Mary's Mother
Mother always said a swift kick to the unmentionables would do the trick but frankly I’m a lot more comfortable up at the throat end.
I wasn’t allowed to watch films like that as a child… Mother wouldn’t let me watch anything with robots. One of her little rules. Sex, violence or robots. Or talking animals… Avalanches, beach scenes, anything with Olivia Newton\-John, volcanoes, monks, haunted vehicles of any kind.
Did I ever tell you Mummy was psychic? …Six weeks before Amanda Burton left Peak Practice, she saw it in the bottom of her Horlicks. Now that’s a gift.
Mummy wouldn’t go out after dark because of her fear of owls.
My mother always said there was something very Slavic about me… It wasn’t a compliment. Whenever I wore a headscarf she said I looked like I should be queuing for beetroot.
I’ve always considered myself a student of life – although Mother reckoned I’d failed my entrance exam.”
I once took a set of pliers to Mother’s chaise longue but it didn’t end well.
Mother was once struck by a bolt that had fallen off the undercarriage of a passing helicopter... She had trouble remembering some months of the year after that and she developed an irrational fear of the colour yellow, so that was it for custard in our household. And she called me ‘Daphne’ occasionally, which was odd because she didn’t know any Daphnes.”
Whenever anyone used the expression ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,’ my mother used to say, ‘Our Mary’ll never even make bridesmaid.’ She was right.”
I’m turning into my mother. What a terrible thought. ‘Complicated woman’ is a polite way of putting it.