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Aug 31
2018
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Helen Whitten
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I confess to being confused. There is a lobby to hold a Second Referendum on Brexit but I question whether, in just giving us the terms of the UK-EU negotiations, we would have sufficient information to make up our minds? Don’t we also want the EU to reform? Do we really just want to go back to where we were, with our tail between our legs? Even the most staunch Remainers I speak to agree that there are major issues within Europe that need addressing. The argument is that it is more effective to do this by influencing from the inside but past evidence doesn’t back this up as our own attempts to influence Brussels have not been that successful. And I don’t see much listening going on when other EU members have gripes either. So what’s to be done?
The media debate seems to cover only our own appallingly incompetent negotiations with the EU and how it impacts the UK. But what about what else is going on in Europe and how that might play out over the next decade? I don’t read much in our press regarding what the EU’s strategy is to hold the members together in this radically changed world. I only hear the same old narrative about the four principles, with no flexibility, it seems, to those countries who are struggling to manage to live within them.
Don’t get me wrong. I want a close relationship with Europe but perhaps, having run a small business rather than having been part of a large organisation, I prefer to have the freedom to be flexible and act fast when necessary. Within the EU currently, negotiations are cumbersome and long-winded. As I said before, I voted Remain – but only just. I think, like many others, including those I speak to who voted Leave (who, contrary to the narrative, are usually thoroughly intelligent global thinkers who are far from racist, and often immigrants themselves), there is a sentimental connection to the people who live in those countries and an enjoyment of the exchange of cultural history. But the reality is that our history is so different, in that the majority of those countries who are now members were all either occupied by invading armies or governed by a Communist or Fascist dictatorship. Living under an authoritarian regime shapes a very different mindset and lifestyle where people are careful what they say and often source goods or services on street corners or in corridors. Trust and transparency takes time to build up.
We are currently having our house in Kew refurbished by builders who come from Eastern Europe and they still report that there is enormous corruption in Bulgaria, Romania and other countries where the former Communist regime politicians have found their way back into government and milk the proceeds. We heard this story in many of the countries we visited along the Danube two years’ ago. What is the EU’s strategy to tackle this corruption?
And what action does Brussels plan to take to counter the problems countries are experiencing with immigration? Or to staunch the right-wing attitudes that are bubbling up across Europe but particularly in Hungary, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic? The events in Germany this week, mirrored in many other countries over the last year, just highlight that there is unrest and division between cultures in Europe that appears to be every bit as pernicious as any racism that exists within our own shores. It seems to me that the governments of all member states have chosen not to listen to the concerns of their populations with regard to these very sudden and huge population migrations.
But by turning away from problems, denying they exist and refusing to show any compassion for the everyday issues that people might face in getting their children into school, getting a doctor’s appointment or endeavouring to live beside people who may well be charming but are of a very different culture, we have allowed the can of worms to turn to poison. But even now the Governments just continue to pretend that these problems can be resolved by ignoring them and by telling people to behave themselves. If we aren’t careful and they aren’t addressed, we could have real unrest within these countries and it would leave the vacuum into which the Far Right could strengthen their position. We need to learn from history that we have to shape problems and be courageous enough to talk about them honestly if we are to find new ways to create solutions together.
The notion that the nation state has had its day is erroneous, as Ian Kershaw mentions in his book Roller-coaster, Europe 1950-2017. It is actually natural for people to want to feel connected to their nation, want to have a sense of belonging to a community and a place. This does not necessarily make them nationalistic. Surely we can all be local AND global? Can we not feel loyalty and pride in our own country and yet be happy to enjoy alliances with neighbouring countries? The one does not in itself exclude the other but we are living in such a binary world that the word “and” seems to get forgotten.
With a weakened Angela Merkel, Macron appears to be positioning himself as a leader of Europe, with inner and outer circles of influence. He certainly, I would say, has some Napoleonic tendencies so does he see himself as some kind of President of Europe in the future? Or, if we slide back into a more integrated Federal States of Europe with its own Army, who would we have as a Federal European President and how would he or she be elected? How would all that work? Do we know? How much of a say will we have, whether in or out?
