weep at the finality of it all and I leaned heavily against the door frame to steady myself. My partner seeing my distress came swiftly and engulfed me as he held me tightly because he knew I was dreading so much and this was a first of many things to dread. The door opened and the ashen faces of my step-brother and his wife said it all – they’d no doubt had better days in their lives and what we were now experiencing was staring them in the face too. They ushered us in and I quickly went to see my step-father for I was concerned as to how he was coping.
Oh this gentle man who had loved my mother so late in her life was but a shadow of himself and in little more than a week since I had last seen him. The events of the day had taken their toll and the sparkling light in his eyes that was his love for my mother had faded with her passing. I saw my own deep grief in his eyes and it was the most painful reflection that I have ever seen. It was like shards of glass lacerating my heart, death by a thousand cuts, all over again. I hugged his frail, cancer ridden and emaciated body, careful not to break him, and we were silent in our grief but tears rolled down my face as the damn burst yet again.
Where my father had been a violent controlling man, H was as gentle and fun loving a creature you could ever meet. My mother blossomed in his love and care and he in hers. He was a true gentleman to whom people turned for advice and help and he never failed in his duty to be a good husband, brother, parent, friend and neighbour. He was a dapper old soul with exceptional manners and I was so grateful that he was in my mother’s life. He gave my mother a future full of love, hope and laughter where all she had known with my father was fear, pain, physical and mental torture. Her premature death at the age of 64 meant a cruel twist of fate that robbed her of perhaps the best years of her life. But in time I came to be grateful that if she was to die at that time then it was better she went first rather than her witnessing the painful and deeply sad passing of her husband.
It was a long night fielding calls from brothers, sisters, relatives and friends. My head felt like it would burst having to repeat the details of her death, plans for funeral arrangements over and over again. It was like planning a military operation simply because my mother had 9 surviving children, two sisters and one brother and a smattering of other relatives and they all needed to be at her funeral. Finally the phone went silent for the night and myself, my partner, H’s son and daughter in law got down to the business of drinking ourselves to a standstill as all good Glaswegians do in times of sadness, happiness or indeed just because the sun rose again that day. We don’t need much excuse to get ‘tired and emotional’ as it is called back home - the opening of a crisp packet would probably make it onto the list of things to pop a can or two about. I badly needed a drink as all day emotions were running high and simply because I was the one there, answering the phone to my grieving family, I became by default the counsellor, mentor, parental figure for my siblings who were so deeply lost in their grief too and looking for any kind of reassurance that the world wasn’t imploding in on itself. When I replay this day in my mind, I am incredulous that I survived it, as to take on the grief of your siblings as well as your own seems almost too bizarre to comprehend. I clearly remember almost standing outside of myself as autopilot kicked in and I took call after call after call. I can only think that my years of being a senior manager in a professional environment and with all the training that went with that privilege had kicked in and I treated the whole scenario as a project, problem solving exercise that needed to be addressed. It was clearly a coping mechanism that got me through those few distressing hours.
The funeral took place some seven days later; an inordinately long time for my mother’s body to remain unburied but as she had died on a bank Holiday weekend, as coincidentally had my father the previous month, then everything ground to a halt as arrangements could not begin to be made until the following Tuesday. I felt such immense frustration and there were times I got cabin fever from being holed up whilst giving my step family some respite by helping to take care of my step-father as he fought his battle. The funeral arrangements were not without problems and as with all families there were misunderstandings, petty grievances from years before aired once more, alliances rebuilt only to be broken down the next day because grief is a hard task master that demands maturity at a time when all that surfaces is a lost, bewildered and angry child needing the safe haven of a parent to run to. It is almost ridiculous to feel like an orphan when you are in your mid 30’s but simply put that is how every one of us felt at the loss of both parents in such close proximity.
Shortly before the funeral my step-father’s family took him back to his old family home where they provided round the clock care and to allow us to grieve with some privacy. It is with great respect and with some discomfort that you dispose of your parent’s worldly goods. Rooting through drawers and cupboards throws up a mixture of old bric-a-brac, old photographs of happier times you forgot or sad fearful times you can’t forget. It took a few days of constant graft, giving possessions to charities, throwing out things that you hope they would approve of as rubbish and not something that harboured a dear memory for them, allowing family to choose a treasured piece of jewellery to remember her by. But none of it really matters in the scheme of things for possessions are meaningless clutter and it is your memories that keeps them alive; their names uttered on your lips as you talk about them with others who share your loss and share your history and share your deep personal grief.
Finally I left her house and turned to close the door behind me. The home that was once full of love and warmth now echoed a barren and empty sound as the door closed heavily. She was gone from this place and the realisation filled me with dread for the future because I knew that she was no longer going to be part of it. I had closed that door knowing it would be the last time I would hear the peculiar noise it made as the dodgy latch kicked into place; I had closed it knowing that I would never see that door again; knowing that I couldn’t ever come home again for a wee cup of tea with my wee Glasgow mammy; knowing that I would have to find my own sense of ‘well done’ because she was no longer there to tell me that; this was going to be a mammoth task because no one told me ‘well done’ quite as good as my wee mammy ever did - I wasn't up to the task.
Several hours later, several drinks later and sobbing uncontrollably in my home in England, I picked up my phone and dialled her home phone over and over but no one answered. I knew her home was dark, empty and completely abandoned but grief made me hope against hope and with complete irrationality I wished to God that she would pick up the phone and tell me that she lived to fight another day. I understood just how helpless my brothers and sisters had felt when I’d fielded their calls but this time there was no one to answer the phone to me. Oblivion called.
On the day that my mother died, the journey home to Scotland was arduous and protracted. I wept over and over as my partner patiently drove the four hundred miles or so in one long journey so that we could get there as soon as possible. I felt bad that my step-brother and his wife had to deal with undertakers and such like on my behalf and I needed to get there to relieve them of such a dreadful burden. It was particularly hard for them as my step-father lay dying whilst his wife had passed away in the next room. I couldn’t imagine the torture this must have created for them all.
