Young By Name: Whimsical Columns from the Tetbury Advertiser (Collected Columns from the Tetbury Advertiser Book 1), page 18
YOUNG BY NAME
Whimsical Columns from the Tetbury Advertiser 2010-2015
DEBBIE YOUNG
© Debbie Young 2016
Published by Hawkesbury Press 2016
Hawkesbury Upton, Gloucestershire, England
The content of this book has previously appeared on Debbie Young’s website:
http://www.authordebbieyoung.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover image by the author’s father
Exterior and interior design by the author
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
Spring Cleaning
Laura’s Ambition
May Day
Young Voters
Young Runners
Laura’s Fishing Tips
The Centre of the World
Clear the Decks with Boughs of Holly
Let It Glow
How to Get to the Bottom of the Ironing Basket
Spring Fever
Keeping Up with My Sporty Daughter
Tattoo or Not to Tattoo? That is the Question
Saying it with Trees
How to Pack for the Summer Holidays
Back to School
How to Make a Weather Forecast More Meaningful
Flu Jab Jeopardy – It’s an Old Wives’ Game
When It Comes to Christmas Presents, Small is Beautiful
Tuning Grandma’s Piano (The Antidote to Chopsticks)
My Kodak Moments
Another Term, Another Topic, Another School Trip
Home from Home
From Diamond to Silver: Remembering the 25th Anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation
The Olympic Spirit Meets Britannia
Putting the Great Back into Britain
In Praise of Pine Cones – and Grandpa
Books on the Brain
Meeting Our (Rugby) Match Provides a Family Outing
Tales of the Unexpected Book
On a Mission to Post a Parcel
Living with a Fussy Eater
There’s No Place Like Home
The Woolsack by Any Other Name
Where Do Cats Go for Their Summer Holidays?
The Unusual Souvenirs of Camper Van Travel
All Change!
Plus Ça Change…
Using My Powers For Good
In Praise of the Tetbury Advertiser
Channelling Calm for the Dover to Dunkerque Ferry
All Booked Up
On the Run From Books
WI Fidelity – Why I’ve Joined the WI
School’s Nearly Out for Summer
A Summer of Two Extremes
A Month on the Wagon with Go Sober for October
Why I’m an Embarrassing Parent
Christmas Surprises
Putting the Up in Sidcup
Finally Facing My Waterloo
Celebration Time
Springing into Action
What’s in a Car Name?
Booked Up for the Holidays
The Library, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Queen, Cousin, Bishop – My Topical Take on Rock, Paper, Scissors
Votes for Minions
What’s in a Book Title?
Acknowledgements
Thank you for reading YOUNG BY NAME
Dedication
To the Tetbury Lions who publish ten jam-packed issues of the Tetbury Advertiser every year
Thank you for hosting my monthly column and for all that you do for the community
Foreword
The Advertiser has been around for over forty years now. I delivered it by bicycle when we were both in our formative years. I ignored it in my teens (it had no Punk Rock or New Wave stories) then returned to it avidly later, using it as a lifeline to the old home town during an absence in Swindon, the big city. It’s been to America with me, during the “paper” years it was the go-to source to absorb paint spills, and it’s always been a smallest-room accessory. I now find myself editing it – may wonders never cease.
During those long ages there have been a number of professional and semi-professional writers who’ve helped prop the thing up with their verdant prose. The serendipity of Roseblade, the keen comment of Gibbs, the steady input of Aunt Sally and more – all have helped keep it relevant and readable. The latest and most eloquent of all, the “Jewel in the Crown” of any current Advertiser offering, is of course the wonderful Debbie Young. The quality of her submissions makes my life simultaneously much easier as editor and hugely enriched as a reader. I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I have. Long may she reign!
Richard Smith, Editor, Tetbury Advertiser
Introduction
In the same month that I started my writing blog, I penned my first monthly column for the Tetbury Advertiser. My column shared the name of my writing blog, “Young By Name”, and for me it feels as significant a part of my writing career as that blog.
The editors have kindly given me free rein to write about any subject, and the columns reflect my butterfly mind, although often topical and Tetbury-focused. I am very grateful to the Advertiser’s kind and patient editors – first Barry Gibbs then Richard Smith – for their generous support and encouragement, and I am in awe of the amazing job they do on behalf of the Tetbury Lions, producing their excellent community magazine each month, which raises thousands of pounds for local charities. It is a very worthy recipient of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, and I feel privileged to have played a part in the magazine’s success for the last six years.
Although I share my columns on my blog once they’ve appeared in the Advertiser, I wanted to bring them together in a single volume for a selfish reason: rereading them provides a record of my personal history. But also it documents many historic moments and social changes which I hope residents of Tetbury, Gloucestershire and the wider world may enjoy. Today is tomorrow’s history, and I am glad to have the opportunity to be its recorder.
