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Two government cuts of which I wholeheartedly approve

By on May 15, 2012 in Health and Beauty, Home and Family, The Big, Wide World

I read two stories in the paper today.  The government is, at long last, going to introduce means testing for Child Benefit and it is possible that thousands of children will be taken off the Special Needs register.

Apparently, 97% of families claim Child Benefit even when they have massive incomes and have no need of the extra money whatsoever.  This money is often considered to be pin money for the mother or is put straight into savings accounts which then go towards making those families even more privileged.

Ideally, families on high incomes should refrain from claiming this money because it is an immoral act.  In times of recession it is outrageous to give free money to people who can easily support their children without help from the government when that money should be channelled into organisations to help children from deprived or abusive situations.

Child Benefit should always have been means tested and this nonsense about a universal benefit is just woolly, liberal, vote-toadying wastefulness.

And now we come on to the Special Needs register.  I am delighted that we now live in an environment where children with learning and behavioural difficulties are flagged-up and helped accordingly.  The recognition and assistance for people with dyslexia, for example, has changed the lives and careers of many people, young and older.

But for a long time I have suspected that a small but growing proportion of children have been labelled as ‘special needs’ because they are not very good at something or are badly behaved.  It’s a win-win situation; the school gets paid and the parents can abdicate responsibility.

At Boy the Elder’s first school, his class had 50% of the children statemented as Special Needs. 50%.  In a middle class, affluent and relatively trouble-free area.  I have witnessed at first hand parents who have had  their children statemented and labelled simply because they are unable to cope with their behaviour and personalities.  Other families have had to walk across hot coals just to get a bit of reading or maths help for their child because they are falling behind but have no official diagnosis.

Boy the Younger has shocking handwriting and can be a right little bastard.  He has neither ADHD nor dysgraphia, both of which have been suggested to me as possible explanations for this.  He is left-handed, eccentric and both his father and I have shocking (if characterful) handwriting and, more importantly, I don’t give him enough help with it at home.  He attends a handwriting club at school which is really helping, but he does not have a ‘condition’.

My, and our doctor’s, explanation for BTY’s bad behaviour has more to do with four house moves in five years, the separation of his parents and a love-hate relationship with his older brother.  He is a deep thinker and has the intellectual but not emotional maturity to work out his feelings. I am a great believer in appropriate counselling and I think this will be of far more benefit and influence than an educational statement or regular gob-fulls of Ritalin.

I have said this before and I will continue to say it until someone stuffs my mouth with socks.  As a society we have become too reliant on the idea that someone else must always sort out our problems and take up the slack for our difficulties and failures.  We are regressing in our personal responsibility, our capacity to assess risk and our determination to stand on our own feet, stop moaning and get on with it.

If everyone gets help with their children when they don’t need it, it distracts our attention away from the ones who really need society’s help, either financially, emotionally or educationally.  So, much as it kind of hurts to say it, I fully support the government on these two measures and support their determination to bring us through this recession, with our help, so that we can build a sustainable foundation for the future.

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An Unhealthy Interest in Medical Paraphenalia

By on May 2, 2012 in Culture, Health and Beauty

Collecting things is so brilliant. Not only is there the joy of tracking things down and displaying one’s new toys in order to drool over them on a daily basis, but one learns so much around the items; geography, social history, fashion, the skills of the maker and so on.  I have always encouraged my children to collect stuff for all those reasons.

DIY ECT

I collect Ladybird Books, gollies, books generally and old-fashioned cut glass (particularly perfume bottles).  But, given the money, I could very easily be persuaded to collect powder compacts, trains and train pictures, WW2 stuff in a significantly more serious way than I do now, paintings, beautiful furniture, odd musical instruments and recordings of them being played, and Indian artefacts.