It was with a very heavy heart that I knocked on the door of my mother’s home. Knowing that it wouldn’t be her opening the door to me as she had done a hundred times before made me weep at the finality of it all and I leaned heavily against the door frame to steady myself. My partner seeing my distress came swiftly and engulfed me as he held me tightly because he knew I was dreading so much and this was a first of many things to dread. The door opened and the ashen faces of my step-brother and his wife said it all – they’d no doubt had better days in their lives and what we were now experiencing was staring them in the face too. They ushered us in and I quickly went to see my step-father for I was concerned as to how he was coping.
Oh this gentle man who had loved my mother so late in her life was but a shadow of himself and in little more than a week since I had last seen him. The events of the day had taken their toll and the sparkling light in his eyes that was his love for my mother had faded with her passing. I saw my own deep grief in his eyes and it was the most painful reflection that I have ever seen. It was like shards of glass lacerating my heart, death by a thousand cuts, all over again. I hugged his frail, cancer ridden and emaciated body, careful not to break him, and we were silent in our grief but tears rolled down my face as the damn burst yet again.
Where my father had been a violent controlling man, H was as gentle and fun loving a creature you could ever meet. My mother blossomed in his love and care and he in hers. He was a true gentleman to whom people turned for advice and help and he never failed in his duty to be a good husband, brother, parent, friend and neighbour. He was a dapper old soul with exceptional manners and I was so grateful that he was in my mother’s life. He gave my mother a future full of love, hope and laughter where all she had known with my father was fear, pain, physical and mental torture. Her premature death at the age of 64 meant a cruel twist of fate that robbed her of perhaps the best years of her life. But in time I came to be grateful that if she was to die at that time then it was better she went first rather than her witnessing the painful and deeply sad passing of her husband.
It was a long night fielding calls from brothers, sisters, relatives and friends. My head felt like it would burst having to repeat the details of her death, plans for funeral arrangements over and over again. It was like planning a military operation simply because my mother had 9 surviving children, two sisters and one brother and a smattering of other relatives and they all needed to be at her funeral. Finally the phone went silent for the night and myself, my partner, H’s son and daughter in law got down to the business of drinking ourselves to a standstill as all good Glaswegians do in times of sadness, happiness or indeed just because the sun rose again that day. We don’t need much excuse to get ‘tired and emotional’ as it is called back home - the opening of a crisp packet would probably make it onto the list of things to pop a can or two about. I badly needed a drink as all day emotions were running high and simply because I was the one there, answering the phone to my grieving family, I became by default the counsellor, mentor, parental figure for my siblings who were so deeply lost in their grief too and looking for any kind of reassurance that the world wasn’t imploding in on itself. When I replay this day in my mind, I am incredulous that I survived it, as to take on the grief of your siblings as well as your own seems almost too bizarre to comprehend. I clearly remember almost standing outside of myself as autopilot kicked in and I took call after call after call. I can only think that my years of being a senior manager in a professional environment and with all the training that went with that privilege had kicked in and I treated the whole scenario as a project, problem solving exercise that needed to be addressed. It was clearly a coping mechanism that got me through those few distressing hours.
The funeral took place some seven days later; an inordinately long time for my mother’s body to remain unburied but as she had died on a bank Holiday weekend, as coincidentally had my father the previous month, then everything ground to a halt as arrangements could not begin to be made until the following Tuesday. I felt such immense frustration and there were times I got cabin fever from being holed up whilst giving my step family some respite by helping to take care of my step-father as he fought his battle. The funeral arrangements were not without problems and as with all families there were misunderstandings, petty grievances from years before aired once more, alliances rebuilt only to be broken down the next day because grief is a hard task master that demands maturity at a time when all that surfaces is a lost, bewildered and angry child needing the safe haven of a parent to run to. It is almost ridiculous to feel like an orphan when you are in your mid 30’s but simply put that is how every one of us felt at the loss of both parents in such close proximity.
Shortly before the funeral my step-father’s family took him back to his old family home where they provided round the clock care and to allow us to grieve with some privacy. It is with great respect and with some discomfort that you dispose of your parent’s worldly goods. Rooting through drawers and cupboards throws up a mixture of old bric-a-brac, old photographs of happier times you forgot or sad fearful times you can’t forget. It took a few days of constant graft, giving possessions to charities, throwing out things that you hope they would approve of as rubbish and not something that harboured a dear memory for them, allowing family to choose a treasured piece of jewellery to remember her by. But none of it really matters in the scheme of things for possessions are meaningless clutter and it is your memories that keeps them alive; their names uttered on your lips as you talk about them with others who share your loss and share your history and share your deep personal grief.
Finally I left her house and turned to close the door behind me. The home that was once full of love and warmth now echoed a barren and empty sound as the door closed heavily. She was gone from this place and the realisation filled me with dread for the future because I knew that she was no longer going to be part of it. I had closed that door knowing it would be the last time I would hear the peculiar noise it made as the dodgy latch kicked into place; I had closed it knowing that I would never see that door again; knowing that I couldn’t ever come home again for a wee cup of tea with my wee Glasgow mammy; knowing that I would have to find my own sense of ‘well done’ because she was no longer there to tell me that; this was going to be a mammoth task because no one told me ‘well done’ quite as good as my wee mammy ever did - I wasn't up to the task.
Several hours later, several drinks later and sobbing uncontrollably in my home in England, I picked up my phone and dialled her home phone over and over but no one answered. I knew her home was dark, empty and completely abandoned but grief made me hope against hope and with complete irrationality I wished to God that she would pick up the phone and tell me that she lived to fight another day. I understood just how helpless my brothers and sisters had felt when I’d fielded their calls but this time there was no one to answer the phone to me. Oblivion called.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Life's a bitch and then you die
Back in April I started to write a story called the Catastrophic Effect. I got as far as detailing my father’s death from lung cancer. I also wrote about how forty five minutes after hearing of his death my cousin called to tell me our uncle had committed suicide. Not only was it unusual to hear of such news so closely together, the second death was completely unrelated to the first for the uncle that took his life, was my mother’s brother and was incarcerated in a mental hospital in Glasgow so knew nothing of my father’s death. It was shocking news on top of my father’s death but only because it came so close on the heals of it.
