I miss you, Petey. Love you for ever,
Cora xxx
Richard, hi! Well, you’ll be pleased to know I did my duty by you this morning. A rare appearance by the Rottweiler at a meeting on franchising of prison kitchen services. As I followed him out at the end, blending myself amongst the phalanx of special advisers by walking very quickly with my mobile phone adhered to one ear, I was able to slide seamlessly from the subject of privatised porridge to the question of when the Iraq vote refuseniks will be allowed out of gaol. I even managed to mention your name. He emitted a kind of small grunt as he outpaced me down the corridor, but there was no visible curl of the prime ministerial lip.
Speaking of slathering jaws, how did it go on Saturday with your ageing feminist tub-thumper?
Michael.
Michael Carragan (Labour)
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich West
Hello, Michael. Very grateful for the plug with ROTW. Fancy a drink tonight to analyse that grunt in more detail?
The gods of back bench servitude have smiled on me for once, in the matter of the tub-thumper. She was due at 10.30, and I stepped out into the lobby expecting something tweedy and sexagenarian, but the only non-empty chair (see how my venue-hopping works?) was occupied by a twenty-something vision in stone-washed denim and Polartec, with a cloud of dark ringlets and huge, serious eyes. Disbelieving, I even called her name, ‘Margaret Hayton’, addressing the light fittings non-committally. The vision rose, and came forward and held out its hand gravely, and I couldn’t think of anything to say except ‘Richard Slater’ (which was unnecessary information), or anything to do except go on shaking her hand like a slightly senile vicar at a parish tea.
Turns out she is a junior school teacher. It was good to be forewarned – you wouldn’t try to put anything over on someone who regularly stands up and faces thirty unescorted eight year olds. She talked some sense, too – and in an impassioned tone which was very hard to resist. Or at least, I found myself finding it so. It was all about the 1996 l egislation – the Asylum and Immigration Act, you know, the one when asylum seekers lost the right to council housing and other state support. She has a solicitor friend who works with refugees who thinks that voluntary organisations may also be precluded from offering housing if they are grant-aided by national or local government. Is this your neck of the Home Office woods, by any chance? Might pick your brains about it later. I told her I would certainly be looking into it, and she gave this laugh, except it was a laugh which made me feel depressed. Not that she was laughing at me, it wasn’t that, it was more sad and self-mocking, and it seemed to belong more to the old Margaret, the hard-bitten matron of my imagination, than to this fresh and clear-eyed creature. And before I knew what was happening I had taken hold of her hand again . . . and asked her to come back next Saturday! What was I thinking of? There’s nothing glamorous about the arcane detail of borough council grant-making powers, and asylum seekers certainly aren’t the darlings of the public’s heart right now. What’s more, I don’t have another one of my ex-directory surgeries in Ipswich for another four weeks, and I had planned on spending next Saturday in London, conducting a stratigraphic survey of the layered deposits of paperwork on my desk, and maybe making time to check out that new second-hand bookshop in Goswell Road.
You can berate me for my stupidity tonight – how about meeting at 10 p.m. in the Lobby?
Richard.
Richard Slater (Labour)
Member of Parliament for Ipswich
Dear Becs,
How are Zoe and her dad, then? Has she asked Daddy what Miss Prichard is doing in the bathroom in her underwear yet? (I bet you’re a bit nervous when it’s her turn to ‘Show and Tell’ about her weekend.)
Well, I had my meeting with Mr Slater. In fact he told me to call him Richard, but it doesn’t seem right calling your MP by his first name, somehow. Like calling someone’s grandad Reginald, or when Dad’s bishop asked me to call him Sid. Though he does seem more of a Richard than a Mr Slater, actually. He’s not as old as he looks in the pictures in the paper, and he’s got nice eyes.