However, I do have a secret thrill which I am rarely in a position to indulge.  Medical Stuff.  I have a craving to collect old medical books, medical instruments and associated items.  I once saw, on the Antiques Roadshow, an apparatus for giving tiny electric shocks by cranking a handle which conducted electrical impulses through little paddles which were held against the body to stimulate circulation and muscle tone in invalids.  It was in a beautiful wooden case and was a thing of beauty.  “I wants it precious, I wants it”, I mumbled to myself.  It was several hundred pounds and out of my reach but if I ever get the chance, a similar apparatus will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

DIY bronchial dilation

I do own several very old medical textbooks including Diseases of the Skin (1937), The Encyclopaedia of Sex Practice (1938), a turn of the century anatomy textbook, Applied Surgery (1894), A large, layered anatomy model from the late 1890s and, my pride and joy, Alimentary Sphincters and their Purposes (1910).

I have very little actual equipment; a Wrights Coal Tar Vaporizer, an old bedpan, a leather doctor’s bag, assorted bottles and some baby stuff.  Then, just as I was leaving the market a couple of Sundays ago, the couple on the next stand showed me this:

It is an old DIY enema kit.  The wall-mounted enamel jug would be filled with the cleansing fluid of your choice and the tube would then be inserted up your bottom while you lay on the floor on a pile of towels, and after a period of time, one would repair to the lavatory and …er … release.  I bought it on the spot and it now resides on the bathroom wall, between the basin and the loo, with the rubber tubing hanging down in a disconcerting and slightly menacing way.

It will never be used, well not by me anyway, mainly because I have a pathological distaste for anything to do with back bottoms.  However, a coffee enema is an extremely efficacious treatment for acute pain and migraine.  Not a skinny, double-shot cappuccino with sugar you understand, but strong black filter coffee.  No really.  I know people.

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Buying clothes when you don’t want to buy clothes

By on April 21, 2012 in Health and Beauty

Unless you are twenty, beautiful, thin or bursting with self-confidence, there is a reasonable chance that clothes shopping is a less than pleasurable experience. In the event that you even know what suits you, the high street is a place of fear, bewilderment, discomfort and the risk of humiliation by bored, skinny, indifferent persons who have no interest whatsoever in making you feel good and gorgeous.

And yet, we need to buy clothes, even if only occasionally and I would like to offer you a few pointers to makes clothes shopping less onerous and even, potentially, successful.

  • Give yourself a decent amount of time.  Rushing will thwart you from the beginning
  • Wear thin clothes because shops are always boiling hot which will make you tired and fractious, and your feet will swell up which is no good for buying shoes
  • Wear clothes that are easy to slip on and off when you need to try things on
  • Wear decent underwear.  Not only will it make the clothes look better from the outside, it will also make you feel less unattractive than you would be in a graying, saggy ensemble redolent of personal neglect and laundry issues
  • Try things on.  If you buy a load of stuff which, when you try it on at home looks awful or doesn’t fit, you not only waste time and petrol taking it back but you will feel miserable, foolish and unattractive and this experience will make you even more hostile to clothes shopping
  • Take a friend with you who will not spend the whole time buying fabulous, skimpy things for themselves but will devote some time to you and be truthful and objective about how you look
  • Allow this friend to select a few things that you may not have selected for yourself.  You may be pleasantly surprised
  • Have a look through some magazines and see what people your shape are wearing and try adapting that look for your own personality and taste.
  • Remember that the harsh lighting in changing rooms appears to be designed to make you look pallid, sickly, ten stone overweight and with skin the texture of pebbledash.  Walk back into the shop if you can bear it, head for the door if there is natural light, and look in a mirror with a bit of distance between you and it.  This will give a much more realistic impression
  • Try not to be intimidated by the staff.  Unless they are helpful, charming and facilitating they are of no consequence whatsoever.  Sweep past them with an air of self-containment and the sure knowledge that their lives are a worthless round of clubbing, nail varnish and hangovers. I bet some of them haven’t even heard of Jeremy Paxman and think that Steven Fry makes Turkish Delight.
  • If, however, you chance upon a shop where members of staff are helpful, charming and facilitating, make the most of them.  Ask for their advice and get them to fetch different sizes if you need them to prevent you dressing and undressing as you scamper across the store in search of that illusive 18 or XXXL (or indeed 6 or XS)
  • Don’t be seduced in to buying the latest fashion if it doesn’t suit you.  Take the time to seek out shops that sell the right type of clothes for you.
  • Take breaks.  Shopping is exhausting so make sure that you stop for drinks or food at regular intervals.  The heat of the shops means you will need to hydrate more regularly
  • Last but by no means least, BUY CLOTHES IN THE RIGHT SIZE.  It might make you gasp to realize that you have gone up a size since you last bought anything, but it is far better to wear the correct size and look good than to squeeze into something unrealistic and looking a fright.  If you look great, you will feel better about yourself and this may even incentivize you to change shape if you need to