As I have written before, I only wish that the EU had called a meeting of member states many years ago and suggested they revisit the basics of the agreement in the light of the remarkably different world in which it now operates. I am of the generation where we heard de Gaulle say “Non” repeatedly and then entered on a purely trade basis. Now we are enmeshed in something very different to cover laws, rights, regulations and a far larger group of countries all with very different economies, pasts, cultures and aspirations. It’s a great idea. But what is the strategy to hold all this together in the future? Do we know?
We have not been strongly supported by Brussels on our stance against Russia in the light of the Skripals. Other countries seem similarly unsupported. What are the future foreign policy plans with regard to Russia, sanctions and more? It seems to come down to expedience at the moment. Or am I missing something? If you have answers to my questions please do write to me!
Way back in 1967 I studied in Italy for three months. I fell in love. I met an international group of students from Syria to Argentina. All before we were a member of the EU. So the scare stories that we will no longer be able to do this must surely be wrong. But the Brexiteers weave another web of lies and so it is up to us as individuals to try to make sense of it all and, as far as I am concerned, I don’t have sufficient answers to know whether I want to go back into an EU that has not taken action to adapt and reform.
Don’t we need some more answers from Brussels as to how they foresee the future? Don’t we need our government to challenge them to reform? Doesn’t any Second Referendum need to include more information about these more global issues and the way the EU plans to tackle them? Is it just me asking these questions? I suspect several of you will want to put me right! So do go ahead …
Aug 17
2018
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Helen Whitten
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As a child of the 50s I sat through endless school assemblies and Church of England services drumming home to me the message of “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12). I am not sure I totally understood the detail required within that statement, in terms of personal action. I know I have said and done things I have regretted but there is no doubt that I have felt a sharp sense of guilt when I have done so.
Values and ethics are not the sole domain of religion, and in other ways religious beliefs can divide us. And yet those Ten Commandments that I heard repeated so many times in my youth remain in my mind and are surely positive messages for our young? Our lives depend on the majority of people behaving well and those core beliefs of not killing, stealing, telling lies or coveting one’s neighbour’s wife or possessions help shape social behaviours.
In an era of false news and social media people seem to forget the Golden Rule of “do unto others” and instead threaten people who say or do something they don’t like with death, rape and hatred. They seem incapable of considering or imagining how it might feel to be at the receiving end of this kind of behaviour.
Cyber bullying translates into objectifying people in real life. Guns, knives and porn seem to be part of a trend whereby the perpetrator never considers or is faced with the appalling damage they do to a victim and their family. The lyrics of the drill music rap songs encourage people to violence and seem to laugh at the pain they are causing. Why do we tolerate this? Why do we turn a blind eye to the everyday put-downs, the so-called ‘funny’ comedians spitting vitriolic personal remarks that are laced with envy and unpleasantness? Why do we not silence the preachers inciting jihad, division and hatred? It’s not just up to Government. It’s up to each and every one of us to act where we see injustice.
The messages we receive as children get sewn into our neuronal networks. We may consider them, analyse them and reject them as we enter adulthood but they will have had some influence on our thinking, development and behaviour. I am concerned that education has become more focused on being ‘clever’ than being wise. And we are getting very little example from the world leaders of today, I fear, who seem to value power more than doing the best for their population. Erdogan, Putin, Kim Jong Un, Trump, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, and many others seem to be willing to distort democracy for their own personal power goals. Sports stars get drunk and aggressive. Video games project endless violence. Advertisements continue to diminish women. Porn debases both genders. These are the images our young people are seeing and I wonder how it will influence their behaviour in future.
There have always been evil and selfish people in the world but with the video games, film and television thrillers of the last decade or so, it seems to me that violence and callous behaviour has almost been celebrated. We rant and rail against bankers or a few greedy business leaders and yet shrug off the everyday violence of children’s video games. We herald “our NHS” and yet seemingly let off the clinical and management staff who must have known about Gosport, Staffordshire, the mismanagement of maternity wards yet not raised the issues. Those medics who claim to support the NHS and yet choose to effectively privatise their services by becoming locums are surely also hypocritical? There are good eggs and bad in every sector of society but sadly one has to be extremely courageous to speak up against bad practice if one works within the NHS. But courageous is surely what we must be if we are to do the right thing?
