One of my earliest memories, when I was aged around four or five, is of my dad standing in the hallway with suitcases and then driving away, with me wanting to go too. That must have been my parents splitting up.
My mum brought up me and my younger brother alone. Over the next few years, there was sporadic contact with my father until it fizzled out altogether. I spent years wondering why my dad didn’t love me, but came to accept that’s just the way it was.
In 2005, I was 28 and at work when I received an email from my stepmother. We worked for the same organisation, but as she worked at a different site we seldom saw each other.
The email read something like: “Your dad is in hospital with liver failure and isn’t expected to live long. He’d like to see you.” It was a bombshell; I hadn’t given much thought to him in recent years.
I felt more confused than sad. The truth is, my father had spent his life in pubs, so such a death seemed inevitable. Even so, I was torn.
I didn’t want a cynical deathbed reunion. I wondered whether I could find out why he had attempted no contact during my childhood (we both lived in the same small town; I wasn’t difficult to find).
Another side of me thought I should put the past aside and forgive a dying man: my father, the man who gave me life, even if he had no interest in nurturing it.
Friends and family were supportive and non-judgmental, saying it was my choice. It was a torturous decision that I resented having to make.
In the end, the decision was taken away from me. About two weeks after that email from my stepmother, a colleague who had known my dad from way back came to tell me she had found out he had died a couple of days previously.
While I was shocked, I think she was more upset than I was. I was angry that none of the family had thought to tell me. To be fair, I hadn’t responded to my stepmother’s email or visited so they must naturally have assumed that I didn’t care.
I found out the date of the funeral from the obituary in the local newspaper. I didn’t cry; I wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to feel. I was about to attend the funeral of my father, a man I barely knew.
The room at the crematorium was packed; it was standing-room only. My mum and my partner came too and the three of us stood at the back. The eulogy was read; it celebrated his life as someone who was well-liked and always there for his friends.
That was salt enough in the wounds, but the worst was yet to come. Details of his life were remembered: his birth, in the early 1950s; his first job in the late 1960s; meeting his second wife in the early 1980s; and so on.
Strangely, the 1970s: a decade that saw his marriage to my mum, as well as the birth of me and my younger brother, were erased in a feat of revisionism that would have made Stalinist politicians proud.
I felt sick with shock. Was this revenge for not having visited and forgiven my dying father? Why be so spiteful?
I’ll never know why that decision was made. I’ll never know why my father wanted to see me on his deathbed. I’ll never know whether he loved me.
What I do know is that after five years, I’ve accepted that I didn’t see my father before he died and that I’ll never know the answers to those questions. It’s a sad fact and one I have to live with.
Saturday 18 June 2011
Friday 17 June 2011
At Fours and Sixes with Cricket
Yesterday I went to the cricket for the first time. Being a cricket virgin, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
It was only my third experience of a competitive ball game.
My first was baseball, over 10 years ago: Seattle Mariners vs the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, at Safeco Field. It was an interesting experience. I felt strange standing for the national anthem. Most spectators had brought with them a baseball glove, which I was rather intrigued by. I realised the importance of the accessory when a ball came flying straight at my head. I ducked.
The second ball game was rugby, Waratahs vs Brumbies at Sydney’s Aussie stadium. It was a rambunctious occasion. I can't remember much about it because I drank lots of beer; it was just to fit in, you understand...
Anyway, back to the cricket. The match I went to see was a Twenty20 match between Middlesex and Sussex at Lord’s. The home of cricket ground is suitably impressive, with the ‘spaceship’ media box.
Watching Test cricket on the telly always seemed a bit like watching paint dry, but Twenty20 is pretty fast-paced. For the uninitiated, each team has 20 overs to score as many runs as possible. It was pretty high-spirited, with cheering and songs, rather than the gentlemanly polite clapping you’d have expected in days of old.
You’d never have guessed it was the middle of June: it was absolutely blinking freezing. I was tempted to mug the guy in front of me for his puffer jacket. Many people had arrived for the occasion equipped with picnic baskets, beer and wine, for a summer’s evening’s picnic. At least they could drink away the cold!
Sadly, the cold meant there were definitely no streakers – it would have to have been someone who was extra brave!
