Tag Archives: family

Mister Moneybags

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(I wrote this yesterday and, for reasons I can’t go into now, didn’t get round to posting it. Let’s just say yesterday was a tough day).

Hey Mister Moneybags, look at you! In your high rise office with your high flying job. Is that suit from Savile Row by any chance? I knew it! And those shoes, genuine Italian leather from last weekend’s jaunt to Milan? How’s the wife? The kids?The mistress? What’s that-two mistresses?! Gosh, you really do know how to live the high life! Has your golf handicap improved? Surely those expensive clubs have paid off by now? Not to mention that public school education. By golly your parents must be proud.

You know what Mister Moneybags? You really have made it, whatever ‘it’ is. You are the definition of success. Everything you ever wanted is yours. You’ve got properties and cars by the dozen, private jets and yachts the likes of which most of us can only dream of. Your family must adore the lifestyle you’ve created for them.

What’s that Mrs Moneybags? You’d rather have a husband than the lifestyle? And not have to share him with dozens of floozies at that? You’re sick of making excuses to the kids about why daddy’s let them down again? And actually if truth be told you’re starting to re-think the marriage altogether?

Oh dear Mister Moneybags, maybe you can’t have it all, after all…

Living below the line – for real

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Last night I caught the tail end of a TV programme about people in this country who have to feed their families on less than £2 each a day. According to the programme, recent research estimates that nearly five million people in the UK are struggling to feed themselves properly and eat nutritiously.

Watching the families’ struggle had a sobering effect on me, and made me realise just how fortunate I am. It also got me thinking about the poverty divide, and how so many people wrongly claim to be on the wrong side of it when really they’re nowhere near.

So often people – myself included – say they have no money, and yet no sooner has the breath escaped their lips than they are buying their daily speciality coffee and Pret a Manger salad. Admittedly such purchases are often the difference between being in the red and being in the black, but real poverty is about far more than having a few hundred pounds to pay off on your overdraft and/or credit card.

Real poverty is parents going without food to ensure their children don’t, or families having to swallow their pride and visit food banks so they have enough to survive. Real poverty is scouring the marked down section in the supermarket out of necessity every single day rather than to secure the odd bargain now and again. Real poverty is having to choose between heating and eating.

So next time I’m about to complain about not being able to afford a night out (when I’ve only just had a night out), not having savings (when, even after my recent pay cut I’m still able to afford £150 each month to pay off my credit card) or not being able to afford holidays and clothes (when I go on plenty of the former and have more than enough of the latter as it is) I’m going to stop and think about the families on that programme. I’ll put myself in their position and imagine what it’s like to struggle every single day just to put food on the table and keep the house heated. And I’ll keep my mouth shut.

Change

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The following fictional post was inspired by the certificate ceremony I attended today with work at a youth centre in Islington, where teenagers from four of the schools my charity works with were commended for their participation in the Teens and Toddlers programme:

Change

I never thought I’d amount to much. Why would I? My parents told me every day that I was useless. Then even my teachers started giving up on me. It’s like a downward spiral, see. You start acting up to get attention, but all too late you realise it’s not the right kind of attention you’re getting. You wanted to be popular, not the class clown – the one the other kids laugh at and the teachers label as a troublemaker.

Things at home weren’t great. Dad’s drinking was getting worse and Mum, well, she was so doped up on depression pills she hardly knew what day it was. I pretty much did everything; cooking, cleaning, looking after my baby brother. If I hadn’t been there I don’t know what would have happened to him. He’d probably have been taken into care. Sometimes I wondered if that would’ve been best for the both of us.

When my teachers told me about this mentoring programme that paired teenagers with toddlers in a nursery I wasn’t interested at all; I had enough experience of looking after children with my baby brother, why would I want more? I only agreed to do it ’cause it got me out of school one afternoon a week, and gave me something to do apart from hanging around the recreation ground and causing trouble with my mates because I was bored.

But when I started the programme things started to change. My toddler was a challenge, mainly because he was like me; hyperactive and angry. We even looked alike, with wild hair, dark skin and brown eyes. He didn’t trust me at first, but after a few weeks he started coming up to me when I walked in and holding my hand. It made me feel special, and in those moments the big ball of anger I carried around inside me would get a bit smaller.

