Sharlie Andrews part 15 (completed!!! 4/10 p7)
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The CBB -> Ste Therese's House

#1: Sharlie Andrews part 15 (completed!!! 4/10 p7) Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:36 am
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Links to previous parts:

part 1. Schooldays I
part 2. Schooldays II
part 3. Uni Years I
part 4. Uni Years II
part 5. The CS and Sharlie I
part 6. The CS and Sharlie II
part 7. The CS and Sharlie III
part 8. The CS and Sharlie IV
part9. The CS and Sharlie V (part 7, page 3)
part 10. The CS and Sharlie VI
part 11. A Married Woman I
Part 12 – A Married Woman II
Part 13 - A Married Woman III
Part 14 - A Married Woman IV

Snapshots from the Sharlie universe (Ste. Therese)
Snapshots II
Alice and Colin

Who's who, who's what, and anything else you ever wanted to (or not) know about this drabble...


Yes, err... well. Um, moving on...

And so the new century had dawned not looking overly different in many respects to the old one. The dawn of the Millennium had not fulfilled the apocalyptic hypotheses of many nor had it fulfilled the fantasies of science fiction. It was a year like any other and life went on as it always had done. The pain of Elisabeth’s death was still raw and things seemed to be going from bad to worse between Amelia and Ben. They had struggled through so much but it had always been Amelia in control and determined to get them both through. This time I couldn’t help but worry that she wouldn’t have the strength to carry them both. I knew I wasn’t the only one with those concerns, generally they went unvoiced, but we all knew.

Jasmine Elisabeth Graham was born to Luke and Ellie on Friday 15 January 2000 accidentally at home. After a troublesome pregnancy, Ellie’s midwife had been quite insistent on a hospital delivery but I knew only too well how babies quite often had very definite ideas of their own that tended not to agree with the plans of everyone else. Colin had gone out fishing for the day and I had sent Ellie back to bed after breakfast, taking charge of Alexander myself. He was quite happily amusing himself with his toys in the living room whilst I tried to settle with a new book when I was distracted by a resounding thud from upstairs. I made my way upstairs to find Ellie on her knees clinging to the side of the bath.

Ellie?
I… wha… huh…
she began, breaking off as her face contorted in pain.
Ellie…
I’m okay, I really am,
she protested, trying to pull her self up and sinking back down again. I raised an eyebrow.
Yes, and I’m Julius Caesar. She looked at me, baffled. How long have you been in labour?
How did you know?
I’ve had five of my own, remember. And what did the midwife say about hospital?
I really don’t want to. It was so horrible last time
.
I remembered saying something similar about Roo when I had thought back to the twins’ arrival. I’m sure you don’t but… I can’t drive you anyway as Colin’s gone off with the car. I’ll have to call you an ambulance.
No, please, not that.
We can’t go to the hospital on the bus.
I’m not going.
It’s not the time to be stubborn, Ellie
.

She eventually agreed to let me call the midwife who declared that Ellie had no choice in the matter and hospital it was. So the ambulance and Luke were called only for Jasmine to have other ideas and she made her way into the world on the bathroom floor just as the paramedics pulled on to the drive. After much discussion, it was decided that she ought to go to hospital to be checked over and was taken by Luke who had just come crashing in. Fortunately everything was in order and she was sent straight home again and to bed by Luke.

Do you want Jasmine, mam, he asked, laying her in my arms. Thank you for being there for Ellie today.
Any time.
I really do appreciate it. But the sounds of things you were much better than I was when Alex was born. He does insist on trying to prod Jasmine though
.
I chuckled. You weren’t much better with your own sisters. Still aren’t in fact.
Well they’re girls.
What’s Jasmine?
Oh that’s different. She’s my girl. Isn’t she gorgeous?
Yes.
Well she is mine. She couldn’t be anything less.
Oh Luke, you don’t get any better for keeping.
Would you want me to?
Well… no, not really. There are times when I could shake you though.
Tell me something I don’t know! But if you didn’t have me then you wouldn’t have two such wonderful grandchildren as Alex and Jasmine.
No, that’s true.
I can’t imagine what Millie must be going through… I know I wouldn’t be able to stand it if anything happened to Alex or Jasmine. I’d die for them both. I always thought I’d be a pretty hopeless father since I always get so caught up in work…
I wondered the same about your father but being a father changed him so much.
It’s changed me too.
I had noticed.
Improvement? Although it’s hard to improve on perfection, I must admit.
Modest as ever, my son
.
He grinned. I know.
I think being a father is good for you.
I know it is. I wouldn’t be without either of them or Ellie. I can’t imagine life without them, I really can’t. They make me so happy
.