Cricket to me has always seemed a ‘posh’ sport. This view was supported by the presence of many sharply-suited men arriving straight from work, with their Blackberries still fastened to their ears. Not content with a beer tent, Veuve Clicquot had a presence, offering bottles of champagne for a cool £275. To complete the picture, the corporate boxes were full.
However, I was surprised at the wide range of people at the cricket: children and, particularly, women.
The grey clouds were a constant threat and finally, with just three overs to go, the heavens opened; the stadium emptied.
So did I enjoy my first foray into cricket? It’s a fun, family-friendly way to spend an evening. I’d like to go again, but when the sun is shining, or when I’m wearing thermals.
Oh, and the score: Sussex won.
It was only my third experience of a competitive ball game.
My first was baseball, over 10 years ago: Seattle Mariners vs the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, at Safeco Field. It was an interesting experience. I felt strange standing for the national anthem. Most spectators had brought with them a baseball glove, which I was rather intrigued by. I realised the importance of the accessory when a ball came flying straight at my head. I ducked.
The second ball game was rugby, Waratahs vs Brumbies at Sydney’s Aussie stadium. It was a rambunctious occasion. I can't remember much about it because I drank lots of beer; it was just to fit in, you understand...
Anyway, back to the cricket. The match I went to see was a Twenty20 match between Middlesex and Sussex at Lord’s. The home of cricket ground is suitably impressive, with the ‘spaceship’ media box.Watching Test cricket on the telly always seemed a bit like watching paint dry, but Twenty20 is pretty fast-paced. For the uninitiated, each team has 20 overs to score as many runs as possible. It was pretty high-spirited, with cheering and songs, rather than the gentlemanly polite clapping you’d have expected in days of old.
You’d never have guessed it was the middle of June: it was absolutely blinking freezing. I was tempted to mug the guy in front of me for his puffer jacket. Many people had arrived for the occasion equipped with picnic baskets, beer and wine, for a summer’s evening’s picnic. At least they could drink away the cold!
Sadly, the cold meant there were definitely no streakers – it would have to have been someone who was extra brave!
Cricket to me has always seemed a ‘posh’ sport. This view was supported by the presence of many sharply-suited men arriving straight from work, with their Blackberries still fastened to their ears. Not content with a beer tent, Veuve Clicquot had a presence, offering bottles of champagne for a cool £275. To complete the picture, the corporate boxes were full.
The grey clouds were a constant threat and finally, with just three overs to go, the heavens opened; the stadium emptied.
So did I enjoy my first foray into cricket? It’s a fun, family-friendly way to spend an evening. I’d like to go again, but when the sun is shining, or when I’m wearing thermals.
Oh, and the score: Sussex won.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Horrible Histories
I’ve always loved history.
I don’t understand people who aren’t interested in history. How can you grasp why our world today is how it is without knowing what happened to shape it? Without knowing what happened before, how can you prevent it happening again?
I love the CBBC show Horrible Histories. It’s a huge hit amongst children. It has been said that its success is due to acknowledging that children love gore, death, poo and blood – and the show has all these things in spades. Children are learning about history without even realising it – which is surely the best way.
Since a young age, my interest in history was spurred by the gruesome moments. My Nan is also a history buff and loved all the spooky stories of people being walled up alive, or interested to see where the hanging tree was in the grounds of a stately home.
My wonderful A level history teacher, Mr Hall, stoked the fires of this interest by regaling us with macabre stories. Mr Hall was responsible for teaching us about the Tudors and Stuarts – full of gory moments as anyone who has every watched any film or TV programme about the period will know. As a teacher, Mr Hall had the gift of bringing the lesson to life and was full of anecdotes about the long-dead people we were studying.
During one lesson, he took great pleasure in telling the class, in great detail, how one might go about the process of hanging, drawing and quartering. This was in the lesson immediately before the lunch break; my fellow classmates and I really didn’t feel very hungry after that!
My interest in the morbid side of history extends to historical books and films. Yesterday I got Hilary Mantel’s new book, ‘A Place of Greater Safety’, a great tome of a book about Robespierre and the time leading to the French Revolution. I’m looking forward to reading it, despite its rather intimidating size. Surely there'll be lots of scenes of people visiting le guillotine.
