Hats - Not For Me, Thanks

My mother had a pill-box hat made of tiny pale blue feathers sweeping round the circular shape. She wore it for my aunt and uncle’s wedding. She didn’t like hats much. They were for church and special occasions. A headscarf would do for popping to the shop, a stroll on the windy promenade or for keeping her hair neat on the walk back from the hairdressers.

My granddad never went out without his signature tweed Trilby. He might have had more than one, I don’t know, but he didn’t object to me dressing up in it when I was little. The inside rim was shiny with his Brylcreem and it smelt sweet, like him.

I’ve recently been knitting cardigans and matching hats for my new baby granddaughter, Matilda. I love making children’s clothes and each item is a one-off, for a particular little person.

Crochet is not my speciality, I’m a bit hit and miss with it, apart from Afghan square blankets, but I managed to design and make Minion character hats for a local primary school Christmas Fayre. I’m not looking to give up my day job on the strength of it, not just yet.

I miss working with infants, especially literacy and reading. There is so much to learn from the four-to-sevens when looking at their world and listening to their stories.  The developing imagination of a child is fascinating.  I’m starting to introduce well-loved stories and poems to my grandchildren.  A current favourite is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Soon we’ll be on to Dr Seuss and Edward Lear. I don’t mind if they grow up thinking that I am completely bonkers as long as they remember having lots of fun. And that I always dressed ‘in character’ for the benefit of the children who knocked on my door at Hallowe’en.

Apart from my black, pointed, witchy thing with the illuminated spider on the side, I’m not really one for wearing hats. I have a couple of home-made knitted ones for very cold weather that also keep my hair off my face in the wind. I’ve got a wide-brimmed sun hat for sitting in the garden and a ‘posh’ hat that I wore for a wedding, once. Me and hats don’t get on. It’s really my hair. I’m burdened with very fine, flyaway hair that reacts badly when I take a hat off. Most of all, I hated my compulsory senior school hat.

Someone else must have hated my school hat, too, because the first thing she did when she got on the same bus home was to grab it off my head and kick it all over the dirty floor, encouraging her friends to join in. This was a slightly older girl from another school. I knew her by sight from being in the year above me at the same junior school. I would already be on the bus for a short time before it reached her stop and I would dread her arrival.  She snatched the hat out of my hand once, when I tried to stop her getting it and another time it was my satchel that got thrown all over the place. Eventually, I agreed that my mother should intervene and she telephoned a complaint to the bully-girl’s school. Whatever was said and how it was dealt with worked. There was no alternative, we had to share the same bus, but she never bothered me again.

Amongst my special keep-sakes is the beautiful hat my late mother-in-law chose to wear for our wedding. It’s a pretty, navy blue satin pill-box hat, trimmed with navy net and a bow of navy velvet. A memento of a lovely lady from a wonderful day.

 

I hope my choice of an Edward Lear poem raises a smile,

 

 

The Quangle Wangle's Hat

 

I 

On the top of the Crumpetty Tree 

      The Quangle Wangle sat, 

But his face you could not see, 

      On account of his Beaver Hat. 

For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide, 

With ribbons and bibbons on every side 

And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace, 

So that nobody ever could see the face 

            Of the Quangle Wangle Quee. 

 

II 

The Quangle Wangle said 

      To himself on the Crumpetty Tree, — 

"Jam; and jelly; and bread; 

      "Are the best of food for me! 

"But the longer I live on this Crumpetty Tree 

"The plainer than ever it seems to me 

"That very few people come this way 

"And that life on the whole is far from gay!" 

            Said the Quangle Wangle Quee. 

 

III 

But there came to the Crumpetty Tree, 

      Mr. and Mrs. Canary; 

And they said, — "Did every you see 

      "Any spot so charmingly airy? 

"May we build a nest on your lovely Hat? 

"Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that! 

"O please let us come and build a nest 

"Of whatever material suits you best, 

            "Mr. Quangle Wangle Quee!" 

 

IV 

And besides, to the Crumpetty Tree 

      Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl; 

The Snail, and the Bumble-Bee, 

      The Frog, and the Fimble Fowl; 

(The Fimble Fowl, with a corkscrew leg;) 

And all of them said, — "We humbly beg, 

"We may build out homes on your lovely Hat, — 

"Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that! 

            "Mr. Quangle Wangle Quee!" 

 

V 

And the Golden Grouse came there, 

      And the Pobble who has no toes, — 

And the small Olympian bear, — 

      And the Dong with a luminous nose. 

And the Blue Baboon, who played the Flute, — 

And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute, — 

And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat, — 

All came and built on the lovely Hat 

            Of the Quangle Wangle Quee. 

 

VI 

And the Quangle Wangle said 

      To himself on the Crumpetty Tree, — 

"When all these creatures move 

      "What a wonderful noise there'll be!" 

