LAUGHING IN JANUARY

How can this month NOT be depressing? Everywhere you turn there is something which reduces the already low light a little further: the weather, the news, family problems, health problems… I could go on. Wondering how to make this month’s article more light-hearted, I started to make a list of things which are guaranteed to make me laugh – because laughter is the very best way to feel a little better.

A recent edition of ‘Desert Island Discs’ featured a well-known actress, choosing as one of her eight pieces of ‘music’ for a desert island, that famous clip from ‘Test Match Special’ in which the charismatic commentator Brian Johnston attempts to describe a cricket match whilst smothering his bottled-up laughter. He fails, of course, and becomes incoherent at the microphone. It’s so infectious, and you can hear the muffled sounds of his colleagues, collapsing around him with mirth. I was suffering badly from ‘Post-Christmas-Blues’ when this was playing the other day, but it never fails to make me stop what I’m doing and laugh – and the magic worked again. This clip dates from August 1991 and is now almost twenty five years old, yet retains its ability to entertain – perhaps because the incident was an accident, unplanned and unrehearsed.

My late father’s family was notorious for being able to see ‘the funny side’ of things. A mid-1920s photo shows my grandfather and his two eldest children laughing at something. He throws back his head, regardless of his clergyman’s collar, in an uninhibited moment of enjoyment. The two younger children are uncertain and my grandfather’s sister definitely hasn’t understood, but this only makes the photo more natural. Seeing his relaxed joyful expression of mirth always makes me smile.

In this photo, taken more than sixty five years later, the same two eldest children share humour in their eighties.

Sometimes it is extremely hard to pull back from a sudden reminder of the past, and instead you become overwhelmed by it. January holds difficult memories for me, and the 'Blues' I described above returned to haunt me the other day, for no apparent reason. Here is a little story:

I spent the first day of the New Year, more than thirty years ago, in Epsom Hospital undergoing a series of painful and uncomfortable examinations in which various members of the medical profession attempted to ascertain whether or not my unborn baby was breech (upside-down). No-one could decide. In the end I was carted off to X-Ray in a wheelchair. The hospital seemed strangely quiet – it was a bank holiday, remember, and the corridors and lifts were empty. The hospital porter was chatty, and obviously having a dull day. After the X-Ray had been taken, he and I crammed ourselves inside the little processing room with the nurse, where the three of us glumly viewed the negative hanging in front of us in which a tiny little skeleton sat waiting to be born… the wrong way up. 

The nurse shooed us out of X-Ray, and as we rolled back along the deserted corridors to the ward, the porter said,
‘Reckon you’ll need a Caesarean Section.’
‘What?’ I said, beginning to find the whole day both painful and frightening.
‘That baby’s large,’ he continued, his voice filled with the wisdom of one whom nothing would surprise. ‘And high,’ he added.
 

He was right, but it was only the beginning of my problems. Back on the ward, various nurses – unhappy that they were the ones having to work on a bank holiday – discussed my case in front of me. It seemed that no surgeon was around to perform the operation, so it would need to take place on the following day.
‘We could let you go into labour,’ one nurse suggested, ‘just so that you know what it’s like and don’t feel cheated out of it.’ I glared at her.
‘Just get this baby out!’ I snarled.
 

By this time everyone was beginning to wonder where my absent husband was. He had disappeared once the first examinations began, when he realised that he could take advantage of the situation to go and contact Elaine. And that was my biggest problem: Elaine. He re-appeared at visiting time (in those days you couldn’t just come and go the way it works now,) and was annoyed to discover that he would not be able to attend the birth because it would be an operation. I still wonder, to this day, why he felt this.  Because, you see, he was having an affair with Elaine, and planned to leave me after the baby arrived. They had discussed it at length, and this was what they had decided.
 

The next morning there was a flap on because the hospital needed to get hold of my husband. It seems hard to believe now, but they required his permission to perform the operation. In the marital home the telephone rang and rang. And rang, unanswered. In the end, I made a fuss. I was twenty-seven years old, I told them. I suggested that they might try contacting my parents? In the end someone with enormous common sense must have backed down, because they allowed me to sign the form which permitted them to operate on me and liberate the poor little skeleton still waiting inside me… upside down.
 

They say it’s the best day of your life when you give birth to your baby and it is placed in your arms. I have to comment that seeing my little son for the first time, feeling his tiny body in my arms, was for me one of the best things ever. But as for the rest of it… These memories are dark ones, followed in subsequent weeks by some of the worst days of my life. But that was then.
 

And this is now! 