Mantel also wrote Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell and his involvement in the Reformation, which I can recommend. Besides being an excellent read that doesn’t patronise (she introduces characters and leaves you to figure out who they are within the historical context), it contains many scenes of burnings and beheadings. Great!
Talking of beheadings, a couple of years ago I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl at the cinema. The film was ok; as good as it can be with two Americans and an Australian playing the leading roles, anyway. At least the costumes were pretty. The book of the same name is waiting on my very tall ‘to read’ pile; I hope it follows tradition and is better than the film adaptation.
Anyway, after seeing a film, I often check out IMDB to see how fellow film lovers have rated the offering. There’s an active forum. One thread was called: ‘How was Anne executed?’. Readers with even the slightest grasp of Anne Boleyn’s story will think this was a blinking obvious question, but stay with me here.
A pedant for historical accuracy will note that Anne requested that Henry VIII send for a French swordsman to do the deed with her kneeling on the scaffold, rather than being dispatched by the more traditional English means of an axe on the block. Some films featuring Anne’s story execute her using the latter method.
One comment that had me in stitches read: “You could have put on a spoiler alert, now I know what happens at the end!” Yes, they seemed to be perfectly serious – they had no idea about the fate of the second of Henry VIII’s six wives.
This poster was pilloried with endings from other historical films: "Oooh, you'll never guess what happens at the end of Titanic..." You get the picture.
It’s sad that people don’t take more of an interest in history. At least the gore, blood, death and poo of Horrible Histories are teaching the next generation about the history of the world they live in.
Oh, and by the way, while The Other Boleyn Girl was a bit rubbish, at least Anne had her head chopped off in the right way.
I don’t understand people who aren’t interested in history. How can you grasp why our world today is how it is without knowing what happened to shape it? Without knowing what happened before, how can you prevent it happening again?
I love the CBBC show Horrible Histories. It’s a huge hit amongst children. It has been said that its success is due to acknowledging that children love gore, death, poo and blood – and the show has all these things in spades. Children are learning about history without even realising it – which is surely the best way.
Since a young age, my interest in history was spurred by the gruesome moments. My Nan is also a history buff and loved all the spooky stories of people being walled up alive, or interested to see where the hanging tree was in the grounds of a stately home.
My wonderful A level history teacher, Mr Hall, stoked the fires of this interest by regaling us with macabre stories. Mr Hall was responsible for teaching us about the Tudors and Stuarts – full of gory moments as anyone who has every watched any film or TV programme about the period will know. As a teacher, Mr Hall had the gift of bringing the lesson to life and was full of anecdotes about the long-dead people we were studying.
During one lesson, he took great pleasure in telling the class, in great detail, how one might go about the process of hanging, drawing and quartering. This was in the lesson immediately before the lunch break; my fellow classmates and I really didn’t feel very hungry after that!
My interest in the morbid side of history extends to historical books and films. Yesterday I got Hilary Mantel’s new book, ‘A Place of Greater Safety’, a great tome of a book about Robespierre and the time leading to the French Revolution. I’m looking forward to reading it, despite its rather intimidating size. Surely there'll be lots of scenes of people visiting le guillotine.
Mantel also wrote Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell and his involvement in the Reformation, which I can recommend. Besides being an excellent read that doesn’t patronise (she introduces characters and leaves you to figure out who they are within the historical context), it contains many scenes of burnings and beheadings. Great!
Talking of beheadings, a couple of years ago I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl at the cinema. The film was ok; as good as it can be with two Americans and an Australian playing the leading roles, anyway. At least the costumes were pretty. The book of the same name is waiting on my very tall ‘to read’ pile; I hope it follows tradition and is better than the film adaptation.Anyway, after seeing a film, I often check out IMDB to see how fellow film lovers have rated the offering. There’s an active forum. One thread was called: ‘How was Anne executed?’. Readers with even the slightest grasp of Anne Boleyn’s story will think this was a blinking obvious question, but stay with me here.