When I got there I had to wait a bit, and there were rows of chairs like at the dentist, but no one there waiting except me. He came out of his office and called my name, and I got really embarrassed, you know how I always do if someone says my name in public. Not that it was exactly in public, there were only the two of us there, but you know what I mean. I hate –
hate
– my name. I always imagine people looking round, expecting to see a woman in her fifties, in a sensible raincoat – and I’m sure that was what he was thinking. People have aunts, and even great-aunts, called Margaret; I’ve never met anyone else our age cursed with the name. You can’t shorten it either. Imagine being a Madge, that would be even worse (slatternly 1950s housewife with a fag in her mouth and curlers in her hair), or a Marge (cartoon character with yellow face and two-foot blue beehive). And my best friend from school had a border collie called Meg. That just leaves Maggie . . . and for me the only image that conjures up is documentary footage on TV from the 1980s, CND demos, or striking miners on picket lines, and that inevitable angry chanting: ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – out, out, out!’ Still, I suppose it could have been worse – Dad didn’t just like Elizabeth Gaskell, he was also into George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, so I might have ended up a Rosamond or a Bathsheba.
Sorry, I digress. Basically, he seemed interested (though I suspect Mr Richard Slater MP might be adept at seeming all sorts of things). He’s going to meet with me again next Saturday and tell me what he’s been able to find out. I think next time I’ll wear my interview blouse, and those black trousers I had for graduation, instead of just jeans. I need to look more businesslike. Then he might take me more seriously, you know – not just think I’m some kind of kid.
I know it sounds corny, Becs – but wouldn’t it be just amazing if I were really able to make a difference over this issue?
Love,
Margaret xx
Hi Margaret,
First of all: Declan. I think he is gorgeous, and things are hotting up nicely. I care nothing for your contumely and vilipendency – it’s water off a duck’s back, chuck.
Second of all: this Richard bloke. Nice eyes, eh?
And third of all: names. At least Margaret Hale is a decent heroine. Virtuous, but feisty with it. My mum called me Rebecca after the Daphne du Maurier (or in fact more likely the Hitchcock). Having read the book, at age fifteen, I took her to task about naming me after someone who is so obnoxious, so faithless and philandering, that she ends up drowned for her trouble – and has an extremely questionable relationship with her housekeeper. It seems to have passed Mum by completely that Rebecca wasn’t the name of the heroine. Come to think of it, she didn’t have a name at all, did she, the second wife? Maybe I should change my name to /&%>, the schoolteacher formerly known as Becs.
Hugs,
Becs xx
Dear /&%>,
‘Contumely’ and ‘vilipendency’ are both 7s, though I strongly suspect illegal use of the thesaurus. I’ve never dared use ‘contumely’ myself. I suspect it of perfidy – a noun in adverb’s clothing.
Margaret xx
IPSWICH TOWN CRIER
TUESDAY 19 APRIL 2005
MP FALLS ON FEET
Ipswich MP Mr Richard Slater today fell on his feet during a visit to a new annexe at Ipswich General Hospital. The new department deals with artificial limbs, and Mr Slater was slightly injured when he tripped over a pair of prosthetic feet, knocking himself out on a consulting table and spraining a finger in his fall. But he was certainly in the right place, as Dr Clive Troman was immediately on hand to administer first aid. ‘Normally I deal with amputees,’ said Dr Troman, ‘specialising mainly in hemipelvectomy patients. However, I have not forgotten my basic resuscitation techniques, and was able to employ them to good effect upon Mr Slater.’
Mr Slater commented: ‘As I was coming round I heard Dr Troman saying that the forefinger was broken and would have to come off. It was a relief to discover that he was talking about a prosthetic hand which I had knocked to the floor, rather than my own!’
The Hollies
East Markhurst
19 April 2005
Dear Margaret,
I feel very modern with my mobile telephone. You’ll have me ‘texting’ next – writing half the words in code like the youngsters do. I’ve seen them doing it on EastEnders. Thank you very much, my dear – you always were a thoughtful girl. Do you remember when you were little, about four I think, and your torch batteries kept running down, and Mum found out you were leaving it on in the toy box every night in case your dolls were afraid of the dark? And I was thinking last night about our golden wedding, up at the village hall, and how Grandad couldn’t remember who anyone was, and got upset. You took him in the little side kitchen and made him a cup of tea and managed to calm him down, and he told me later he’d really enjoyed his day. It’s funny how, even when his Alzheimer’s was getting bad, he always seemed to remember you, love. Because, you know, sometimes he couldn’t even remember who I was, and all he seemed able to recall was things from when he was a boy. That used to make me cry more than anything – married to me fifty years, and he would look at me as if I were a stranger and tell me that he wanted to go home.