And at night by the light of the Mulberry moon 

They danced to the Flute of the Blue Baboon, 

On the broad green leaves of the Crumpetty Tree, 

And all were as happy as happy could be, 

            With the Quangle Wangle Quee.

 

 

by Edward Lear,  1812 - 1888

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

·         

·         

·         

·         

 

Read More

Childhood Secrets - Dreadful Child

It took ages to pluck up the courage to tell my mother that I was being picked on and bullied by my supposed ‘best friend’. The tears came before I got any words together. I was only nine, perhaps ten and I can still feel the misery, anxiety and fear that filled my life because of her. My mother calmed me, soothed me and told me the best way of dealing with the situation was to stand up to this girl and her army of followers who were turned against me. I can’t remember her words but I remember feeling my worries melting away and my confidence building back up. I put her plan of action to immediate effect and it worked. My mother had wisdom and understanding.

Unfortunately, her understanding didn’t stretch as far as ‘the lipstick incident’ when I was twelve, well, twelve and a half. In the summer season of 1968 our main residence was a pub and hotel on Central Promenade. On Sunday mornings I would be in charge of my younger sister as we got the bus to our other pub at South Shore then a short walk to Rawcliffe Street where we went to Sunday School. Girls my age had started to wear lipstick for church. I wasn’t allowed to but I’d discovered that Rimmel cosmetics in Woolworths was affordable and used my pocket money to buy some. I kept it hidden, only taking it out with me on these Sunday trips. Safely on the bus I would put it on then on the way back I would wipe it off. I don’t know how I managed to forget to clean it off one day. It didn’t end well. My mother’s eyes were blazing as she sent me to wash my face. I didn’t think the colour was much brighter than anyone else’s, not really.

Then, around the same age, there was ‘the bra incident’. I expected the worst, but my mother was kind. School P.E. lessons had become my nightmare.  A vest wearing, bra-less nightmare. So I smuggled one of my mother’s bras to school and put it on when I got there. It wasn’t ridiculously massive. I’d had a practice at home. The folded sides were held with safety pins and the cups tucked in making a neat shape. This neat, feminine shape was noticed at home when I’d forgotten to remove my made-to-measure bra. I can feel my blushing to this day as my mother tugged a loose shoulder strap with a “What in Heavens is this?” I held my breath. This was far worse than lipstick wearing and I expected a slap – that was normal punishment if you crossed my mother. Anyway, all I got was sent to take it off and to stop being so silly. Auntie Kathy, who looked after my sister and I, was given the task of going shopping for a couple of Berlei Teenform bras. I was overjoyed.

And there was the ‘A Taste of Honey incident’. The film was on television in our lounge and my mother was watching it in between popping down to the bar. I’d already been sent to bed once but I was spellbound. I didn’t hear my mother come back up but there she was, shoo-ing me to my room with “This isn’t a film for you”. I can’t imagine why. I only wanted to know what happened to Jo. The baby bit and her friendship with Geoffrey went right over my young head. I crept back and watched it by peeping round the door frame behind her. I was really chancing it. My mother was certainly not one to be messed with. Yes, she caught me and dealt punishment, but she didn’t kill my love for Shelagh Delaney’s brilliant work. Dora Bryan was amazing and perfectly cast.

My chosen poem takes me back to ‘the chocolates incident’. It wasn’t Moonlight that got the better of me, but a bag of Thornton’s. It was a smallish bag starting off with maybe eight huge chocolates. It was a gift to my mother and I found it, unopened, in the sideboard drawer.  I kept nipping back for ‘just one more’ until I realised there was only one left and I’d better leave it. I didn’t own up straight away either. Dreadful child.

I was going through some school stuff belonging to my grown up children when I came across the reams of printed out My Space conversation. I think it was My Space. It was something before the days of Facebook, anyway. This conversation was evidence of one of our children being bullied online and school had been given a copy. The power of the written word is far stronger than the spoken word in this sort of thing and re-reading it upset me as much as it did more than ten years ago when it happened. It was dealt with by school, not to my full satisfaction, but between us we put a stop to it. A new generation, a new way of bullying.

 

CHOCS
Into the half-pound box of Moonlight
My small hand crept.
There was an electrifying rustle.
There was a dark and glamorous scent.
Into my open, moist mouth
The first Montelimar went.
 
Down in the crinkly second layer,
Five finger-piglets snuffled
Among the Hazelnut Whirl,
The Caramel Square,
The Black Cherry and Almond Truffle.
 
Bliss.

I chomped. I gorged.
I stuffed my face,
Till only Coffee Cream
Was left for the owner of the box-
Tough luck, Anne Pope-
Oh, and half an Orange Supreme.

 

Carol Ann Duffy

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More