It's twenty years now since I wrote this account, which was published in the Daily Mail, but it is every bit as fresh in my mind today.  To accompany it, I had a photograph taken with an enormous white cockatoo sitting on my arm!

 

 

 

 

HOW I BEAT MY TERROR OF BIRDS

 

'How old are you?' asked the hypnotherapist.  'I'm two.'  My voice sounded childish.  'What are you wearing?'  'My blue coat.'

            I wasn't convinced I was reliving this: I've seen photographs of myself wearing that coat.  Then I heard myself add, with a giggle: 'I'm not wearing my bonnet.  Mummy makes me wear it because of my bad ear, but Daddy lets me take it off.'

            That was disconcerting.  It sounded like a long-forgotten truth.  I honestly didn't know where it had come from.

            I was in regression therapy, trying to rid myself of a phobia that had haunted me for as long as I could remember.

            I fed birds in winter, adored my daughter's cockatiel and my mother's budgie, but the prospect of touching them or of them touching me turned me into a gibbering idiot. 

            As a child I woke sobbing from nightmares, paralysed by the terrible conviction that if I moved I would encounter … feathers.  I was once sick when I walked into a butcher's shop and found myself surrounded by unplucked Christmas turkeys.  I couldn't touch a picture of a bird; I couldn't even look at one.

            As I grew up the nightmares came less often but the terror remained, blind and unreasoning.  And the fear of knowing that I would lose total control if suddenly faced with my phobia only made things worse.

            Once, I found a dead bird which must have come down the chimney, and flipped completely.  All the use went out of my legs, I was screaming, hitting out blindly at my husband as he tried to comfort me.  For hours afterwards I snatched my hand away from everything I touched as if it, too, had become that bird.

            I was panicked by the flutter of wings, but it was the sight of a dead bird that touched the depths of my horror and brought the most extreme reaction, and especially a black bird.

            I consulted a local hypnotherapist, John Hudson, who said my terror was probably rooted in something that had happened when I was young.  If I could remember it as an adult, he said, there would be no phobia.

            Often people think they recall the traumatic incident which was to blame, but almost certainly what they are remembering is the earliest occasion on which they were confronted with the trigger.  The true cause is buried deep, resulting in a reaction irrational to an adult, yet impossible to control because subconsciously we are programmed with the emotional response of a child.  What we had to do was find the incident and allow me to relive it as a grown woman.

            My mother always said my phobia began when I was frightened by a pheasant while walking in the woods with my father.  But this didn't explain why I was more afraid of dead birds than live ones, especially black birds.

            My hypnotherapist put me into a light trance, having attached an electrical skin resistance meter (the old fashioned lie detector).  I felt relaxed and in control.  I didn't believe I'd been hypnotised at all and , when I began answering his questions, I was convinced my answers were coming from a desire to co-operate. 

            He persuaded me to describe the scene.  I was in the wood. It was a bright, cold Sunday morning.  My father was wheeling the pushchair along a path.  I was running on ahead.  Then, nothing.

            'A bird flies up in front of you,' the hypnotherapist said.  'It startles you, but it won't hurt you.  There's nothing to be afraid of.'

            But something was desperately wrong.  Suddenly I was crying and shaking.  The hyphotherapist told me later the monitor had shot off the top of the scale.

            'I don't think we've reached the root of the problem,' he said.  'We need to try again.'

            At home, I kept remembering the session, and something more.  It was as if I was watching a photograph develop in my mind, snatches of something I could almost see.

            A week later the hypnotherapist repeated the procedure.  The barrier – apprehension – was still there, blocking my memory. 

            This time I had a hazy impression of branches cracking in a tangle of trees. Someone was there.

            'I am going to snap my fingers,' my hypnotherapist said. 'When I do, you'll remember what happened.'  He snapped his fingers.  Suddenly I heard the crack of gun shot.  And then a violent fluttering in the undergrowth beside me and a bird, large, black and broken, anguished in its death throes, at my feet.

            I was screaming.  And a childish voice sobbed: 'It's dead!  I don't want it to be dead!'

            Tears were streaming down my face.  At last I had remembered the horrific incident which had been buried deep in my subconscious. 

            My parents had no doubt encouraged me to forget.  And the bottled-up horror had remained with me, out of reach, but overwhelmingly powerful.

            The hypnotherapist advised me my fear may not go all at once.  'You have a lifetime of terror to overcome.  But now you know the root cause you will soon learn you don't have to be afraid.'