My uncle had been desperate to kill himself for some months as he had great difficulty in coping with the loss of his brother and wife within weeks of each other. As a well healed and seemingly strong individual who held down a professional career for many years it was an immense shock for us to see his degradation into a babbling and angry wreck with suicidal intent at every turn. Nothing we did for him helped ease his anguish and he was like a wounded animal cornered in life with nowhere to go. He could not be reasoned with and was finally sectioned against his will in an attempt to save his life and see him through the worst of his fear and grief to a point where reason could once more be used to encourage him to want to live again. No one bargained for his utter determination to succeed and so on that evening he obtained a wire coat hanger, attached it to a light fitting and hanged himself. He didn’t actually die that night but was effectively brain dead from there on in until he finally got his wish and took his last breath two days later; Suicide – the long term solution to a short term problem.
In a complete contrast to this deeply distressing situation, another uncle was fighting the final stages of secondary bone cancer and desperately clinging to life for he wanted to live so very much, to carry on being here for him and us. The immense effort and pain he endured was deeply etched on his wonderfully kind and intelligent face making it enormously difficult to look at him and not want to sob your heart out just watching him lose the battle bit by painful and heartbreaking bit. But there were to be no tears, no remorse, no outward displays of emotion or recognition that he was dying for this would have distressed him and had us banished from the room until we could pull ourselves together. No matter how much pain he endured he fought the battle of his life with grace, bravery, courage and strength, with fortitude and a determination that had gotten him through life.
Here was a man who was born into poverty and hardship in the east end of Glasgow in the depression of the 30’s to a father who had been embittered and disabled fighting in the bloody battle fields of the first world war. He was a man of immense intellect and the first in his family to obtain a university degree. His heart was the biggest I have ever known and his compassion was endless for the poor and disadvantaged that he represented as a councillor for the poorest ward in Glasgow. He never forgot that education and a magnificent work ethic was his passport out of poverty and he worked tirelessly as a teacher and a councillor to help as many willing participants as possible achieve that same goal through the same opportunities that he had been given. He was my mentor, friend, inspiration, uncle and father substitute and shining light in a young life that had endured much violence and hardship at times. His and my aunt’s home was my refuge in times of fear. I studied science as my major because he was a scientist and I so wanted to be like him. He instilled in me a love of all things scientific and physics fascinated me. But mostly he infused in me an understanding that real strength in a man is the gentleness of spirit, the kindness and the ability to forgive that love brings and that bigotry, violence and hatred are enemies to be thwarted at all times. It was his utter belief that life was for living and living well that gave him his strength and deep need to survive.
So, here was a juxtaposition of incredible extremes; two men fighting their own personal battles; one to die and another to live.
I have no anger for the uncle who killed himself. I don’t know whether it is a brave or a cowardly decision to take your own life. I cannot enter his state of mind and find out what drove him; I can only try to understand that it was his wish, his right to do what he did with his life. Even with my psychological knowledge and understanding I cannot offer a plausible insight but I do hope fervently that he is at peace.
The week following my father’s death and uncle’s suicide was a flurry of detail, arrangements and communication with all who needed to know and be there to say goodbye. On the Wednesday we waved off my father, on the Thursday it was time to see off my uncle but on that morning, my other uncle died.
It was a bizarre netherworld kind of existence and everything seemed to enter a slow motion kind of reality. For a time I was angry that my other uncle lost his battle. Grief brought out the child in me and every fear I once buried, every injustice I felt bubbled to the surface. I raged at the world for taking my protector, mentor and friend but in time I came to realise life and death are bedfellows that must be lived and endured and that the natural cycle was indeed working as designed.
His funeral was a grand affair for my uncle was halfway through a four year tenure as Glasgow’s Lord Provost and Lord lieutenant to the queen. In the years before Scottish devolution, he was Glasgow’s leading politician and the Queen’s representative for all things royal in Glasgow. His death in office meant a funeral of almost state proportions was to be held. Police lined the streets, people turned out in their thousands to say goodbye to one of the most popular Lord Provosts ever to hold office and the press were there in their droves. It is my only experience of being photographed and filmed at every turn as we travelled with my aunt in the official car that lead the procession – a deeply intrusive moment in my life. My uncle was a practicing Catholic who was devout in his faith and the head of the Catholic church in Scotland, Cardinal Winning insisted on leading the service with a multitude of bishops in attendance. The Queen was represented by a minor royal and the service was magnificent in its dedication to my uncle and really quite beautiful. He would have been fair chuffed but equally humbled at the turnout and the depth of feeling that was emitted that day. It was a surreal experience seeing so many well known faces all in the same place.
I remained in Glasgow for a few more days for my mother was not entirely robust in her health and when you lose one parent, the surviving one becomes even more precious. The truly depressing news that her husband, my stepfather was in the terminal stages of cancer had been told to me by his son. My mother was unaware that he was dying and no one knew how to tell her for she had a weak heart - a legacy from a massive heart atack that she had suffered four years before. A few days later I returned home to England and immersed myself in work. I was full of confused emotions at the death of my father, the callous suicide of my uncle and the shocking loss of my dearly loved mentor. I had no idea how to work through such an extreme set of emotions and as usual, work was my salve. I carried on almost zombie like just going through the motions for it was all that I could do to get myself out of bed and showered in the morning. I carried on for a week and almost collapsed from exhaustion and grief on the Friday night, but glad that I had made it through the week with no major catastrophes happen in front of colleagues.
At 7.45am the next morning the phone rang, dragging me from an exhausted slumber. It was my step-father’s son. I felt my blood run cold as I waited for him to tell me he had died. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I kept asking him to repeat what he had just said for what he did say just did not compute. My brain refused to take it in such was the god awful shock at what I was hearing. I could hear him speak and it sounded like he was a million miles away in a parallel universe with his voice just seeping through.
I collapsed onto the floor, dropping the phone as I did so. My life felt like it was ending before me and I didn’t care, welcomed it, prayed for it, was ready to make sure it happened. I ran to the toilet and threw up over and over again as I sobbed and wailed and cursed God for taking her. My mother had died exactly one month after my father.