A pedant for historical accuracy will note that Anne requested that Henry VIII send for a French swordsman to do the deed with her kneeling on the scaffold, rather than being dispatched by the more traditional English means of an axe on the block. Some films featuring Anne’s story execute her using the latter method.One comment that had me in stitches read: “You could have put on a spoiler alert, now I know what happens at the end!” Yes, they seemed to be perfectly serious – they had no idea about the fate of the second of Henry VIII’s six wives.
This poster was pilloried with endings from other historical films: "Oooh, you'll never guess what happens at the end of Titanic..." You get the picture.
It’s sad that people don’t take more of an interest in history. At least the gore, blood, death and poo of Horrible Histories are teaching the next generation about the history of the world they live in.
Oh, and by the way, while The Other Boleyn Girl was a bit rubbish, at least Anne had her head chopped off in the right way.
Saturday 11 June 2011
For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll
My partner and I have been together for nearly 12 years. We’re perfectly happy and aren’t fussed about tying the knot. So it’s very tiresome when people ask me the perennial question: “So, when are you getting married?”
These days, it doesn’t seem necessary to make a relationship ‘legal’. The social pressure has gone: ‘living in sin’ is perfectly acceptable. People who get married might think it’s important to proclaim their love in front of all their family and friends, but we’re a self-contained, quite private couple and that really doesn’t appeal.
I love a good party and a pretty frock as much as the next girl, but the thought of having my ‘big day’ sends me into a cold sweat. Studies have shown a wedding with all the trimmings can cost as much as £20,000; a ridiculous figure in today’s austere times, especially when we can’t scrape together a deposit to get on the housing ladder.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that every wedding has to be a big fat meringue of a day. Smaller, more intimate weddings are probably more fun anyway because at least then everyone can relax. The principle remains though: I’m just not fussed about getting married at the moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy weddings. They’re just more appealing if I can be sat in the pews, followed by getting merry at the reception without worrying about how much I might be embarrassed by the speeches. You won’t find me amongst the throng of women anxiously waiting to catch the bride’s bouquet. Just don’t say “It will be you next...”.
The funny thing is, I really enjoy wedding programmes; Four Weddings and Don’t Tell the Bride are particular favourites. Being the wedding cynic I am, my enjoyment is gained as much from the schadenfreude when things go awry as from admiring the dresses. Wedding planning seems stressful, but also fun, but I’m not so gullible so as to get swept up by a bit of light-hearted reality TV.
A couple of people I know have run off to get married: some abroad, while a former colleague took a day off work and snuck off to the registry office. A wedding abroad sounds appealing: a holiday and wedding in one. Plus, you’ve got only yourselves to please, no table plan to stress over and no worrying about who you might offend if you don’t invite them. Should I ever change my mind about getting hitched, running away to do the deed would result in a short-lived marriage, not least because my mum would kill me.
A Freudian psychoanalyst could probably have some fun with my partner and I, as we are both the product of now-divorced parents. It would surely be a half-baked theory, though, as lots of other children of separated spouses manage to put that thought to one side and vow to each other that their marriage will be different. I genuinely don’t feel any pressure or need to get married – at the moment, anyway.
We’re looking towards having children (I’m 33, tick tock goes the biological clock; yes, I really should get on with it). I suppose you should never say never, as I might change my mind about the whole marriage thing if/when we have children; it might make more sense then to become more of an ‘official’ family unit.
Is my lack of enthusiasm about marriage an unromantic notion? I don’t think so. My partner and I invest in our relationship and work hard at it. We’re as married as married couples, just without the piece of paper. We live together, pay the bills, do the food shopping, chores and argue over the remote control.
Who’s to say our relationship isn’t as strong, just because we haven’t made a public proclamation to each other? So lay off the pressure, please, well-meaning folks.
