Two
Cautionary Pieces
demonstrating the hazards of having a journalist for a mother.
From The
Signs
of the times
WITH almost breathless excitement, my daughter arrived home from town with the
news she had discovered one could buy wash-in hair colour for just 25p.
Flat out with ‘flu the full significance of this did not sink in at first,
even as I lay in bed listening to the sounds of vigorous shampooing from the
bathroom.
It was, in fact, the following day, when a shaft of daylight penetrated through
the bedroom curtains, that I noticed her ginger thatch had developed an
unmistakable tinge of pink.
“For Heaven’s sake don’t tell Granny” I muttered in despair and reached
for another handful of tissues.
During the day, I had time to cast my mind back to when I was that same age - a
few weeks short of teenage - and remembered my party dress of horrible apricot
taffeta worn with white ankle socks and flat silver strap shoes. For a special
touch there might be velvet bows in my pigtails.
Now here she was with her 25 pence pink hair, setting up the electric sewing
machine to squeeze another half inch down the side seams of already skin tight
jeans.
Family friends regarded this flamboyant burst into puberty with amused
tolerance. “Hope your fingers soon get better, did you slam them in the
door?” one quipped, and she slayed him with a withering look. Don't people
know black is THE colour for nail varnish this winter?
An indulgent uncle tossed her a five pound note at Christmas saying “Buy
yourself some gloves with fingers in”. How could he understand the hours of
searching that went into finding that treasured addition to her wardrobe, a pair
of pink, sequined fingerless gloves!
Childhood is definitely a thing of the past now that pop posters swamp the
flower fairy wallpaper in her bedroom and “Pelican West” has hounded
“Little Grey Rabbit” from the record player. At long last she has discovered
we possess a bathroom with taps full of water.
But the adult world is still a rainbow bubble on the horizon. No awareness yet
of some of life’s bleaker realities.
Every stage in a child’s development has its own special charm. The first
steps, the first words, the first day at school. This first emergence from the
chrysalis of childhood has its magic too, in the form of this multi-coloured
butterfly.
It was a short flutter though. On the first day of term the little girl was
rediscovered in sensible grey socks, glasses perched on freckled nose under the
familiar ginger fringe, black hockey boots swinging from her school bag.
Normality seems to have returned - at least until the Easter holidays.
Spot
of bother with new Trousers
MY education as the mother of a teenage daughter took another leap forward
recently with the acquisition of a pair of leopard spot trousers.
They are, so she assures me, what everyone who is any one is wearing these days.
However, Horsham does not quite seem to have caught up with current trends, so
the purchase involved a trip to
Just a few paces from the car park, there they were adorning the window and door
way of a busy looking shop. Lime green, fluorescent pink, blood red, all with
the black spotted leopard look.
We explained to the bright young assistant that her heart was set on white with
black spots, because green with white spots was much too vulgar and pink just
isn’t her colour.
“No trouble at all,” he smiled confidently. “I’m sure we’ve got a pair
somewhere, we’ve got everything here.”
Looking around, this was easy to believe. The shop was dark because little light
could penetrate through the door and window festooned with jeans and tee shirts
of every conceivable colour and design.
Finding what we wanted among the racks and hangers, which disappeared upwards
into the dim areas of the ceiling was another matter. So the assistant called up
the stock room and they reported they had them at the other end of the line.
“They’ll be here in five minutes,’ he said, dispatching a runner and
explaining that the stock room was actually in another part of
There is sound business sense in this bizarre arrangement, because while we were
waiting for the leopards to appear, the assistant set about selling us a tee
shirt to go with them.
“We’ve got all the pop groups,” he enthused, waving towards a wall
decorated entirely with faces from the charts. “Certainly not,” I cut in
sharply, having been caught by that one in the past. Before the garment has been
once through the washing machine the favourite group has fallen from grace and
“I can’t wear that!” she groans in disgust.
“This is a very popular one,” the assistant continued, quite undeterred. The
latest offering contained daubings of oriental brush writing in red and black.
“No, I don’t think so, it might say something rude,” I ventured. Surely
that would put him in his place!
“No, it's just a proverb, I studied Japanese at evening classes,” shot back
the reply from our super salesman. Well, what can you say to that?
By this time the breathless runner had arrived back with the snow leopards and
my daughter disappeared into a match box sized cubicle to squeeze into them.
Breathing in and rather flushed in the face, she appeared triumphant.
“Aren’t they a bit tight,” I ventured cautiously.
“They're worn tight and they do give a bit,” chipped in our salesman, never
at a loss.
“They’ll be fine when I’ve taken them in a bit,” she beamed, pirouetting
before the mirror.
So the snow leopards came home, were duly taken in down the leg and worn with
pride for the rest of the holidays.
A few days later some friends took her, and the trousers, on a trip to the zoo
and on returning home she said: “I walked past the leopards’ cage and they
gave me a funny look ... now I suppose you are going to write some thing about
my trousers!”