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Girl Crush: The Wartime Housewife’s Top Ten

By on March 23, 2012 in Health and Beauty

I am not remotely embarrassed to admit that, throughout my life, I have frequently had girl crushes on famous women.  There is no Sapphic significance to this; there are simply some women in the world who are so beautiful, by virtue of their nature or physical attributes that they make my head and my heart give a long and metaphorical sigh.

Sometimes the crush can be narrowed down to a particular acting role.  A perfect example of this would be Joely Richardson in Ken Russell’s superior drama, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ but I would challenge anyone not to be moved in some way by Keira Knightly dressed as a pirate.

It interests me greatly that women are often comfortable with female crushes, right from their teen years when they’re practising relationships with each other, usually platonically but with a definite ‘romantic’ edge.  As far as I’m aware, men/boys don’t go through this phase and probably wouldn’t own up to it if they did.

I was watching a programme about female sexuality recently in which several women said that if they were going to use erotic material for the purposes of sexual arousal, they were far more likely to look at images of women than comparable images of men.  They didn’t want to have sex with other women, they simply found the female form more innately stirring.  I completely understand this and I wonder whether looking at other women allows us to acknowledge our own reflected sensuality.

There may also be the element of wishing one was like them, but I notice from my list that eight out of ten of these woman are dark haired and dark eyed,  whilst I am blonde with blue eyes.  Maybe I don’t see them as competition… Saying that, I would be more than happy to look like Lauren Laverne who seems to get more gorgeous the older she gets.

I find many people beautiful.  Some individuals radiate beauty even if they are not classically or fashionably structured.  I am inclined to tell those people if I think they look fabulous or have beautiful smiles and, although they are sometimes nonplussed by a total stranger paying them a compliment, they are always pleased and flattered.

And then there are voices (no, not the ones in my head).  I love voices; deep, rich, well-modulated, good diction.  Rachael Stirling ticks the voice box as well and I could listen to Kate Adie’s clipped tones or Kirsty Young’s throaty giggle until the cows come home.

I wrote this article because I saw some photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge in the paper and had one of those ‘Aahhhh’ moments.  She is such a pleasure to look at and gives every impression of being a really good sort.  I hope she is.

These then are my top ten girl crushes in no particular order:-

 

The Duchess of Cambridge

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Hurley

Lauren Laverne

Helena Bonham-Carter

Keira Knightly

Rachael Stirling

Paloma Faith

 

 

 

 

 

Joely Richardson

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Ok – here goes………

By on March 17, 2012 in Health and Beauty

The Cake Crusader

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The Wartime Housewife’s 40s Hairdo

By on March 16, 2012 in Health and Beauty

Back in September last year, I told you about my last visit to the hairdresser and voiced my fear of these practitioners and the discomfort they afford me.

I take it all back.  I have found a hairdresser in Desborough called Ward’s Hair Studio who I will never leave.  Ward’s is a mother and daughter team of such charm and ease of manner that I would challenge anyone to feel intimidated in their presence.  I went to see them a couple of weeks ago and they not only cut my hair beautifully, but gave me a style I’ve never had before and which looked fabulous.  I even came close to being able to replicate it myself at home, although I’m a bit rubbish at styling my own hair and if I could go and have it done every week like my friend Lady Marjorie, I would.

The next part of the story is that, being The Wartime Housewife, I want to be able to recreate a 1940s hairstyle for display on my market stall and for when I am doing talks/presentations etc.

I booked an appointment and took along some photographs of people with hair I admire (Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Dita von Teese etc) and told them to play about and see what they could do.  For the next two hours they played with my hair, experimenting with waves, pin curls, heated rollers, back-combing, barrel curls, Victory Rolls and an awful lot of Kirby grips.

