by Dawn French
The worst ever occasion of such thoughtlessness wasn’t on holiday, it was at a sports event with Billie. She is a bit of a dab hand at the ol’ shot-put, and she’s not bad at discus either, and running. In fact, if only she would believe it, she’s a fantastic athlete, but she is so utterly self-effacing and tough on herself, that she virtually disables her ability purposely, so as to deal with it more easily. What a wonderful, curious, complicated young woman she is! Anyway, on occasion, she does allow herself to acknowledge her skills and she takes part in various athletic competitions as a member of her local club, Bracknell Athletics. Imagine that, Dad, I am the mother of an athletic kid! Who’d’ve thought it, eh? I have been suddenly launched into a world of tracksuits, running shoes, personal bests, pep talks, endless packed lunches, safety pins for numbers to be attached to shirts, energy drinks, pulled muscles, Deep Heat, orders of events, statistics, long circuitous journeys to old stadiums at the arse end of brown towns, and loud, utterly biased hollering from the stands. I have never been good at sport. I’ve given tennis and hockey and netball my best shot on a few occasions but not so’s anyone would notice. Therefore, being part of a sporty backup team is quite a novelty and quite thrilling. I can be nearly sporty, vicariously, through her. The fab thing about a local athletics club is that it unites everyone, whatever colour, background, school, religion or anything else. I have been astounded to see the dedication of the coaches, all volunteers, to these kids, and equally the parents who sacrifice so much of their spare time to join in and support. The folk at Bracknell Athletics Club were immediately welcoming to Billie and to us, with a palpable sense of ‘nothing special’ – thankfully – just a new kid joining and some new parents supporting. We were in the team, therefore we had to pull our weight and join in.
The single most remarkable person I met there was Marcia Toft, a mum whose love for and pride in her own kids is a treat to witness. Her loving but firm handling of her posse and her dedication to their interests in the club really struck me. She is a ferociously intelligent woman who takes no shit from anyone but has a heart of candyfloss. The kind of person you wish had been your chum at school, a cheeky and protective force of nature. She knew instantly that I was floundering like a carp out of water in the fresh, new-to-me sporting world. I was not conversant with the rules, the etiquette, the form. She explained stuff to me, about the sports, the club, the officials, etc. She helped me to understand what to bring along to survive those long cold days as a spectator, and she provided the gateway into a community we had hitherto not known, and about which we were patently ignorant. I was tentative initially about our inclusion in this group of strangers, because I didn’t want to assume any kind of overfamiliarity, but that fear was unfounded.
The day came for our club to be represented in the Southern Counties Women’s League at Kingston. There were about eight to ten clubs competing and the stadium was heaving. Our Bracknell lot decided to camp out on the grass, close to the discus net and the shot-put sector. It was a warm but blustery day and the events went well for us. Lots of our kids were coming in the top three, and the continual announcements of results from the speakers mounted on poles around the ground bode well for us. The picnics were tasty, the kids were in tip-top form and the whiff of victory was in our nostrils. Then, something terrible happened. Billie had thrown well in her shot-put event and we thought she might even bag first place but couldn’t be sure till the official announcement was made. There was a hubbub of group excitement building, and then the familiar, loud, tinny voice from the speaker announced: ‘In the under 15s shot-put … third was Katie blah blah … with blah metres … second was Tanisha blah blah with blah metres and first was Billie Henry with blah blah huge amount of winning metres!’ We started to cheer and I grabbed Billie for a victor’s hug. But Mr Tinny Official hadn’t finished his announcement. He went on … ‘Billie Henry, whose mother, the celebrity DAWN FRENCH, is here with us today, ladies and gentlemen, sitting over there on the grass. Nice to see you out today with all the normal mums and dads!’ I’m sure on reflection he meant no harm, but his careless and misguided attention started the rumblings of a volcano of foaming fury inside me. It started a long way down, from a Gollum depth I didn’t even know I had, somewhere infernally deep, around the soles of my feet, and it rose up very fast, gathering velocity and ferocity at an alarming rate. Past my spleen where it gathered bile, past my guts where it gathered acid, past my bladder where it gathered gall, through my belly where it gathered humiliation, through my blood where it gathered hotter blood, through my heart where it gathered resentment, through my throat where it gathered pepper and through my mind where it gathered guilt. During this internal tornado, I found myself in a reflex action, charging purposefully towards the official’s booth on the other side of the track. Billie was tugging at me, pleading, ‘No, Mum, it’s OK. I don’t mind! Just leave it!’ but I was hell-bent on a meet and right retribution. I wanted to slaughter – nothing less would satisfy. Stomp-stomp over the field, getting closer and closer. All the while I could taste the sourness of the soup of emotional sewage boiling further and further up my craw and curdling in my mouth. I was going to give it to him in an eloquent but savage verbal attack he wouldn’t forget. How dare he highlight me over my daughter’s hard-won achievements? How dare he make this day about anything other than the kids? How dare he sully this lovely, pure, clean, happy moment with the filth of ‘celebrity’?! As I approached the booth, I caught my first sight of the enemy, three elderly silvered ex-athletes in their authoritarian whites beaming at me with expectation and joy. I opened the door and the main culprit, Official Tin Voice, a lofty and superior old fox, greeted me with: ‘More tea, vicar?!’ What fresh hell was this? I was so staggered by his blindness and insensitivity that my hitherto torrent of emotional lava somehow instantly diluted. Instead of an explosion of precise and accurate verbal spew, landing all over his face and dripping down on to his Dazzy whiter-than-whites, my body made an alternative choice – to blubber like a baby. Oh dear God, no. Not now. Come on! I need some steel! I endeavoured to use words, but I couldn’t. I only had access to vowels and tears and snot. This, maddeningly, prompted a big hug from all three of the enemy. I did manage to blurt out a version of the ‘How dare you?!’ speech, but it manifested itself mainly as ‘My daughter! Blub blub my daughter!’ which they understandably misread as over-effusive pride. Billie was crumbling with embarrassment behind me, and led me away to the car. By now I was only liquid, so I poured myself into the driver’s seat and tried to compose myself while she packed the car with the detritus of our day out. Various members of our club came over to sympathise and to share their annoyance and offer support. The journey home was glum and sniffly for me. I felt that this was another opportunity to have a full and frank chat about the drawbacks of being in the public eye. We have often talked about it, and Billie is in no doubt about my utter disrespect for the culture of celebrity. I didn’t get the chance to know how you would have felt Dad, about this strange phenomenon of celebrity befalling your own daughter. I suspect you would have mistrusted it as much as I do. In my opinion, fame, money and politics are among the most corrupting influences we live with. It is always wise to keep an eye on any creeping personal corruptions we know full well are happening. Fame is toxic. There are benefits, but even those are dangerous if you get too used to them. Mostly, recognition is debilitating. It disables your ability to judge or behave normally because you are constantly reacting to people’s preconceived perceptions of what or who you are, or what you need and want. Plus, you are constantly on guard to resist the bluster of gushing praise which is blown up your bum. It’s very tempting to swig from it, but it is a poisoned chalice. I find the status and value system in our country confusing – how have we come to this place where footballers and singers and jesters are prized above teachers and doctors and carers? Don’t get me wrong – I don’t underestimate the importance of entertainment, not at all, BUT why are we paying so much attention to
the wrong people? I have benefited hugely from this perverse social structuring, I don’t deny that. I don’t feel guilty, I feel baffled. While life’s hierarchies are so topsy-turvy, it is even more crucial not to confuse lustre with importance.
