Poem Rabbit Holes

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As I have said many times before, there is drudgery about sorting through donated books – those from someone’s garage, a dead parents’ collection of national Trust house guides, dated cookery books, more books about every single allied aspect of WW2 than you can shake a stick at – and believe me, I do.

But there are treats, hidden gems, surprises, delights sometimes.

Out of a book, itself of no interest in itself, fell this.

For about 30 seconds I thought we might have a real stunner on our hands, a sample of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s handwritten poem.

Google immediately told me this was not her handwriting. 

But it sent me down a rabbit hole or two and, should you have some time you don’t know what to do with, you are welcome to follow me.

So, having realised this was not in her hand, I assumed it was someone who had copied it out to keep, or in this case, as the book was dedicated in the same hand, to be given to someone special.

But no.

The poem is not written by BB, or even Mrs BB – not that I think she ever signed herself that.

It was written by Mary Torrens Lathrap 1838-1895.

According to Poem of the Week https://www.potw.org/archive/potw254.html 

Lathrap, Mary T. The Poems and Written Addresses of Mary T. Lathrap. Julia R. Parish ed. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Michigan, 1895.

As the book was compiled with the help of her husband and family, I am taking it as authoritative on the details of the poem, her name, and her life history. Such a statement may at first seem odd, but A Woman’s Answer to a Man’s Question has had a surprisingly rich history of being misattributed and miss-titled.

The most grevious error concerning the poem is replicated in Lawson (1927) where A Woman’s Question is credited to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This error dates back to at least 1890 (J. Rose) where it seems that the poem was “generally attributed” to Browning under this title. It is unclear where these mistakes began.

Interestingly, at least to me, its title was originally:

A Woman’s Answer to a Man’s Question

(written in reply to a man’s poetic unfolding of what he conceived to be a woman’s duty)

In case you don’t want to squint over the original to decipher the handwriting, here is the poem so you can decide whether it is a good answer….

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the Hand above—
A woman’s heart and a woman’s life,
And a woman’s wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy;
Demanding what others have died to win,
With the reckless dash of a boy?

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Man-like you have questioned me—
Now stand at the bar of my woman’s soul,
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirts shall be whole.
I require your heart to be true as God’s stars,
And pure as heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef;
I require a far better thing—
A seamstress you’re wanting for stockings and shirts—
I look for a man and a king.

A king for a beautiful realm called home,
And a man that the Maker, God,
Shall look upon as He did the first,
And say, “It is very good.”

I am fair and young, but the rose will fade
From my soft, young cheek one day—
Will you love then, ‘mid the falling leaves,
As you did ‘mid the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that a man should be;
If you give this all, I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot do this, a laundress and cook
You can hire with little to pay;
But a woman’s heart and a woman’s life

Are not to be won that way.

I have to say that there are bits in that poem I do sort of get – if you want a wife who is a housekeeper, then get yourself a housekeeper…. just saying.

I have to say that Mary doesn’t sound like the kind of woman I’d be spending time with but each to her own…

Meanwhile, as they say and if you are still with me, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

You probably know that she and Robert Browning started a correspondence which turned into a secret courtship as she was (rightly) convinced her father would disapprove.

They married secretly and moved to Italy for the rest of her life.

Mr Barrett disinherited Elizabeth as he did each of his children who married. Elizabeth had foreseen her father’s anger but had not anticipated her brothers’ rejection.[3] As Elizabeth had some money of her own, the couple were reasonably comfortable in Italy. The Brownings were well respected and even famous. Elizabeth grew stronger, and in 1849, at the age of 43, between four miscarriages, she gave birth to a son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. Their son later married, but had no legitimate children. Wikipedia

I do rather wonder why the father disinherited every child who married – not all the rage these days – just saying.

Anyway, you can read all about her in Wikipedia and many other places but there is one aspect of her life which is another rabbit hole for me.

I was brought up near Ledbury – a charming market town in Herefordshire.

You can, of course look it up but in the meantime think a lot of black and white buildings, a market hall built on stilts in which we hung around waiting for the school bus home – and indeed our (grammar) school which used to be the home of the Barclays Bank family, is now flats.

Think lots of interesting individual shops, some of which are indeed a bit precious, but also butchers, an ironmongers, a plethora of pubs, and a decent array of charity shopping options.

Yes, yes I am about to get to the point. Well, with a small rabbit hole to go into first.

