REMEMBERING GRANDPA

I remember my first drink very clearly.

Or, more clearly, I remember my brother’s first drink. 

Mine was a sip of beer my father gave me from his half pint glass when I was seven and complained that I wanted what he was drinking, rather than the orange squash that was the only other option ever on offer.

I thought the beer was disgusting and spat it out. My brother, at four, took the glass with all the firmness of a fly half catching a rugby ball and racing for the line, and downed it. Mum, Dad and my maternal grandparents thought it was hilarious. So did my younger sibling Nigel, who, thrilled with the attention this act of rebellion had brought him, tried to grab the glass for a second sitting.

   

My mother’s parents, Tom and Elsie (nee Culliford) Jones, had been publicans all their lives and were then managing the Old Globe pub in Rogerstone, just outside Newport. Situated between the main road and the railway line, it was an enormous, imposing building, with a large car-park which, despite the large numbers of pastie-eating customers (the staple snack of South Wales Saturday afternoon drinkers), rarely had any cars in it. Only my grandfather's Jaguar was permanently parked there. He never drove it anywhere, but every two days, he could be seen polishing it, buffing the silver blue to an almost transparent silver. 

I could understand why he never wanted to take it out onto the road and bring it into contact with all that dirt and grime. Years later, and long after his death, the tax office failed to understand why a man would have bills for the upkeep of a car and no petrol receipts, and my grandmother was stung badly for my grandfather's passion.

   

Despite the punishments that were an inevitable part of growing up, I was always happiest at home. When I was taken away from my familiar territory, I

was overwhelmed with sadness.

Irrespective of how much fun was anticipated in our visits to friends and relatives, after two hours I would begin to long for my own room: the white candlewick bedspread, my books, my cuddly toys. 

Most of all, my pens and paper. 

The strangeness of other people’s rooms and other people’s belongings oppressed me: ornaments which struck the air with their alien shapes and unfamiliar shadows.

What started out as a great adventure - packing thecar, locking up the house, driving past different fields and buildings - soon turned to sorrow, when the

constrictions of having to follow another family’s set of rules was imposed.

  

At my maternal grandparents’ pub, there were many rules, but my grandfather introduced an air of unpredictability to the place. He was a born entertainer. A natural musician, he played the mouthorgan and the banjo for customers, while my grandmother, between trips to the kitchen, looked on

admiringly. 

I remember him standing at the corner of the bar, cigarette in hand, chatting to the old men -so they seemed to me - who always surrounded him.  

I remember him most clearly on my 11th birthday, shortly before he was taken ill and two years before he died of lung cancer. My grandmother brought my wrapped present up the stairs from the living-room and set it on a small table just outside the bar. A satin shade was peeping out of the top, and a dangling plug at the bottom.

I quickly ascertained what the gift was, but Grandpa said: “Close your eyes.” “Don’t be soft, Tom,” said Grandma, “she can see what it is.” His face fell, and when I removed the wrapping I tried to look surprised, to save him in some small way from the knowledge that, in my grandmother’s eyes, he had made a fool of himself. But Grandma adored him and never stopped thinking or talking about him until the day she died, 15 years later.

   
We went to the Old Globe every week, and much as Ioved my grandparents, it was a place that frightened me in the little resemblance it bore to anywhere else in my life. It had two bars, one floor up from the kitchen. One was a lounge bar and, on the wall, there was a picture of my grandparents holding a large silver tray, which they won in Rogerstone’s annual competition to find the best kept garden. Grandma was smiling in the photograph, and her jet black hair was backcombed high like a mosque, and set as firm as bricks, for the big day of the presentation. 

Doubtless my mother, then a hairdresser, did it for her. Grandpa looked more tentative, guilty perhaps, that he had had nothing to do with the perfect flower-beds that won them the prize. I loved the photograph and marvelled in their small success, yet more smiling proof of the safety of my world.

