‘Shoo!’

As a young man in 1973 I have to admit I was somewhat disgruntled to note the founding of Virago, proclaiming itself to be ‘a feminist publishing company’ dedicated to championing women’s talents.  It seemed rather an aggressive name.  And why did women need a segregated outlet?  After all, some of my favourite writers, as various as Elizabeth Gaskell or Virginia Woolf, had been published.  But then, there was Mary Anne Evans, who had had to choose the male pen-name of George Eliot.  And, come to think of it, The creator of ‘Cranford’ was presented to the world as Mrs. Gaskell.

Her Brilliant CareerThe book I finished reading last night ‘Her Brilliant Career’, subtitled ‘Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties’ by Rachel Cooke incidentally makes quite clear why Virago was necessary.  The dust jacket bears a sticker announcing ‘Virago is 40’.  Fancy that, a publishing house whose nascency I remember is now middle aged.

The fifties were my formative years.  I was seven when the decade began, and eighteen when it ended. Mum, Derrick, Jacqueline, Chris & ElizabethPhotograph number 38 in the ‘through the ages’ series was taken right in the middle of Cooke’s period, in our grandparents’ garden in Staines.  Elizabeth is toddling, Chris and I each hold one of our then youngest sibling’s hands, and Jacqueline stands, smiling, behind.  Mum and my brother appear to have been scalped and I have virtually lost my head altogether.  Once more, parallax had struck.  Or maybe the photographer only had eyes for the girls.  Chris sports the famous blazer badge.  Mine must have still been on the frame.

Once Chris and I had entered our teens, I was vaguely familiar with some of the more famous names in the book, but had really no idea of the magnitude of their achievements.  A woman of her time, my own mother sacrificed her book-keeping career to concentrate on rearing her family, only to return to work when we children were all fairly grown up.  She got on with life with none of today’s labour-saving machines to help her.  Dad brought in the money and she managed it.  I do not wish to suggest in any way that we experienced Mum as resenting her lot.  That is just how it was. 

Rachel Cooke’s women were not having that.  They forged the way for others.  This book is well-written.  Offering pen portraits of her subjects and their lives, it also provides a snapshot of the age from the female perspective.  The designers of the jacket could not resist decorating it with glamorous young ladies, albeit in fifties fashions.

The work/life balance continues to be a struggle for everybody, not the least for women who wish to have a family.  It does seem as if the children of the book’s subjects did rather miss out.  Inevitably, I imagine.  Even now I don’t think we have enabled maternal women to have satisfying careers outside the home without great cost to their domestic lives.

Virago should continue for a long time to come.

Regent Street lights 12.63 002

Today’s advent picture is another detail from the Regent Street of 1963.

This morning I began reading Voltaire’s ‘Le Monde Comme Il Va’, which I would translate as ‘The Way of the World’.

This afternoon Jackie drove us to M & S at Hedge End to satisfy my need for trousers.  As she turned a bend in Seamans Lane she was forced to stop by a stationary car ahead that was surrounded by living equine sculptures. Ponies on Seamans Lane ignoring JackieThe other driver seemed content to sit it out.  He can’t have known how long the ponies can remain as still as yesterday’s pirate.  Jackie alighted to do something about it.  Leaving our car, she tried raising her arms and repeatedly shouting ‘Shoo!’.  She was ignored.  She tried taking a step back, leaning forward for purchase, placing her hands on its warm, furry, rump and pushing the cream coloured beast stationed in front of the car.  The occasional head was turned, but this, too, was of no avail.  The animal didn’t flinch.  Finally she took to bruising her hands by clapping them into each other in an attempt to startle.  This worked, and we were on the move.

This evening we drove to Bartley to admire the renowned houses with external Christmas decorations.Chrisrmas decorationsChrisrmas decorations (1)Chrisrmas decorations (2)The main event was slightly different this year, but equally over the top as last.

After this we drove on to The Foresters Arms at Frogham for a very Forester's Armsenjoyable dinner, entertained by the Hyde Church choir singing carols to the accompaniment of their own brass band.  We shared bread, olives, and cajun skewered chicken for starters; Jackie followed this up with stacked venison burger, whilst I had sirloin steak.  Both meals were very good, except that my medium rare steak turned out to be well done.  My sweet was Tart Tatin and Jackie’s was ice cream.  We each drank Villa Rosa wine, mine being Merlot and Jackie’s sauvignon blanc.

Pink Petticoats

Another day of enforced rest required my rambling to be among the archives.  We have now reached photographs numbers 31 and 32 in the ‘through the ages’ series.  These tell two parts of a story, but are not in the correct sequence, so I will write about number 32 first.

I assume my Grandpa Hunter took this picture.  Maybe with the Kodak Box Brownie he was to give me about nine years later.  The reason I speculate about this is that, not then understanding parallax, I was always in danger of cutting people’s heads off, like the scalping of me in this one.  That Kodak model was the standard popular camera before the single lens reflex became the norm.  I am not a proficient enough scientist to explain parallax, but this phenomenon required the old-fashioned photographer to make adjustments in framing the picture because of the camera’s  lens being on a different level to that of the human behind the camera.  Later viewfinders provided an etched line to avoid accidental decapitation.

Where was I?  Oh yes, photo number 32.  This was taken in my grandparents’ garden in Durham in April 1947.  Chris and I  had just learned of our sister Jacqueline’s birth in Wimbledon.  We had spent some months there because Mum had severe back problems.  It was on that stay that the incident of the caterpillars occurred, so maybe Grandma was as eager as we were for us to travel down south to meet the new arrival.  I didn’t think the pram in the background was for Jacqueline, because it belonged to my grandmother.Derrick & Chris

Our attire needs a little explanation.  Chris’s footwear was a requirement imposed by his having broken his leg some weeks earlier.  When I wrote of this on 16th October last year, I described him as a ‘toddler’.  This picture demonstrates that my brother was rather older than that.

Hopefully it is our night wear that we are sporting.  I hasten to add that our normal clothing was being preserved against accident by Grandma who was preparing for the journey for us to take possession of the new infant.  Chris looks a little less sure than I do.  He and I were enswathed in our grandmother’s pink silk petticoats.Derrick & Chris & Jacqueline

Probably the very next day we were back home in Stanton Road, SW20;  I was sitting proudly in the garden with our baby sister in my arms; and photograph number 31 was snapped.  Chris doesn’t look any more certain about things.

This evening Jackie produced a delicious lamb jalfrezi with savoury rice and tasty mini paratas from a small Asian shop in New Milton.  I drank Cobra with this.  My late friend Janice used to call a very hot curry a sinus clearer.  Tonight’s, with the addition of naga relish, would have fitted her bill.