Ledbury is the home of the UK’s foremost poetry festival and not just because of the connection with EBB.

There are long and deep associations with local poets and poetry in Ledbury including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Masefield, The Dymock Poets: Lascelles Abercrombie, Rupert Brooke, John Drinkwater, Robert Frost, Wilfrid Gibbon and Edward Thomas.The town sits at the foot of the Malvern Hills, the location of William Langland’s Piers Plowman. We celebrate being #LedburyPoetryTown.

https://ledburypoetry.org.uk/home/ledbury-poetry-town

( In a small burrow rather than rabbit hole, my first serious boyfriend was a great grandson of John Masefield – I am sure you are glad you know that.) 

Right, brace up people.

Back to EBB and Ledbury.

So, in 1809, her father Edward Moulton-Barrett bought and extensively re-modelled a house called Hope End, just outside Ledbury and this is where Elizabeth and her many siblings lived for a few years.

It became ‘a new mansion of opulent Turkish design, which his wife described as something from the Arabian Nights entertainment’s, was built to a design and with a garden by John Claudius Loudon. It was built in the ‘Moorish Style’, with minarets. The interior’s brass balustrades, mahogany doors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and finely carved fireplaces were eventually complemented by lavish landscaping: ponds, grottos, kiosks, an ice house, a hothouse, and a subterranean passage from house to gardens. 

How did he afford this rather bizarre anomaly in the Herefordshire countryside?

Born in 1785 in Jamaica, Edward didn’t get on too well with his father Charles Moulton, but his hugely wealthy grandfather Edward Barrett needed an heir so had the name Barrett added to Moulton before he died.  Edward Moulton Barrett and his brother then inherited their grandfather’s plantations and fortune.

Ah, that is how.

But it was not to last.

Not long after the huge expense of rebuilding  Hope End, the African slaves took their rebellion in Jamaica up a notch, and many escaped from the plantations or flatly refused to work. Houses were burnt down and sugar cane was destroyed by the rebels, who also took control of many plantations. Of course in the end the rebellion was quashed, although it did help to accelerate the end of slavery, but the damage to plantation owners was immense and Edward lost a vast amount of his wealth. His mortgage was foreclosed and he was forced to sell Hope End shortly after the death of his wife.

Don’t feel too sorry for him – he still had property in London and ‘retired’ to Wimple Street.

If you want more information, and surely you do, go to herefordshirepast.co.uk and you can see the photos of the famous burning down of the house…. 

Well that is it.

What will I do with the written out poem?

I have slipped it into a nice old book, put it on the Oxfam bookshop shelves and will wonder if the person who buys it will find the same rabbit holes I did.

Bayeux Ho Hum

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The Best Beloved and me are a bit ho hum about the hoo-hah about the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum.

Thousands of tickets gone in the first 24 hours of going on sale, ah well yawn.

This is not because we don’t think it is  splendid, entertaining, historical, amazingly stitched, a significant bit of visual history and much more, but because we have seen it all before, and I mean all of it.

We decided one February, pretty much on the spur of the moment when we were living in France, to take a tour around Normandy and see some of the first world war graveyards and sites and eat some pork and apples and drink some cider, and what not.

We did that and more, and one rainy, windswept morning we pitched up near Bayeux. 

We sat in a cafe relatively early one morning, and wondered what to do.

‘When is the tourist office open?’ we asked.

‘Mmm about April.’ the waiter said.

So we decided to go to Bayeux and see the famous tapestry.

The museum was open.

We had the whole place and tapestry to ourselves. 

For about three hours…….

How to Light a Fire

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Now I could witter on about the house renovation.

Hopefully, it is helpful to future proof for the rather unstable Best Beloved, and indeed me as I dodder into old age.

It took a while but we found the house which suits us – sufficient it to say that I can walk to Oxfam in about 10 minutes but we are nearly next to a stream and the builder – doing aforementioned renovations (brilliantly) – saw a kingfisher on his skip one day.

So, despite the fact when we get home from travelling we turn not into the lovely rural lanes to take us to a house overlooking the Downs, and instead into a housing estate – albeit a well designed one – we are happy to be here.

So, the deal was I would design and pay for what I wanted done and the BB would take on some other costs including the replacement of an old electric fire.

He was sure he wanted a gas real-fire looking one.

And we went around several (scattered ) showrooms and got baffled by the options.

‘That’s really nice,’ I said.

