1st Diary Entries, aged 10 (and 1st scene of a film script!)
28 May 2010 2 Comments
in Diary Entries, Memories Tags: childhood diaries, family, first attempt at screenwriting, memories, nostalgia, old photo's, old tv shows, school friends
These are my first ever diary entries made when I was ten years old. And the first scene of a film script. Unchanged, spellings uncorrected. Do not expect anything deep or profound from this ten year old!! And as for the film script – giggle!! (italics are added in the present by me for explanation)
26-10-82
By train.
Went to chester for the day with Anne. (my social worker) Met Cousin paul and played games. Went into town with nan, James (my biological father) and paul. Brought a rubber mouse and left it there. Brought letter holder for mum (my foster mother), poster for Dad (my foster father) tea set for Jody (foster-niece) and for L (little) Stuart. (a foster brother) Met Aunt Gladys played Crazy chess and Cluedo Anne met paul, nan, Aunty, Uncle, grandad, James. Went home on the train.
27-10-82
I tidyed up front room. Went down shops. played when came back. Had dinner. Watched ‘bring em back alive’ on telly. Went down shops and met enemys on way. They were interested in a fight and I escaped unnoticed. On way back saw them and hid behind a bush until they had gone down the hill. (I’ve always remembered this occasion clearly!) Got back L.Stuart and Jody were playing with a water tray which had just been brought for them. Dad came home and then I went to bed.
28-10-82
Went to Laundrette and Jody took L.Stuarts Sweets and would not give them back. Mum did not interfere. Went home and called big Stuart (foster brother) in. He had stayed behind outside. Had dinner and watched the Sound of music. Got little Stuart up out of bed. and Went over Joans. (a friend of my foster mother’s) played with dogs watched boxing and went home to bed as it was 11.30pm.
29-10-82
Went down shop for crisps. Had to take Jody in garden while mum took L.Stuart to hospital. Social worker came about L.Stuart. Had hamburgers and chips for dinner. Dad came home. Wrote in our books. Went to bed.
30-10-82
Halloween
We dressed up for trick and treat and did it on Joan and ron. Stayed for tea then went home to bed.
20-11-82
Went over to barrys (foster brother) to do car. Played with daniel and ben (Barry’s children). daniel went out and I played outside. Car went wrong and had to phone Kim (foster sister) and paul to take us home in car. Got home had fish and chips for dinner. Watched TV. Then wrote in diary and went to bed.
14-12-82
Went to school. Did work. played. also at school we lit our candles and sang carols.
15-12-82
Went to school Played and did the usall things. Came home. Tryed on fancy dress costume and practised putting make up on.
Christmas Events
Thursday 16th December – Fancy dress parade at school + disco. Bring in games where your own clothes.
Sunday 19th December mum and dad go to anty dolls (foster father’s sister) for turkey.
25th Dec Daniel and ben barry and deb will be here on christmas eve or christmas day probably christmas eve.
6th June 1983
I woke up and had a bath. i put all my school stuff in my bag and went down-stairs. i had my breakfast – (rice crispies). Then Jody came and I played with her. mum made our packed lunch and I put it in my bag. Then I kissed Tarka and Kimba (two beautiful German Shepherd dogs) and Mum goodbye. Jody did not want to kiss me but she kissed Big Stuart. L.Stuart was in bed. then I went to school. On the way me and Stuart bought Sweets I bought a Bridge choclate Bar and Stuart Bought crisps. he could only by one flavor as he asked the man who owned the shop how much crisps were + he said – all 11p exept Salt ‘n’ Vinigar. then we got the Bus and on the Bus I met Karren, Launa + Kieth. Karren said to Launa – Look at her hair – (I had just had it cut.) Launa said it’s nice. I met maria caroarner and she said. I like your hair. then we got off the bus and walked down to school together. Keith Launa and Karren went in shop. I said goodbye to maria.c at the school gate and went to knock for maggie – my Best Friend. She saw me coming from the window She said she liked my hair. I showed her a costume I had made for each of us. Then we went to school.
Play or Film – “Fight For their lives” 
“Characters”
1 family
Maria Margarita – sisters – good. Mum Dad – Bad
1 family
Darren Steve -Brothers – good. Mum dad – Bad.