Debbie Young
Spring Cleaning
March 2010
As the early spring sunshine streams in through my daughter’s bedroom window, I scoop up a half-dressed Barbie from the floor. Tidying her bedroom is going to be a lengthy job. To imagine the state of her room at this stage, picture what would happen if you took a giant food blender, filled it with hundreds of toys, then started the motor without putting the lid on. You get the idea.
I’ve tried blaming her father.
“I think Laura has inherited your tidiness gene,” I tell him.
“I don’t think I’ve got one,” he says.
“Exactly my point.”
My mother thinks it’s my fault.
“When you were her age, I had to bribe your big sister to tidy your room.”
At least I didn’t have such a huge quantity of toys to put away. I could count the number of dolls I possessed on one hand, whereas Laura would need a football team to ensure sufficient fingers. I had just three shelves of books and knew every page practically by heart; many of Laura’s dozens of books have barely been opened. My pencil case was a lone creature, but my daughter’s apparently flock. To me, a good collection of colouring pencils meant a set of ten, whereas hers run to about 100. As to felt tip pens, I think they breed after dark. My heart leaps each time one runs out, because it means I can throw it in the bin with a clear conscience, but still they multiply.
I remember the invention of felt tips when I was small and the excitement of buying my first pack, which held just four. They were expensive, costing two shillings, and I paid with the pre-decimal pennies that my grandfather used to save for me in a jar – a special treat to help fill the void between Christmas and birthdays.
So where do all Laura’s toys come from? Free activity packs at family restaurants certainly account for the stationery glut. Another new source is the charity shop. There were none my local high street when I was a child, but now they spring up all over the place. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud them – they do a fabulous job, fundraising and recycling at one fell swoop. Shopping in them is a very easy way to support a worthwhile charity, so I tend to give Laura free rein. Progressing now on hands and knees through the carpet of toys in her bedroom, I realise that this is my undoing.
In my day, old toys weren’t taken to the charity shop but went into the dustbin (we didn’t worry about landfill in the 60s) or were collected for scrap by the rag-and-bone-man. This was the fate of my beloved push-along Baa-Lamb when I was about four, and I’ve never forgiven my mother.
These days, old toys never die – they just relocate to Laura’s bedroom.
Happy Spring Cleaning!
Laura’s Ambition
April 2010
On holiday at half term, my six-year-old daughter Laura discovered a new career and added it to her list of what she wants to be when she grows up. So far, her ambitions have all been chosen without any prompting from me: bus driver, “Rainbows lady”, teacher, art gallery owner, taxi
Not long ago, I watched a documentary about mothers who made career plans for their toddlers. One had decided that hers would be a doctor. Whether as an adult he would have the aptitude, skills or desire did not matter. She had made up her mind, keen to fulfil her own thwarted ambitions through her child. I’m determined not to fall into that trap. Born in 21st century Britain, Laura can choose her own career freely, even though she was born a girl.
Things were different for her great grandmothers, her grandmother and even for me. My grandmothers were constrained by their era. One longed to be a teacher, but female teachers were not allowed to marry and she considered herself lucky to have a husband instead of a career. So many of her contemporaries had lost their sweethearts in the Great War. My other grandmother wanted to be a nurse, but early marriage and an unstoppable succession of children put paid to that idea. She would have been a natural. When, at the age of eight, I trod on a rusty nail in bare feet, she managed to remove it without hurting me. I watched in awe and said to her:
“You really ought to have been a nurse.”
She looked very wistful.
My mother gave greater priority to her career but did not stray from traditional women’s professions. She was a secretary before I was born and trained as a teacher once I’d started nursery. In the 1960s, for a mother of three, even that was considered radical.
My own career was launched on the cusp of women’s equality in the workplace. The theory was in place, but the practice was a little patchy (and still is). But it was not the workplace that held me back, but our school careers advice. In those days, careers duties fell to the teacher with the lightest teaching load. At our girls’ grammar school, this meant the RE mistress, who knew very little of the world of work and held our careers interviews in a store cupboard. The only advice that I remember was “Don’t go to York University – it’s an awfully long way from home”. She meant well, but I’m glad I had the confidence to disregard her.
Most of my classmates complied with her recommendations and became teachers or secretaries. Surprisingly none became nuns, but one girl is nearly a vicar. Even the RE teacher could not have recommended this career, because at that time it wasn’t open to women. Another girl rendered the poor lady speechless by enquiring about opportunities in the oldest profession. I found out on Facebook recently that she’s now a personal trainer, and I don’t think that job existed even for men in those days. And in the 1970s it would have taken a psychic to predict the 21st century demand for website designers.