‘Yes madam. That is because it is a real fire.’

Mmm.

The options were potentially thousands of pounds but that was the BB’s issue.

Meanwhile as the renovations were taking shape, we were renting and nearby was a Dunelm which I have to say I rather liked and bought various ‘necessities’ for new house.

And a friend had said in passing ‘My sister bought a Dunelm fake log fire, electric, from Dunelm.’

One day I dragged/persuaded the BB t come with me to Dunelm to look at stools.

‘Don’t they do fake fires?’ he said.

‘No, they only do those online, you won’t see them here’

But, and here your are not as surprised as I was, I turned round and saw a pile of boxes containing aforementioned fake log fires.

I asked a nearby young man – yes he was a staff member not just any young man – if he could tell me what the dimensions were of the actual fire as you can’t tell from the box.

Well he searched his store phone, he scanned the barcode and couldn’t find the answer.

‘I’ll open a box,’ he said.

I protested that it would damage the saleability of the fire.

‘Madam, they are reduced by 80% so I am not that worried.’

The BB bought one. £20.

And look how it worked…..

He is, as we say, a jammy sod, that BB

A Little Ramble

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Not the most pre-possessing looking book to turn up in the Oxfam bookshop.

But delve inside and you get glimpses of British post second world war life. It is the minutes of the Sunday Ramblers London group from May 1948 to December 1959.

I understand you may well not be very excited by that prospect but stick with me for the birth of the National Parks, the Festival of Britain, as well as a dash of prim pedantry, endless discussions of social engagements, and a touch of women finally being allowed to have a public role.

A bit of history.

The Ramblers’ Association was born in 1935 and followed the 19th century interest in the natural open air championed by luminaries such as Wordsworth, John Ruskin, Coleridge and Byron

In 1884 James Bryce introduced a ‘ freedom to roam’ bill into Parliament which fails, but the campaign had begun.

Growing cities and industrialisation meant more and more people wanted access to the countryside but by 1914 some 6.8 million English acres have been enclosed – a fifth of all land. No access for ramblers. If you dared, you risked prosecution, angry gamekeepers and in extreme cases, mantraps.

In 1932, 400 ramblers from Manchester and Sheffield organised by 20 year old communist Benny Rothman and the British Workers’ Sports Federation staged a famous mass trespass at Kinder Scout inn the Peak District.

Several involved were imprisoned for up to six months and that turned out not to be a popular move by the authorities.

The campaign for national parks was galvanised and in 1951 the first National Park was created, in the Peak District.

So, not an instant result but then there was a powerful lobby of rich landowners against it because it interfered with their shooting and general understanding that the proletariat should be kept out of view….. just saying.

Right, back to the minutes. And these are the minutes of a London Sunday Ramblers group.

Given the importance of the National Parks campaign, you might have thought it would get more of a mention but the minutes do rather concentrate on more parochial issues.

Social events are big in the minutes.

The Christmas dinner, the annual dance, the spring and autumn social, the New Year’s Eve event, etc.

You can imagine the ‘good deal of discussion’…..

And teas stops for thirsty ramblers also featured heavily.

It seems that as note-takers changed we got more – or indeed less – of notes of the actual business of walks.

And that was all the mentions to Ramblers Organiser (RO) got in about 8 months of minutes.

There is some pedantry as I said. Not sure who is doing the corrections…..

And there is a glimpse into the committee meetings’ discussions. The endless ones. but interestingly – at least to me, you may have given up by now – in letters to someone called Anne and slipped into the book of minutes by different senders. Clandestine gossip over apparently at least three years.

And there are some entires which you really think needed a bit more explanation…

The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair held throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Funded chiefly by the government at a cost of £12 million, it was intended to give the British public a sense of recovery and progress after the devastation of the Second World War, and to promote British science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts. It proved immensely popular, with more than ten million paid admissions to its six main exhibitions, and helped reshape British arts, crafts and design for a generation. Wikipedia

But in our minutes not as important as discussing details of the ramblers’ social events. It does not get another mention. And barely more of a mention than adopting the same agenda format as last year.

And what were those rumours? Relating needless to say, to social events…

What was all that about?

And let me draw your attention to the mention of the Highway Code.

In 1931 there were 2.3 million motor vehicles on British roads and still tens of thousands of horse drawn vehicles.

Pedestrians were often considered in the way of the glamour of driving a car and at fault if they became a casualty. In this dangerous and heady world in the 1930s around 7,000 people lost their lives every year.

