Archive for the ‘nostalgia’ Category

Posted on November 21, 2011 - by MG

Nostalgia, my mother and Pan Am

I’m enjoying the current TV series ‘Pan Am’ – not so much for it’s alleged similarity to ‘Mad Men’ but for its personal nostalgia value. My mother worked as a stewardess during the same period – the late 1960s – first for Aeronaves de Mexico (now AeroMexico) and then for Lufthansa. She’s pictured here modelling, I think for Lufthansa. Then after being ‘grounded’ by the twin miseries of marriage and children, she worked in reservations for Lufthansa, in Manchester. When her marriage to our stepfather broke up, she returned to the airlines to keep her three children fed and sheltered, this time working for Pan Am.
I choose to write ‘twin miseries of marriage and children’ because I noticed that the Pan Am TV series uses themes that would have been very familiar to my mother, and therefore strike me as accurate. ‘Pan Am’ presents the life of an airline stewardess as one of the few glamorous, exotic escape possibilities for intelligent, attractive women, usually from ‘respectable’ families. One of the main characters actually runs out on her own wedding in order to escape and work for Pan Am. The leading man, a dashing blond pilot named Dean, even warns his lecherous co-pilot not to ‘ground’ the stewardesses when they are admiringly talking about the women as evidence of natural selection in action – beautiful women who achieve flight. The implication was that marriage and children were traps to be avoided – unless you snagged a rich, successful bachelor; another good reason to become a stewardess.
My mother had her offers of marriage – they were more or less a staple of the job, my mother said. She’d started working for Aeronaves de Mexico after divorcing my father, and left my sister Pili and I with our grandmother while she worked short haul flights mainly to South America and the USA. There was a pilot named Hans who showed up with what I remember as increasing regularity, but she was never willing to divulge too many details.
When she was more or less forced to stop flying for Lufthansa, I remember she was rather depressed. We’d moved to Manchester then and lived in a freezing cold flat in a Victorian house in Stockport. The walls were unpainted, the floors were bare boards (and not polished or anything). Mummy dressed up in knee-length leather boots and fashionable A-line skirts and silk scarves, then rode the bus to Manchester city centre, to the sleek offices of Lufthansa in St Anne’s Square. Often, she told me, she would cry all the way there, mascara running down her cheeks, tears for her lost, globe-trotting life which had been replaced with a desk-based existence. I couldn’t blame her. Those years in Stockport were sometimes pretty drab, living through the 3-day week, her husband away on tour with the Halle Orchestra for days and weeks at a time, as well as many evenings. It could have been a very happy time, on reflection; she was in love, she had two healthy little girls who were pretty happy in school, her job relieved her of domestic tedium and brought her in contact with some lovely women, Lufthansa employees who remained lifelong friends; Annie, Ann Samy, Marijke, Maya the dancer.
But for a woman in her twenties, how could that compare to the excitement of flying to a new city, every day, of being responsible for the safety and well-being of airplane loads of well-heeled passengers?
Poor old ‘Pan Am’ – even back in the 1980s the writing was on the wall for that company. Poor service, an ageing stock and the dread entry into the market of Freddie Laker and frill-free flying; things began to get very difficult. When we were enjoying (?) our family right to free travel on Pan Am (standby-only – it could take days to get to Mexico City, with long waits in airport lounges), my mother used to despair of the low standards of customer service, compared to what she’d been used to provide. The passing years had made her stop pining for the job, too. ‘Hours on your feet and being polite to passengers who are rude to you? You can stand it when you’re young…’
By then she was studying and researching Spanish and German 18th century Romanticism. Not quite her true vocation either – that would have been singing. But it did seem, finally, to have cured her wanderlust.
My own memories are slight but definitely and powerfully glamorous;living in a stylish apartment in Frankfurt, my mother playing the Getz/Gilberto album that her cellist boyfriend had given her, looking sharp in a navy-blue, fitted uniform before a flight to the Middle East during which some handsome German or Arab would doubtless ask her out for a drink, or propose marriage. I found it impossible ever to begrudge our mother any sadness she felt for losing that.

Posted on May 5, 2011 - by MG

The Dark Parallel Reverse Diaries – Melbourne, Australia!

Yeah! First time showing DARK PARALLEL in Australia, Melbourne to be precise, St John’s Primary School, Clifton Hill. My good pal, Professor Magda Plebanski (already known to this parish…) is a resident of those parts and kindly arranged for me to visit the school during my brief but lovely stay with Magda and her family.

(Photo kindly taken by Little Daughter on my BlackBerry!)

The reason for such a wonderful opportunity to spend time in Australia was the wedding of my baby sister Adriana to Shay. That’s two of my sisters married to Australian men!

As luck would have it, Adriana and Shay also live in Melbourne, which gave me the extra excuse for a long-overdue catch-up with Magda.

(Also known to this parish in another, more secret capacity…as the alter ego of Dr Magda Poborsky. Leave a comment if you understand the cryptic reference…I like to keep tabs on the ARGers…)

Adriana and Shay were married in a Persian ceremony at a Victoria State heritage property, the Boyd-Baker House.

It was my first time meeting Shay, who is a lovely guy, just what you would love in a brother-in-law. Also my first time meeting my sister Grace’s partner, Lance, a former WWF wrestler of the Von Erich wrestling family!

Honestly, the people you meet in the Caribbean, you wouldn’t believe it.

The weird thing was that I was meeting all these Mexican family and friends (Magda) in Australia! Adriana’s childhood friends joined Shay’s friends and family (many from Iran) to dance the night away. I went to bed early but may or may not have walked back through the woods in full moonlight – the ‘Super’ moon to get cake at 3.30am….