Last edited by pim on Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:05 am; edited 22 times in total

#2:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 9:20 am
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Aw Luke's so sweet there. Welcome Jasmine!

Ta pimmy!

#3:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 1:16 pm
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Thanks Pim, it's nice to see some happiness again!

#4:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:36 pm
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Thanks, Pim. Welcome, Jasmine! She was born a week after my 18th birthday! That was a lovely conversation between Sharlie and Luke.

#5:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:30 pm
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Thanks Pimmy!
Welcome to little Jasmine, and how lovely of Luke and Ellie to give her Elisabeth as her middle name.

#6:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:49 pm
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*bawling eyes out over Bethie*

Glad to see Jasmine arrived safely though - and giggled over a lot of Luke's conversation!

Thanks, Pim

#7:  Author: Kathy_SLocation: midwestern US PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 4:46 am
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Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Poor Bethie -- and Amelia and the rest.

Lovely reactions to Jasmine though. Luke has turned out quite well. Very Happy

#8:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:42 am
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'Specially for Smell...

Colin and I both cheerfully acknowledged that we had forgotten how difficult the permanence of a new baby was. Whilst Luke was completely infatuated with Jasmine, Ellie was struggling with the day to day dealings with a demanding newborn and an adventurous toddler. In a way it was as though I had been taken back almost forty years to when Luke had first been born. I remembered only too well those days of torn attentions between a newborn Luke and trying to keep Alice happy and amused at the same time. I could sympathise only too well with Ellie when she flopped, exhausted, into the corner of the settee when they were both asleep and I felt for her every time she had to heave herself up with a sigh when one of them cried. Luke, as Colin had done, didn’t quite seem to realise how much work was involved whilst he was out at work but no one could say that he didn’t love his children.

I turned 70 that March, a slightly surreal experience as I thought back over the years and could only wonder how different it would all have been had I never left the back streets of my childhood, if I had never taken my da’s advice to reach for the sky. But it’s all very well to look back and wonder “what if” when I had spent my whole life trying to reconcile my experiences with the person I had become. “One of life’s survivors” Lucy had once said and I was beginning to realise that, perhaps, she hadn’t been too far off the mark. My actual birthday passed quietly without any fuss. Luke and Ellie were quite insistent on taking Colin and I out for dinner that evening but the rest of the family were coming up for the weekend.

Happy birthday for yesterday, you old so and so.
Less of the old, Lucy Lennox – you’ll be there yourself next month.
And don’t I know it! I did try and ring yesterday, Sharlie, but the line was either engaged or I got that confounded answerphone of yours and I wasn’t talking to that!

I chortled. I know, it’s hideous, isn’t it? But Luke was quite insistent. He and Ellie took us out for dinner last night.
How lovely.
It was rather. And it’ll be nice to have them all up this weekend as well. Talking of children, heard from your daughter?
That was my other reason for calling.
Any news?
My grandson shares your birthday – only just, admittedly, he was born at quarter to midnight.
Oh how exciting.
It is rather. From what Hannah said, Anne and Jill dote on him already.
Name?
Giles.
That’s nice.
Yes. Apparently they were inspired by some television programme about vampires and stakes.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Possibly.
Luke and Colin are both entranced by it. I think it’s the proliferation of women running around in short skirts doing high kicks or something. I don’t quite get it myself.
How’s Lottie bearing up – June she’s due, isn’t it?
Fine as far as I know.


We had a lovely weekend with all the children and grandchildren up. Elisabeth’s absence was noticeable as were the frosty tensions between Amelia and Ben that time had clearly not begun to heal. Pregnancy suited Lottie and she was glowing with health as she chatted excitedly about the prospect of becoming a mother. The conversation never seemed to stop all weekend between the children and grandchildren as the past was reminisced over and over.

Sophie and Freddie announced that their second was due in early December to us in June. They were both a little worried as Sophie hadn’t had an easy start to her second pregnancy and she confessed that Lottie breezing through everything almost effortlessly wasn’t helping her nerves.

