PARTHURBLOG

Let’s start with the brief life of Amelia Maggs. Born 1885, she is the daughter of Ephriam Maggs – a plater – and his second wife, Sarah.

In the 1891 census, Amelia is listed as living at home in Southampton, the youngest of eleven children. We know very little about her circumstances, but can assume it is a life of poverty. At least she’s with siblings and parents; a decade later, it’s a very different picture.

The 1901 census lists her as an inmate at the Stoneham Union Workhouse. She is 16 years old and a domestic servant. We know that she marries three years later, and having survived the Great War, she dies on 22 February 1919 – aged 34 – a victim of the Great Flu Epidemic.

And we know one more fact about her; on 28 November 1918, she gave birth to a daughter. Gwendoline.

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As we sit, well-clothed, well-fed and with loved ones both here and at home, it’s easy to forget the severity of the world into which Gwen / Mum / Nana / Great Grandma was born. It was not the most auspicious of starts. She was a link to a very different world.

For me, as an outsider to the gene pool now gathered in this room, it was learning about Amelia Maggs that set everything in context, and helped me truly value so many of Gwen’s qualities:

Her pragmatism. Her directness. Her belief that everything should be just so. Her generosity. And her appreciation of all the blessings that eventually came her way.

For, despite the difficulties of her early life, the second half was filled with happiness which she really savoured:

- Her love and friendship from Jan, her granddaughter – one of the most constant figures in her life;

- At 72, finding late love with John Day, her husband for the next 14 years;

- Reuniting and reconciling with sons Peter (living virtually around the corner) and Chris (with a life on the other side of the world), and seeing that they had found love, stability and companionship with their wives, Christine and Mary, and had thriving families of their own;

- Her good fortune at the care, comfort and shelter provided by her loving daughter Sue and Trevor here in Cornwall;

- And – what she considered her greatest good fortune – getting to know her six great grandchildren.

*

Of course, all of this is a two-way street – for every blessing she counted, so ought we for having known her. Over the past 10 days, you will have had opportunity to reflect, as you will continue to do over the coming weeks and months.

Here are some of the memories she has bequeathed me – for even the smallest actions can cause profound ripples across the pond of time.

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Thanks to Gwen, I am a vegetarian.

More years ago than I care to remember, I was invited to lunch by my new girlfriend, Janice. We were teenage sweethearts, and desperately trying to make a good impression. I was introduced to Nana, who was busy in the kitchen, preparing the traditional Sunday roast.

Now, you need to know one piece of information about me to make this story work. At the time, my appetite for vegetables ran from potatoes to peas, via carrots. That was it. A limited basket indeed.

We sat to eat, and Nana started to serve. Chicken (that‘s OK), roast potatoes (check) , peas (check), carrots (check), swede (oh dear). The mashed orange turnip. I ate the rest of the meal with gusto, as teenage boys are wont to do, but left the swede to one side. At which point Gwen took deep offence, and adopting her best Lady Bracknell voice, said

“I hope you’re not going to waste that. Come on, eat up young man.”

I forced myself to comply, gagging on every mouthful. Meanwhile Jan prayed for the ground to open up and swallow her too.

Yet without that moment, my diet would be very different today, and life wouldn’t be quite as interesting.

For that alone, I owe Gwen a considerable thanks.

*

Of course, food wasn’t the only platform from which Gwen could launch a major embarrassment offensive. Stealing from the National Trust and Municipal Councils was also a regular habit. As families tend to do, Sue and Jan created a friendly-sounding euphemism for this petty larceny: Wombling.

Picture the scene; an afternoon spent at a country house or park and gardens; then back to the car to go home. But where’s Nana? Back through said garden, looking high and low, to eventually find her “Wombling” amongst the bushes, taking cuttings for future propagation.

So, as we leave today, keep an eye on Jan. If she gets too near any flowers, and starts to open her handbag, please restrain her. We don’t want a scene.

*

It’s not just outdoor pursuits that Gwen has left me. Thanks to her, I am also a puzzleholic.