Hypocrisy is another aspect of a less moral society. We all need to look at our ourselves first and not point fingers at others unless we are ourselves willing to follow our own pontifications. Those who accuse others of tax evasion or avoidance and yet accept cash payments that they have no intention of disclosing is just one example.
Values and ethics affect every area of life and cannot be set aside to be thought about when one chooses. Every thought, word and deed of every day is underpinned by ethics. Simple questions can help us direct our momentum towards right action
- Is this action helping me reflect my own better values?
- What thought will give me the courage to stand up for what I believe in?
- How will I speak up for right action and the moral good?
- If I do or say x how will it feel for the other person? Will it support or harm them?
- What might be the various consequences of the action I am taking?
- Where might I be being selfish or unkind?
- How would I like it if someone behaved this way towards me?
- What do I need to stand up for and be brave enough to face the consequences?
I am currently reading The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It tracks the lives of women caught up in the French Resistance in World War II. Finding the courage to put one’s belief in right action before personal safety is incredibly hard yet there were those on all sides of the War who did this. We plan to visit Bletchley Park on Monday and will be reminded again of others who were brave enough to fight or risk their lives for what they believed in. None of us know whether we have it in us to do this until faced with a situation that challenges us to the core. We just like to think we would.
In today’s world we are at peace in the UK but the pain inflicted by people being cavalier with words and action is nonetheless enormous. We all need to be careful. And we need to teach our young, on a daily basis, to take into consideration whether they would personally like to be treated in the way they are, or are intending to, treat others. We don’t have to turn to Jesus, Buddha or any other religious or mystical leader for this. It is part of everyday practical life and each action either adds to the general good and enjoyment of living in this world or detracts from it. We all play a part in making the world a good place and I honestly feel that the often-dull school assemblies that children around the world attend play their part in helping us recognise what is right and what is wrong.
Aug 02
2018
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Helen Whitten
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I must be getting old. I have moved many times in my life but never found it as exhausting as this move to Kew. The selling of Hampshire, the decluttering and then moving in to a house with a conservatory in 30 degrees of heat has been somewhat demanding, to say the least. But we have landed here and are adjusting to our new life and it feels good.
There is a reality to be accepted when one ages and that is that one simply doesn’t have the energy one had when one was younger. We resent the fact, of course. We try to deny it and soldier on but, when we do, our body just packs up and shouts “STOP unpacking those cases and sit down!”.
And as we move in, we hear of friends who are ill and dying and that’s another reminder of our age. But it’s also a reminder of why we are pleased to be here in Kew, where we find neighbours of exceptional kindness and friendliness. That feels so good.
And so we have found our way from Hampshire and are now busy finding our way around the new area, which brings us into contact with plumbers, carpenters, wardrobe fitters and more. And in this we learn much about customer service and those who care and those who don’t. We were truly disappointed by our experience of shopping for beds in the major department stores of Oxford Street. There were plenty of assistants but none of them seemed in the slightest bit interested in selling us anything or helping us find our way to a department. They were much more interested in talking to one another.
Even when we were willing to spend £800 on a bed the somewhat grumpy assistant suggested we go home and order it on line. Why? Surely there must be some added value offered in bothering to go into the store? Surely the assistants should smile and offer to help? Surely they should know what they are talking about and not say “I don’t know how that guest bed works”. Perhaps I am just old fashioned in my expectations of service. Perhaps I am turning into Victor Meldrew. Either way, sadly it’s not surprising that these retail stores are struggling to make a profit. We won’t be going back there any time soon.
Customer service is about serving another person and looking after their needs, not your own. I was horrified when an older family member came up to London from Sussex and asked a black cab driver to take her to Pall Mall, only to be told he couldn’t/wouldn’t do so because of the Pride march. He told her to go by tube. Just disgraceful! The rest of the family took Uber cabs and had no problem at all in reaching the destination. That cabbie just couldn’t be bothered and he doesn’t deserve to be in business.