Well, I demanded as Kathie hung up the phone on the afternoon of Friday 16 June 2000. What news?
She looked at me with a dazed expression. I’m a grandmother. That was Pete.
Oh Kathie, congratulations! How are they?
Fine, fine. Pete said Lottie took it all in her stride.
What is it?
Oh, it’s a girl – Kathleen Charlotte, to be Kate for short. She weighed in at 7lbs 10oz and, according to Pete, is “the most perfect baby in the whole world”. But I think he’s biased – that was Lottie even if I didn’t think so at first.
You soon changed your mind though.
I know and I’m so glad I did. But me, a grandmother – could you imagine Nancy if she knew,
she asked wistfully.

The summer had well and truly begun and the arrival of the summer holidays in July saw us catching up with the family and the grandchildren. It was late August, the Wednesday before Bank Holiday weekend when Amelia arrived unannounced.

What’s happened, I asked as she dropped her bags in the hallways. Where’s Allie and Jo?
Home – I’m going back tomorrow but I just needed to get out before I went completely mad. Mam, I’ve left Ben.

#9:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:49 am
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Good for Amelia. She deserves so much better than Ben. I hope the kids are all right with it, though.
Thanks Pim.

#10:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:09 am
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Well done Milly - told you! Ta pimmy Wink

But who's she left the girls with?

#11:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:17 pm
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Thanks, Pim. Welcome to all the new babies! I am also wondering whom Amelia has left her daughters with.

#12:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:53 pm
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I think it was about time that Amelia admitted that her and Ben's marriage had no future, but I'm wibbling about the girls...

Hurrah for Luke and Lottie's new daughters though!

#13:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:45 pm
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*giggles at the image of Colin and Luke glued to the TV watching 'Buffy'....*
And I just can't believe Sharlie is 70!!!!

Thanks Pimbletoniana....

#14:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:46 pm
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((((Amelia))))

Worried about her leaving the girls though....


Thanks Pim

#15:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:22 am
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That can't have been an easy decision to make - poor Milly Sad

Thanks, Pim

#16:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:46 pm
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I rather think that in the heat of the moment Amelia wasn't thinking and just left the girls behind with Ben.

Neither of us spoke for a moment. It was something I had been expecting but had been hoping that it wouldn’t actually happen.

Don’t call for da, she said quickly. I’ll tell him but I’d rather talk it over with you first.
We’d best sit down then – can I get you anything?
She shook her head and we made our way to the sitting room, perched side by side on the settee. What happened, Millie?
I’ve had enough. I’ve done everything I can to try and save our marriage but Ben just doesn’t want to. I don’t think we ever properly got back on track after Auntie Tish and Uncle Peter died but I wasn’t ready to admit it then. I wouldn’t have Allie and Jo if I had… We had Allie to try and save our marriage… But it’s not been them the last few years.
No, I suppose not.
Ben wouldn’t even discuss this with me. I said I thought we had reached the end of our road and he just shrugged, saying he was quite happy to let me go without a fight. I’ve tried so hard to help him and I just can’t take anymore.
What about the girls?
I’ll explain to them when I get back. I’ve got to think my next steps through properly.
I take it you’ve got some ideas.

She nodded. I’ve been thinking about it on and off for a couple of months now. Mam, I want to come home, she said simply. I mean you and da can say no but it needn’t be forever, just until I can get sorted out and settled back up here. I can get a Deanery transfer out of London to Mersey to finish my registrar rotations. They’re much better about flexible training than they used to be when I first graduated. If it all goes to plan I’ve only got a couple of years left as a Reg before I can become a Consultant. Mam?
You and the girls – I presume they’ll stay with you - can stay as long as you want. Luke is
.
She laughed. I know, but I don’t want to be a burden on you and da. And the girls will be coming with me.
Don’t be daft, Millie. You’re our daughter and you’ll never be a burden to us.
I just feel like a bit of a failure, not being able to make my marriage work.
It happens.
Not to you and da. Not to Alice and Tom. Not to Luke and Ellie. Not to Sophie and Freddie. Not to Lottie and Pete. Not to Roo and Jude.
Who’s to say what the future holds? You’re not a failure, Amelia, far from it. You did everything you could for you and Ben.
I jus wish it hadn’t had to end this way. I’m so worried about leaving him on his own. He won’t get any help – even Tessie gave up trying long before I did. Allie knows that things aren’t quite right and has already been asking awkward questions. I don’t want her and Jo having their parents go through a messy divorce so I’m hoping Ben and I can do this like reasonable adults. He is a lawyer after all.