And it was pretty strange, to be having that experience, so far away from where we all started out.

Australia! It’s a heck of a long way away but you can’t forget it!

Posted on March 7, 2011 - by MG

Return to Eggli Mountain

As I tell kids when I visit schools, the Eggli mountain near the Swiss town of Gstaad is where I broke my leg skiing, the ‘lucky break’ which gave me the time and mental space to start my writing career.

I hadn’t been back – until today! Visiting my brother Michael and his family, I joined them at the top of the mountain. In fact I’m writing this post whilst sitting on a deck chair, facing the sun and a gorgeous view of gleaming snowy mountains. In fact…is that a tinge of tanning I can feel on my face?

Michael has given me his iPod with his playlist of Ed Reardon’s Week. Essential listening for writers, I’m assured. It’s probably because I insisted that we check to see if the airport WHSmith’s had my books. All authors torture themselves like this. Luckily I left happy – they had ZERO MOMENT.

My tiny, three year old nephew and niece are schussing around the piste as if the skis were extensions of their legs.

I’m in the middle of a bunch of author visits – last week with kids from St Edmund’s in Hindhead, Bampton Primary, Cheney School Oxford, and St Bartholomews, Newbury. Next week – College du Leman in Geneva. Photos and a big round-up to follow.

Coming soon: On March 10th Children’s author Katherine Langrish and I swap blogs for the day! Two teenage readers, Libby and Patrick Caffrey have read West of the Moon, a new abridged version of Katherine’s Troll Fell trilogy, and also The Joshua Files. They’ve put together some questions for Katherine and I – we’ll be answering on 10^th March. It’s all part of Katherine’s West of the Moon blog tour.

I’ve been reading WEST OF THE MOON and telling a very simplified version to my three-year old niece and nephew. Trolls stealing young children, evil Uncles Baldur and Grim, it’s going down a storm! I overheard my nephew playing a game later which featured Uncle Baldur as the villain…

Ah. The shiny shiny snow beckons. Maybe I should take a little walk around the top of the mountain.

Posted on December 22, 2009 - by MG

Carols and Christmas snow

Yes indeed, Christmas begun in earnest for me last night with the annual Physics Department Carol service about which I have previously blogged. The music included one of my favourites, Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium, and the Coventry Carol, which the sopranos sat out on, deferring the top part to the altos.

During the mince pie and wine party afterwards I managed to possibly find a new trumpet teacher for Little Daughter (whose previous teacher Rob Stevens of the local jazz outfit The Mad Hatters, sadly and unexpectedly died recently). And to discover why the writer and presenter of the brilliant BBC TV series The History Of Christianity looked so familiar…turns out that he too has sung in the choir for years! My pal Becs and I had a nice chat with Diarmaid McCulloch about the show, which if you haven’t watched it and you have an interest in history, watch it now on iplayer! Or wait for the BBC2 rerun.

Apparently Diarmaid’s book on Christianity has sold as many copies as ICE SHOCK! Wow! And that’s hardback at £35, thank-you-very-much, unlike my books’ bargain price entertainment of £6.99.

I emerged into snow, for the first time in 20 years. Like in Dickens! A quick change at home into suitably elegant attire and down to St Hilda’s College for our IT company’s Christmas party. A really lovely evening, and nice to see the boys in black tie. Especially our co-founder Mark who only owns one suit!

Charlie from Inlight and I chatted over the merits of various Disney rides. I mentioned to him that I wrote the first ever review of Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris.

I may have had some wine. I can’t exactly remember…

Posted on February 2, 2009 - by MG

‘Invisible City’ shortlisted for Leeds Children’s Book Award

Hurray for being shortlisted for a book award! Very exciting. Now those schoolchildren in Leeds have to read all the shortlisted books and do thinks and do discussion and do presentation skills and learning stuff like that. Mmm, good stuff, all very educational. As Benicio would say – Excelente. Actually he’d more likely say chiiiido. (‘chido’ means ‘cool’ in Mexican slang, and isn’t even rude!)

It also means that I get to go to the ceremony and either practise my ‘Not disappointed I didn’t win really because JOLLY GOOD SHOW etc’ face. Or my modest ‘Me?…who me?…really?’ face.

Or more likely not practice anything at all, not even a speech, because I will be so busy writing Joshua 4.

I’ve been to the Nibbies (British Book Awards), I’ve seen it done. The rule of four: thank your husband/wife, your agent, your editor and your publisher. Big smile, move on. Or seethe, glassy-eyed from the losers’ table.

Eee. I’ve never been to Leeds. Hear it’s right sophisticated. The incomparably hip John Shuttleworth says so.

I am NOT ashamed to ask for your help, blog readers. If you are a young person from Leeds, please:

1. Read Invisible City (ah, go on, go on, go on, go on.)
2. Write a stonking review of it on the Leeds Book Award Website
3. Convince a teacher or school librarian to take your class there.
4. On the way to the ceremony, persuade all your classmates to vote JOSHUA.

Another tip from a fangirl is this: write the name of your favourite book on the blackboard every day until your school chums get fed up with you. I did this every week to remind people to watch Blake’s 7, when I were a lass.

Did you know, when I was young we had only THREE TV channels. No video recorders – if you missed your show that was it, you could only tear out your hair and weep. No computers, no handheld video games, no Internet, no mobile phones, no txting. It was the Dark Ages, man, don’t let your parents tell you anything different! On the bright side we had Texan Bars, Pink Panther bars and Banjos.