“Huntsmen”
Mr Woodock
Mr Craping
Mr Pipley
Pet shop owner – Mr Ramsi
Hospital Matron – Mrs Tie
Vet – Mrs Crodpop
“People in Street”
Lady in street gets bumped into -same for 3 men, + 2 woman
S+D or M+M stands for whoever eg (Magie+Maria) (Stuart+Darren) S+D
“1st Scene”
(M+M’s Kitchen) Mum + Dad Dark room with Steve and Darren’s, Maggie+Maria’s mums and dads in it. Whispers.
S+D – mum – OK! We Raid the Bank Tommorow + get 500 Quid each when we share the money.
M+M – Dad – Alright then we Dump the kids on sosial services!
M+M – mum – Now we gotta plan what we’re gonna do Tomorow OK?
voices fade away + cameras focas on Maria + Maggie asleep in Bedroom.
Maria – hears voices + wakes up. Sit’s still for a while and then creeps downStairs Leans Down on Banaster from Halfway up the Stairs. Camera’s do not focas on S+D, M+M’s mums + Dads but on Maria listening to voices.
S+D’s Mum’s voice – The Bank’s closed at 2.ooclock tommorow so we’ll Raid the Bank then
Maria whispers to herself Steves and Darrens mum She started to walk up the Stairs when She heard her Dad say – We’ll Dump the kids on Social services. Suddenly Maria leans over to far + tumbles down stairs (that’s all there is. Ooh, I wonder what would’ve happened next?!)
*** (here followed a traumatic summer, and a sudden move out of London to Kent. I may write it down sometime.)
Thursday 23rd February 1984
Today was just as usual. Mum and I went shopping. Mum got me some lip-salve. We had a cup of Milk coffee. Stuart had gone fishing. Barry came home. I made him a cup of coffee. Dad came in and we had dinner. Shepherds pie, Baby carrots – cooked cabbage, mashed potatoes. We watched Top of the Pops, Tommorows World, and Arthur Haileys Hotel, couldn’t go to bed, cos all the floor boards were up and mums, drawers and clothes were all on my bed, went in kitchen. tried to make Stuart Blink, but he made me Blink by chucking mums purse in me eye, naff hurt, Don’t know wether it will Turn Black Yet I will Tell you tommorow. It’s time for bed now. 10.30pm Just getting undressed, Goodnight. (This is the last diary entry in the notebook, I can’t remember exactly when I next started to keep a diary. I know I started some several times in my teens but they were a lot more personal than the entries above and I always ended up ripping them up for fear that my foster brother would get hold of them! I began again in my twenties and have so far kept them!)
(The above picture was taken when I was twelve, at a working mens club in Peckham. I was there with my foster parents and their friend Joan. I look miserable in this photo! It may have been on this night that my new best friend from secondary school, Claire, came to this club with us. She now lives in New Zealand and has recently had a baby girl. On the night that Claire came to the club I had a brilliant time. I remember feeling the biggest high when A-Ha’s The Sun Always Shines on TV came on, I loved that song so much!)
Lost Scarf. Kind Someone.
28 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Kindness of Strangers Tags: a special thing to do, considerate, helpful, kindness of strangers, Lost belongings, thoughtful
The Way To Lemon House
16 May 2010 10 Comments
in observation Tags: asking for directions, bystander apathy, confidence, funny, helping strangers, insecurity, lost
On Wednesday evening I stood in a queue for a bus. It came, big and red. A tall well-built woman, perhaps about seventy, with a very big blue suitcase on wheels was in the queue before me. Yet somehow, with the way it goes these days, with everyone pushing and shoving to get on an empty bus with room for all, I somehow ended up about to be pushed on in front of her. I stepped back to let her on. She heaved her case up into the bus.
“Coom-ber-side” She said to the driver, in an accent I guessed to be Jamaican, but I am not always right about accents. “I was told to get a 51 bus to Coomberside”.
The driver shook his head. “Don’t know it.” The woman declared “Oh, I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble!” But she dragged her luggage down the isle anyway and stood in the empty wheelchair and buggy space. I sat down two seats back from her. She looked at me and asked “Do you know Coomberside?”.
I said “No, sorry I’ve not heard of it”. She shook her head and repeated “I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble”. She asked the question again, louder, to the rest of the bus, but noone replied.
I thought about the name – ‘Coomberside’ - which to me sounded like the name of a town - that I hadn’t heard of. I suspected it might be that she was pronouncing the word in a different way and so I asked her how it was spelt. She said she didn’t know, but that she had it written in a text message. She got her phone out and looked at it, trying to find the right text.