By contrast, In 2025, there were 364 pedestrians killed by vehicles – and there were 42.5 million vehicles on British roads.

Of course there is more to those statistics than walking on the right side of the road but it is rule still in use and I for one, notice it when you round a country road bend to find someone walking on the left…. just staying.

There is a lot of mentions of the cost of travelling from London, where this group was based, to country and seaside venues for a good long ramble in the fresh air.

There is endless discussion of the cost of one coach company over another, the difference of one old penny in the cost and juggling different arrangements for group fares.

Apparently the outings using the London tube were not popular – and over time that was true of the moonlit walks….

Going by train was also much discussed. Train strikes were annoying, unreliable timetables and no discount for groups were definitely on the agendas.

And then there is a forerunner of the Beeching Axe.

In the 1960s Richard Beeching, then chair of the British Railways Board, wrote a report outlining 2,636 stations an 5,000 miles of railway track to be closed.

Protests protected a few, but the majority were closed as planned.

Interestingly, at least for me, Clandon Station is still open.

Finally, you will be glad to hear, is the promotion of women towards the end of the minutes book.

The misses and ladies have been evident throughout but mostly as note takers and secretaries to the committee (but who was the enigmatic Anne who got letters giving the background gossip to meetings?) and whilst there has always been an MC at all of their many events, this is the first one with women. Mind you there is also a man, just to be safe…

And who knows what the electrical equipment was about? Hopefully not ‘boisterous records’.

Nancy & Ginger

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Whilst I am on an animal theme….

Sometimes on holiday, animals have featured.

Memorably in Majorca, a lovely rabbit called Coco who used to frequent our apartment and was eventually ‘sent to the family farm’ because she had burrowed – unbeknownst to us until our last morning – into the bottom of our mattress.

And, some years ago in Portugal it was a dog called Graham.

Last year it was cats.

Not entirely unsurprisingly, given that we were on a Greek island.

A pretty little tortoiseshell and a handsome young ginger cat, adopted us.

They were well-cared for and certainly not feral.

We assumed they were doing what all locals do round here – making the most of the tourist season.

Nancy, as we called her, would weave in and out of my legs asking for milk.

Ginger, as we unimaginatively called him, would sit on the sofa to be stroked by the BB – until the fridge door opened.

All very nice and entertaining until they upped their game and went from supplication to demanding.

From an occasional visit to practically moving in. Not likely to go down well with the apartment’s owner.

They had both been firmly shown the door one night and the door shut, fly guards were across french windows, and we went to bed.

Imagine my surprise to wake up early the next morning to find Nancy asleep on the bed.

And imagine my further surprise when I found Ginger waiting, in a rather languid fashion, by the fridge.

I still have no idea how they got in – and they certainly were not going to tell me.

I decided to give them a splash of milk each and turf them out.

Ginger finished his first and then decided to take a swipe at Nancy to get the rest of her’s.

I aimed a thwack at him, of course I missed and anyway would not have really hit him, and he raced off round the apartment to avoid my, quite certainly, displeasure.

My new glasses fell off during the chase, and broke.

Imagine my delight in all this….

Mind you, they both shot out when I opened the kitchen door and demanded their immediate exit.

Nancy came been back to test the mood, but disappeared after a face-saving dust bath in the garden and Ginger, wisely, kept his distance.

Nancy, it turned out had eventually more winning ways.

Jessie

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This is an obituary dog-blog so if you are not a dog-lover or think that someone wittering on about their dog when obviously your own dog is the epitome of dogs, or you think such a things sentimental nonsense then feel free to walk away- indeed I encourage you to.

It is mostly for me and Best Beloved and few friends anyway, so don’t feel too bad.

The Best Beloved fell hook, line and sinker in love with Jessie when we went to collect her and he sat on the back seat cradling her 12 week-old self on his chest. You could see cartoon hearts coming out of him. She was asleep… just saying.

She took it as her right to be loved and acknowledged our return after a holiday of say two weeks, with a waft of the tail – no embarrassing hysterical greetings, just an ‘OK everyone let’s get back to normal now.’

When she went through her badly-behaved-youth period she would come back from a walk with the BB and find her own naughty step until he caved in and forgave her the panic of finding her disappeared…..