When Jan and I used to visit her in Shirley, there was very little for me to say or do. Frankly, it wasn’t easy to get a word in edgeways. So, like the patient in a waiting room, I looked for something to read. And in the absence of What Car or Digital Photography, I found myself flicking through The People’s Friend. Not perhaps a publication aim at 20-something males, but at least  it was reading material.

And there I learned the valuable lesson that you can find gold in the most unexpected places – because I discovered Gwen’s almost-finished crossword.

“Nana – I think I have 9 across. Do you want to know the answer?”

Thereafter, every visit to Gwen included a crossword completion test for me, and I got the bug. Most mornings now Jan and I compete to get the answers on The Guardian Quick Crossword.

Gwen would be proud: Jan usually wins.

*

So thank you Gwen, for the impact you had on me. While you may never have directly interfered – that wasn’t your style – your influence has been wide and long-lasting.

And it’s rather fitting that someone who spent their working life as a cook should leave behind such a rich recipe for a happy life:

· count your blessings

· eat good food

· do a crossword everyday

· and never, ever miss an opportunity to go Wombling.

* * *

CODA: I was due to give this at Gwen’s funeral, scheduled for 10:30 this morning, but the elements (and Cornish hills) conspired against us: when the hearse can’t get to the Chapel of Rest, you know you have a problem.

With her two sons in situ but with tight travel plans (the one from Australia happened to be in the UK for a wedding), the Minister conducted an improvised commemoration in my in-laws’ home, when Gwen had lived for the past 5 years.

It was one of the most intimate, meaningful services it has ever been my privilege to be part of. And three siblings – who had spent most of their adult lives not knowing the others even existed – shared a moment that, in some way, makes them more complete people.

How about that for a legacy?

Popularity: 50% [?]

Amber left yesterday.

She’d been with us for 7 years (a birthday present for my wife), and at the time I couldn’t picture life with a dog in the house. Now I’m having to come to terms to life without her…

She’d been ill for about six months. During one routine inspection, we noticed a very inflamed patch at the back of her throat.  Veterinary check-ups, followed by a operation by a oncologist,  revealed a tumour at the back of her soft palette. It was the size of a plum: To this day, I can’t imagine how  she was managing to swallow.

After the op, the surgeon warned us that the cancer type was recurring and Amber had months, possibly a year or two, but that was unlikely. Wisely, my wife decided that long, drawn-out treatment wasn’t an option. There would be little point in clinging on and putting the dog through protracted suffering.

We hoped for a longer remission. It turned out to be a couple of months.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d taken Amber for a walk and noticed that she was really strugging on the home straight.  I know that animals slow down with age, but she had retained a bouncing, puppy-like quality. To see her struggle was a real shock.

When we arrived home, she flopped in the hallway (not unusual) but then we noticed a very large bump by her shoulder. Sure enough, it was another growth. In the days that followed, swallowing again became uncomfortable for her, and she struggled with her breathing. Our vet told us that all the symptoms indicated that she had tumours in various parts of her body.

And yet, and yet…

On occasions she would as lively as her first days with us. Tail wagging like a windscreen wiper, eyes shining like Asprey silver. How could this animal be ill?

But then she started coughing blood, and we knew she was at the end.

The veterinarian profession is very sensitive and sympathetic about these things. Our local practitioner offered us the option of ‘putting her to sleep’ in the surgery or at home. Amber never did like riding in the car, so we opted for the latter. The vet and her nurse arrived yesterday afternoon, and were gentle yet efficient. This is not a process that should be extended.

Amber laid submissively in the kitchen (we have a floor to ceiling window that was ‘her spot’ where she would soak up the sun. Fittingly, it was a sunny day). The vet shaved a little hair off  her front legs then told us that the injection was an  anaesthetic overdose; all Amber would know was that she was falling asleep.

I have always been somewhat suspicious – not to say cynical – about the anthropomorphic tendencies of pet owners. But I am sure I could see in her eyes that she knew this was going to be a respite from her pain. Indeed, there was barely a whimper when the first needle went in. She pulled back a little, but without real fight, and in a moment – perhaps 20 seconds – her golden-haired body visibly slumped.