As she looked she told me that she had come down from Newcastle. A girl in her late teens sat down next to me and I asked her if she’d heard of Coomberside. She said she hadn’t.
I had a thought and asked the woman- “Do you mean ‘Coombside?’ She looked at me hopefully, but I had to explain – I didn’t know where ‘Coombside’ was either – just that I thought that maybe she was pronouncing it differently.
She carried on looking through her phone for this text message that I hoped might make things clearer – with a postcode or a landmark perhaps.
”It’s horrible to be lost in a strange place.” I said to the girl next to me. She smiled and nodded.
Then the lost woman leant over the head of the passenger seated slightly below me and handed me her phone – “There.” she said.
I read the text. I’d guessed right, it was ‘Coombside’, a road or a cul-de-sac kind of place name, and the postcode indicated that she was in the right town at least – but that didn’t mean that she was on the right bus! I told her that it was ‘Coombside’, not ‘Coomberside’ but that I was sorry, I still didn’t know where that was.
She called out “Does anyone know where Coombside is?” Noone replied. She looked up and exclaimed again “Oh I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble!”
I excused myself to the girl next to me and called to a man adjacent to her, across the isle. “Excuse me, do you know Coombside? This lady needs to know how to get there”.
The man answered - “ah, you need to get off at Glenmore Arms”.
The girl beside me called to the woman – “Glenmore Arms, that’s where you should get off, it will say it up there” and with an upward nod she indicated to the destination information display above the wheelchair backrest.
But the woman didn’t hear her, she was pulling her case to a seat that had become vacant up ahead of the exit doors. She sat down and asked the woman next to her, seated by the window - ”Do you know Coombside?” The window woman shook her head, but she stood up and squeezed past the lost woman and called down the bus, – “Does anyone know where Coombside is?”
The man with the answer repeated ”Yes, she needs to get off at Glenmore Arms, it’s a pub.”
The lost woman had stood up also and was leaning towards us to try to hear. “What?!”
The girl next to me called out to her ”GLENMORE ARMS!”, and I called it out too.
The woman leant further towards us and ‘repeated’ back to us… ”Lemon House?”
The girl next to me choked as she spoke, stifling laughter, “no… It’s… Glenmore Arms.”
I had to choke back laughter too. That the woman had managed to hear ’Lemon House’ out of ’Glenmore Arms’ was funny enough, but to hear someone else trying not to laugh about it was even funnier!
I turned to this girl next to me… “Aw, Lemon House sounds really nice, I’d like to live there!” I said. She smiled wide and nodded, “Yeah!”.
After this, the window seat woman went up to the driver and sorted out where the lost woman needed to get off the bus.
And the next stop was mine so I got off.
As I walked the rest of the way home I thought about it, and wondered why on a crowded bus, most people had ignored her, but I and the NextSeat Girl and the WindowWoman and the AdjacentMan had tried to help… Some people may not have heard her, daydreaming, or with music in their ears, but most people had ignored an elderly woman ‘in trouble’.
I have no answer that everyone will agree with, there are lots of complicated sociological reasons. After all there are psychologists who research this kind of thing, sometimes calling it ‘Bystander Apathy’ etc. People on that bus will have had different reasons amongst them for not helping. But I came up with one possible reason that made sense to myself on that walk home – that helping a stranger is not always easy…
Helping others, can require a certain amount of confidence. If you have low self-confidence, it can be hard, in a public situation, to stand up and offer assistance to a stranger. Helping them will draw attention to yourself as well as the person that is needing your help. If attention to yourself feels uncomfortable, perhaps because you are embarrassed about some aspect of yourself, (your appearance, the way you speak, or some other insecurity) or you think that you may not be of any use, then you might hang back…to try to stay invisible. Invisible means avoiding attention and any criticism that may come with it.
I tried to help the woman on the bus on this occasion, but I’m no saint, I know in the past there have been times, when I felt low and down on myself and have hung back too. It’s kind of an unintended selfishness - because it does mean that you are putting how you appear to others above the needs of someone else - but I don’t think that that makes you an evil person who doesn’t care. I think lots of people want to help, but maybe are afraid and nervous for similar reasons. And of course, if the situation were a life or death one, then it’s an altogether different matter, I think most people (hopefully!) would try to help, and how they look and what others might think of them would be the last thing on their minds…
I think that someone trying to help is what counts to a person in need. Even if you are not able to come up with an answer or solution, that fact that you tried to help will leave that person feeling less alone and that they mattered enough for someone to stop and try. 