My uncle had been desperate to kill himself for some months as he had great difficulty in coping with the loss of his brother and wife within weeks of each other. As a well healed and seemingly strong individual who held down a professional career for many years it was an immense shock for us to see his degradation into a babbling and angry wreck with suicidal intent at every turn. Nothing we did for him helped ease his anguish and he was like a wounded animal cornered in life with nowhere to go. He could not be reasoned with and was finally sectioned against his will in an attempt to save his life and see him through the worst of his fear and grief to a point where reason could once more be used to encourage him to want to live again. No one bargained for his utter determination to succeed and so on that evening he obtained a wire coat hanger, attached it to a light fitting and hanged himself. He didn’t actually die that night but was effectively brain dead from there on in until he finally got his wish and took his last breath two days later; Suicide – the long term solution to a short term problem.
In a complete contrast to this deeply distressing situation, another uncle was fighting the final stages of secondary bone cancer and desperately clinging to life for he wanted to live so very much, to carry on being here for him and us. The immense effort and pain he endured was deeply etched on his wonderfully kind and intelligent face making it enormously difficult to look at him and not want to sob your heart out just watching him lose the battle bit by painful and heartbreaking bit. But there were to be no tears, no remorse, no outward displays of emotion or recognition that he was dying for this would have distressed him and had us banished from the room until we could pull ourselves together. No matter how much pain he endured he fought the battle of his life with grace, bravery, courage and strength, with fortitude and a determination that had gotten him through life.
Here was a man who was born into poverty and hardship in the east end of Glasgow in the depression of the 30’s to a father who had been embittered and disabled fighting in the bloody battle fields of the first world war. He was a man of immense intellect and the first in his family to obtain a university degree. His heart was the biggest I have ever known and his compassion was endless for the poor and disadvantaged that he represented as a councillor for the poorest ward in Glasgow. He never forgot that education and a magnificent work ethic was his passport out of poverty and he worked tirelessly as a teacher and a councillor to help as many willing participants as possible achieve that same goal through the same opportunities that he had been given. He was my mentor, friend, inspiration, uncle and father substitute and shining light in a young life that had endured much violence and hardship at times. His and my aunt’s home was my refuge in times of fear. I studied science as my major because he was a scientist and I so wanted to be like him. He instilled in me a love of all things scientific and physics fascinated me. But mostly he infused in me an understanding that real strength in a man is the gentleness of spirit, the kindness and the ability to forgive that love brings and that bigotry, violence and hatred are enemies to be thwarted at all times. It was his utter belief that life was for living and living well that gave him his strength and deep need to survive.
So, here was a juxtaposition of incredible extremes; two men fighting their own personal battles; one to die and another to live.
I have no anger for the uncle who killed himself. I don’t know whether it is a brave or a cowardly decision to take your own life. I cannot enter his state of mind and find out what drove him; I can only try to understand that it was his wish, his right to do what he did with his life. Even with my psychological knowledge and understanding I cannot offer a plausible insight but I do hope fervently that he is at peace.
The week following my father’s death and uncle’s suicide was a flurry of detail, arrangements and communication with all who needed to know and be there to say goodbye. On the Wednesday we waved off my father, on the Thursday it was time to see off my uncle but on that morning, my other uncle died.
It was a bizarre netherworld kind of existence and everything seemed to enter a slow motion kind of reality. For a time I was angry that my other uncle lost his battle. Grief brought out the child in me and every fear I once buried, every injustice I felt bubbled to the surface. I raged at the world for taking my protector, mentor and friend but in time I came to realise life and death are bedfellows that must be lived and endured and that the natural cycle was indeed working as designed.
His funeral was a grand affair for my uncle was halfway through a four year tenure as Glasgow’s Lord Provost and Lord lieutenant to the queen. In the years before Scottish devolution, he was Glasgow’s leading politician and the Queen’s representative for all things royal in Glasgow. His death in office meant a funeral of almost state proportions was to be held. Police lined the streets, people turned out in their thousands to say goodbye to one of the most popular Lord Provosts ever to hold office and the press were there in their droves. It is my only experience of being photographed and filmed at every turn as we travelled with my aunt in the official car that lead the procession – a deeply intrusive moment in my life. My uncle was a practicing Catholic who was devout in his faith and the head of the Catholic church in Scotland, Cardinal Winning insisted on leading the service with a multitude of bishops in attendance. The Queen was represented by a minor royal and the service was magnificent in its dedication to my uncle and really quite beautiful. He would have been fair chuffed but equally humbled at the turnout and the depth of feeling that was emitted that day. It was a surreal experience seeing so many well known faces all in the same place.
I remained in Glasgow for a few more days for my mother was not entirely robust in her health and when you lose one parent, the surviving one becomes even more precious. The truly depressing news that her husband, my stepfather was in the terminal stages of cancer had been told to me by his son. My mother was unaware that he was dying and no one knew how to tell her for she had a weak heart - a legacy from a massive heart atack that she had suffered four years before. A few days later I returned home to England and immersed myself in work. I was full of confused emotions at the death of my father, the callous suicide of my uncle and the shocking loss of my dearly loved mentor. I had no idea how to work through such an extreme set of emotions and as usual, work was my salve. I carried on almost zombie like just going through the motions for it was all that I could do to get myself out of bed and showered in the morning. I carried on for a week and almost collapsed from exhaustion and grief on the Friday night, but glad that I had made it through the week with no major catastrophes happen in front of colleagues.
At 7.45am the next morning the phone rang, dragging me from an exhausted slumber. It was my step-father’s son. I felt my blood run cold as I waited for him to tell me he had died. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I kept asking him to repeat what he had just said for what he did say just did not compute. My brain refused to take it in such was the god awful shock at what I was hearing. I could hear him speak and it sounded like he was a million miles away in a parallel universe with his voice just seeping through.
I collapsed onto the floor, dropping the phone as I did so. My life felt like it was ending before me and I didn’t care, welcomed it, prayed for it, was ready to make sure it happened. I ran to the toilet and threw up over and over again as I sobbed and wailed and cursed God for taking her. My mother had died exactly one month after my father.