Anyway there I was, apologising to Bill for the idiocy of adults who are impressed with the wrong thing. I was explaining how helpless I felt when her achievement was eclipsed by a stupid error of judgement. I told her it would be so great to be able to turn off the fame knob when it suited and that is practically always when I am around her. Billie told me to chill out, that she sees it coming a mile off every time, and finds it hilarious to watch, anthropologist-like, the behaviour of supposedly normal humans around the shiny quicksilver that is celebrity. Of course she sees it, she is in the observer’s seat where the view is all too clear. She found the whole episode funny and embarrassing, not least my phenomenally entertaining overreaction! She patted my hand and said, ‘There, there, dearie, you’ll get over it. You’ll worry when no one notices you.’ God, I hope that’s not true.
Anyway, I started this letter talking about holidays because, given only a week to find a good one, I wondered whether we should hire a canal boat. I remember all those lovely holidays we had on that tiny fibreglass motorboat you bought. It was only a two-berth really, wasn’t it? But Gary and I would sleep at the back, under the cover at night, while you and Mum were in the cabin. It was so exciting. Chugging around the canals and rivers during the day, negotiating the locks and the islands, and mooring up at night wherever we fancied. Reading Spike Milligan and The Hobbit aloud by the light of the tilley lamp and holding on whenever the wake of a passing vessel rocked us too hard. I loved that you assumed the role of captain too seriously, that we had to use nautical terminology for everything and be mindful of safety issues at sea. Not that we ever were actually ‘at sea’. We were on canals in Shropshire and Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and the Midlands. Family jokes started there and have never let up. Going to ‘the head’ (loo) in a bucket affair in a tiny cupboard where everyone could hear your business was a rich seam for laughs. Noises were mimicked and the loud gushing of Dad wee which resounded around the whole boat was masked with the cry of ‘Horse!’ since you would wee at the rate of a urineful carthorse. To this day, we still shout it to cover up the noise. And I clearly remember the time when Gary was staring at me in my swimsuit oddly, and suddenly exclaimed: ‘Dad! Dawn’s got bosoms coming out!’ Only all of the Trent canal witnessed that special moment!
We must have looked an odd sight on the canal. You in an ostentatious captain’s hat, barking navy lark orders at your junior matelots. Mum holding Poppet, our Westie, over the side so she could do her business, and a sparrow in a cage on deck. Oscar the sparrow, a little no-hoper fledgling who fell out of his nest when he was only a few minutes old, was miraculously nursed to full adult birdhood and only wanted to hang around with humans because he was convinced he was one. He was a pet we inherited when Uncle Tot and Auntie June were posted abroad and he came everywhere with us. It didn’t occur to us that it was strange to have a wild bird in a cage. The door of the cage was often left open for him, and he would occasionally hop about and stretch his wings, but his preference was to stay near us, his human buddies, who were just like him, human. OK?! Now back off and make with the seed.
I can’t remember ever going abroad on holiday as a kid. We went to Scotland once, and drove around looking at castles and mountains, didn’t we? Gary and I were teenagers then and holidays with you guys were totally uncool. We would have preferred to be at home fumbling about with our boyfriends or girlfriends. I think my own kid has reached that same point. She agreed to come on a sailing holiday last year where we bobbed about exploring various Greek islands with cousins and nieces and nephews, but she was mainly preoccupied with sending texts home to friends saying things like ‘Am being forced to be interested in Greece. Send help’ and ‘Dull parents laughing all day – why?’ and ‘Saw fit guy who seemed interested but no, yawn, we had to “eat in a taverna” instead. So random.’ Yes. I know I shouldn’t be reading them. On her phone. After she’s gone to bed. Checking if she’s doing any international drug deals. Or looking for clues as to whether she’s considering having sex. I know it’s wrong, but I’m a pathological nosy parker and I can’t resist. If it’s any consolation, it takes ages to decipher them since the above messages read something like ‘dl pts. Laffg al dy –?’ and ‘Sw ft gy – intd – bt no, we “et @ tvn”. Rndm Lol.’ At least I have to work at it to invade her privacy. So, if she didn’t really enjoy the Greek boat experience, is it likely she is going to enjoy the British canal experience, where she will have to live up close and personal with her ‘dull parents’ for a whole week? I think not. Mmmm, better rethink holiday idea. Maybe stay at home? All do stuff we want to in separate rooms? Sounds sublime.