            I could hardly believe it.  As I left his surgery I saw a pigeon on the pavement and decided to put it to the test. I couldn't bring myself to walk close enough to make it fly, I was tense and nervous.  But my skin didn't crawl any more.

            Today, my phobia is totally cured.  I no longer fear the flutter of wings which in my experience had preceded a horrible death.  And my memories of that long-ago have gradually developed into a clear photograph.

            I remember just what it was like to be a child, but I remember with the understanding of an adult.  Hypnotic regression exorcised my demons and opened a new world for me.  And my freedom from fear is wonderful.

*****

 I was photographed with a cockatoo on my arm!

 

MY SEAFARING ADVENTURE

 

When I first got the idea for the book that was to become THE SECRET SHE KEPT I realised I knew next to nothing about sailing.  Yes, my sister and her husband used to have a boat, and yes, I have friends who sail, but it wasn't nearly enough.  I needed to experience it for myself.  But how?

Trawling the net for information, I came across the Jubilee Sailing Trust.  They have two tall ships, the Lord Nelson and Tenacious, specially equipped so that the wheelchair bound and the blind can enjoy being part of the crew of a sailing ship and anyone willing to be a 'buddy' - i.e a carer - can book onto one of their voyages.  Feeling adventurous, I decided to go for it, and in May, 2008, I sailed out of Portsmouth as a crew member of the Lord Nelson.

I was able to draw on some of the things that happened to me as fiction in THE SECRET SHE KEPT - out in hardback and as an e-book early next month.

It would take far too long to relate the whole of the experience here, so for the moment I'll just give you a taste by reproducing the blog I wrote on behalf of my Watch on Day 3.  Names have been omitted or changed to protect the innocent!  (Not that they need protecting - they were all absolutely lovely!)

So - here goes!

 

Me at the helm!

 3.40 am, and I'm awoken by someone shaking me, gently but firmly.  i can't see who it is, all I know is they are wearing a woolly hat pulled well down and carrying a torch.  A cat burglar?  Hardly, since we're in the Alderney Race, heading for Jersey.  So it must be the Press Gang waking me for my watch.

I pile into layers of clothes, including my husband's motor-cycling long johns, and stagger up to the bridge.  Fortified by hot coffee, the members of aft starboard team begin work.  In spite of the cold, it's great fun.  As we're very close now to Jersey we have to keep a good look-out for fishing buoys.  Peter takes the helm, with audible guidance (Peter is totally blind), and then I get my first turn, which I really enjoy.  It's daylight now, and Jersey is on the horizon.

Relieved of our watch, we have a very welcome breakfast, and then it's all hands on deck to stow the sails and get the 'Nellie' into harbour.  It's a lovely day, blue skies and sunshine.  And time for my next great adventure - climbing the mast.

Most brave souls had already been up the mast before we left Poole; not me.  I chickened out, but I can't lie low forever.  This is something I've got to do - or at least, try to do! 

Kitted out in my harness - about the only thing holding my shaking body together - I go to the fore mast.  The lovely bosun's mate (I think I'm in love!) has assured me that if I freeze he'll bring me down in a fireman's lift.  That's quite a tempting offer, but when he tells me he'd have to knock me out in order to do it, I decide maybe it would be better to come down under my own steam.  After all, what point is there in being carried by a hunky fireman if I don't know anything about it?  I'm attached to a line (to give me confidence - some hope!) and our incredibly patient bosun encourages me to step over the rail.  Then, step by slow step, I set off skyward.  I can't quite make it onto the fighting top; going over the ledge is a step too far.  But I am so glad I've made it this far - a memorable (if terrifying) experience.   My pride is short lived, though, for the totally blind Peter is going up nimbly, two of the other girls, who had also confessed to being terrified, have made it to the fighting top, and another is on the cross tree.   Not to mention 5 wheelchair users have made the ascent on the main mast and are enjoying spectacular views of Jersey Castle.  My only excuse - unlike me, they don't have their bus passes yet!

 

Just to prove I did it!

 

Lunch on deck in the sunshine - French onion soup and salad.  All the food is incredibly good.  Then most of the crew go ashore to explore St Helier.  Some visits are paid to the duty free shop, though nobody is readily admitting what they have purchased.

Late afternoon, and once again almost everyone goes ashore.  One restaurant in particular must be seeing its takings soar!  By 8.30 pm I'm flagging.  I leave more resilient souls tucking into delicious-looking puds and make my way back to the ship.