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Mr and Mrs Chancer
I’ve been reading the hilarious and equally frustrating account by Debs Lehner about the trials and tribulations of selling her house in France. It’s no wonder that selling a home is up there as one of the highest stress generators along with bereavement, divorce and changing jobs. Heaven knows how we survive it and go on to do it again and again. The brain is surely the most amazing organ ever – just look at how it wipes out the real pain of events so that we go and repeat the process all over again – how else would women go through the rip-you-apart-don’t-you-fecking-come-near-me-again pain that they do to have more than one child? Now I’m not comparing childbirth and house moving, really I’m not, but dear God there are times when having a 40 hour labour would seem so much better an option. Well that or having electrodes attached to your nuts.
As my mother used to say, ‘the people you meet when you don’t have a gun’. Just stick your house on the market and you’ll get an idea of what she meant but I suspect you probably do already. Where do these people really live? I mean I know they live in society somewhere and that they move about us freely and that some unfortunate bugger has them as a neighbour but how do they actually get by in life without someone ramming a fistful of knuckles down their throat? Let me be clear here, I have never ever in my life been violent or hit anyone, (well except for when I was 11 and the 13 year old boy from around the corner took to bullying me and terrorising my life for a while. I soon sorted that with a swiftly placed and unexpected kick in the nuts whereby he dropped to the ground with his hands cupped around his throbbing tackle and finding it difficult to breathe from shock, finally rolled into the foetal position with his mouth wide open, eyes bulging and groaned out what sounded like a death rattle. I was pretty impressed with how one rapid kick could have such a marvellous outcome and of course he never bullied me again. Thanks for the tip dad).
However, I digress so let me get back to the point. Given that I am not prone to launching physical attacks on people or plotting their death it is with some amazement at the range and depth of emotions that house viewers can elicit from me. Take for example the creature that is more commonly known as the ‘House Tourist’. You know the scenario; the agent calls at 8am on a Sunday morning to ask if it’s okay for :
Mr and Mrs Noseyfeckingtimewasterandnointentionofbuying to come along now to have a look. Of course you don’t know they are called that because they fool you by using a nom de plume like Mr and Mrs Smith to throw you off the scent and let you think they are serious punters. Anyway, they just happen to be in the area so could they just sneak a little peak?; won’t take long, the agent assures you with his chirpy happy godimightfinallygetasaleoutofthiskip tone which is exacerbating your terminal hangover from drinking formaldehyde or something equally organ rotting the night before. You stand there in your grubby dressing gown that you knew you should have tossed on a bonfire let alone washed, take a look around at last night’s dinner party chaos that you were too tired/comatosed to clean up at the time and you know that if you possessed a pistol you would just take the easy way out. You want to tell the agent to go take a bungee jump without the bungee but instead you put on your smiley nice voice, negotiate 30 minutes ‘to let the children finish breakfast’ and dash around like a loony kicking things under beds and couches, ramming stuff into already overstuffed cupboards, break several prized bits of crockery as you attempt to empty and reload the dishwasher at record speed just to get a semblance of a clear worktop here and there. Then if you’re lucky you get to scrape your hair back tightly into some sort of tight sink-estate-face-lift type look which coupled with red-eye and a face gray from blood loss because your body needs it for the major organs to fight off the alcohol onslaught, you look the sight you feel. It is a truism that you get the face you deserve in life.
With only seconds to spare you pull on trackie bottoms and a top and they arrive sans estate agent who incidentally is being paid shed-loads to show these bloody people around, but no, he’s busy destroying someone else’s Sunday arranging for more tourists to tramp about someone else’s house like it was ‘open to the public stately home season’. They ooh and aah all the way around, get disappointed that there isn’t a little old lady sitting by a roped off area in each room to chat to and wonder where the bloody cafe is. In time they take their leave but only after delivering the parting shot that they ‘loved your house, it was just as they always thought it might look and that even though they aren’t in the market to move, (probably because a fecking care home is more in their line), they thought that as the house was up for sale, you wouldn’t mind them having a look because as you’re showing people around anyway, another pair wouldn’t be any more trouble. It’s at that point if you did have a pistol, you would be committing homicide instead of suicide.
Then there is the:
I’lljustknockonthedoorandseeificanwhizroundwithoutanappointmentatsomeungoldlyeffinghourinthemorning waller who’s true agenda is to hopefully negotiate a huge discount because ‘let’s face it, if the agent doesn’t know and we don’t tell him we can pretend that this is a private sale and I’ll get to keep the agents fee and you get a sale – deal?’ Err, no, you cheating git, no sale because you woke me up at 8am on a Saturday morning by kicking on my front door like a police bust was in operation, and because you are too arrogant to make an appointment like most well mannered people, and because my house looks like if a grenade went off it would tidy it up and because you are happy to suggest we cheat the agent out of the fee, you will probably cheat me too.
Well dear people, both these types of people, (and more), came into my life when I was selling a home many years ago. It was a lovely little mews cottage in a row of lovely little mews cottages and a joy to live in. The chancer/opportunist viewer happened upon my place on a Saturday morning at 8am or so. Only the day before my then partner and myself had experienced a protracted journey home from Hong Kong. At this time on the Saturday morning, myself and he were exhausted and in a deep slumber when all hell broke loose. Dear God, we thought a herd of wildebeest were trampling their way through our front door. We ignored it and rolled over but the noise was relentless. Clearly it was an emergency we thought and pulling on dressing gowns, dashed downstairs wondering what the hell was wrong, Cue door opening partially and my partner and me squinting in the bright sunlight at three strangers.
“We hope you don’t mind, but we saw your for sale sign”, the lead chancer barked out rather army like in tone.
“Yes, and.....?”, my ex asked in return with a thunderous look. He was still foggy headed with sleep and jet lag and so being woken up so bloody rudely to be told they had seen our for sale sign wasn’t going down a storm here.
“Well....., we rather thought that as we are in the area you wouldn’t mind showing us around?”.
“What ? Now?”, we both asked incredulously standing there with mangled hair, sleep encrusted eyes and wearing nightwear a tramp would have thrown out. We weren’t exactly prepared for it.
“Well yes, isn’t inconvenient is it?”, chancer number 2 asked quite pompously as she popped her head around from behind chancer number 1. Chancer number 3 just looked on gormlessly.
“Sorry, no, as you can see we aren’t really prepared for an impromptu visit”, my partner said politely as I mentally ransacked our house and saw wanting in every room. No, definitely too messy to let anyone in just yet. Crikey, they were quick, the house had only gone on the market the day before and we’d calculated we’d have a day or so to tidy up before anyone came.
