This title is the nearest I shall ever get to the schoolgirl
adventures of Angela Brazil and Monica, the jolly hockey sticks schoolgirl and invention of Beryl Reid who planted the seeds of my interest in radio. Monica’s breathless faux-naïve gush and the Birmingham bravura of Marlene from the Midlands sill live, breathe and have being in unparalleled memory.
That there was always an older woman is a great tribute to my mother. I never saw them as threat, only as somebody from whom I could learn. And by older, I only mean older than me – not necessarily of a great age. When you are 20, 40 seems antique.
There were men among them too, who were useful often just by being disposed to see me as a person not a pronoun.
When I was still a young secretary, I met a film producer’s assistant who made me believe that with work and intelligence, I could parlay what I had into something better. When I met Ellie the office manager, I learned the power of being kind. She did it as naturally as breathing.
I remember Helene Kantor who captained the office of the insurance company where I worked in NYC, where I heard that John Kennedy had been shot. Small, great smelling (never knew the perfume), tough, fair, suits to die for.
And much later this side of the pond the head of David Frost’s production company, same type, English version – her inspiration importantly more accessible ie you didn’t have to go anywhere else to be better.
And Sauveur Guerrier from Haiti, who turned displacement into dignity and pushed me to be interested in French, especially the pronunciation – which led in turn to some sensibility about other languages.
Looking down the years, I see men and women who gave me something to aim for, a way to do it, good advice, a tone which inferred their time was not wasted on me. I thought about all this as I came to the morning, not a thought in my head but how to begin copy people want to read. I flicked through the now sizeable backlog of annalog and found a correspondent who had referred to me in a particular context as wise. And I thought how much wisdom,
juniper signifies wisdom
the power of overview and advice means to those of beginning life’s journey.
“You don’t get on by being original. You don’t get on by being bright. You don’t get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.” So wrote Hilary Mantel in Wolf Hall. Though it is only part of the story. Heaven help me, I did it the other way round – I was original, I was bright, I was strong but I don’t think you could ever call me subtle. Any subtlety I ever had was learnt from another godmother, who managed me for years and enhanced my life.
This morning too, I looked up the origins of the word mentor,
another correspondent triggered that. In Greek stories, he is a friend of Odysseus, who brings up the latter’s son Telemachus while Odysseus is away for years (double message: you need to be present in some form to be useful for a child) and over time the word has become associated with experience, wisdom and advice. I aspire to these words. They get such short shrift in modern life, as if anything important could be amassed in short order. And it can’t. (There is the Eureka moment, of course there is, but you don’t get those by the half dozen in Sainsburys). And the model of learning over time takes into account that the way you see things changes over time. You aren’t at 40 what you were at 20 and if you are, I’m sorry for you. It is essentially important to go on learning, especially about yourself. Even if you don’t like some of what you learn.
And then there are those who just do you one small unquantifiable kindness after another. Like Sarah who is clearing her terrace, prior to longed for work, so I have inherited two happy plants she is glad to be rid of. Nothing nicer than a good egg.
Annalog 