The move keeps reminding us how hard small businesses have to work to maintain their standards and their customers. We have experienced some excellent service from many nationalities, including British. It has made us aware of the effort, energy and long hours it takes to keep a company and service going amidst fierce competition. We have been bullied by some estate agents more interested in their own agenda than ours but also experienced excellent and personal service from other agents who looked after us in ways beyond the call of duty. I am left with great respect for those who juggle small companies and make them work.
We still need to declutter more and that has been tough, emotionally. At this stage of life we are letting go of furniture, books, CDs, family heirlooms that represent both our personal life and our careers. Our sons have taken some items but we have given much to charity and chucked a great deal into the tip. But there’s more to go and it isn’t easy as there isn’t now a single book on the bookshelf that I want to part with. I had the brainwave of creating a photobook capturing my life and times running Positiveworks. This is a fun reminder of those wonderful years but has also enabled me to throw away a whole four-drawer filing cabinet of papers, as the nuggets are now safely recorded in the album.
And so, step by step, the house becomes a home as our numerous paintings get placed on the walls and curtains get hung. It takes a little while to ‘land’ in a house and make it one’s own but it can be fun and we are loving having Kew Village and Kew Gardens on our doorstep. We are enjoying visits from friends, family and grandchildren. How lucky we are.
And meanwhile, with the years, we realize that our time with friends shifts to a deeper, more poignant and honest level where we accept that age or illness means that visits are not always just about having fun or going to the movies but often about empathy, shared grief, compassion and moral support. There is something very meaningful about this as one sheds the more ego-full identity of one’s earlier life in the workplace and moves into accepting one’s mortality and humanity. And so, as with the new home and environment, there is much still to be discovered about life and living. We are still seeking. Still finding our way.
Jun 28
2018
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Helen Whitten
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I woke up at 6.30am this morning wondering what is happening to democracy? Have people got complacent about it or so disenchanted that they are comfortable with leaders like Trump, Putin and Erdogan taking so much power? Have they forgotten what happens when leaders over reach their power and become monarchs or Tsars? It’s a long time since Charles I was put in his place and I worry that we are not being alert enough to ensure that there are blocks in place to prevent a leader simply changing the law to remain in power as long as they choose and somehow convincing a gullible population that this is good for them. The younger generation may not fully appreciate what happened in the build-up to Hitler, or to the Communist state and if they don’t then we need to inform them! The generations that were close to these events are dying out and getting older. The young need to know more about how power gets snatched from before their eyes without them realising it.
I am just re-reading Dr Zhivago and it paints a miserable picture of life under a Communist ideology – long queues, people thrown out of their homes, the elite pilloried, doctors regarded as ‘professional elite’ and thrown out of jobs, academics and writers sent to Siberia. It didn’t happen overnight but it can – President Erdogan has thrown some 160,000 people into prison over the last year and yet what is the rest of the world doing to question this? President Trump puts people in cages. Putin gives himself more powers and woe betide those who challenge or stand against him. And Duterte in the Philippines just kills those he dislikes from what I understand.
Watching the “Fourth Estate”, a BBC documentary about the New York Times’ reporting of Trump’s first 100 days, we were reminded of how Trump has insidiously but blatantly tried to turn his people against the free press, describing them as “the enemies of the people”. He questions the expertise and knowledge of academics and those who have worked their way up to senior positions through knowledge, questioning facts and speaking downright lies himself. He sacks anyone who disagrees with him and if one of his staff won’t lie or follow his lead they go. He is endeavouring to build a powerful group of followers around him, the better to build his own power base. This is dangerous stuff.
It has bemused me for some time that Turkey can continue to operate at all with so many judges, lawyers, academics and civil servants thrown into prison. Who is there to ensure that they get a fair trial? No-one. And I hear little from the EU or other world leaders to challenge the way Erdogan has just snatched even more power for himself, power to choose judges and ensure the country is run in his own way, the way of a dictator. The day after this I read that Trump will also choose his senior judge. As for Putin, we all know about him.