Dear Billie,
WHEN I WAS about 13, I was invited to a party by my friend Karen. I was so excited about this party because I knew that there was going to be a boy there called Mark who I really liked. Although we had some mutual friends and we had been in the same room on various occasions, he had paid me no attention whatsoever and was blissfully unaware that I existed at all. I found this heartbreaking and I was determined to get him to notice me. I planned to summon up my courage and somehow do this at the party that Saturday night. In order to impress him, I decided to wear my new purple suede hot pants. Hot pants were what we called shorts back then and they were the singular most fashionable item you could own. I saved up my pocket money for AGES, I did odd jobs for extra cash, and eventually I had enough to go to a big shop called Trago Mills and buy them. They didn’t really fit me, they were far too tight, but I wanted them SO much I didn’t mind how uncomfortable they were. Everyone wanted hot pants, but as is so often the cruel injustice of fashion they suited very few people. I wasn’t one of those chosen few. It was definitely an advantage to be tall, thin and have long, shapely legs. I had none of these attributes but I convinced myself I could carry the hot pants off nevertheless. My whole outfit was new. Starting from the bottom up (the bottom of my legs, that is, not my actual bottom): brown suede wedge heels with espadrille straps around my Miss Piggy ankles. American tan tights. The bright purple suede hot pants with shiny buttons on the pockets. Above the waist was a considerable overflow of puppy fat, which was forced upwards and outwards by the too-tight waistband of the hot pants. On top of this was a cream cheesecloth smock top with stringy lacing down the front, slightly see-through, with flared sleeves. Many Indian bangles about the wrists. Large dangly earrings. Round my neck a home-made pendant made of bent horseshoe nails on a black leather thong. Long straight hair parted in the centre with no fringe, a bit like Ali MacGraw, but only a very tiny bit. Green suede shoulder bag with tasselly fringing. Big round sunglasses worn permanently on head. I glanced in the mirror and decided I looked pretty damned fine. Actually I didn’t feel this at all but I knew I would have to fake feeling good in order to leave the house. So it was with this pretend confidence that I went to look for my dad to arrange my lift home. I was hoping to negotiate a later pickup just in case Mark might notice me! I met my dad in the hallway and he asked me to come in to the front room for a quick chat. He closed the door behind us, and asked me to sit down. My heart sank. I thought I was in for a good talking-to. I was right about that, but it wasn’t the usual precautionary drill, it was something else. Something I’ve always remembered, especially if I’m feeling a bit insecure – which we all do sometimes, don’t we?
It was a long time ago but, to the best of my memory, it went something like this:
Dad: Sit down, puddin’. Actually, before you sit down, give us a twirl. Wow, you look really lovely, a right bobby-dazzler. Are those shorts? Or lederhosen?
Me: They’re hot pants, Dad.
Dad: Where did you get those? Millets?
Me: No, Dad, Trago Mills.
Dad: Well, you look very … pretty. They are quite short …
Me: Yes, because they’re shorts.
Dad: I see, well you look really super in them. Very dandy. Super.
Me: Can I come home late?
Dad: Hold your horses there, missus. Before we talk about arrangements, there’s something I want to say. What’s that black stuff in your eyes by the way?
Me: Kohl.
Dad: Coal?
Me: No, Kohl. It’s Indian. I’ve worn it before.
Dad: Have you? I’ve seen black stuff on top of your eyes before, and maybe something underneath the bottom bit but that looks like it’s right inside …
Me: That’s where it’s supposed to go.
Dad: You might get conjunctivitis with that.
Me: I won’t.
Dad: You might.
Me: It’s … antiseptic.
Dad: Is it?
Me: No – but it’s fine, trust me. Millions of Indian ladies haven’t died of it yet.
Dad: Does it hurt?
Me: No.
Dad: It would hurt me.
Me: You’re not wearing it.
Dad: No. I never would.
Me: Good. Be quite hard to explain if you did.