We Are Not Amused - Let's Have A Laugh

The comment “We are not amused” is widely believed to have been said by Queen Victoria in response to an inappropriate joke or remark made by an equerry. I can’t help but wonder what the equerry actually said in front of the queen. If he was trying to make her laugh, perhaps he was shocked to discover it wasn’t acceptable. According to Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Alice, her grandmother told her that she hadn’t said “We are not amused” at all. Alice and other young members of the royal family of the time loved Queen Victoria’s sense of fun, finding her jolly with a great sense of humour. She laughed a lot and was amused by many things, apparently. In her later years, she gave the impression of an austere woman with strict moral values. I expect that she held the moral high ground, but I think her facial expression after the death of Prince Albert showed her grief and huge sense of loss rather than austerity.

Laughing is good for us. Seeking amusement, we look for the comedy, the cheerful light-hearted recreations that will make us feel uplifted and happy. It is personal choice, we all have our favourites whether we are going out to be entertained or choosing what to have on TV. Sometimes, the really hilarious moments are self-made. This is definitely the case with my crazy family. Put me in the company of my wonderful niece and within seconds we will have sparked each other into squeals of laughter, usually about nothing, and I will be crying and rushing to the loo with comments about double strength Tena pads making me laugh even more. If her mother, my sister is with us, the hilarity is increased and the three of us are best left to it. We can’t help it. We still laugh at things that happened years ago. At my nephew’s wedding ceremony I broke the silence of a solemn moment with a very loud, giant snort. I will never live it down. I was trying not to cry and holding my breath then the snort just happened. The mirth has lasted far longer than his marriage did, sadly for him. My father had a ‘thing’ about curtains being closed correctly. Two curtains would have to meet exactly in the middle, the drapes had to be equal and the overlap had to be uniform all the way down. It didn’t matter who closed the curtains, he would have to give his finishing touch. Perfectionist. At his funeral service, my sister and I couldn’t look at each other as the curtains closed in front of his coffin. We were both thinking the same thing and finding amusement in the saddest of circumstances. It proved our resilience.

That is us. Amused and amusing at the same time, like lots of families. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a large family. I hope they laughed heartily at daft things and had silly moments like we do. I hope they broke the silence with a massive snort, or worse, and I hope, like us, they were amused more often than they were not.

I found this poem,

I’m not sure it it’s fact or rumour,
Queen Victoria lost her humour,
Deciding one day she refused
All attempts to be amused.

Some say it was indigestion,
Others claim that’s speculation.
I believe what’s widely known,
That she hurt her funny bone.

Phil Ward, 2012

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Journey - My Epic Travels

We are all on our journey of life. We may visit many places, some planned, some unexpected, taking the good with the bad because that’s how it has to be. We may stay put, allow our imagination to take us travelling and pretend we can survive at the bottom of the ocean cocooned in a submarine, safe from Covid 19. I’m not sure if that’s a dream or a nightmare.

Lockdown again, I’m isolating again and my planned trip to Dumfries & Galloway later this month has been rearranged for springtime. I’ll miss the pre-Christmas break which includes a special dinner in Kirkcudbright for my birthday, and the Christmas gift shopping which I like to do there. Meanwhile, as safe as I can be at home, I’ll look forward to next year, optimistic for better times ahead and maybe make the long journey to Orkney.

When our children were little, we had wonderful family holidays in Pembrokeshire. It took all day to get to our destination and the journey could be made tedious by excited kids driving each other mad.

“Will you tell her? She’s nipping me!”

“Mum, he’s put spit on my leg!”

And much wailing. This would be happening before we left the M55. Threats to return home might shut them up for a while.  We would leave the M6 at North Wales and take the scenic route to our first stop at Bala. There’s a lovely playground where we would have our picnic lunch and the children would have fun playing nicely together. Back on our way and they would hate each other again. Sometimes I would swap with the eldest and put him in the front. The youngest would not be nipping me. The long drive was worth it. We would stay two weeks and a bit more, and enjoy a great time.

Holidays when I was a child, were usually spent staying with seldom seen relatives. My aunt and uncle on my father’s side lived in London and other places in the south of England. The journey to get there would be epic and it was always night time when we arrived. Three things were likely to happen to make us late. Top of the list, somewhere in the midlands I would get travel sick. This definitely, always happened and my seaside bucket would miraculously appear. It didn’t make me feel better, but hopefully, the use of it would protect the leather upholstery of Dad’s Mark 2 Jaguar, or whichever model he had at the time.  We would become lost. These journeys were in the days before the motorways linked up, so we would be south, somewhere, following a map and some instructions of which way to go after we’d run out of M6 or M1. I seem to remember this happening around Banbury. My mother, attempting to keep spirits up and sickness down would have me and my sister singing ‘Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross’ and to look for the statue. I don’t think we ever saw it. Eventually, after my dad had opened the window to ask friendly pedestrians for directions, we would be doing a ‘U’ turn and getting back on our way. Then the car would break down. A cloud of steam would rise from the open bonnet. Dad would roll up his shirt sleeves, wait for the engine to cool – this took time – replenish the water in the radiator and hope it fixed it. He usually knew what to do, but if he was stumped, he would have to find a telephone box to call the AA out. We would arrive at our relatives after dark, hungry, tired and very happy to be made welcome. Happy family times.

Isle of Harris

I wrote this poem after a lengthy journey to the North West Scottish Highlands. The scenery was and is breathtakingly beautiful.

I’ll Take the High Road

Sun-yellow gorse meets a bright blue sky

Where mountains seem low and clouds are high.

Single track, crumbled edge, shared with sheep,

The drop is sharp, the climb is steep

Then dips to touch the shore of the loch

Where gentle waves lick tumbled rock.