To bed.  To sleep.  Do I need it!

JUBILEE MEMORIES

 

Nothing like celebrating the Queen's 60 years on the throne to make you feel your age ... if you can not only remember the Golden and Silver Jubilees, but also the Coronation!

 

I have two abiding memories of the Coronation.  The first is of sitting on a hard chair in a packed Miners' Welfare Hall near our home to watch the ceremony on a black-and-white television.  The television was the great attraction - we didn't have one of our own, nor would until several years later.  But it was a bit of a disappointment to a child used to going to the Palace cinema every Saturday afternoon to watch two films (which had been shown in the morning at The Paladium, Midsomer Norton, our neighbouring town, and couriered over) - even the biggest set available to the organisers was pretty unimpressive companed to the big screen.  I also remember being rather bored and feeling guilty about that, because, after all, I was watching history being made.  To me, it all seemed endless!

My other memory is of the relentless rain.  There was to have been a big 'tea' for the children in the square outside our historic Victoria Hall, and a fancy dress parade.  I was got up as Sir Walter Raleigh, and very proud of my jaunty hat and knee breeches, and my younger sister was going as Queen Elizabeth.  Anxiously we watched the skies - not a crack in those lowering grey clouds, and still the rain came down in sheets.  We had to wear our school macs to walk down the hill to the town centre, all the glory of our costumes hidden beneath navy blue gaberdine, the parade was cancelled, and the tea party had to move indoors,  All together, I felt the day had been very much a damp squib.

 

 A pretty indistinct pic of me at about the time I was Sir Walter Raleigh!   It's my first attempt at using my new scanner!

By contrast, my memories of the Silver Jubilee are very happy ones.  For the actual day of celebration we (Terry, myself and our two daughters) were in Cornwall, staying at Henscath House in Mullion Cove.  It was a regular haunt of ours, and we had become friendly with the owner, Pearl Cameron, her significant other, Stan Hardy, an art dealer from London who later opened a gallery in Bath, and his business partner, the lovely and aristocratic Dobbie Adeane.  I could go on forever about the wonderful holidays we spent there - everything was run like a country house party, Pearl and Co always ate with the guests, who then helped with the clearing up before Stan would get out the brandy and the tequila and we (well, the adults, anyway) would sit drinking, chatting, and playing games until the wee small hours.  I can claim the honour of having washed up with Jonathan Pryce, who was staying there once when we were; it was long before he was famous, and all we knew was that he was an actor.  But I digress.  In the morning we went as a party into Mullion to watch the procession, armed with union flags supplied by Pearl, and cheered as the town band and so on marched past.  In the afternoon Pearl and Dobbie raided the dressing-up chest for fancy dress for all of us - Terry, I remember, was The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in a Mexican hat and poncho, my elder daughter, Terri, wore an oriental dress and Dobbie made her up and did her hair accordingly, I had a red, white and blue striped vest of my own, which was deemed to be suitable.  The weather was wonderful - blue skies and sunshine all day, and we were able to have a barbeque on the terrace and champagne to toast the Queen.

 

Back home, the celebrations continued.  We and our neighbours had a street party for all the houses backing onto our cul-de-sac.  Again there was fancy dress and bunting, and our garage was turned into a bar, besides housing the stereo equipment for the music.  A wonderful party that went on all afternoon and evening.  Happy, happy memories of the happiest house I have ever lived in - most of us in those two roads were of an age, as were our children, and the comradeship was amazing.  Lovely parties, always someone to chat to, and, when someone's car wouldn't start on a frosty morning, half-a-dozen men would emerge from various houses, the kitchens of which overlooked the close, to push!  There was certainly no frost when we held that wonderful Silver Jubilee party, though.  Just sunshine, laughter and a lot of noise.

 

Strangely enough I have very few memories of the Golden Jubilee - probably because by then we had moved, and no longer have close neighbours to party with, and our children had grown up and flown the nest.

 

What will I take with me from this Jubilee?  Well, apart from tremendous admiration for the Queen, of course, one of my abiding memories will be of those brave girls belting out Land of Hope and Glory on their barge with the rain streaming from their hair.  A bit like the Coronation really - except that no-one made them put on gaberdine macs!

 

 

 

 

The Bishopston Mini-Triathletes!!!

THE BISHOPSTON MINI-TRIATHLETES!