So these are the signs and why aren’t our institutions of government not robust enough to protect peoples against authoritarian rule? I had imagined that by now we would have learnt enough about narcissists, egotists, sociopaths and downright madmen to ensure that our constitutions were strong enough to stop them grabbing power into their own hands. I have been shocked to learn that Trump has his own finger on the nuclear button, as does Kim Jong Un. No blocks seem to have been put in place despite so many years since Hiroshima.
Even in the UK we have to watch these snipes at experts, the challenges of those who have worked hard to know a great deal about their subject and therefore have risen within their own sectors. We have to watch the green eye of envy that divides and destroys social stability and yet at the same time maintain a decent sense of how to help those less fortunate. I wonder sometimes at the discontent factor and how it can be manipulated for political ends. I wonder whether Russian or Chinese hackers aren’t busy stirring up division and discontent in the UK and Europe so as to weaken our governments and our stability. But at the same time those in our own government and political parties are pretty good at doing this all by themselves, without outside help!
So I feel wary of the world at the moment, wary of these men abusing power. Read the history of dictatorships and ideologues – Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot. Encourage others to read about it and watch for the signs. Observe how these leaders gradually took power, how they stirred up doubt about government, how they create division between one sector and another. Divide and rule – you see it in government, you see it in business. It can work to enable a strong leader to grasp more power because it creates a vacuum.
And it’s now 8.30 and I have just been listening to Madeleine Albright saying almost exactly the same words and she knows far more about all this than I do, so let’s not be divided. Let’s be alert to any prospective autocrat who could disrupt world peace and harmony. Fascism can come from left as well as right, from power-hungry leaders, from religion, political correctness and from utopian ideas.
Let’s talk about this and be watchful.
Jun 20
2018
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Helen Whitten
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On Mariella Frostrup’s Open Book programme on Radio 4 last week she interviewed Nell Dunn, the esteemed author of Up the Junction and Poor Cow. She mentioned that Dunn had been accused of ‘appropriation’ due to the fact that she wrote about working-class women and yet herself had come from an aristocratic home. I admit that I was shocked by this idea. Are none of us now allowed to write about people who are different to ourselves? How will any author who is not a murderer write a thriller? How will a male author include female characters and not be accused of ‘appropriation’? Surely this is total nonsense?
But similar trends of thought are being spread about judges and politicians with the suggestion that they cannot make professional decisions about others if they have not lived the kind of lives of the people they judge or govern. I am not sure exactly who is spreading this intolerance but it strikes me that it demonstrates ignorance of human imagination and is also potentially thoroughly dangerous, as it threatens free speech and creativity. Dictatorships have been formed by such edicts. Think of the Russian dissidents in Siberia. Cast your mind towards the countless writers and journalists thrown into prison by President Erdogan in the last year or so, those assassinated on Russian streets.
The kind of thinking that rules that you cannot write about someone unlike yourself denies both empathy and creativity. It seems in direct contradiction to the concept of integration and diversity. How could any author have written a masterpiece or best-seller unless they imagined characters unlike themselves? Khaled Hosseini’s book A Thousand Splendid Suns comes to my mind. It describes the lives of Afghan women with great poignance: was this ‘appropriating’ their experience? Men have written as women and women as men. Russians have written about the French and the English about Italians. The examples are endless.
More recently it was alleged that Sir Martin Moore-Bick was unsuitable to lead the judicial review on Grenfell Tower because he was white and has a double-barrel name. It may have been an insensitive choice in the eyes of the victims but at the same time the criticism of his role denies his ability to be both professional and empathetic. I don’t know him personally but this logic would surely result in only murderers of the same ethnicity judging other murderers? It disavows the professionalism of a judge to analyse a case objectively.