She loved carrots, potato peelings, chicken casserole leftovers especially, having a bouncing game on the bed in the morning, any builders anywhere since we had building work when she was small and she then associated builders with ham sandwiches- likewise any resting walkers who might be concealing a ham sandwich in their rucksack as we did.

Having me and one of the builders chase her around the garden after she evaded us to paddle in not-yet-set concrete…

Rolling in soft sand or snow

Mud

Being picked over after collecting an unnecessary number of bits and pieces of the countryside – and allowing/demanding the BB picked them all out and letting her eat the tasty seeds.

She liked the garden especially at night or sunbathing – getting her to come out of either was hard work.

Just about tolerating being bathed especially by my Fave Niece who would do it on a daily basis on visits in her younger days in between creating a spreadsheet of what was in my freezer – that is the niece, Jess was smart but not a great one for spreadsheet writing.

She did have a sense of her own matriarch role – this is not Jessie being welcoming or even affectionate, this is Jess reminding her visiting neighbour who was top dog in our house…

Couches, preferably but not essentially, with added humans, and blankets

Talking of couches, we found out quite by accident at a Tescos checkout that she had been moonlighting as an ad-dog with Roman Abranovitch of all people……

She was wily-clever, she had her favourite people and we tried to rank somewhere within that small group (though often failed), she made us laugh most days, she would stand at a path crossroads until you gave in and went the way she fancied that day, she never went down into the cellar on the basis there be dragons, she had thousands of treats from Pete the Postie who said she was his favourite dog on his round (but he might have been saying that all over the village), she helped herself to neighbours when she was bored at home, she chased deer even though at her size, they only had to change from first to second gear to leave her in a panting heap, she quietly stole a dainty canapé from a Vice-Admiral’s hand without him immediately noticing (though just the once), she did polite but not that gracious with visiting dogs but assumed their houses/beds/people were entirely open to her, she never saw the point of retrieving a ball, and could do a lot with facial expressions especially reproach.

There was one day when we went to visit Tewkesbury Abbey which didn’t allow dogs in so we tied her up outside on a cloudy but dry day.

Inside we had no idea there had been a short but sharp shower.

When we got outside we found her asking in quite a meaningful way to be adopted by the couple who had found her and were about to call the RSPCA.

Like everyone’s dog, she was one in a million.

Auction Surprises

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I do like an auction and despite the upheavals of recent months, I managed to find the time to be at two of them in the same week recently.

So, the first one was a not-to-far-away country auction where I have found upholstery projects relying on the fact that despite rumours to the contrary, brown furniture has not come back into fashion ver much.

If you are not an auction familiar, here are a few words of advice/warning.

You rarely go and get what you went for. 

I once went for a Georgian tip top table (two-a-penny at auctions in my experience) but came home with a four foot high carved horse’s head for the garden – only because, dear reader, there were no tip top tables  and the auctioneer egged me on for one last horse bid.  (He threw in a vintage croupier’s rake – every house, it seems, needs one.)

As you can he now has a fine ivy mane.

Anyway, if you are still with me, I went to an auction again looking for an upholstery project to kill time before I got a couple of commissions in.

I came away with an elm coffee table, as you do.

In my defence, the brown furniture went for ridiculous prices that day. A boring mahogany stool which should have sold for say £20 went for a hammer price of £85. The auction porter and I agreed that was somewhat surprising.

And it wasn’t just that stool. All sorts of stuff went for well above the usual prices. I wondered given it was one internet bidder buying quite a bit of stuff whether it was someone furnishing a period film set.

But then I had another auction to watch.

A bit of background:

The people who bought our house had said they ‘loved the look’ and would like to buy some of the larger pieces of furniture provided we supplied a list of items and authenticated prices. (Yes they were not the kind of people to pop in for a cup of tea and a chat about what we might leave.)

Luckily, we had a neighbour who was an auctioneer.

So, we provided a list and it included our handmade arts and crafts dresser, an antique linen press, a satinwood wardrobe and an old large pine cabinet handed down from my BB’s mother.

They said no to all of them apart from the corner cabinet.

So, off they went to be former neighbour’s auction house and then I listened live to the action as you can these days.

I got a text from my neighbour (between gavel banging sessions) who said (rather surprisingly) that a prince of Qatar had bought some Scottish mile and was interested in our lots. (Or maybe he had one of many underlings watching them…..)