I’ve learned a lot about myself through the programme. I realise now the consequences of my actions on others, and I’m not so hell bent on trying to hurt people, mentally and physically. I feel more responsible, more in control. I want to achieve in life. I want to be a success. But above all else I want people to look at me and, instead of seeing the clown, the troublemaker or the joker, I want them to see the responsible man I can and will become.

The beautiful sunset on the last night of my recent trip to Italy.

Il Palio 2013

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Sometimes in life there are days almost too comical to recount. But, for the sake of brevity and duty I intend to try. 
 
Yesterday began with a quick breakfast before we headed to the train station in central Florence to catch out train to Siena. An hour and a half and some beautiful countryside later we arrived at our destination. A short while (and many escalators-Siena train station feels, from a geographical perspective, like it has been located in the core of the earth) later and we were sipping beer in a delicatessen whilst waiting for our dinner rolls to be prepared (the owner apologised for his gruffness but said it was one of the most important days of the year and nerves were understandably frayed).
 
After wandering through the streets and soaking up the carnival atmosphere that is pre-Palio (Siena’s twice yearly  famous bare back horse race) we arrived at the restaurant my stepfather had booked for lunch and took our seats outside on the terrace. Which is where the fun really began, as my mother saw fit not only to inform us olives turned into grapes somewhere along the manufacturing line (and I wondered where I got my gullibility-not wondering any more), but also that she had always rather liked the idea of being a nudist (“unencumbered by clothes”) – just what you want your boyfriend to hear during a family meal.
 
After lunch we made our way through the back streets to the cathedral where we visited some relics and watched the various parishes who would be taking part in the race parade with their flag bearers and other accoutrements. 
 
At 5pm we began the queue into the central square to find a spot from which we could observe the race. Fortunately the area we picked was mostly in shade-whilst it was delightful to have sun at Glasto nothing could prepare our pasty skin for the onslaught of true Tuscan sun-so we sat out the next three hours in relative comfort (save for the thousands of people all around, and one particularly nauseating couple in front of us who seemed incapable of not being attached by the lips at all times).
 
After much waiting around and several false starts the horses were off, and in three short laps it was all over, with three of the ten jockeys being unseated. Then came the real fun (were I speaking to you at this point you’d be hard pressed not to notice the sarcasm in my voice), as we tried to scale a four foot wall to beat the crowd out of the enclosure. The sight of my 66 year old mother revealing her knickers to the world and screaming “I can’t do it!” as she clambered over, followed by my boyfriend’s whispered comment of “II totally just groped your mum by the way” were matched in the bizarre stakes only by mum’s enjoyment of my drum and bass music as we slightly tipsily shared my headphones on the train home afterwards. In short, an odd but supremely enjoyable day out a la famiglia.

Onwards and upwards

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In the spirit of positivity to which I have become accustomed so far this year, I am refusing to let anything – and I do mean anything – get me down. As long as my friends and family are healthy and happy nothing else matters. Because, when you break it down, everything else in life is just transient. What’s important is the support network you have around you, the people with whom you can be your true self – warts and all. They’re the ones who’ve been beside you through the good times and carried you through the hard times, and they’re the ones who’ll be there for years to come.

I truly believe everything happens for a reason, and that if you’re a fundamentally good and honest person then good things will come your way. Only this afternoon when I’d left my wallet at home and had the sum total of 50p in my pocket to buy lunch, I put my hand into my coat pocket and found a five pound note. That may not seem strange to you, but I’m not the kind of person who leaves money in their pockets. I’ve really no idea how that five pound note got there and I’m sure there’s a very rational explanation, but, whether fate or serendipity in that moment I felt reassured that everything was going to be okay. When I left the shop with a sandwich in my bag I gave the 50p I’d started with to a man who was begging outside. It felt somehow cathartic.

Onwards and upwards is the best mantra to adopt in any negative situation – always believe good things are just on the horizon. What harm can it do?

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I took this photo from the balcony of my 5* hotel in Borneo, at the end of my three month volunteer placement with Raleigh International in 2011. It was the end of an amazing journey, which this sunset seemed to perfectly sum up. Now another journey’s drawing to a close and there are exciting times ahead, of that I’m certain.