At last we arrived at a style that not only looks wonderful, but that, with practice, I’m sure I can manage myself.  They even lent me a set of heated rollers with which to practice at home.

Ladies and gentlemen.  I am sitting before you now with the hairstyle I have been waiting for all my life.  It has rolls at the front, loose curls at the back and sides and a bit of smoothed back-combing at the top to give an understated volume of bouffant.  It is off my face, so no need for a hair-band, and so rigid without looking remotely crispy, that I genuinely think it could last for days with a bit of primping and the judicious application of a hairnet at night.  Even the boys said that I looked wonderful and glamorous.

It just goes to show.  I AM The Wartime Housewife to the roots and always have been.

The question is ….. do I publish the photo and reveal myself after three years of anonymity?  Or would it spoil the fun?

 

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Antony Worrall Thompson and the Shoplifting Incident

By on January 10, 2012 in Health and Beauty, Home and Family

I was very sad to read in the paper about the chef Antony Worrall Thompson’s recent arrest for shoplifting. I am not a particular fan of AWT but I am always saddened to see any human being in distress, which, for whatever reason, he clearly is.  It’s slightly depressing that the petty misadventure of a ‘celebrity’ chef has reached the front pages of the quality press, but I guess that’s the world we live in.

AWT is a TVchef, writer, broadcaster and presenter, as well as owning two restaurants and a pub. It would appear that he had been having some severe financial difficulties which, in 2009, resulted in his closing four out of his six restaurants, although he claims that he is not in financial trouble now, but is working long hours and is under a lot of strain.

It’s hard to say why people spontaneously steal stuff.  It’s also hard to define why people do bizarre things when they are under stress or possibly suffering from depression.  There is a significant gulf between a person who has kleptomania and someone who has a mental aberration.

‘Kleptomania’, according to the OED is “an irresistible tendency to theft in persons who are well-to-do, a supposed form of insanity.”  The Oxford Medical Dictionary says, “pathologically strong impulse to steal, often in the absence of any desire for the stolen object.  It is sometimes associated with depression.”

So kleptomania and just nicking stuff are very different.  All of us either knew someone at school or themselves who nicked the occasional thing from a newsagent or the chemist, often sweets or make-up which they either couldn’t afford or just wanted to steal for the thrill of it.    This behaviour usually fades away, either because it loses the thrill, they rediscover their moral compass, or they are caught and terrified into never doing it again.

In AWT’s case it sounds as though he is suffering some kind of emotional distress or pre-occupation as he clearly has no need to steal for financial reasons.  I have done some extraordinary things when I have been seriously stressed out and pre-occupied where I have performed actions of which I have no memory whatsoever.

When I was splitting up from my partner, there were several occasions where I would drive to a place to which I drove every day, but completely failed to recognise where I was or how I had got there.  I sat in my car feeling really frightened because I didn’t know how to get to a place that was familiar and had to ask a passer-by where I was, or simply keep driving until a I found somewhere I recognised.

On another occasion, I walked into a shop with a list in my hand and was unable to read any of the items on it or remember why I had gone to the shop in the first place.  These are the actions of a mind in disarray.  A temporary condition, but terrifying nonetheless.

When I read about his case in the paper this morning, it brought to mind an incident when I was in the Lower Sixth at school.  There was a sudden spate of stealing from our study bedrooms.  Initially it was sweets and tuck boxes but later it became bits of jewellery, money and the sort of little personal items which are so treasured by children who are away from home.

Several people were under suspicion, including a couple of Indian girls who were newly arrived from Mombassa; fresh off the boat as they say, ill at ease in an English boarding school and terribly lonely.  I liked them very much and absolutely knew it wasn’t them, but the accusations made them very miserable. No-one was ever caught.

Years later, my best friend from school was visiting me from abroad and confessed that she had been the thief.  I was so shocked I could barely speak.  She had taken all the things and hidden them in a hoard under her bed, not eating the sweets or spending the money, just guarding it like a dragon with its hoard.