I wonder whether my daughter will also end up in a career that has yet to be invented. Perhaps she’ll be a spaceflight attendant, a time-travel agent or an invisibility cloak seamstress – Who knows what opportunities new technology will bring? But for the moment, Laura’s heart is set on the career she discovered on Barcelona beach at half-term.
“Mummy, I think I’ll be a person who builds giant models out of sand and then people have to put money in their bucket.”
Well, some old professions never really lose their charm.
May Day
May 2010
For me, the concept of May Day will be forever associated with an annual ritual that took place at my infant school in Sidcup, a Kentish suburb of London.
Each May Day, or the closest school day to it, the girls from the oldest class became “May Maidens”. We had to dress in white frocks, and the prettiest girl (how un-PC is that?) was crowned May Queen. A determined band of mothers raided everyone’s gardens for roses and greenery to make into wreaths for the Maidens’ hair; they also wove two long floral ropes for the Maidens to carry.
For the May Day ceremony, the whole school turned out onto the field. “The Elizabethan Serenade” played over the tannoy, while two lines of May Maidens, each carefully carrying one of the ropes, processed slowly to the far end of the field. Then they stood still while the May Queen and two attendants proceeded down the length of the floral aisle. Once the May Queen had taken her place on her throne, the Maidens sat down on the grass and the Headmistress addressed the gathered crowd of parents and children.
I don’t remember what the boys had to do, but they must have found the whole thing pretty dull. Not so the mothers, who ooh’d and aah’d as we walked by, snapping away with big, boxy cameras.
Those were gentler days, I think to myself, wishing that my own small daughter had the chance to take part in such an idyllic ritual. But then I realise with a start that the backdrop to this quaint ceremony was far from idyllic. For behind where the May Maidens sat, all along the edge of the school field, was a long row of air-raid shelters. Though the war was over long before we May Maidens were born, most of the adults watching our procession would have been all too familiar with the inside of an air-raid shelter.
Funny how it seems it was always summer when I was a child...
These days it is hard to imagine that Health and Safety inspectors would allow any school to have such dark, dingy unlit sheds on the school field. Risk assessment for air raid shelters? There’s an interesting thought. In those days, of course, children were allowed to enjoy a little danger, but I’m sure that’s not the only reason the shelters were retained. I suspect there was an inkling that we might needed to use them again. This was, after all, the 1960s. The Cold War was in full swing. Even as recently as 1980, the government was issuing its infamous “Protect and Survive” leaflets, telling us how to guard against a nuclear attack. (Unbelievably, top tips were to sit under the kitchen table, or to take a door off its hinges if a table wasn’t to hand.)
We live in more peaceful times. My daughter may not get to be a May Maiden, but at least I don’t have to worry about a bomb falling on her school. All the same, she’d look awfully pretty with roses in her hair.
Young Voters
June 2010
In the run up to last month’s general election, I felt it was my maternal duty to make my small daughter aware that she was living through a historic moment.
I have a few memories of national and international import from my own childhood. Kennedy’s assassination, chiefly because it was the only time our next door neighbour came in to our house unannounced and the only time I saw her cry. Winston Churchill’s funeral: I had no idea who he was, but I knew that he was A Great Man. The first footstep of mankind on the moon: unlike most British children, I experienced this in the afternoon, because at that point my family lived in California.
So I had not expected Laura to be especially interested in the election, especially considering her school, unlike her cousin’s, was not closed for the day to be used as a polling station. (What a great way to instil a love of democracy in young children.) To my surprise, she followed the election news avidly and quickly formed strong and independent political views.
Firstly, she favoured Gordon Brown as “president” because he shared a Christian name with her Daddy. Then she clamoured for an orange diamond on a stick to be displayed in our front garden because her best friend had one in hers. She liked the local Lib Dem’s alliterative slogan: “Win With Webb” and was gratified when he did.
“Why don’t they make Win With Webb president?” she asked. “He sounds good.”
Well, there are worse reasons.
She certainly pipped me at the post for early political awareness. Despite growing up in Edward Heath’s constituency, my main perception of his importance was that he opened my brother’s grammar school fete. Otherwise, my childhood recollection of politics was a playground skipping rhyme, each girl stepping into the turning rope as her name was called:
“Vote, vote, vote for little Debbie,
Calling Debbie at the door,
For Debbie is a lady
And she’s going to have a baby
So we won’t vote for Debbie any more.
CHUCK HER OUT!”
To our way of thinking, this dismissal seemed only fair. Astonishing, then, that the Prime Minister to emerge from first election in which my generation was old enough to vote was a lady by the name of Margaret. It seems like ancient history now.