Here we are, in January 2016, in what seems like another life. As I close the door on that particular memory I feel depressed at the revisitation, but in an odd way glad I went there. ‘The past is another country’, said L P Hartley so profoundly, and in my opinion when you make your exit you cross a boundary. You may not return, you may not change anything, you can simply revisit in your mind and then let go – for if you don’t, it will haunt you forever.
 

I wish all my readers a Happy New Year, good health and strength. If you must make a resolution, I recommend adding as much laughter into your life as you can.

And in case you are feeling a little low and would like to hear the Brian Johnston clip, here it is: Brian Johnston & Jonathan Agnew 1991 - enjoy it!

NO PRESENTS THIS CHRISTMAS

Right at the end of the telephone conversation my son, who clearly had not been relishing telling me, announced:

‘N’s father has decided not to give presents this year, so we’ve decided the same. Are you OK with this?’

‘No presents?’ I heard myself repeat in a voice choked with disbelief, ‘What? No Christmas presents? Christmas won’t be Christmas without presents….’

‘Well,’ he struggled to find something with which to mollify his spoilt mother, ‘maybe think about it and talk it over with M? We’re all skint anyway, so it’s a great help.’ He added little more in this vein other than to leave it to me to break the idea to his grandmother and uncle.

Much to my amazement, the other members of my very small family were in agreement. Well, at least the male members were.  At eighty six the matriarch of us is very frail now, and it was felt that we must of course give presents to her.  At this point I should explain that we have no children in our family and the youngest of us is thirty five, so Christmas has become a much less exciting time of year than it might be for larger families. Its religious significance is also rather lost on us, and we are simply left with days in which good food is planned around odd medical conditions and shortage of funds, the hope that none of us falls ill and the exchange of… well… presents.

I am sorry to say, none of us is keen to give the money we might save to good causes. This has already been done for us by a rather sanctimonious aunt, who when she died left hundreds of thousands of pounds to good causes. We were all slightly miffed by this, and as a result whilst we do what we can for charity shops and poppy sellers, it ends there.

But this article is not about the virtues or failings of our attitudes to charity. I am relating the story because of an unexpected side effect, and this is the relief we have all felt at having the burden of Christmas-present-buying removed from us. It is quite extraordinary how much more enjoyable these weeks before Christmas become when life is so much simpler. There is time to stand around and listen to Christmas carols, brass bands and general merry-making in the town. Time to talk to shopkeepers about how they are doing, to sympathise and agree with what is happening to them. I have time to make (knit) some presents for well-deserving people, and to write letters which contain more news and opinions, and less ‘annual tripe’ than usual. I’m not dreading writing out my Christmas cards, and the planning of meals is a far more relaxed and agreeable task.

In a way, this Christmas-without-presents is an experiment. If we hate it, we can revert to a ‘normal’ Christmas next time. I am not sure we will, because I’m feeling a great deal more ‘Christmas Spirit’ by concentrating on the things which really matter at this time: taking time to talk, to listen and to love one’s family and friends. They won’t be with us forever.

Season’s Greetings!

A DOOR OUT OF DEPRESSION

I’m trying to help three people at the moment. Let’s call them A, B and C. At the same time I have been working on my second novel ‘Stopping Time’. I say working, but in fact it is thinking which takes up much of a writer’s time. A recent visit to a timeless and uplifting place on Dartmoor called Brentor, led me to want to post a photograph on this blog. So the photo which you see here is the view from the doorway of the small church which is perched on top of Brentor.

If you have read my first novel, ‘Losing Time’, you will know that doors are important to me. In the book doors can be portals across time and sometimes across dimensions.  I often look at doors and wonder where they lead to, whether they might in some strange way prove a physical entrance to a life-changing experience, or instead a mental change in crossing the threshold of a memory or thought. So the minute I saw this doorway into – and out from – such an unusual place, I knew that it might be somewhere I could use in my writing.

When I started thinking along these lines, I was worried about B. B is suffering from depression and going through a very bad patch at the moment. Many members of our family suffer and have suffered from this terrible illness, and I am well aware of the dark-induced chemical change which the brain suffers. An attack of depression is almost like the onset of a cold, because the minute you recognise it, you know that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It will creep insidiously upon you, whispering softly into your mind: I’m back…

November is a bad month for depression. The low autumn light and the dying trees, together with the acrid smell of bonfires all conspire against the greatest of optimists. I am drawn, in the late afternoon, to make tea and hot toast, draw the curtains against the failing light and switch on cheerful lamps. B is not so lucky. B is probably still at work, struggling to maintain the status quo and the everlasting pretence which accompanies this condition. B won’t be able to leave the desk and make a quick mug of some hot beverage, without being observed by everyone else. B, in a sudden onset of paranoia, daren’t go home until everyone else has gone. By then it will be dark and the glare of streetlamps  and flashing car lights will have replaced natural light.