The main bar was darker and full of the old men who made me nervous when they spoke. This was almost exclusively my grandfather’s side of the pub. Above  the bar was a photograph of him dressed in a strange hat and smoking a large cigar. He was also in uniform, and I learned that he had been something of a  performer among his soldier friends during the war.

When he came back from the war, he was different, my  mother says: it knocked something out of him. When I began to show an interest in music he gave me his mouthorgan. I heard him play it just once.

   

The bar smelt of spilt beer, the floor was sticky,and the rubber soles of my Clarks sandals stuck to it. I was uneasy in its strangeness, but before the pub opened at 11a.m., I loved the fullness of it all: the freshly made fire, packed with logs and paper; the full crates; the rows of clean glasses; the bags of bottle tops from the night before. Most of all, I loved the feeling that this was what it was like to be a grown-up.

Grandpa let me unpack the crates filled with bottles of Schweppes orange juice and load them onto the bar’s shelves. Sometimes, being an extraordinarily strong and well muscled child, I helped him carry them up from the cellar to the kitchen. He also let me keep the bottle tops. I collected hundreds and adored the intensity of their colours: the turquoise from the beer, the orange and yellow from the soft drinks, the “Courage” bottle-tops, with the finely drawn cockerel lording it over the corrugated edges. 

I loved the rattle of the tops when I carried them away in one bag, their sharp pointed dents where the bottle-opener had forced them off the bottles; the smells of orange, pineapple, stout and bitter brushing against each other. It was a world a hundred miles (although in reality, about five) miles away from my own: a world of weekend.

The pub was on five levels, each with its own distinctive smells and shades. The kitchen was at semi-basement level, between the cellar and the living-room, and had a stone floor and a window that overlooked the railway line. 

The pantry was packed with catering sized bags of flour and boxes of lard, and every morning, at 5.00a.m., my grandmother raided them to start making pasties. On public holidays, she rose even earlier than dawn to load the Kenwood chef, an enormous cement mixer of a thing, with the freshly

boiled potatoes for the hundreds of snacks she was sure of selling. 

When I stayed at the Globe, I woke to the smell of cooking pastry that travelled up every floor. Long before the sound of barrels being rolled

into the cellar began, Grandma was mixing the flour with the lard, boiling potatoes, and chopping meat and onions together. It was a hard life, but I never heard her complain. 

Still, though, I felt the slow passing of another life when I watched her carry the saucepan over to the sink and saw the thick blue veins on her legs: the blue ridges straining under her thick stockings as I helped her carry the trays of freshly cooked pasties up two flights of stairs from the kitchen to the bar. 

At opening time, when she took the first batch of pasties into the lounge bar, the previous night's stale beer was already a world away. Suddenly, the optics were trophies, multiplying in the mirror on which they were screwed; the red velvet chairs, tiny thrones.

   

I felt more at ease on the floors of activity: the kitchen, and my grandmother in her apron; the bar, and my grandfather’s hand, drawing on the three truncheons of beer pumps. But on the floors where they lived their private lives, I felt imprisoned and scared.

Nigel and I were left alone, in an alien world where, as strictly disciplined children, we were left undisciplined, without any fear of our wrecking anything or coming to harm. The potential for disaster was terrifying; the fact that we never fulfilled it, even more so. A lifetime of wrath from the God we feared could never have made up for our daring to switch on a light without asking permission first. So we sat in the dark as dusk fell, silent.

It was always dark because my grandmother reckoned that every unlit light-bulb was another year’s worth of free sewing machine use - or whatever the bizarre, logic-saving electrical device of the week was. When we were first deposited in the room on Saturday afternoons, the last of the afternoon sun was always leaving the piano (never played - “Too noisy”) in the corner; by the time Dr Who appeared on the TV, there was no light, and we were left in the sinister, quiet stillness of a forgotten room.