The internet in our cottage went down at the crucial moment so I didn’t hear the bidding, but suffice it to say that the dresser I had bought for £10 a decade ago, went for £1,100 and was on its way with all our other furniture to a Scottish mansion. ( A good home, said my auctioneer neighbour.)

Meanwhile, as they say, I had been watching the other lots.

And a samovar came up but went for more than £300 which was above my price range.

( A what? and why? I hear you ask.)

So, let me explain.

Just in case you don’t know: 

A samovar (Russian: самовар, lit. ’self-brewer’) is a metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water. Although originating in Russia, the samovar is well known outside of the country and has spread through Russian culture to other parts of Eastern Europe, as well as West and Central and South Asia. Wikipedia

As for why, well.

Our new home has a conservatory and though i am not a fan, it was the only place the Best Beloved could have a downstairs study.

Knowing that one of the downsides of a conservatory is that they are to warm in the summer, which he can live with, and too cold in the winter, which he cannot, he decided that he would be adding furs and a samovar to the more usual study furniture.

So, my auctioneer neighbour and I were texting back and forth and I mentioned the samovar and he said that two more were coming up later as a joint lot and as he wasn’t on the rostrum, did I want him to bid for me from the room.

Now, being an auction aficionado and knowing what a nice man he is, of course I said yes.

Of course, his colleague knew he was bidding for a friend. I never heard a hammer come down quite so quickly. Mind you they are very quick at those auctions so I may have imagined any slight favouritism.

I know they wouldn’t have raced into the many hundreds, but still felt that £45 was a bargain.

Yes they will be somewhat incongruous in a 1980s house on an estate but everyone needs a bit of incongruity now and then.

Whether the BB will ever get me to agree to his lighting them, is entirely another matter.

Back On The Case

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I wrote the piece below in 2007 whilst living in Brussels and having the bright idea of setting up a website which looked for the best design for people getting older/old.

It was a good idea but, like many I have had, I didn’t follow it through – I’m not good at doing projects alone and though I contacted a then friend who ran a design company and he loved the idea, the ‘children’ who worked for him saw anyone over the age of 40 as at the very least, boring and designing stuff for ‘really’ old people as boring/appalling/unimaginable.

So, it never happened.

Now I am back more interested in these issues because they are nothing if not imminent/immediate.

Now, I am on the case again.

And on that, dear reader, there will be more to follow.

When the first baby boomers needed reading glasses there was a revolution – all of a sudden you could get smart, sassy glasses over the counter at reasonable prices.

But that, it seems is where design and ageing seems to have stopped – or at least not boomed as it were.

If you are of an age when you might consider buying one of those chairs that recline and push out a footrest, the designs available are just horrid – nasty, old-fashioned and yes, horrid.

There is nothing which is not either faux tapestry which looks as if it has been chosen not to show the dirt (or maybe leaking bodily fluids), or as in one US advert, blouson purple fake leather – give me a break.

When I need to sit down in a shower, I want an elegant well-designed seat which looks like part of a well-designed shower. I do not want the current option which is a plastic chair from B&Q or something which looks like it escaped from an old people’s home in the 70s.

The market is huge for good design for older people.

We are rapidly increasing in numbers, we have the money, we are demanding and style and consumer orientated, we could be a very good source of income for smart retailers and manufacturers.

And it is not just the house – but whilst still on that, IKEA could design a kitchen with the older person in mind: lots of drawers, good lighting, all sorts of ideas they probably already incorporate but just think if they advertised so that you knew at 60 when you invested in your new kitchen it would work when you were 75.

So, not just the house. Fashion. We are the generation who will shop in the same places as our daughters. But we also want stuff which is appropriate – not many of us, however well-preserved want our bellies showing.

We want to know that this store or online shop is great for seriously well-cut but smart trousers which hide a bulge or two. You may to pay a bit for them but you can team team then with these cardigans from Primark or Top Shop.

I have been doing some thinking about this and there is a lot of ground to be made up. Look at this site.

No one is going to convince me the women on the home page – a site which is apparently targeted at women over 50 – are anything over 35. Look at the lingerie section and…..well I rest my case.

And some of the shoes my granny would have baulked at.

The site is one of the best examples of knowing there is a market out there but not knowing how to cater for us.

(The site I found then no longer exists but just do a search for women’s clothes for the over 50s and you will see many an example, still, of what I saw then.)

There are an estimated 78 million people over the age of 50 around and they say that we will spend some 2 trillion dollars on consumer goods and services.