These days, it doesn’t seem necessary to make a relationship ‘legal’. The social pressure has gone: ‘living in sin’ is perfectly acceptable. People who get married might think it’s important to proclaim their love in front of all their family and friends, but we’re a self-contained, quite private couple and that really doesn’t appeal.I love a good party and a pretty frock as much as the next girl, but the thought of having my ‘big day’ sends me into a cold sweat. Studies have shown a wedding with all the trimmings can cost as much as £20,000; a ridiculous figure in today’s austere times, especially when we can’t scrape together a deposit to get on the housing ladder.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that every wedding has to be a big fat meringue of a day. Smaller, more intimate weddings are probably more fun anyway because at least then everyone can relax. The principle remains though: I’m just not fussed about getting married at the moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy weddings. They’re just more appealing if I can be sat in the pews, followed by getting merry at the reception without worrying about how much I might be embarrassed by the speeches. You won’t find me amongst the throng of women anxiously waiting to catch the bride’s bouquet. Just don’t say “It will be you next...”.The funny thing is, I really enjoy wedding programmes; Four Weddings and Don’t Tell the Bride are particular favourites. Being the wedding cynic I am, my enjoyment is gained as much from the schadenfreude when things go awry as from admiring the dresses. Wedding planning seems stressful, but also fun, but I’m not so gullible so as to get swept up by a bit of light-hearted reality TV.
A couple of people I know have run off to get married: some abroad, while a former colleague took a day off work and snuck off to the registry office. A wedding abroad sounds appealing: a holiday and wedding in one. Plus, you’ve got only yourselves to please, no table plan to stress over and no worrying about who you might offend if you don’t invite them. Should I ever change my mind about getting hitched, running away to do the deed would result in a short-lived marriage, not least because my mum would kill me.
A Freudian psychoanalyst could probably have some fun with my partner and I, as we are both the product of now-divorced parents. It would surely be a half-baked theory, though, as lots of other children of separated spouses manage to put that thought to one side and vow to each other that their marriage will be different. I genuinely don’t feel any pressure or need to get married – at the moment, anyway.
We’re looking towards having children (I’m 33, tick tock goes the biological clock; yes, I really should get on with it). I suppose you should never say never, as I might change my mind about the whole marriage thing if/when we have children; it might make more sense then to become more of an ‘official’ family unit.
Is my lack of enthusiasm about marriage an unromantic notion? I don’t think so. My partner and I invest in our relationship and work hard at it. We’re as married as married couples, just without the piece of paper. We live together, pay the bills, do the food shopping, chores and argue over the remote control. Who’s to say our relationship isn’t as strong, just because we haven’t made a public proclamation to each other? So lay off the pressure, please, well-meaning folks.
Thursday 9 June 2011
Seeing an Old Berlin Through New Eyes
Having studied Germany between the wars, I thought I knew what to expect of Berlin.
My preconception led to a rather disorientating trip at first – it just didn’t look like the black-and-white photographs I had stored in my head.
Of course, I knew exactly why Berlin has changed so much since the 1930s –
and its turbulent history is what makes Germany’s capital a fascinating place to visit.
Berlin is a vibrant, modern city with all the cafes, restaurants, bars and nightclubs you would expect to find. It doesn’t shy away from its past and is packed with opportunities to soak up its history.
I arrived at the end of a blistering July heatwave, so the rain on the first day of my trip offered a relief. The gloom added to the sombre atmosphere of the Holocaust Memorial.
The controversial memorial, opened in 2005, consists of nearly 3,000 grey concrete slabs (stelae) arranged in a sloping grid. The raindrops sliding down the stelae looked like tears.
Stolperstein, or stumbling blocks, offer emotive reminders of the Holocaust. These bronze memorials are placed in the street outside the homes Jews were forced to leave, detailing victims’ names and their fate.
Too many read ‘ermordet’- murdered. Naturally, many stolperstein can be found in Scheunenviertel, the former Jewish district, now a lively area full of bars and cafes.
Berlin is synonymous with the wall that divided the city for 30 years. My visit was
during the 20th anniversary year of the wall’s fall.
An absorbing outdoor exhibition (thankfully in English and German) in Alexanderplatz detailed ordinary Berliners’ lives on both sides of the wall, as well as the political background that led to the reunification.
I posed for a photo next to a preserved section of the wall at Potsdamer Platz. It is next to the ultra-modern Sony Center, offering a juxtaposition of the old Berlin against the new.
I resisted having the ‘border guard’ stamp my passport. To complete my wall experience, I was eager to see Checkpoint Charlie, but found it is a disappointing tourist trap.
The weekend fleamarket on Strasse den 17.Juni offered a more authentic experience. A happy hour was spent browsing through early twentieth century family photo albums, many including First World War soldiers, offering a fascinating glimpse into real lives.