   

When the synthesised wooing of the Dr Who theme started up, I retreated to the safe and dark shadows behind the sofa. I hated the daleks. It was hard to

see how any child who wanted to sleep well at night could respond otherwise to them. I hated the way they slid quickly across the floor, swifter than any human. Their voices were threatening croaks that came from deep inside their impenetrable steel bodies; they possessed some human qualities, but each one was a distortion of the essential qualities of human behaviour: colour, fluidity, warmth. 

No matter how often I saw Dr Who defeat them, I never believed that, next time, he would emerge victor again. The long exterminator rod sticking out of the daleks’ foreheads, together with their cry of “Exterminate!

Exterminate!” was the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced, and I could never understand why we were left alone to endure it. We could not turn it off, because we had been told never to touch anything belonging to anyone, especially the piano and TV belonging to Grandma and Grandpa. One afternoon, after I sat sobbing and shaking behind the sofa, I disobeyed the order and turned off the TV. The fear of doing so was just marginally

less than the fear of falling victim to the daleks.

   ]

The worst floor was the one at the top of the building, where the bedrooms were. When I stayed over, I was put in a cold room in a bed with a dark wooden headboard, beneath which I barely slept. It was like a coffin lid just waiting for me to close my eyes before folding down and trapping me forever. 

Before she went to bed, my grandmother came into my room and knelt on

the floor, where we said our prayers together. When she went next door to sleep, I could hear her snoring and, every ten minutes, several snores would run= together, as if they were being poked with a stick to hurry them along. One night, when my grandfather was ill, Grandma shared the bed with me, and the snores woke me constantly right through the night. 

When I looked at Grandma’s face, I saw that her lips were folded in on themselves, and her teeth were in a glass on the bedside table. I wondered whether losing your teeth was the thing that made you snore, and feared losing my own. Eventually, I dropped off again and tried to smother my ears with the pillow; but it seemed I slept for less than an hour by the time the

smell of the baking pasties for bar lunches woke me .00a.m.

   

The room I disliked the most was my grandparents’ room. When Grandpa was ill, and, though I did not know it, dying, he was in bed all day. We visited him there, along with other relations, and we sat on the bed, trying to tempt him back to real life with our stories, much as I would do in later years with my own father. 

But at 13, I did not recognise in the sick room those details I would later come to know as the precursors to death: the pyjamas too big for the body, a face slowly sinking into shadow, the half-empty bottles of soft drinks. Grandpa always had Lucozade on his bedside table, and each time we visited there were more sticky rings on the dark, scratched wood. I stared at these, tracing their patterns with my eyes, rather than look at my grandfather’s shrinking features. His moustache, which had always been a tiny Hitler-type rectangle, suddenly seemed to be taking over his face.

  

There was never any light in that room, either. Whether it was my grandparents’ war-time experience that made them want to save electricity throughout the whole of their lives, or whether they just an aversion to light, I don’t know; but from the bottom of the house to the top, the light faded. 

The cellar was bright with bare bulbs; the living-room, in which no light was turned on until absolute darkness, flickered only with the TV playing its shadows; the bars were dimmer still, with the fire in one corner, and only glasses to catch the little light it threw; and then, at the top of the house, just wood. Dark, dark wood, relieved only by the fading white light of my

grandfather’s face.

   

It was always exhilharating to go outside. I would stand by the black fence beside the railway line and wait for trains to go by. Every movement was a welcome contrast to the stillness of the living-room and  bedrooms: the long grass sweeping towards me as the trains rushed past; the crunch of gravel in the car-park when a customer drove in or out. Indoors,  there were daleks and sickness; outside, a world that carried on, regardless: safety, and thoughts of home.

  

When Grandpa became too sick to stay at the Globe, he was moved to Cefn Mabley hospital near Newport. Every time we visited him, there was bright sunshine and the smell of cut grass. In the ward, he looked the same as he had done at home, and despite the bright, crisp whiteness of the hospital, the scent of dark wood still seemed to cling to him. “D’you think he’ll be all right?” I asked my mother, one day as we were leaving. “No, Jac” she said, “I don’t think he will.”