To be sure, the vet added to the dose in her other front leg. And by the time the syringe was empty, Amber had gone.

The two of us, teary, a little numb, said goodbye then retired to the sitting room while the vet and the nurse wrapped Amber’s body in a blanket and carried her out to their car. They will dispose of the body at a pet ‘facility’ and we’ll have a her remains back in a week or so.

I thought I was fulfilling my role of strong male, holding things together to give my wife some support.  Amber was, after all, her dog and she was the one who’d taken the tough decision (thus answering the conundrum ‘Do you love someone enough to let me go?’).

Being English, the thing to do in these circumstances is to have a cup of tea, so after the vet had gone I went into the kitchen to boil the kettle. And there, on the table, was Amber’s collar. Red leather, rather worn, with its metal disc with our phone number.

And in that moment, I saw every occasion when I had clipped on her lead or pulled her back to sit at the side of the road. Every walk to the park, every wrestle with a football in the garden, every conversation started with a stranger.

And it hurt much more than I ever thought it would.

It’s the unanticipated gaps which amplify the grief. This morning we didn’t have to negotiate with her whether she’d go out the backdoor or the side door to visit the garden. When the top came off the biscuit barrel, she didn’t suddenly appear at my side, the embodiment of attentive obedience (aka cupboard love). I didn’t have to step over her on the landing.

But it was seeing the weekend paper in the letterbox that really caught in my throat. The paperboy had delivered – but this time, to a silent reception.

And I realised that for seven years Amber’s bark – like birdsong – had announced the start of the day.

Mornings just won’t be the same.

Popularity: 28% [?]

AFTER LIFE

We were sitting at the kitchen table – B and I – talking about school (he’s about to choose his Options). I asked him what he wanted from his time there.

“To get good grades,” he said, giving a genuine answer, albeit one to please his earnest father. I was just about to take him through a logical path to a set of subject choices, when he stopped me in my tracks: “And great memories.”

At 14, the limit of my school ambition was to get out of cross-country. It certainly didn’t stretch to anything as philosophical as B’s assessment of time well spent: not what is achieved nor what we possess, but what we remember of our journey. Ultimately, it’s all we have.

Aside from the profundity of the comment (at least in this father’s eyes) there was also a synchronistic quality to it. Memory – and it’s foundation for happiness – is the central premise to Hirokazu Koreeda’s “After Life“, my ‘recommended’ movie of the month.

It’s Monday morning, and 22 people arrive at the reception of an anonymous institution to be processed. A couple of 20-somethings, some business people, a housewife, a drifter, a rejected lover, a pilot, a few septuagenarians. A cross section of Japanese society, all linked by the fact that they are dead.

The building is a kind of purgatory, a cleansing location before entering heaven. In the week that follows, each of the visitors must choose a memory which the ‘employees’ will re-create for them on film. That memory then becomes their eternal state in paradise.

The first half of the film is a series of conversations, in which some of the 22 unfold their lives, looking for the perfect moment. Some know instantly, others really struggle, and through this simple device, a uniformly wonderful cast explore what it is to be human: to have experienced joy, sorrow, frustration, elation, and regret. A lot of regret.

There is self-recrimination, self-doubt, self-delusion -  it’s an entire sushi menu of human frailties. And yet this isn’t a maudlin film; everything about it affirms life. Especially the story of the ‘employee’ who’s been stuck in the centre because he’s never been able to find the memory that makes him happy – until one of the new visitors unlocks it for him.

It’s shot like a documentary, so there are no effects or CGI. Although set in the realm of the fabulous, it’s played straight, and is still beautiful (mist, snow, drizzle all add a visual delicacy) while the mundane bureaucracy of form filling and archive checking makes the central idea all the more powerful.

This is a charming, warm, life-enhancing film that will give you cause – and time – to assess what’s important to you. You’ll need a little patience. if only to tune into Japanese sensibilities, but it repays handsomely.

Popularity: 39% [?]

I’m wondering whether we should have a 2 minutes silence out of respect from Harold Pinter – or would he have preferred just a pause?

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