I am sorry to hear about your friend, the one who wants to harm herself, and I’m sure that you
do
help her, love, even if you only sit with her sometimes when she’s feeling low. And you needn’t worry, I do know about child abuse. We never talked about it in my day, of course, but your generation didn’t invent it, believe me. And I watch a lot of daytime television these days, remember. I know more about all sorts of things, sex included, than I ever did when your grandad was alive! I’m sorry she might have to go into hospital. But I don’t think she needs to think of it as a ‘defeat’ as you call it. When I was a girl they didn’t call it the psychiatric hospital, they called it the mental asylum – a safe place for people who couldn’t manage in the outside world. Maybe that’s what your friend needs at the moment, a little bit of asylum.
Mrs Ashby at church was asking after you the other day, and she wanted to know whether you are ‘courting’. Such a sweet old-fashioned expression, I thought – I haven’t heard it since I was a girl. It’s what my old mum would have said. Anyway, I told her I was much too polite ever to ask you! I know you haven’t mentioned anyone ‘special’ since that nice boy in college, Mark wasn’t it, the one who came to the vicarage for Christmas with us all one year? At one time it seemed like you never came to visit without him. He used to butter me up something rotten, bringing me sherry, and teasing me about being the ‘merry widow’. But I’m guessing that’s all ended long since. I hope he didn’t break your heart, dear. I know what these charmers can be.
Kirsty is very kind. She does pick up my shopping, not that I get through a lot of things. I can walk to the post office myself now, but still find it hard to manage a carrier bag as well as the frame. She’s a thoughtful girl, too. Yesterday she brought me in a lot of women’s magazines that she had finished with, and she says she will pick up some library books for me next time she goes into Winchester. But you never know what they’ll have, and it isn’t easy for someone else to choose books for you, when they don’t know what you like, or what you’ve already read. Still, maybe she’ll get me reading something new, something she likes, and perhaps I’ll like it too. I wouldn’t want to be too narrowly stuck in my tastes just because I’m an old lady! I watched an episode of that ‘West Wing’ and quite enjoyed it. I wonder if it’s really like that for politicians? It all seems such a muddle, somehow.
Take care of yourself, dear.
Love from Gran xxx
ST EDITH’S PRIMARY SCHOOL
St Edith’s Lane, Ipswich IP3 5BJ
20 April 2005
Nativity Play
This is to inform parents that the Key Stage Two Nativity Play will take place at 2 p.m. on Tuesday 10 May. It has been decided after all to stage the production, which had to be cancelled in December due to an epidemic of diarrhoea and vomiting amongst the snowflakes.
Doors open at 1.30 p.m. and parents are advised to come early if they wish to get a good seat. May we remind you once again that flash photography is not allowed; this year we will not be using a real donkey, so there should be less risk to the fabric of the school hall, but nevertheless the flashes can be equally distracting for human cast members.
Mrs E. Martin
Deputy Head
IPSWICH TOWN CRIER
WEDNESDAY 20TH APRIL 2005
YOUR LETTERS
Sir, I am writing to express my concern about the state of some of the cycle paths in Ipswich town centre, and in particular the problem of raised metalwork. There are numerous instances, usually where the road surface has been repaired, where gratings or manhole covers are set considerably above the level of the surrounding tarmac. A particularly bad example is in the contraflow cycle lane in Godolphin Street, close to the junction with Parkside Road. Cyclists are obliged either to risk riding over these obstacles, or swerving out of the cycle lane, both of which are very dangerous. Yesterday I saw an elderly gentleman wobble and almost fall off his bike while trying to circumnavigate a raised grating. I have written to the borough council about this matter on two occasions, but as yet have received no reply.
M. Hayton, 42 Gledhill Street, Ipswich.