She was a hard working high achiever and she had won the Form Prize every year of her school life.  She was brilliant at sport, good at art, good at music, destined for great things.    Her father had abandoned the family when she was young and her mother had struggled to bring up five children on her own.  They were not a warm family and the siblings were very critical and unsupportive of one another.

She became anorexic in the 5th year but the school refused to acknowledge that their star pupil was wasting away before their eyes – after all she was still winning everything, so what was the problem?  Eating nothing but a bowl of All Bran and water all day was ignored, as was her obsessive exercising way into the night and her inclination to eat a whole bag of sugar before a games lesson so that she would run faster than the rest of us.

In the Upper 6th she was offered an unconditional place at Cambridge and the school nearly wet itself with excitement as not many girls even went to University at that time.  She didn’t take it, choosing instead to go to a Red Brick university which provided a course that would benefit her chosen career.  The school’s response was to deny her the Gold Medal she richly deserved, the highest academic honour at our school, the recipients having their name in gold on a huge wooden honours board in the hall.  She was shattered.

During our conversation about the thieving, she admitted that, at the time, she had no idea why she was doing it, she just wanted to have other people’s things for herself.  After many years of therapy, she began to understand that it was about control and about taking to yourself things which represented the personal and the wanted.  She felt as though she dare not stop achieving or she would be worthless in the eyes of her teachers and classmates.  She had few friends but she had her certificates to prove that she was a good person.  She had no qualms about the other girls being accused, this only proved that she was brilliant at stealing as well.

The anorexia and the stealing were symptoms of the same thing; the actions of an abandoned and pressured child trying to steer her own boat.  Abandoned and neglected children will frequently manifest some form of mental illness at some point in their lives if they receive no help with their emotions.  Sometimes it emerges early on, but often the pain lies buried and hidden, until something happens to trigger the memory and all hell breaks loose.

I know nothing about Antony Worrall Thompson’s personal circumstances, I’ve never met him and I’m being presumptuous even talking about him.  However, having read the reports in as broad a spectrum of newspapers as I could muster, he has clearly been having a difficult time.  He spoke of the stress of moving house, the death of two close friends, giving up smoking, anaemia, long working hours, his inability to relax and his age.  He was sent away to boarding school when he was barely more than a toddler, his parents split up around the same time and his father was then absent until he was 21.

Call me an old softy, but I’m sad for him.  I hope that this episode will be the trigger that will help him return to a more balanced and happy life.  Because, like the rest of us, he is a real person and I wish him well.

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Perfect Food for Upset Tums

By on November 29, 2011 in Food, Health and Beauty

If you have had a nasty stomach upset and are at the point where you need something to eat but can’t think of a single thing you want, eat this.

¼ pint of natural live (probiotic) yoghurt
1 big tablespoon pure honey
½ ripe banana – sliced

The yoghurt helps to counteract any residual acid in the stomach and also helps to re-colonize the natural bacteria.
The honey is anti-inflammatory and antibiotic as well as providing natural sugar in a highly digestible form.
The banana gives calories to get your strength back, also has antibiotic properties, is high in magnesium which is useful in the treatment of diarrhoea.

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A walk in the woods not a day on the DS

By on November 9, 2011 in Health and Beauty, Slider, The Great Outdoors

Just outside Corby, Northants

This evening, as I was driving Boy the Elder to his Scout meeting(in a field, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere) we saw a barn owl, a muntjack, a weasel, endless rabbits and something small and very fast which flew right in front of the car.  It was wonderful, particularly the barn owl whose ghostly white wings described delicate and silent patterns in the air, like a pale and feral angel.

I was gratified to witness the excitement of the boys at seeing these creatures and pleased that, despite living in the country, wild creatures are still wonderful to them.  As a child brought up on the outskirts of London, I remember reading nature books that would cite certain insects or birds that were apparently ‘common’ throughout England.  Not in bloody Stanwell they weren’t and I remember wondering where all these creatures could be living?  Actually they were probably there for the finding, but I didn’t know where to look.