I am no supporter of Jacob Rees-Mogg but it has similarly been suggested that he is unsuitable for election to be the next Prime Minister because he comes from a background of privilege. I don’t wish him to be PM – but not because I don’t believe him capable of empathising with those who are different to himself. After all, Margaret Thatcher was a grocer’s daughter and yet was criticised for being the Iron Lady and out of touch. Churchill came from privilege and yet had the capacity to be a man of the people. Coming from a poor background does not necessarily make you any more capable of empathising with others, nor of understanding the needs and aspirations of a whole population.
In my experience people have the capacity to appreciate another person’s situation without having lived it themselves. It’s just that some people can do this better than others, and in my view this has more to do with their perception, imagination and personality than their background, gender, or the colour of their skin. People can also enhance the capacity of empathy through diversity training, which can enables them to notice any unconscious bias current in their beliefs or behaviours.
Last year Kate Moss’s daughter was under attack for ‘cultural appropriation’ because she had worn braids to her first modelling debut. This was regarded as disrespectful. Having white models sporting braids was described as appropriating black culture. I have always been brought up to understand that copying others is a form of flattery. After all there was a time when much of the world followed French fashion but I don’t remember that being described as cultural appropriation.
The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family were somewhat mocked for wearing Indian costume on a political tour of India earlier this year but I didn’t notice them being accused of cultural appropriation. Just of looking rather silly. The stores East and Monsoon have specialised in oriental fashion and one could say that it expands our style and thought. Surely it is part of everyday cultural exchange, which is ever-more prevalent in a world where people travel. Those from the East copy those from the West and vice-versa. From this we learn and expand our ideas. As we wear another’s clothes or, as the Chinese saying goes, walk in their shoes, we get a sense of them. Is the costume restrictive or freeing? As we write about others we gain understanding of their predicaments. Does it always have to be perceived as offensive?
I started to write a memoir, in the form of a children’s book, of a dear Jamaican friend of mine who came to the UK in the 1960s. However, I was warned by a well-meaning tutor that I could be criticised for being presumptive to write, as a white person, about someone from the Caribbean. How sad it is that the type of characters we can include in a book are being limited by over-sensitive political correctness. If we just write about our own experience it could equally be criticised for being too narrow, a criticism that even Jane Austen is sometimes accused of, so one can’t win!
Academics have lost their jobs for standing up for the right to dress up in Hallowe’en costumes or to have a student ball on the theme of Around the World in 80 Days. Apparently we are no longer allowed to dress up or copy others, or even write about them without causing perceived offence. Perhaps more needs to be done to ensure that those cultures one is borrowing from are acknowledged and then hopefully they would see it as celebration rather than dishonour.
But who exactly are the people making these ‘rules’ concerning what we can and can’t write about? They and the other no-platform illiberals are certainly not representing me. In my view these ideas stifle creativity, free speech and tolerance. It is a human talent to be able to stand in other people’s shoes and imagine what it is like to live their lives. There is a commonality of humanity that is worldwide. When we see others suffer or succeed we can feel it too. We empathise, whatever their background or provenance.
When Nell Dunn wrote her book Talking to Women she did exactly that – she talked to them, researched their lives, and empathised. She didn’t have to live their lives herself in order to gain insights. It was her humanity, curiosity and imagination that enabled her to write about other women and describe their experiences. Don’t let’s allow today’s thought-police to stifle creativity.
Firstly a very big thankyou for staying with me and choosing to read some of my Thinking Aloud blogs. GDPR was rather scary – I was worried I might end up with only 4 people still subscribing. In fact I lost less than a handful, so that feels very heartening!
And now our house in Hampshire is under offer and someone loves our beautiful quirky home as much as we do. And that feels wonderful and yet poignant at the same time as it reflects the end of an era, brought into greater focus by our grandchildren who make remarks like “we love your house!” “Your house is the best house in the world!” “Will your house in Kew have a swimming pool – we LOVE your pool!” … and the heartstrings get pulled.
