Two Queens are in the news today.
One is Queen Elizabeth II, who is 90. Although I am a Republican, it would be churlish not to wish her “Happy Birthday ” on reaching such a milestone. But her birthday is bitter-sweet for me and my family as she shared her birthday with OUR Queen; my mum, Lily Spires.
Mum at 18
Although born on the same day, but one year apart – Mum was older and would have been 91 today – their lives couldn’t have been more different. No palaces or castles for Mum, who was the third of four children born to Alfred and Louisa Sargeant in two rooms in Old Ford, East London. As a child she knew hardship and occasionally hunger and at 14 left school to work in Methuen’s the publishers, travelling on the steam train and then the Underground from Dagenham to Temple every day. By sixteen she was a welder in an aircraft factory. Her first boyfriend was killed in action. She brought up three children and, once again, knew hardship when Dad was out of work for months on end. She was a hard worker, always working outside the home once we were at school, while keeping the house spotlessly clean. You could have eaten your dinner from her kitchen floor or her front step.
Mum was widowed in her mid-sixties but carried on working and fending for herself. She was always immaculately turned out – with nobody to dress her – and was active and lively, until, aged 87, she succumbed to cancer.
I can’t help but wonder if she’d been born into obscene wealth; if she’d had all her meals cooked and served for her; if she’d never had to worry about paying bills or whether she could feed her kids the next day; if she’d had someone to clean her house, and was her clothes and do her shopping, whether she, too, would still be alive today.
So, I’m raising a glass today to the memory of my Mum; Our Queen. A phenomenal woman; gone but not forgotten.
The other queen in the news is, of course, the Queen of Comedy, Victoria Wood, who died yesterday. What a shock!
The Inimitable Victoria Wood
I couldn’t believe the headline when it came up on my iPad. I actually said out loud “No! She can’t be!” and then I burst into tears. I feel as if I’ve lost a friend. I absolutely LOVED her. The Sister and I went to see her several times and we’d spend the whole journey home going over her one-liners. She was talented on so many levels and although she’ll probably be mainly remembered for her humour and her ditties – The Ballad of Brian and Freda being but one – her screenplays, such as Housewife 49 and That Day We Sang, were exquisitely written and thought provoking.
She was never crude or coarse, just genuinely funny and ‘modern’ comedians could learn much from her. I’m going to leave this post with a selection of her jokes. Miranda Hart, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Jenny Eclair, Jo Brand, Sarah Millican et al: Eat. Your. Heart. Out.
1. I once went to one of those parties where everyone throws their car keys into the middle of the room. I don’t know who got my moped, but I drove that Peugeot for years.
2. I put everything down to the menopause now – tiredness, irritability, global warming. Well, it could be, couldn’t it… 200 lady Eskimos all having a hot flush at the same time.
3. I know I’m different sizes in different shops, 16 in some shops, 18 in some shops. In Gap, I’m only a size 12 because they’re American. In Marks and Spencer’s, I’m only a size three because they don’t want to upset anybody. In Topshop, my hips set off an alarm as I go through.
4. I didn’t want to take HRT, not that I know anything about it. But the only people I’d seen banging on about it on the television were people like Edwina Currie. And I thought, if I start taking it, I might start wearing these pink suits with the big gilt buttons.
5. I went to the doctor and I said, ‘Look, why am I not pregnant? I’m doing all of the right things – I’ve stopped drinking, I’m taking vitamins and I’m putting a pillow under my bottom.’ And he said, ‘Are you having sexual intercourse on a regular basis?’ I said, ‘I can’t do everything!’
6. When you’re in the middle of having a baby, it’s a bit like watching two very inefficient removal men trying to get a very large sofa through a very small doorway. Only in this case, you can’t say: ‘Oh, sorry, bring it through the French windows.’
7. Midwives have got this obsession now, they want to show you the baby’s head coming out. And they’re always getting a mirror to try and show you. And it’s just like being at the hairdresser’s when they show you the back of your head – and you feel obliged to go, ‘Oh yes!’ And you’re thinking, well it looks terrible but it might be all right when I’ve run it under the cold tap.
8. They said, ‘We’ll have to do an internal examination, do you mind if we bring in 16 students?’ I said, ‘Well, it depends what they’re students of. If it’s mechanical engineering, yes, I do mind.’
9. I can never really believe wife-swapping actually goes on. I can’t imagine an orgy going on in Bridlington: ‘Eh, now, steady on, mind my barometer!’
10. I don’t see the point of most drugs, especially Ecstasy. I think if I wanted to get dehydrated and jump around with a load of people I’ve never met, I could go to a Methodist barn dance.
11. On the morning of the wedding, she was in a complete panic. She said, ‘Something old, something new – I’ve got nothing borrowed and blue!’ I said, ‘You’ve got a mortgage and varicose veins, will that do?’
12. I don’t drink as a rule, not wishing to have a liver the size of a hot-water bottle. If I need a ‘buzz’, as I call it, I have a piccalilli sandwich with Worcester sauce – that takes your mind off your bunions, believe you me.
13. My children won’t even eat chips because some know-all b*****d at school told them a potato was a vegetable.
14. This programme is what the BBC calls a ‘special’. That means it’s ten minutes longer than usual and I’ve splashed out on a new bra.
15. People think I hate sex. I don’t. I just don’t like things that stop you seeing the TV properly.
16. I’m not very fashion-conscious. You know, as long as it’s this year’s gravy spilt down the front, I’m happy.
17. I like television, I like all those catchphrases… the one that every tired woman dreads to hear from her husband at bedtime: ‘I’ve started, so I’ll finish.’
Your Mum like mine was a Good woman, I shall toast her this afternoon when I have my cinnamon whirl xx
Yes, indeed, J. Riches don’t make you a good person, it’s what’s in your heart and our mums had hearts as big as the Moon. Enjoy your cinnamon whirl! You know how to have a good time 😉