“You see”, I offered in support, “we’ve only just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and not only are we exhausted, but the house could do with a bit of a tidy before anyone has a look. We’d really be much happier and in a much better position to let you have a look round later”.
“Perhaps you can give the agent a call, get a time convenient to both parties and we’ll see you then. Okay?”, my partner insisted, expecting they would see our predicament and like most normal people get their arses out of our faces and let us get some sleep.
“So, can we come in or not?”, a booming voice from chancer number 2 shot back as though the last few sentences from us had never been uttered.
My partner’s mouth dropped open as he realised he must be talking to the human equivalent of a radio – all output, no input and tuned to the one station. “I beg your pardon dear?”, he asked adopting the rather pompous tone that she had just used with him. “Did I not make myself clear that now is simply not convenient so will you please.....”
.......“Oh come on, just a quick once around the block, we’ll not be long, promise, and if we take our time down here, you two can go and get dressed up there before you let us have a scan around that”, said chancer number 1 in a stroppy overbearing tone whilst pointing to the upstairs of the cottage. “C’mon, what’s your problem?”, he continued. “Surely you can manage that? Then we’d be out of your hair in no time and you can pop that little filly of yours right back in the sack”, he snorted a leery little laugh and winked at him as he said it.
Oh mother of God, the cheeky bastards. There was no way I was putting up with this or going to get changed in my home whilst leaving a bunch of strangers to rummage their way through my house unsupervised. I moved my ex rather snappishly out of the way and pulled the door open further so I could get my face into the trio of chancers that were in danger of getting a knuckle sandwich from the exhausted and by now furious man of the house. If anyone was going to hit them, then it was going to be me I decided – less damage that way.
“Look, what part of ‘it’s not convenient’ don’t you understand? You weren’t owed an explanation as you have barged you way in here ,but we were polite and gave you one so now if you would please go and by all means take the agents number, we can arrange something for later. But not until late afternoon please? Okay?” I said firmly, hoping I had made myself clear. Good God almighty, what the hell was I doing discussing this stuff with these people on our doorstep. Clearly they were used to coercing their way around life but I was buggered if they were going to get away with it now.
The thunderous look on the faces of chancers 1 and 2 as we closed the door on them was a sight to behold. Clearly they weren’t used to being refused much in life but hey, you’ve got to start somewhere, good things come to those who wait and all that. Chancer 3 had continued to look gormless and reminded me of a still life on a day out. He certainly had a future as a mannequin should whatever he did now not work out.
And so they came, later that day; chancer 1 and 2 with 3 following gormlessly along behind. Chancer 2 was particularly vocal and derogatory about what she found wanting in and out of the house. It was all I could do to stop myself rugby tackling her out the door and fecking her onto the street with her handbag to follow when I saw her kick at the French doors frame to test it for some imagined rot. Meanwhile, Chancer 1 drew filthy looks and shook his head as he tut tutted in ham acting mock disgust at decor and paintwork not being up to his lofty standards. Chancer 3 never said a word, just persisted with the gormless look and a shake of the head here and there. Eventually after much whispering, head locking and furtive looks, they took their leave oblivious to the fact that we were more than aware that clearly their tactics were to undermine the vendors, (us), then negotiate a knock down price for the purchasers, (them, or so they thought). Christ, eejit amateurs!
“Well that‘s the last of them”, we chimed quietly together, as the door closed behind them. But it wasn’t......
“Hello”, I answered, as I picked up the phone some 30 minutes later.
“Hello, Mrs Mob. John from Rip-off & Do’nowt estate agents here.
“Yes John, how are you?”, I asked.
“Good news, we’ve had an offer. Mr and Mrs Chancer would like to offer you xxxxxxx. How do you feel about that then?”
Oh how lovely, 15 k less than the asking price. Bearing in mind this was over 25 years ago, that was quite a drop. They were a pair made in heaven these two.
“No that’s not a problem John”, I responded lightly.
“Really, are you sure?”, he asked, obviously astonished and delighted that he didn’t have a battle on his hands and could avoid the usual rigmarole of rejection, back to the buyer to arrange a new offer and so on until a deal was clinched.
“Really, yes I’m sure”, I responded. “No it’s not a problem at all, because we won’t be selling to Mr and Mrs Chancer; not now, in fact not ever, no matter what the price”.
You could hear a pin drop as John absorbed the news. I almost felt sorry for him as I pictured him, for now, watch his commission disappear
“What?, YOU’ll NEVER SELL TO THEM? NEVER?” Are you absolutely certain about that? Why?”. I could hear the frustration rise in his voice. ”Are you taking the house off the market then?”
“No, it’s still up for sale and I’m happy for you to continue to market the property for us. It just isn’t available to the Chancers”. This wasn’t something he had come across before and I could hear him huffing and puffing away as he wrestled with a situation that he wasn’t sure how to manage.
“Well, what on earth am I supposed to tell them?”, he demanded as an explanation.
“Oh that’s easy”, I replied. “I’m more than happy for you to be very candid on our behalf. Just tell them that we love this house, we love the neighbourhood and more importantly we respect and like our neighbours to the point we wouldn’t inflict what may very well be tantamount to the neighbours from hell moving in”.
I quickly gave him an account about the coercive and very poor behaviour of our would-be purchasers and how under no circumstances would we be responsible for the erosion of such a nice neighbourhood. I tried to make him understand that sometimes in life there were consequences for poor behaviour and this was clearly the time for the Chancers to perhaps reflect on theirs. Being an estate agent and where the sale is king, he thought me mad and that I would change my mind. He was clearly under pressure from the Chancers and called several more times with increased offers. Each time, much to his consternation, he was sent on his way. He even called my partner to offer over the asking price but we were united and John was given short shrift by him for disregarding my instructions and trying to manipulate the situation. The Chancers never got that house and it was sold shortly afterwards to a lovely young couple just starting out in life who needed the carpets and curtains and a hotchpotch of furniture we threw in as part of the deal – it was a second home for us so we could afford to be generous with what we could leave and in truth they were doing us a favour taking it off our hands. Some two children and over two decades later they are still there and have no plans to move.