Then swift ascent and a chance to pause,

Admire the view and brown-heather’d moors.

Mile after slate-grey mile and some more,

Then, at last, we reach our cottage door.

The road ends where the loch becomes sea,

Dolphins are playing and I feel free.

 

Pamela Winning

May 2014

Thanks for reading. Stay safe, Pam x

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Dolls - Meet Janice

My lovely big doll, Janice lives in the attic. Propped up between an old filing cabinet and boxes of Christmas stuff, she manages to stay upright and fix her blue-eyed gaze through the Velux to the tops of the houses opposite, or the night sky. She is nearly sixty years old, in reasonably good shape and dressed smartly in a pale blue summer dress that used to be my daughter’s. Janice’s original dress of shiny white and royal blue has not survived the test of time.

She was given to me on my fifth birthday and we’ve always been together except for the time a few years ago when I lent her out to take part in a themed window display somewhere in Knott End.

We almost had a tragedy on Sunday. I carefully brought her down to the landing for a photo-shoot during which, our eldest grandson, being inquisitive, came looking for me. Of course, I had to introduce them to each other, grandson not quite sure if Janice, nearly the same height, was real or not, kept a safe distance. Seconds later, we took her downstairs to meet the others. I kept hold of her while our granddaughter and younger grandson looked at her. A few remarks from the so called adults of the family, like,

‘Oh that creepy doll, what’s she doing down here?’ As if she’d escaped the attic on her own.

 ‘That Janice, she’s so bleeping scary!’ There’s absolutely nothing scary about my Janice.

‘You always kept her at the end of my bed. She gave me bleeping nightmares.’ Huh? My daughter didn’t complain at the time and I’d say she comes across as a well-adjusted young mother.

I was trying not to laugh too much as I defended my beautiful doll. I explained that the poor thing has to live right upstairs in the attic room because someone who shall remain anonymous is easily spooked by her. Everyone knows who it is, so there’s much family laughter and witty banter going on when suddenly, as I altered the way I was holding Janice, both her arms dropped off and fell to the floor. What was happy laughter became an uproar, squeals, tears, aching sides and literally rolling on the floor. It was the funniest thing ever, just hilarious. The stuff that linked the arms together looked like perished rubber and it probably was. Luckily, she was soon mended with some elastic from my sewing cupboard and the expertise from ‘he who will not be spooked by a doll while he’s mending it’ who did a first class job and I am very grateful.

If our new neighbours think they’ve moved next door to a madhouse, I hope they know it’s a happy one and they are welcome to join in. Janice is back in the attic, until next time.

I found this poem by William Butler Yeats

The Dolls

A doll in the doll-maker's house
Looks at the cradle and bawls:
'That is an insult to us.’
But the oldest of all the dolls,
Who had seen, being kept for show,
Generations of his sort,
Out-screams the whole shelf: 'Although
There's not a man can report
Evil of this place,
The man and the woman bring
Hither, to our disgrace,
A noisy and filthy thing.’
Hearing him groan and stretch
The doll-maker's wife is aware
Her husband has heard the wretch,
And crouched by the arm of his chair,
She murmurs into his ear,
Head upon shoulder leant:
'My dear, my dear, O dear,
It was an accident.

W.B.Yeats  1865 - 1939

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Trust me, Wilbur

Mums.  They're never more annoying than when they're right.

For years the woman who pulled me out of a top hat told me to put 'nice things' into my head.  I was chastised for reading thrillers, for watching horror, for listening to Radio 2 at lunchtime.  Perhaps it's a special kind of knowledge that comes with age but I'm beginning to agree.

This review of Phillipa Perry's book How to Stay Sane highlights the importance of narratives to our psychological well-being.  Perry's book alludes to research which reveals a measurable negative impact on people's expectations of violence when they watch more television.  In particular, a quote by E B White, quoted in Maria Popova's article, struck a chord:

[Writers] should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

Putting the tear-inducing ending of Charlotte's Web to one side, the words and images which we're exposed to have a powerful effect on our private narratives.  Much of the damage will take effect on a sub-conscious level.  As writers and readers we have a choice about how much damage we allow.  As individuals we can choose to feed our minds with bright ideas and kind thoughts.  When we write, whether for personal or professional means, we always have the opportunity to frame our words in a positive light.

I'm not talking about censorship or ignoring anything that scares or saddens us.  Rather, we can choose to re-shape our dark encounters, the late night terrors, by re-imagining them in a more hopeful aspect.  Take performance as an example.  My fear of standing up in front of other people is something I've struggled with for years.  At times I have worked hard, with the help of hypnotherapy at one point, to associate positive images with performing and therefore manage the fear.  But shadows have a way of creeping back in when you stop paying attention.   If we want to keep bouncing we need to tell ourselves the right stories again and again.

This is the short verse which I penned to summarise Unconventional Attitudes at the end of a performance:

Stirring and slinking, subtle and serpentine – stories

Saturate, penetrate, permeate - stories

Drawn into our fibres until when the flesh falls away

And the bones become dust, only stories remain

Opal and turquoise, ruby and sapphire – our tainted filtrations

Irregular, strange and exquisite.

If stories are what will remain of us when we are gone, shouldn't we think about which stories we'll inhabit while we live?  Do we want to fill our heads with horror, with expectations of violence, or would we rather absorb happy fantasies, dwelling on imagined adventures, epic journeys and great loves?  With this in mind, on an intentionally HAPPY Valentine's Day, I intend to share my time with as many loved ones as possible.  In the evening I'll be watching an inspiring woman perform some stories at Blackpool Central Library.  At bedtime I'll write the story of the day in my head and, whatever actually happened, I'll ensure I come out of it thinking 'nice things'.  Thanks Mum x

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