   

The sun heated the car, and I longed to be outside in the fresh air. Never again would I feel comfortable around dark furniture. I hate antiques, and every house and apartment I have ever lived in has been filled with pale, fresh wood, chrome, and everything modern. 

I would happily live in the Habitat shop window. 

Death made me a Conran girl.

TED BAKER AND MY DOUGH

Ted. Baker. 

Where have you been the past 30 years of my life? I cannot believe that I am coming to the end of my sixth decade and the fashion line has never crossed my radar. Maybe because TB has connotations of nasty illnesses; maybe it’s because, 30 years ago, I was too busy discovering the Issey Miyake Pleats Please range; or maybe it’s because, until yesterday, I thought that Ted Baker was a fashion line in men’s suits.

   

It was a name that always brought to mind “catalogue acting”. You know the kind of thing: ridiculously groomed men sitting akimbo on a chair while trying to sell us a watch/after shave/pin stripe suit.

   

Or maybe it was because I thought that Ted might be the less successful brother of ex-Doctor Who actor Tom Baker – the brother in the shadows who harboured dreams of living life in a Tardis but couldn’t hack gravity and compromised by going into men’s fashion.

   

Anyway, now I know. Ted. Baker. My healthy bank balance as I know it is over.

   

In New York, I belong to various societies and clubs, and one of the most successful and active is the St George’s Society. Their functions raise thousands for so many charities, and to attend one of their major events is to be humbled by hearing of the extraordinary hardships so many less fortunate than ourselves have to endure.

   

Last night, I was invited to a champagne and nibbles event at the Ted Baker store on 5^th Avenue. I nearly didn’t go. What did I want with a man’s suit? But one of the most glorious things about New York (and there are more I discover on a daily basis) is that it is easy to meet people and make friends in the most unlikely circumstances.

   

To be honest, I was going for that: the social mingling and the free food and drink. Then a dress caught my eye. A stunning white, floaty creation with embroidered birds and leaves. And there was a matching cardigan, too. And OMG, SHOES! It’s not often that free champagne takes a back seat to anything in my life, but this was truly a Eureka! moment.

   

I genuinely don’t shop a lot. I don’t like the music, the crowds, and breaking the zips struggling in and out of things designed for a bonsai tribe. I spend money mainly on travel and socialising, and, in recent years, I’ve been buying very cheap clothes and shoes online. On the rare occasions I have been clothes shopping in the past, it hasn’t ended well. 

Like on the day I had a jolly day sailing on Debbie and Theo Paphitis’s boat in Marbella and, after a glass or two, decided that I was rich, too, and went into Puerto Banus where I spent over eight grand on a dress. Buyer’s remorse doesn’t begin to cover what I subsequently went through. The Spanish police had me on suicide watch.

   

I told them all about it in Ted Baker yesterday as they tried to keep up with my Everest of goodies. Shocking pink pants (trousers, to you in the UK), black pearly pants, black top, a cardigan, oh, and yes, what would they all be without the shoes and hang on, wouldn’t those rose gold sparkly trainers just be the icing on the cake (a multi-tiered cake by now. They didn’t use the surname Baker for nothing).

   

I can’t remember the last time I was so excited by a purchase and, this morning, I have no buyer’s remorse, because I love it all. In fact, I have the opposite, although I’ve been looking for hours on Google to find out what that is, and it doesn’t seem to exist. 

Anyway, whatever it is, I have it: the thing that isn’t buyer’s remorse, but buyer’s I Have to Go Back to Ted Baker Today Because I Missed a Few Things emotion. 

That shocking pink bag that has zips up the sides so that you can change the colour of the panels. I have decided I really can’t live without it; I am already filing the insurance claim for when I leave it on a train/in a bar. But it's a definite no to the turkey feather bag, unless they throw in the flesh as well and I have Christmas Day covered. 

Then there were those other shoes – the suede ones, in the shocking pink AND the pale pink of my other pants (sorry, yes; I forgot to mention that I had to have the pale pink pants as well).