The Tascheles building was originally a department store, has served as a Nazi prison and is now an artists’ haven. It is on Oranienburger Strasse, near the new synagogue.
Artists can be seen at work in their studios creating all kinds of modern art. Threatened with demolition, this building has an uncertain future. I was pleased to see Tascheles before it disappears.
*This feature first appeared in OVL Magazine in April 2011
My preconception led to a rather disorientating trip at first – it just didn’t look like the black-and-white photographs I had stored in my head.
Of course, I knew exactly why Berlin has changed so much since the 1930s –
and its turbulent history is what makes Germany’s capital a fascinating place to visit.
Berlin is a vibrant, modern city with all the cafes, restaurants, bars and nightclubs you would expect to find. It doesn’t shy away from its past and is packed with opportunities to soak up its history.
I arrived at the end of a blistering July heatwave, so the rain on the first day of my trip offered a relief. The gloom added to the sombre atmosphere of the Holocaust Memorial. The controversial memorial, opened in 2005, consists of nearly 3,000 grey concrete slabs (stelae) arranged in a sloping grid. The raindrops sliding down the stelae looked like tears.
Stolperstein, or stumbling blocks, offer emotive reminders of the Holocaust. These bronze memorials are placed in the street outside the homes Jews were forced to leave, detailing victims’ names and their fate. Too many read ‘ermordet’- murdered. Naturally, many stolperstein can be found in Scheunenviertel, the former Jewish district, now a lively area full of bars and cafes.
Berlin is synonymous with the wall that divided the city for 30 years. My visit was
during the 20th anniversary year of the wall’s fall.
An absorbing outdoor exhibition (thankfully in English and German) in Alexanderplatz detailed ordinary Berliners’ lives on both sides of the wall, as well as the political background that led to the reunification.
I posed for a photo next to a preserved section of the wall at Potsdamer Platz. It is next to the ultra-modern Sony Center, offering a juxtaposition of the old Berlin against the new. 
I resisted having the ‘border guard’ stamp my passport. To complete my wall experience, I was eager to see Checkpoint Charlie, but found it is a disappointing tourist trap.The weekend fleamarket on Strasse den 17.Juni offered a more authentic experience. A happy hour was spent browsing through early twentieth century family photo albums, many including First World War soldiers, offering a fascinating glimpse into real lives.
The Tascheles building was originally a department store, has served as a Nazi prison and is now an artists’ haven. It is on Oranienburger Strasse, near the new synagogue.Artists can be seen at work in their studios creating all kinds of modern art. Threatened with demolition, this building has an uncertain future. I was pleased to see Tascheles before it disappears.
Berlin has far more to offer than is possible to see in four days, as my sore feet attested. Fortunately, the Park Inn hotel in Alexanderplatz provided a comfortable and convenient base, with a U-Bahn station a short walk away. I’ll be returning to this intriguing city to experience more of 21st century Berlin.
*This feature first appeared in OVL Magazine in April 2011
Well, here goes...
I want to be a writer.
There. Not quite as scary as (I imagine) standing in an AA meeting is, but there it is, I've said it.
As anyone who has ever started doing something new knows, getting out of the starting blocks can be difficult.
I've had a couple of articles published - you can check out one of them here to see how great I am http://www.stylist.co.uk/stylist-network/readers-column-why-i-rent
So I've started the race, but how do I make sure I clear the hurdles? Being a typical self-effacing Brit, I'm not very good at self-promotion. So, here's this blog, world: I'll be regaling you with my thoughts and ponderings.
I'd love to know what you think...
That's all for now,
Leigh
There. Not quite as scary as (I imagine) standing in an AA meeting is, but there it is, I've said it.
As anyone who has ever started doing something new knows, getting out of the starting blocks can be difficult.
I've had a couple of articles published - you can check out one of them here to see how great I am http://www.stylist.co.uk/stylist-network/readers-column-why-i-rent
So I've started the race, but how do I make sure I clear the hurdles? Being a typical self-effacing Brit, I'm not very good at self-promotion. So, here's this blog, world: I'll be regaling you with my thoughts and ponderings.
I'd love to know what you think...
That's all for now,
Leigh
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)