God knows where the Chancers ended up – six foot under at some point would be my guess. Wonder what happened to the gormless one and if the poor soul ever got a word in.
As my mother used to say, ‘the people you meet when you don’t have a gun’. Just stick your house on the market and you’ll get an idea of what she meant but I suspect you probably do already. Where do these people really live? I mean I know they live in society somewhere and that they move about us freely and that some unfortunate bugger has them as a neighbour but how do they actually get by in life without someone ramming a fistful of knuckles down their throat? Let me be clear here, I have never ever in my life been violent or hit anyone, (well except for when I was 11 and the 13 year old boy from around the corner took to bullying me and terrorising my life for a while. I soon sorted that with a swiftly placed and unexpected kick in the nuts whereby he dropped to the ground with his hands cupped around his throbbing tackle and finding it difficult to breathe from shock, finally rolled into the foetal position with his mouth wide open, eyes bulging and groaned out what sounded like a death rattle. I was pretty impressed with how one rapid kick could have such a marvellous outcome and of course he never bullied me again. Thanks for the tip dad).
However, I digress so let me get back to the point. Given that I am not prone to launching physical attacks on people or plotting their death it is with some amazement at the range and depth of emotions that house viewers can elicit from me. Take for example the creature that is more commonly known as the ‘House Tourist’. You know the scenario; the agent calls at 8am on a Sunday morning to ask if it’s okay for :
Mr and Mrs Noseyfeckingtimewasterandnointentionofbuying to come along now to have a look. Of course you don’t know they are called that because they fool you by using a nom de plume like Mr and Mrs Smith to throw you off the scent and let you think they are serious punters. Anyway, they just happen to be in the area so could they just sneak a little peak?; won’t take long, the agent assures you with his chirpy happy godimightfinallygetasaleoutofthiskip tone which is exacerbating your terminal hangover from drinking formaldehyde or something equally organ rotting the night before. You stand there in your grubby dressing gown that you knew you should have tossed on a bonfire let alone washed, take a look around at last night’s dinner party chaos that you were too tired/comatosed to clean up at the time and you know that if you possessed a pistol you would just take the easy way out. You want to tell the agent to go take a bungee jump without the bungee but instead you put on your smiley nice voice, negotiate 30 minutes ‘to let the children finish breakfast’ and dash around like a loony kicking things under beds and couches, ramming stuff into already overstuffed cupboards, break several prized bits of crockery as you attempt to empty and reload the dishwasher at record speed just to get a semblance of a clear worktop here and there. Then if you’re lucky you get to scrape your hair back tightly into some sort of tight sink-estate-face-lift type look which coupled with red-eye and a face gray from blood loss because your body needs it for the major organs to fight off the alcohol onslaught, you look the sight you feel. It is a truism that you get the face you deserve in life.
With only seconds to spare you pull on trackie bottoms and a top and they arrive sans estate agent who incidentally is being paid shed-loads to show these bloody people around, but no, he’s busy destroying someone else’s Sunday arranging for more tourists to tramp about someone else’s house like it was ‘open to the public stately home season’. They ooh and aah all the way around, get disappointed that there isn’t a little old lady sitting by a roped off area in each room to chat to and wonder where the bloody cafe is. In time they take their leave but only after delivering the parting shot that they ‘loved your house, it was just as they always thought it might look and that even though they aren’t in the market to move, (probably because a fecking care home is more in their line), they thought that as the house was up for sale, you wouldn’t mind them having a look because as you’re showing people around anyway, another pair wouldn’t be any more trouble. It’s at that point if you did have a pistol, you would be committing homicide instead of suicide.
Then there is the:
I’lljustknockonthedoorandseeificanwhizroundwithoutanappointmentatsomeungoldlyeffinghourinthemorning waller who’s true agenda is to hopefully negotiate a huge discount because ‘let’s face it, if the agent doesn’t know and we don’t tell him we can pretend that this is a private sale and I’ll get to keep the agents fee and you get a sale – deal?’ Err, no, you cheating git, no sale because you woke me up at 8am on a Saturday morning by kicking on my front door like a police bust was in operation, and because you are too arrogant to make an appointment like most well mannered people, and because my house looks like if a grenade went off it would tidy it up and because you are happy to suggest we cheat the agent out of the fee, you will probably cheat me too.
Well dear people, both these types of people, (and more), came into my life when I was selling a home many years ago. It was a lovely little mews cottage in a row of lovely little mews cottages and a joy to live in. The chancer/opportunist viewer happened upon my place on a Saturday morning at 8am or so. Only the day before my then partner and myself had experienced a protracted journey home from Hong Kong. At this time on the Saturday morning, myself and he were exhausted and in a deep slumber when all hell broke loose. Dear God, we thought a herd of wildebeest were trampling their way through our front door. We ignored it and rolled over but the noise was relentless. Clearly it was an emergency we thought and pulling on dressing gowns, dashed downstairs wondering what the hell was wrong, Cue door opening partially and my partner and me squinting in the bright sunlight at three strangers.
“We hope you don’t mind, but we saw your for sale sign”, the lead chancer barked out rather army like in tone.
“Yes, and.....?”, my ex asked in return with a thunderous look. He was still foggy headed with sleep and jet lag and so being woken up so bloody rudely to be told they had seen our for sale sign wasn’t going down a storm here.
“Well....., we rather thought that as we are in the area you wouldn’t mind showing us around?”.
“What ? Now?”, we both asked incredulously standing there with mangled hair, sleep encrusted eyes and wearing nightwear a tramp would have thrown out. We weren’t exactly prepared for it.
“Well yes, isn’t inconvenient is it?”, chancer number 2 asked quite pompously as she popped her head around from behind chancer number 1. Chancer number 3 just looked on gormlessly.
“Sorry, no, as you can see we aren’t really prepared for an impromptu visit”, my partner said politely as I mentally ransacked our house and saw wanting in every room. No, definitely too messy to let anyone in just yet. Crikey, they were quick, the house had only gone on the market the day before and we’d calculated we’d have a day or so to tidy up before anyone came.