Colin and I moved downstairs into Aunt Jane’s only room in consequence. It was better for Colin’s arthritis not having to climb up and down the stairs so often and it meant we had a little privacy from the rest of the household. Amelia, Alison and Joanna moved up at the beginning of October. She had got her Deanery transfer and would be starting her new rotation in two weeks time at our local hospital. Alison and Joanna would be starting at the local primary school where all our children had gone before. Alison, now eight, was obsessed with her dancing and had already declared her intention of becoming a ballerina. Six year old Joanna was a sunny, personable little soul who made friends wherever she went and developed a new found interest in the photography of her grandfather and uncle.

The two girls adored their young cousins, Alexander and Jasmine, and were always offering to help Ellie out with them. Luke and Amelia’s relationship seemed to have little changed since their childhood if the constant friendly bickering was anything to go by. Amelia and Ellie had always got on well and now more so as they were able to confide in each other their children worries. Ben put up no resistance to either the divorce or Amelia moving home with the children.

The others were doing well. Alice continued to lecture at Manchester and her eldest, Emily, now eight, a serious and studious little girl, showed signs of following in her mother’s footsteps. Jane, now six, and Heidi, four, were both jolly girls who delighted in everything around them. Lottie continued to revel in motherhood to Kate and bemoaned the fact that she had to return to work in the New Year and leave baby Kate to the tender mercies of her child minder. Roo and Jude were still in Oxford, he lecturing and she researching at the university, only allowing their heads to leave the clouds of physics in matters regarding Colin, now two. Sophie’s pregnancy continued to give us cause for concern as she was struggling quite considerably. Amelia knew more than she let on – partly through intuition from her work and from what Sophie had confessed to her that she never would to the rest of us and I knew she would never break her twin sister’s confidence.

Mam, da, you’d better sit down.

It was late afternoon on Monday 16 October 2000 when Amelia walked into the kitchen with those words.

What’s happened, I asked.
Freddie’s just rung. Sophie’s gone into labour.
But she can’t be, she’s not due until the beginning of December,
I exclaimed.
She has. She’d got about six or seven weeks to go. Besides you know she’s been having contractions on and off for the last month or so, this time it must have gone too far. I’m sure it’ll be fine though. They can do amazing things for premature babies these days and really 33, 34 weeks is nothing. I’ve seen much earlier ones survive.

#17:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:11 pm
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Thanks, Pim. I hope that Sophie and her baby will be ok.

#18:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:29 pm
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Eek!
Thanks Pim.
Hope everything will go okay with Sophie and the baby Confused The family don't need any more sadness at the moment.

#19:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:38 pm
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Poor Sophie - hope Amelia is right.

Well done Amelia too, for trying so hard with Ben - think he's got serious issues.


Thanks Pim.

#20:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:41 pm
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Also hoping that Sophie and the baby will be ok.

Thanks Pim.

#21:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 2:23 pm
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Hope the Sophie and the baby'll be okay.

thanks Pim

#22:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:34 pm
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I have my fingers crossed for Sophie and her baby.

#23:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:43 am
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Amelia’s optimism proved to be right and Jacynth Amelia Clarke proved to be a fighter from the moment she was born. She looked so tiny and fragile the first time we went to visit her but she was soon putting on weight and improving in leaps and bounds, amazing everybody with the rate of her progress and it wasn’t long before Sophie and Freddie were allowed to take her home to complete the family. The only complaint to be heart was from Freddie that he now had all three birthdays in the same month. Jacynth was the star of the family Christmas as, with everybody around us, I couldn’t quite believe that this was all real.

And so 2001 began – the Millennium really beginning to get underway. It didn’t start too brilliantly, however. James Watts passed away in February leaving Elizabeth a widow after almost 46 years of marriage. It had come quite suddenly and unexpectedly but she was adamant that she had rather it been that way than he had lingered and suffered. She turned to her three sons and the grandchildren for comfort and I knew that she would carry on fighting. It had hurt so much to see Rebecca fade away as she had done when Philip died but I knew that it wouldn’t be the same with Elizabeth. All the same, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to carry on the way she was doing if it had been Colin. We had been married for 40 years and we had known each other for eight before then. He would leave to much of a gap in my life; I gap I couldn’t even begin to contemplate there being.