Well maybe, but I tell you I am not spending it on stuff which may be practical but ugly, functional and screams ‘old person’ at you. I do not want the grandkids walking into my house and thinking ‘old person’s house, yuk’ (or whatever the current parlance for yuk is.)

I want my house to be stylish, practical and contemporary – and designed around me getting older.

It is not impossible but at the moment the stereotypes are blinding the designers and retailers.

Old people – anyone over 50 – is either sprightly grey-haired and sun tanned walking in the sand dunes or toothless, infirm, frail and not caring what anything looks like.

(Why shouldn’t my (eventual) incontinence pads come in a Victoria’s Secrets wrapping or at least something nice?)

There is a lot of difference between being 50 and being 80 and the market needs to be looked at differently.

Well-designed things may be out there – and if anyone knows of anything I would love to know about it. In the meantime chair manufacturers, bathroom designers, lighting designers, fashion writers, magazine editors please take note: we want smart, sexy, stylish and very good quality – and for us, please.

As for marketeers and advertising agencies, it may be my prejudices but perhaps the fact they are staffed by hyper-cool boys may just be blinding them to the opportunities out there if only they would treat us right.

Travelling easily – I wish

/ aspinalllucy / Leave a comment

Before I start, I would just like to make it clear that we are very lucky people to be able to have a holiday on a very lovely Greek island.

Having got the disclaimer out of the way, I will start on travelling with the Best Beloved and his disability. He can’t balance well or walk well. Just so you know.

Passenger assistance at Gatwick is great and we are well used to how it works and that makes life so much easier.

I park the BB in the special waiting area, ‘nip’ across the length of the ‘shopping zone’ get him a coffee and wander off to mooch about.

This time, five minutes after I had left him, he phoned me and said, ‘ They’ve offered the asking price.’ 

So, we were off for a week away from house selling stuff and by the time we got to Gatwick, it seems we were done.

( Well, apart from all the stress and hassle of moving, the chance they might change their minds and the little issue of us having nowhere to move to…)

The BB decided it warranted champagne on the flight and the lovely cabin crew leader I had been chatting with and telling her our news, said, ‘Of course.’ 

And then there was a crew panic to find the only (half) bottle stashed away in one of their many tiny lockers. ‘Phew,’ she said.

(BTW champagne drinking is no part of the story of travelling with disabilities.)

At Athens they set up a satellite part of the airport during the tourist season.

It is 1.7km from where you land to the exit.

The BB is pushed in a wheelchair – they do not have the nice electric buggies you find in Gatwick.

I walk with our cases. 

This time there was a shortage of wheelchair pushers so two of them took it in turns to push two chairs at once. And another woman pushed her own husband as she didn’t have cases.

We get to the taxi queue and, having been rejected by two taxi drivers who apparently didn’t want have cripple in their cab, we got a nice, chatty taxi driver to take us to the hotel.

Phew.

We ask at reception if there is anywhere really near at hand where we could go out have a glass and really not walk too far.

The receptionist pulled back one of those anonymous curtains you get in hotels, and pointed at a bar 20 metres away.

Phew.

All was good but the BB was worrying about having enough small notes/change to give to the taxi driver in the morning, whether my alarm would be enough to make sure we didn’t miss the ferry etc etc.

Several glasses of wine calmed him – that and someone playing traditional Greek music.

To the extent he left his wallet on the table and the waiter had to find us to return it….

We left for the port ridiculously early, an instinct I have drilled into the BB over the many years.

When we got there – all of a ten minute taxi drive away – I had planned to walk out of the port to a bakery I had found the year before, and buy breakfast.

But it turned out there were hundreds of people already waiting and geared up and yes, we started boarding almost immediately, an hour before we were due to leave.

And then I found out why.

Unlike previous ferries where the passenger hoard pulls their luggage up the same ramp as the cars, this one required you to take your luggage up a ramp, up one flight of narrow, steep metal stairs and then, indeed another of the same and then find somewhere to put it on a relatively small set of ‘shelves.’

The BB was found, two sticks and a slow walk usually does it, by a member of the crew and taken to the front of the queue and an easier access.

So, he was OK and I didn’t have to worry about him.

Now we don’t go overboard ( excuse the pun) on packing but carrying two suitcases up a narrow, steep staircase was not happening.

So I took one and stashed it. Then I had to fight my way through a mass of people moving ( slowly) upwards with their own cases to get the other one. 