His face

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Jess took a step closer to the trolley and swallowed hard as the crisp blue sheet slid weightlessly across the still form beneath. As the face was revealed she nodded to confirm his identity. Death, she thought, had robbed him entirely of personality – or at least of his personality, the one she had known every harsh detail of for the past twenty years. In its place she saw serenity – an expression that had rarely, if ever, registered on his hard-edged features. His thick grey hair, flecked lightly with silver, was shaved on one side. A scar ran from the base of his neck right up to the crown of his head. Instinctively she reached out to touch it. She trailed a finger down the congealed wound, imagining his skin was warm to the touch, though she knew that was impossible. He had been dead for several days.

The news reports spoke of a five car pile-up which had robbed a family of their patriarch – brother, husband, father, grandfather. They would have people believe his death was something of a loss when in fact it had set them all free.

pa·tri·arch 

Noun

The male head of a family or tribe

  • An older man who is powerful within an organization
  • The male founder of something

He had been powerful all right, but the only thing he’d ever founded was borne of hatred and deceit.

This death mask may fool others but it could never fool her. He had been a monster in life and would remain a monster beyond it. No place in Heaven would be waiting for him.

Jess nodded and the sheet began its steady ascent, obscuring his face for the final time.

She felt nothing.

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This photo was taken on the boat to Lombok in Indonesia. I don’t know why but writing this story made me think of a boat man, carrying souls across the water to the ‘other side.’

Two simple words

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This weekend I’ve spent a lot of quality time with family and good friends, something I realise I haven’t done nearly enough of in recent months. It’s so easy to get complacent about the people closest to you. They’re not going anywhere, after all. But it’s precisely because they’re not going anywhere – because they love you unconditionally, because they’ll never let you down – that you should make an effort to keep them at the centre of your life. They’re the people who understand you better than anyone else, the ones you feel most comfortable being your true self with. They’re the ones who can provide a listening ear and shoulder to cry on one minute and make you laugh like a drain the next. In short, you need them to be you – why wouldn’t you cherish them?

I’ve also spent time this weekend reconnecting with friends – both in person and by email – who I made on my various travels over the past few years. I find these types of friendship so interesting, because you don’t share a history but you do create an unbreakable bond as you make new memories together. People who meet whilst travelling the world alone already have something in common – they’re searching for meaning in their lives, hoping for an adventure, maybe even trying to escape from a negative situation in the ‘real’ world that they’ve left behind. Whilst these kinds of friendships are very different to the friendships that have stood the test of time and turbulence, they are no less important. They teach you just as much about yourself – if not more – and should be valued and nurtured accordingly.

Then there are the friends you don’t even know that well, or who you’ve long since fallen out of regular contact with, who contact you out of the blue to wish you well and offer words of support and encouragement at just the right time. Several such friends have done just that for me in the past week. Their kind words really picked me up when I was plagued with self-doubt about my writing, and they’ve given me the strength to carry on.

Thinking about peoples’ tendency to be complacent towards their friends has, in turn, made me think about the simple act of saying thank you – not just when a stranger holds a door open for you or gives their seat up for you on the train, but to the people you know and love. To be a good friend, parent or sibling takes a degree of selflessness, you must be prepared to put your own ego aside and put that person before yourself. So when someone does that for us, shouldn’t it follow that we show our gratitude in some way?

In light of the above I’d like to do a little roll call to acknowledge all the people who have supported me and made me smile in the past week – family and friends both old and new:

Thank you Mum and David, Rory, Hayley Norrish, Anna Bullock, Amy Roberton, Gabrielle Liddle, Jen Chardon, Alex Sayer, Kaye Dolan, George, Caroline and Milo Watson, Mouse Bunch, Sian Brace, Lucy Caslon, @benjaminmurdoch, @cripesonfriday, @adeteal, @beyond_nadia, @SirHeppe, @matthewpaulgray, @BinaryDad, @dogtaniontastic, @teenybella – you’re all absolutely ACE 🙂

And a general thank you to all the friends and family who I haven’t mentioned above who have – at various times and in various places – put up with me, helped me find hope in hopeless situations, and generally just been there. You know who you are xxxx 

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I can’t think of a better picture to go with this post than this, of me and my best friend at my mum and stepfather’s wedding. We were six years old and completely different (me a girly girl, my best friend a tomboy – hence the colour of our dresses!) but we were – and still are – inseparable. True friendship that stands the test of time doesn’t require you to be the same – it requires you to appreciate your differences, and be there for one another through thick and thin. I’m so fortunate to have wonderful friends who have done just that for me.