   

Ted Baker’s founder and CEO Ray Kelvin opened his first store in Glasgow in 1988 and has built the company into a worldwide luxury brand. And, here’s the thing: it’s really not that expensive. I’m truly knocked out by it. As a small person, normally it’s hard to get anything that fits me without having to bring in a tailor and a topiarist to dispense with at least fifty quid’s worth of redundant hemline.

   

And gosh, this collection is breathtaking. You can almost smell spring in the cherry blossom pinks; your spirit soars with the embroidered birds on the purest white clouds of fabric; it’s a collection that tells us that winter has closed its doors and hope is on the way.

And did I mention that it's daytime wearable, yet glamorous at the same time? And something for all ages. Yes, even for those of us fast approaching our seventh decade. 

Ted Baker makes me feel young again.

   

That’s it. I can bear it no longer. I am on way back. They close in seven hours. I have people to see. Shoes to buy. 

At least I know if I’m ever asked to do a TED talk, I already have the first word covered.

    

SWEET TALKING

No, no, no, no, no. 

The decision by Mars to turn the plump, round Malteser into a flat button has sent shivers of horror down the spines of those of us for whom it is their favourite sweet. 

   

For those of my generation, the Malteser box was the glamorous delicacy you gazed at longingly at the cinema: every rattling bauble a new jewel to be savoured. Not that you ever got as far as the wrapping, though – your parents having told you they were too expensive, as you clung to the small tube of pastilles they’d bought you before attending.

   

The consumption of a Malteser is a gastric art form: first, a tiny bite of the chocolate, breaking the virgin seal where the promise of crisp honeycomb lurks beyond. Then, nibble by nibble, your teeth taking off each piece of the jigsaw until the beige baldness shines in all its glory. 

And, oh, what glory. The slow melt of gold as the bubbles burst on your tongue; the final cloying stickiness that gradually melts between your teeth. The decision which one to have next – seemingly all the same but, like snowflakes, all completely different. Now, apparently because of falling sales, we are to get a button. Are there not enough buttons and their ilk in the sweet world already?

   

Manufacturers destroy entire personal histories when they re-design our sweeties. Remember when Cadbury, without any warning, dropped the Orange Crème from Milk Tray? The Orange Truffle tried to sneak its way in, hoping that no one would notice, but the interloper was soon exposed, and national outcry ensued.

   

There was another fiasco with Rowntree when they tried to re-invent the Aero bar (what is it about bubbles that these people don’t understand?). One day, the Aero bar was filled with bubbles - a bit like the Polo mint, the marketing was in the hot air that filled in the gaps. It was even patented. 

Such was Aero’s bubble success, Rowntree decided to expand. They made bubbles mint flavoured; then they made them orange flavoured. As the Only Milk Chocolate Aero in the Sweet Shop Village, the original Aero bar had a right to be concerned, but had to accept that its new cousins were all part of the same family.

   

Then, it all went horribly wrong: Rowntree decided to change not only Aero’s inside, but its overcoat, and the sweet world was never the same again.

   

One minute, Aero was Woody in Toy Story: Aero Man, with its big, creamy, bubbly, milk chocolate hat; then, they chose to make it Caramel Lightyear, a smothering, cocky concoction of soft toffee, hated not only by everyone who loved Old Aero, but other sweeties, who consigned it to the leftover baskets in supermarkets. To this day, Rowntree keep trying to reinvent the bubble.

   

Then there was Twix. They tried a new low calorie version that, like sticky Aero, found itself heaped into rejects crates at cash tills.

   

I predict the same disaster for the flat Malteser. Now, here’s a revolutionary thought, Mars. How about putting them back in the bags that were easy to open? Maybe it’s not that people have gone off the sweet, but they can’t get at the darned things anymore. 

And tell the guys over at Cadbury to do the same things with their Flakes that now require a saw to reach the chocolate log. 

   

Save Our Maltesers. 

The campaign starts here.