Inevitably the Kew house will not have a swimming pool – in a garden of about 12 x12 ft this would be challenging! And we will just about be able to have our children and grandchildren to stay but certainly not more than one family at a time, whereas here in Hampshire we have been able to accommodate, on beds, sofa beds, camp beds, futons, David’s four sons and their families, adding up to some 14 to stay. It was exhausting, with the shopping, catering, the sheets, the washing, ironing and vacuuming afterwards but it was great fun and everyone loved and appreciated it. My two sons and their families also had some good times in this wonderful adaptable space and my three grandchildren and David’s seven grandchildren all loved it and had a ball.
I can still remember my grandmother’s house, still walk around it in my mind and get the sense of being there with her, chatting in the kitchen, chasing after her with an ashtray when her cigarette ash looked as if it would fall in the soup (this seems to be a common experience for people of my generation!), crawling into her double bed, playing in the garden. Hopefully our grandchildren will also remember this lovely place and have some fun with us in the next.
And so on to a new transition and inevitably I think of my parents moving from a big house to a small one towards the end of their lives, as David thinks of his moving from Doncaster to Barnes. It reminds us that we are our parents’ age. How can that have happened?! And it feels both like a closing down and yet also an opening up of many new opportunities and a fun lifestyle in Kew, where there is so much on offer.
We spent the weekend in Kew for David’s 75th birthday, staying at the delightful Coach and Horses Inn on Kew Green. We ate chocolate birthday cake cooked by Kate Comer, photo attached, we were entertained by a magician, Steve Rowe, and the blended families chatted happily and the grandchildren have come away practising their magic tricks on us all. We walked by the river, had a picnic in Kew Gardens bought at the very buzzy and vibrant farmer’s market in Kew Village on Sunday. We tasted our new life and liked it. But there will be both gratitude and sadness at leaving Hampshire Hunt Cottage as it has been the scene of many happy occasions.
In the meantime though we are betwixt and between, stuck in the ghastly limboland that is selling a home in England. A process that can leave you in stress and uncertainty for weeks at a time while surveys are carried out, mortgage companies decide whether or not to give you a loan, searches have to be completed and lawyers ask stressful questions like “where is the woodworm certificate?”.
And one has to scramble around to find the cash to pay exorbitant amounts of Stamp Duty for a house half the size of the one we are currently living in, not to mention removal costs, agent’s fees and the rest. We Baby Boomers are berated for not selling our houses but it isn’t that simple.
I feel I have half my heart in one home and half my heart in the next and yet I don’t dare get excited about our new life because we have not yet exchanged contracts and until that is done, nothing is certain. I have had so many experiences of moving that I know that even the most seemingly simple chain – which ours appears to be – can break a link unexpectedly. Why does it have to be so difficult in England? Everybody complains about it but nothing changes. In France, and I believe Scotland, things are more-or-less firmed up within 14 days. Why can’t we make this process less stressful?
My brain is scrambled and my nights are filled with to-do lists. We are endeavouring to downsize and declutter from 3000 sq ft to approximately 1500 which is not easy. When I mention to David that we won’t have room for something he just looks at me with sorrowful eyes and says “but I am rather fond of that …” or “it’s not very big…” But how many small things, or sentimental ones, can one fit into a smallish house? Chatting to my sister the other day, whose dear late husband Leo, was not dissimilar to David, she told me how, when they were moving to France, she would spend the day filling black bin bags with things she didn’t think they should take, only to discover Leo pulling them all out again at the end of the day. Hey ho … I know the feeling! And I can’t really talk – I find it near-impossible to let go of books.
But I shall miss many things about Hampshire and especially our book club, which we have hosted for several years and has provided many jolly occasions and stimulating conversations; the writing group of which I am a part in Petersfield which has changed my life, supporting me in becoming a poet and writer; the Loose Muse poetry evenings in Winchester so well run by Sue Wrinch. And for David his tennis and Warrior exercise group, not to mention for both of us, local friends, Alresford, Winchester Cathedral, the Watercress Line, plus some exquisite countryside.
Underneath it all though, when I allow myself to be, I am deeply excited and look forward to new adventures and to being closer to grandchildren. But how I long to get out of this conveyancing limbo-land and to arrive there in our new life! The provisional date for moving is Friday 13 July, which is my mother’s birthday and lucky for some, so I am hoping that this is a good omen.