Phew, done it.

Getting off was also interesting.

We know that the crew like to get people off as soon as possible so they can get to the next island.

So, knowing crew and passengers seeing someone with two sticks will be kind, and I could leave him to it, I decided I needed to be ahead of he rush if I had to make two trips down the stairs.

I positioned myself at the top of the internal stairs.

And these were the gentle ones.

I got one case and then realised that the crew member was beckoning us down the next flight of stairs whilst the ship was going at full speed with not much between us and the sea…

Did that twice.

‘Luckily’ we were herded into the disembarking area ( so without another flight of stairs, phew) and told to stay out of the way of cars driving past us – health and safety not entirely gone mad then….

BB made it off.

We got our hire car, but that involves a walk. It might not be much of a walk for you, or me, but for some people, including the BB, it is.

We arrive at Vathy.

One of the charms of Sifnos, ‘our’ Greek island is that the beach villages do not have vehicles. 

You leave your hire car in the free car park and walk. 

With your luggage to be pulled across the sandy beach. 

Luckily Vathy has Manos, a young man with learning difficulties, who is universally known and ‘raised’ by the locals, who has an electric cart and for 10 euros and a slightly repetitive conversation, you can get all your luggage to where you are staying.

Thank you Manos.

It is a three minute walk from where we are staying to the sea – and the BB can swim.

It is admittedly and issue of footwear and balance, getting in and out of the sea using rocks to store a stick and so on, but he manages and that is great.

When we were here last year he had ‘gathered’ a bevvy of young women who would help him out and that definitely alleviated the hassle.

So there are some benefits.

This year it is him on his own, and a bit of me.

Such a nice young man

/ aspinalllucy / Leave a comment

The Best Beloved took on the daunting (in my view) role of being an independent visitor to someone in care.

He was ‘given’ a Vietnamese ‘boy’, I can’t quite remember but I think he was 14. He was lucky in that he had got fostered by a lovely couple. 

The role of an independent visitor is to be an adult outside the home/fostering system to provide an outlet for the young person.

Bao, needless to say not his real name, was into fishing and the BB and he spent many a visit sitting on a cold beach with a rod and line.

The BB knew and cared nothing about fishing but he made it happen every month.

Bao’s English was not great and he spoke quietly, both a challenge to conversation on a windswept beach.

But both of them carried on.

It is the right of the young person to end the relationship at any time they want and the BB expected that to happen – but it didn’t.

When he reached 18 he was allowed to visit our home.

I was, as you might imagine, slightly apprehensive about this.

I know nothing much about Vietnamese food but I was providing lunch.

I did a risotto – and we were off.

Bao loved risotto, he was really into cooking and food of all sorts.

His English was just great, he wanted to go and collect some wild garlic from the woods near us.

For a small young man, he surprisingly ate most of the risotto whilst we discussed food. The BB just had to sit there and let us get on with it – after all this is a man who can do a mean scramble egg and little else.

Since then, we invite him about three or four times a year.

He tells us how he moved out of foster care (but is still part of their extended foster and ‘natural’ family) to live with a Vietnamese couple and babysit their young child, does nails – not entirely surprisingly – enjoys that, but has also passed his driving  test so he drives himself across Sussex to see us, passed his ‘British test’ tried a course in car maintenance but hated it.

I try to encourage him into something to do with food but he says he doesn’t want to ruin his enjoyment by the drudge of it….. I understand that, but I still think he is missing his calling.

Just last week he was coming to us and I had made a lunch the previous day so I could go into Oxfam in the morning.

I got a message from the BB to say Bao had said he would bring spring rolls.

He and they arrived – all handmade and delicious, along with a salad of all sorts of herbs he had grown, bought from Vietnamese suppliers, rice noodles and a ‘sauce’ of pineapple, fish sauce, chilli and ‘stuff.’

It was delicious and we had such a nice meal and good time with a delightful young cook, who told us about his life what he was up to, and all sorts.

His fishing hobby has turned into making elaborate aquariums with specialist plants, rocks he collects and done with some considerable artistry – and, of course, fish.

There is quite a lot of maintenance involved in all this and, apparently, having a shower timed to make sure the CO2 you are putting in is not on too long – indeed, no I had no idea either.

And no, he doesn’t want this hobby either turned into a job. ‘I will make money so I can enjoy the things I want to.’

Well done the BB and Bao, we are lucky to have him in our lives.