I don’t have any wonderful remedy for depression. I can only listen on the end of a phone and tentatively suggest optimistic things: daylight lamps, good food, and plans to look forward to. I must include visits to – or if this is impossible, pictures and memories of – some of the best places where someone depressed has felt happy and uplifted. Brentor is certainly one of these for me. There are a few others, usually high places where the sun shines and the air is like champagne.

In the current book, I have a character in a very dark place indeed. I hope to rescue him before long. Perhaps a door will open into his miserable world and invite him back on to the top of a moor, in Summer, when all is green.

LOSING TIME: CHANGED BLOG ADDRESS

Please be aware that I have changed the link for the LOSING TIME blog. If you have arrived at this page and you were searching for it, then you have succeeded in finding it - I apologise if you have experienced difficulties! If you have landed here by accident, then I hope you enjoy it.

The new link is: http://prfordwriter.blogspot.co.uk/

LOSING TIME

The publication of LOSING TIME as an E-book has taken me completely by surprise. A feeling of unreality was followed by the onset of a migraine - blessedly only a short one - and three days later I am beginning to feel like a 'proper' writer. The burden of the unfinished book has been lifted and I can begin work on its sequel which had become lost under a pile of e-rubbish.

Like everything else in the creation of this work, the cover page fell together almost by accident. I am very proud that so many members of my family were involved in this.The watch belonged to my late father, who would have been astonished to see the way my son and I have manipulated a photo of it - which was originally taken by my brother. It was not my original choice, but I kept going back to it, as though it nagged me to use it. When, like a forgotten word, the title 'Losing Time' appeared in my mind, using the photograph of the watch was a no-brainer!

The most difficult part was undoubtedly the description of the story. How on earth could I condense 100,000 words into a short paragraph which might tempt readers to try it? This is no simple story, and I have ended up with a few sentences which attempt to convey its essence:

People don’t vanish without a reason. They may be trapped in another time or a strange place, or not on Earth at all; but why would all of these happen to one family?
Helen’s father failed to return from a day trip he made to Oxford in 1984. Twenty one years later Helen travels to Ireland following a clue to his disappearance, but her mundane life as an accountant ends abruptly when she falls through a trans-dimension portal and finds herself in a fortress on Dartmoor.
Behind the confusion someone is hunting not only Helen, but the child her father was trying to bring home: her twin brother Leo. And the eccentric alien people who befriend Helen are also under threat.
So when Helen reappears in her workplace with a stranger, things begin to spiral out of control…

Here is a link to Amazon UK where the book may be purchased: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B016X4HXCE - for anyone tempted to give it a try. It is available on Amazon worldwide. I hope you enjoy it.




 

MY FRIEND

She could be stubborn, even infuriating, but if you knew her she was deeply sincere, loyal and a wonderful friend. Her tongue was one of the sharpest I have ever known – I always dreaded being on the wrong side of it – but when you needed her she would be the kindest and best of friends. She kept her life simple, living to a few basic rules, two of which I try to follow myself. The first: “if you can’t do someone a good turn, don’t do them a bad one!” was what made her so completely honest. Her candour could at times be absolutely cutting, even humiliating if she thought you were wrong. She never denied that she would tell you to your face what she thought, even if sometimes her caustic words seemed cruel – it was not meant.

The second rule: “as long as you’ve got your health and strength...” kept her going right to the very end of her life. She died as she lived: quietly, efficiently and in her own time. I honestly think she had made up her mind that it was time to go – and so she went.

In writing this I cannot omit the one quality which drew people to her: a wonderful dry sense of humour. How many of us have fallen about laughing at one of her chance remarks dropped innocently into a conversation or story, followed with a little smile?

It is a long time now since Michael and I were married at Morchard Bishop, but she played quite a part in the events leading up to it, and loved to reminisce about that time. She hosted the groom, best man, bride’s aunt uncle and cousin, as well as a host of people crowding in and out of her warm kitchen – never once flustered by it all. She always laughed at the episode of the day before, when she and I were making sure my wedding dress fitted properly when Michael turned up at the door. She was horrified, highly superstitious that the groom must not see the dress, and rushed out to tell him in no uncertain terms to keep out!

Her absence from my life, after thirty two years of her indomitable presence, will be a huge, gaping hole which only time will ease. I will adapt, and she would scold me for writing this and tell me to get on with my work. I will, Mrs Snell. But first I’ll have a cup of tea. And sit for a little while...

E.D.S. 29.11.21 - 05.01.15