“You see”, I offered in support, “we’ve only just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and not only are we exhausted, but the house could do with a bit of a tidy before anyone has a look. We’d really be much happier and in a much better position to let you have a look round later”.
“Perhaps you can give the agent a call, get a time convenient to both parties and we’ll see you then. Okay?”, my partner insisted, expecting they would see our predicament and like most normal people get their arses out of our faces and let us get some sleep.
“So, can we come in or not?”, a booming voice from chancer number 2 shot back as though the last few sentences from us had never been uttered.
My partner’s mouth dropped open as he realised he must be talking to the human equivalent of a radio – all output, no input and tuned to the one station. “I beg your pardon dear?”, he asked adopting the rather pompous tone that she had just used with him. “Did I not make myself clear that now is simply not convenient so will you please.....”
.......“Oh come on, just a quick once around the block, we’ll not be long, promise, and if we take our time down here, you two can go and get dressed up there before you let us have a scan around that”, said chancer number 1 in a stroppy overbearing tone whilst pointing to the upstairs of the cottage. “C’mon, what’s your problem?”, he continued. “Surely you can manage that? Then we’d be out of your hair in no time and you can pop that little filly of yours right back in the sack”, he snorted a leery little laugh and winked at him as he said it.
Oh mother of God, the cheeky bastards. There was no way I was putting up with this or going to get changed in my home whilst leaving a bunch of strangers to rummage their way through my house unsupervised. I moved my ex rather snappishly out of the way and pulled the door open further so I could get my face into the trio of chancers that were in danger of getting a knuckle sandwich from the exhausted and by now furious man of the house. If anyone was going to hit them, then it was going to be me I decided – less damage that way.
“Look, what part of ‘it’s not convenient’ don’t you understand? You weren’t owed an explanation as you have barged you way in here ,but we were polite and gave you one so now if you would please go and by all means take the agents number, we can arrange something for later. But not until late afternoon please? Okay?” I said firmly, hoping I had made myself clear. Good God almighty, what the hell was I doing discussing this stuff with these people on our doorstep. Clearly they were used to coercing their way around life but I was buggered if they were going to get away with it now.
The thunderous look on the faces of chancers 1 and 2 as we closed the door on them was a sight to behold. Clearly they weren’t used to being refused much in life but hey, you’ve got to start somewhere, good things come to those who wait and all that. Chancer 3 had continued to look gormless and reminded me of a still life on a day out. He certainly had a future as a mannequin should whatever he did now not work out.
And so they came, later that day; chancer 1 and 2 with 3 following gormlessly along behind. Chancer 2 was particularly vocal and derogatory about what she found wanting in and out of the house. It was all I could do to stop myself rugby tackling her out the door and fecking her onto the street with her handbag to follow when I saw her kick at the French doors frame to test it for some imagined rot. Meanwhile, Chancer 1 drew filthy looks and shook his head as he tut tutted in ham acting mock disgust at decor and paintwork not being up to his lofty standards. Chancer 3 never said a word, just persisted with the gormless look and a shake of the head here and there. Eventually after much whispering, head locking and furtive looks, they took their leave oblivious to the fact that we were more than aware that clearly their tactics were to undermine the vendors, (us), then negotiate a knock down price for the purchasers, (them, or so they thought). Christ, eejit amateurs!
“Well that‘s the last of them”, we chimed quietly together, as the door closed behind them. But it wasn’t......
“Hello”, I answered, as I picked up the phone some 30 minutes later.
“Hello, Mrs Mob. John from Rip-off & Do’nowt estate agents here.
“Yes John, how are you?”, I asked.
“Good news, we’ve had an offer. Mr and Mrs Chancer would like to offer you xxxxxxx. How do you feel about that then?”
Oh how lovely, 15 k less than the asking price. Bearing in mind this was over 25 years ago, that was quite a drop. They were a pair made in heaven these two.
“No that’s not a problem John”, I responded lightly.
“Really, are you sure?”, he asked, obviously astonished and delighted that he didn’t have a battle on his hands and could avoid the usual rigmarole of rejection, back to the buyer to arrange a new offer and so on until a deal was clinched.
“Really, yes I’m sure”, I responded. “No it’s not a problem at all, because we won’t be selling to Mr and Mrs Chancer; not now, in fact not ever, no matter what the price”.
You could hear a pin drop as John absorbed the news. I almost felt sorry for him as I pictured him, for now, watch his commission disappear
“What?, YOU’ll NEVER SELL TO THEM? NEVER?” Are you absolutely certain about that? Why?”. I could hear the frustration rise in his voice. ”Are you taking the house off the market then?”
“No, it’s still up for sale and I’m happy for you to continue to market the property for us. It just isn’t available to the Chancers”. This wasn’t something he had come across before and I could hear him huffing and puffing away as he wrestled with a situation that he wasn’t sure how to manage.
“Well, what on earth am I supposed to tell them?”, he demanded as an explanation.
“Oh that’s easy”, I replied. “I’m more than happy for you to be very candid on our behalf. Just tell them that we love this house, we love the neighbourhood and more importantly we respect and like our neighbours to the point we wouldn’t inflict what may very well be tantamount to the neighbours from hell moving in”.
I quickly gave him an account about the coercive and very poor behaviour of our would-be purchasers and how under no circumstances would we be responsible for the erosion of such a nice neighbourhood. I tried to make him understand that sometimes in life there were consequences for poor behaviour and this was clearly the time for the Chancers to perhaps reflect on theirs. Being an estate agent and where the sale is king, he thought me mad and that I would change my mind. He was clearly under pressure from the Chancers and called several more times with increased offers. Each time, much to his consternation, he was sent on his way. He even called my partner to offer over the asking price but we were united and John was given short shrift by him for disregarding my instructions and trying to manipulate the situation. The Chancers never got that house and it was sold shortly afterwards to a lovely young couple just starting out in life who needed the carpets and curtains and a hotchpotch of furniture we threw in as part of the deal – it was a second home for us so we could afford to be generous with what we could leave and in truth they were doing us a favour taking it off our hands. Some two children and over two decades later they are still there and have no plans to move.
God knows where the Chancers ended up – six foot under at some point would be my guess. Wonder what happened to the gormless one and if the poor soul ever got a word in.
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