Of late, I haven’t spent enough time taking the boys on walks in the countryside. The last few years have caught up with me a bit, and on the rare occasions when I sit still I fall asleep.  They play sports at school and spend time outside, but there is no substitute for just being in the woods or the park, taking time to see the detail, making up games that involve trees, sticks and mud, listening to the trees, the birds and the tiny sounds.

Speedwell

A couple of weekends ago, I sent the two of them off into the woods and told them not to come back for at least two hours.  Their mission was to explore their surroundings, get the lie of the land, see what was beyond the Co-op and the fish and chip shop, find out where the railway line went, discover the best climbing trees and viewpoints.

They came back tired and delighted.  They had found footpaths and a tree swing, a circular walk all round the town and the track bed of an old railway line.  They were particularly pleased with a concrete lookout point on which someone had sprayed the word ‘cock’ in large red letters.  This is now known as The Cockpit and is the focal point of many games and rendezvous.

Hawthorne

Children need to connect with nature.  They need to have unstructured time in which to get bored, thus giving them the brain space to get really creative.  Separation from the natural world takes away their freedom, their peace of mind and their independence.  Some parents are terrified to let their children go to parks or open spaces unsupervised because they have become obsessed with the idea that there are perverts and kidnappers round every corner.  Those same children may not have been taught to cross the road properly and yet the fear of them being run over takes second place to the threat of paedophiles.

Children’s time has become too structured, outdoors has become a facility not a place to be enjoyed on its own merit.  Children are taught about nature in schools through eco-disaster, floods, famines, global warming and whilst these things need to be taught, I wonder if this encourages them to really connect with nature or whether it persuades them that nature is an enemy to be overcome?  How many people became passionate naturalists without actually experiencing nature at first hand?

Where have the nature tables gone, with their birds’ nests, conkers, multi-hued leaves and shells?  When do the nature walks happen when children can feel the ground beneath their feet, smell the leaf mould, discover wild flowers and learn the difference between moths and butterflies?

We don’t have to live in the middle of nowhere to find these things, any tiny wild area will have something of interest and we need to find them, enjoy them and then pass on our enjoyment.  Note the difference in someone after a day in the fresh air to a day in front of the TV or a computer screen.

Let’s reclaim our natural spaces and in return find some space for ourselves.

How deep?

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The Wartime Housewife is washing her hair

By on September 23, 2011 in Health and Beauty

Imagine this but blonde - how I wish she'd stop copying me!

Yes indeed.  Tonight I am washing my hair – well, slightly more than washing if I’m honest.   When I have washed my hair, I’m going to put it in rollers in the vain hope that, with enough ‘product’, it will not only look as I want it to, but will stay looking as I want it to for the rest of the day.

I have the straightest hair in Christendom and despite having plenty of hair, it is so fine that it always looks thin, which is a right royal bugger.  With the current trend for straight, sleek (oh how I hate that word) styles, everyone thinks I should be grateful.  Well I’m not.  All I have ever wanted is thick, wavy locks that I can style with ease.

I go to the hairdresser and she fiddles and farts about, producing handfuls of ‘product’ and hot brushes and I leave looking fabulous.  But by the time I have walked down the street, had a coffee and bought some shoes, it is already dropping and by the next day it can be safely said that my two hours spent in the ghastly salon with it’s punitive lighting were completely wasted.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want a perm.  I want curls in my hair that I can rough up and look messy, or style and wave so I look like a blonde Dita von Teese.  ALL DAY.  I love my hair when a perm is dropping – those loose waves that look as though they’re supposed to be there.

But can I get one?  My salon is full of young girls with geometric bobs and so much make-up they have to tip their heads back to get their eyes open.  Only two hairdressers in the place know how to do a perm and neither of them have heard of Dita von Teese or laugh when I try to describe a ‘just shagged’ look.

I will seek out one of these hairdressers and demand chemicals and several hours of their time.  I will demand that they don’t cut all my hair off (which I have been assiduously growing for the last two years) and I will leave with the curls I deserve.  Not only that, I will drink all their coffee, eat their Lotus biscuits and spurn their horrible magazines in favour of my own book.  Neither will I lure them into a conversation about holidays, weddings or body piercing.

I will let you know when the deed is done.

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