 

I was rubbish at PE and games at school.  Well, actually I was most rubbish in PE - I couldn't clear a vaulting horse to save my life, though unbelievably I could climb a rope.  My hand/eye coordination was rubbish too, so at an early age I discovered having to play rounders equalled an hour's torture - I don't think I ever managed to hit the ball with that silly little stick.  Later, at Grammar School, I was full of admiration and envy for the lithe girls who captained the hockey and tennis teams, and competed on Sports Day in all the field and track events.  I so much wanted to be like them - I wanted to BE them!   To me, they were the epitome of glamour.

 

And then came marriage and motherhood.  Terry, my husband, was very sporty.  When I was expecting our children, I knew he wanted a boy to play football - and the rest -with.  Two girls came along, but joy of joy, both were really sporty like him.  They both ran, Suzie was in netball, hockey and tennis teams, and both excelled in the swimming pool, Terri as a high-level synchro swimmer, Suzie speed.   Our sideboard groaned under all the cups they won, and I could have taken out shares in a firm selling silver polish.  As I had pointed out, a boy might have taken after me and not been sporty at all.

 

Oh, how proud of them I was!  The pleasure that came from seeing them do well at something I had always wanted to do but never could was immense, far outweighing the fact that neither of them seemed the slightest bit interested in 'my' things - drama and writing.

 

And now I'm proud all over again.  This weekend my two youngest grandchildren, Dan (8) and Amelia (6), together with a group of six of their friends did a mini-triathlon in aid of Sport Relief.  The Bishopston Mini-Triathlon, they called it - a swim, a half-mile run and a 4-mile bike ride.  And between them they've raised over £1000 for the charity!  

 

Didn't they do well?

 

Congratulations to the Bishopston Eight!!

Sunday, 8 January 2012

 

VANITY, VANITY!!

 

A New Year, a new book coming out - THE SECRET SHE KEPT  - isn't it time I got a new author photograph?  I've had the current one since my first book with Headline - DANCE WITH WINGS, three years ago.  Used it on my Facebook page, my web sites, even as my avatar on Twitter.  Because I actually rather like it, even though it is a bit too glam with arguably a bit too much cleavage ...

It was taken at a posh dinner I attended.  Originally there were four of us in the photo - Terry, my husband, myself, and two friends.  On our way in the photographer posed us under a big umbrella and the result was gratifyingly flattering.  So when I was asked for a pic for the jacket of the hardback edition of DANCE WITH WINGS and I was a bit short of time I asked him if he could 'lift' me out.  Bless him, he did.  I watched, atonished, as the other three disappeared - he even wiped out my husband's hand, which had been on my shoulder. 

The pic you see here is the result.  But I do really feel it's time to update it.  After all, it is several years old ...

And of course, there's the rub!  I'm several years older too!  With, no doubt, a few more wrinkles and lines, the sort that multiply with spending so many hours on the computer and a whole lot more trying to work out plot details for my books!  It's as hard to give up a flattering photo as it is to give up chocolate - or my glass of wine! 

In November I had a 'big birthday' and my lovely daughter made a triptych of photographs of me from the age of eighteen months to the present day.  Oh, what memories those pics evoked for me!  From little girl with 'Dobbin', my wooden horse on wheels, to teenager, to mother, to grandmother.  there are pics of me on holiday, in the cockpit of the plane when I was learning to fly, on stage in various roles from Lucy in Ladies in Retirement to principal boy in panto, pics of book launch parties, even one of me in a bikini doing a Yoga Bow beside some swimming pool.  My life in photographs.  Happy days evoking bitter-sweet nostalgia.

I expect it's the same for most of us.  Lurking in old paper wallets, posted in albums, loaded into files on computers these days, are the pics that chart the whole of our lives.

For me, it has to be time to move on again.  Pile on the lippy, get the photographer to use soft lighting if not a soft-focus lens, and brave reality.  A new pic will be on the way, I promise.

When I can work up the courage to face reality ....

February, 2012

JACOB

 

I've just spent a week cat-sitting for my daughter and her family whilst they have been in France, skiing.  Now I'm a dog person, always have been.  We've had three German Shepherds, a Goldie, a yellow Labrador, our dear Italian dog Millie, who we sadly lost a couple of weeks ago, and as a teenager my family had a sweet little Heinz 57 who was uncannily like Millie both in looks and temperament. We've also had an amazing house-trained rabbit, a cockatiel who actually belonged to my daughter but ended up living with us, a budgerigar inherited from my mother, and several hamsters.  But I've never had a cat, though Terry and I did make quite a pet of one who was the mouser for the shop over which we lived in a rented flat in the first months of married life.  I've always shied away from getting one of our own, for all sorts of reasons - not least that I like to know where my pets are when I go to bed at night, and wouldn't sleep easy if one of them was out roaming heaven-knows-where.

