Alice was the last book that I discussed with my mum, Gladys Joan Bell, ten or eleven days ago when I visited her in the nursing home. She recalled how she used to call in after school for tea at her friend Betty’s and they’d sit at the kitchen table and start acting out the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, which they knew by heart;
‘No room! No room!’
‘There’s plenty of room!’
Eighty years later that was as far as she could remember, so she asked me to look out her copy of Alice and bring it in to read to her. I’ve got her copy here on my desk, a 1954 first edition of the version illustrated by Mervyn Peake, but I regret that I didn’t get around to reading to her on my last couple of visits and sadly mum died a week ago today on the Tuesday morning, 10 February, (of ‘OLD AGE’ as Doctor Singh recorded it) slipping away peacefully, to use the cliche, but in this case it was true.
I’m of the generation who like to put the blame for their shortcomings onto their parents, as I guess most generations do, but you can see from my mum’s college project Oakleaves (above), which she compiled in the Spring of 1937, that she does have a lot to answer for; she’s the one who gave me my love of drawing, books and theatrical spectacle, not to mention a romantic view of history.
Don’t Fence Me In!
When she was in hospital in October, recovering from a broken hip and broken shoulder, my mum remembered cycling in the Peak District with my dad singing Don’t Fence Me In. But we’re going for These Foolish Things, one of the songs that she used to play on the piano, as her farewell at the funeral. That’s what I remember her playing but for lyrics I prefer the Gershwin song;
‘The memory of all that,
You can’t take that away from me.’
In hospital, rehab and in the nursing home mum had many set backs but somehow kept pulling through. A week after her death, I’m missing her already. For instance, I’d always tell her about historical bits and pieces that I’d come across, like the medieval carved head at Blacker Hall Farm cafe that reminded me of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, which I wrote about the other day.
Oakleaves is a good example of how my mum undervalued her talents. It was her student project, at Ripon Teacher Training College, to design a pageant for the Coronation of George VI in the spring of 1937. As a child, I was fascinated by the beautifully produced, hand-lettered booklet of blank verse and costume designs that she’d put together.
Ten or twelve years ago Barbara and I had popped up to my mum’s for a Sunday morning coffee and I opened the kitchen swing bin to drop something in it and saw Oakleaves, ripped out of its loose leaf binding, lying on top of the discarded lettuce and tea leaves.
‘Why’s this in here?!’ I asked.
‘Oh, I thought nobody will be interested in that, so I threw it out.’
‘Well, I’m interested in it!’ I protested as I fished it out. With some difficulty (and a basic knowledge of history) I repaginated it and kept it in my family history drawer.
Last year I decided to go to the trouble of scanning the whole thing and I revamped it into Blurb hardback format and presented her with a copy on her 96th birthday. Even then, she hesitated to show it to her old teaching friend, Olive, thinking that might be a bit bigheaded.
I’m so glad that I went to all that trouble because, this year, on the day that would have been her 97th birthday, we will be attending her funeral.
Link
As a little memorial to my mum, I’ve now made the book is available from Blurb. They’re individually printed and I decided I wanted to try it in hardback with a dust jacket, so it’s rather expensive to produce, even for such a slim volume, but after the original’s near miss with the swing bin, I thought that only the best would do;
Oakleaves at Blurb. It should work out at £20 but Blurb seems to prefer to show the price in dollars or Euros, which makes it a little over thirty dollars.
From the window that I’m looking through I get to see people pass by just for an instant but each individual seems so distinctive that I think ‘this time I’ve got it’ but then I start thinking was his hat blue or was that his sweat shirt? What was the grey lady wearing on her feet? Was the strider with the haversack wearing some kind of waistcoat or body warmer?
As I said the other day, the more I practice doing this, the better my memory should become not just for the telling details but also for overall shape and character of each figure.
At last I’ve got on to my new sketchbook, the one that I’m going to use for trips around town. We’re heading for Leeds on the train so it’s ideal for trying out Una Stubbs’ approach to drawing surreptitiously in public places;
I try memorising the people in the Costa Cafe at Wakefield Westgate. A list of details such as pin-striped grey suit, Hawaiian shirt and two-tone shoes isn’t enough in itself to conjure up the pose, body shape and character but, if I keep practicing, my visual memory for these subtler traits should improve.
Television shows feature a lot in the diary including including