 

But Jacob is a joy!  Suzie, my daughter, rescued him from the RSPCA home last summer, a pretty little tabby with only half a tail - he had been involved in an accident when he was brought in to the home, and had to have the damaged part amputated.  He is also the friendliest little chap, who rarely goes out of the garden and spends most of his time lying on the patio in summer and on the back of a chair from where he can look out of the window at this time of year.  And for the whole of the week, he followed me around like a shadow. 

 

I'd intended to make the most of a week with no interruptions to do lots of work, and I did manage that - with difficulty!  Every time I sat down to write, Jacob was there, clambering onto my lap or the computer keyboard, or settling himself down to lie on my writing pad and pile of paper.  And does that cat talk!  I never knew what a variety of 'miaow's there are in a cat's vocabulary!  Loud and insistent when he wants attention or to be fed, soft and purring when he's contented, and all stations in between.  At night he'd come into my room, jump up on the bed and begin prodding my nose with his paw, then settle into a hollow and lie for a while padding at me rhythmically before falling asleep.  If he wasn't still in my room in the morning, he'd appear, mewing, at the first sound of my feet on the floorboards.

 

He can be a bit naughty - one day, eating lunch in the kitchen, I thought I saw him on the other side of the frosted glass of the back door.  Wondering how he had come to go out without me seeing him, and also why he didn't just come in by the cat-flap, I got up and went to open the door, just in time to see puss streak away down the lawn and over the fence into a neighbouring garden.  I followed - as I said earlier, I like to know where my charge is! - but puss had completely disappeared.  Resigned, I returned to the house, only to find Jacob toying delicately with a slice of the ham from my plate!  The cat I'd seen wasn't him at all - but he certainly took advantage of my absence to make off with a tasty snack!  He also ran off with the very expensive piece of digital engineering that is my hearing aid, which I'd put on the dining room table.  Luckily that happened on the first day when Terry, my husband was there - he saw what Jacob was up to, chased him and recovered it unharmed.  Thank goodness!  If he hadn't witnessed the theft I doubt I would ever have found my hearing aid - unless I'd heard it whistling inside Jacob's tummy!

 

I left him yesterday evening after feeding him with a double portion of Whiskas and felt bereft as I drove away.  Suzie and family were due home in just a few hours and I told myself he'd be fine.  Which, of course, he was.  But I'm left missing him dreadfully. 

 

A dog person I might be, but that little cat has certainly found his way into my heart and filled a corner of the chasm that dear Millie has left. 

NOT REALLY A BLOG ....  AMELIA MAKES THE DRAW!

 

Recently I've been running a competition to win one of five copies of A WOMAN OF SECRETS.  It's been great fun, and a huge learning curve for me.  When I made the first announcement on Twitter, a manic ten minutes followed as I darted around my websites and Facebook pages making sure I was giving the right details in all the right places,  checking links and begging help from my lovely nephew Richard, who acts as my web master and mentor.  When it comes to all this technology, I'm an idiot - my grandchildren were better at sorting these things out than I am even before they started school! - and I think I must have tried poor Richard's patience to the limits that morning with my frenzied cries for help and lack of understanding of instructions unless they came in words of one syllable.  Helena at Headline was there to help too, and eventually all was running smoothly.

 

Apart from the last day, when I began getting e-mails telling me the link was taking people to a weather forecast for Chile ....  Apologies for that!  Still don't know what happened, but I extended the competition for an extra day to compensate. 

 

Then came the big problem.  How to choose the winners.  More than anything, I wished I could send everyone who had entered the competition a prize and hated the thought of disappointing anyone.  But I guess the whole point of a competition is that there are winners and losers, and the fairest way to pick the winners was the good old-fashioned one - names in a hat.   And who better to make the draw than my youngest granddaughter - the real Amelia Carr.  (I borrowed her name!)  So, folks, here she is, taking the whole thing very seriously.

 

And the full list of winners is :  Georgine Price, Sarah Chapman, Heather McWilliams, Zoe Corbin, Tracey Anne Berry.

 

Once again, thank you to everyone who took part, and I'm really sorry if you weren't a winner.  If it's any consolation I'm never lucky in a draw either.  Except once.  Many years ago.  When I won a magnum of malt whiskey.  But that's another story ....