To counter this, the final wedding of the next generation took place in April when David and Louise’s Charlie tied the knot with his fiancée. It was a lovely day, obvious that David and Louise’s son had made as good a choice as his elder sisters in his life partner. At the same time, family weddings always made me sad that neither my parents nor Aunt Carol and Uncle Charlie had been able to be there for any of ours or our children’s. I was always grateful that Colin and I had been able to share all the things with our children that my parents hadn’t. But I knew that they would have made wonderful grandparents, and possibly even great-grandparents, to our children.

Amelia and Ben’s divorce was going through as smoothly as could be expected. He still seemed to be letting things wash over him and it was reaching the point where Amelia said that she wasn’t happy to let Alison and Joanna spend time with him. The two of them didn’t appear outwardly to be too affected by the changes of recent months in their lives. They had both settled in well at their new school and, like their mother before them, I was forever losing track of where they would be. Alison’s new dancing teacher had told Amelia that she thought the talent was there for her to take it further which pleased Alison no end, her heart completely set on becoming a ballerina. Joanna, on the other hand, had developed a keen interest in photography and was forever asking Luke or Colin to take her out with the very simple camera Luke had bought her for Christmas.

Roo and Judith announced the expected arrival of their second over the summer. We were all thrilled for them, despite Luke’s teasing that the poor child would be forgotten in amidst all the physics. Colin didn’t seem to be suffering for want of two intelligent parents but then Roo had confessed to once leaving him in the lab and getting halfway home before realising. Judith had her feet a little more solidly on the ground, at least as far as her young son was concerned.

Sharlie! Come and look at this!

It was the afternoon of Tuesday 11 September 2001 when Colin called me through to the sitting room.

What, I asked from the doorway.
Just look, he said, waving his hand at the television.

I would never forget those images. The plane going straight into the building and it becoming engulfed in flames.

What dreadful disaster film… I began in disbelief.
Not a film, Sharlie love. This is real – it’s the BBC news. That’s just happened in New York.

I felt my knees go weak and I sank down beside him, staring at the screen in disbelief. It became a feature of the following days. I simply couldn’t understand how or why. None of it made any sense.

#24:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:41 am
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And even now, five years later, it still doesn't make sense.


Thanks Pim.

#25:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:16 am
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Thanks Pim.

#26:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:43 pm
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Thanks, Pim. It still seems unbelievable in some ways.

#27:  Author: DotLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:29 pm
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Thanks pim

That really sent shivers down my spine.

Dot

#28:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:33 pm
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Dot wrote:
That really sent shivers down my spine.


Me too!

Thanks, Pim

#29:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:23 pm
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Glad Sophie's baby was ok.

It's weird reading about Sharlie experiencing events that are still so relevant to current affairs.

#30:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:01 pm
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It's so strange to realise how close to the present day they are now. (And I came over all goosebumpy reading the bit about the Twin Towers)
Thanks Pimmy!

#31:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:13 am
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I finished this last night... *in le state of disbelief*

The closing months of 2001 saw a startled and shaken world trying to pick up the pieces and carry on following September’s events. As US and British forces prepared to invade Afghanistan in “The War on Terror” I couldn’t help but think back to the outbreak of war in 1939. It was all too horribly familiar. The war that had supposedly been fought to solve all our problems had only multiplied them has the century had progressed. I had always worried what sort of world my children would grow up into and now I worried more for my grandchildren.

We had a quiet Christmas with only Luke, Amelia and the families at home, the others having gone to the in-laws with the promise that they would come for New Year instead. Amelia had changed so much since she had left Ben the previous summer and was a much happier person for it. She would still cry over Elisabeth and I knew that the pain, although it might fade, would never completely leave her. Lottie was revelling in motherhood with eighteen month old Kate everybody’s darling. Kathie, who had been so horrified at the prospect of becoming a grandmother, was clearly Kate’s greatest fan. There was never a dull moment with Alison and Joanna around as they were both a lively pair, the latter particularly reminding me of Tish. Amelia had bought them both roller skates for Christmas which had been tried out on the quarry tiled kitchen floor on Christmas morning until Joanna had almost come to blows with the turkey.

2002 was ushered in as a quiet family celebration surrounded by the children and grandchildren from 9 year olds Emily and Alison down to year old Jacynth.

Mam, it’s Roo.

It was mid afternoon on Saturday 9 February and I had been in the process of arranging the latest photographs into albums with Joanna’s help.

Everything alright, love?
Oh you know. I’ve had a lousy week in the lab and the most absurdly dense bunch of Freshers to teach but…
Rupert!
What?
Did you really call to tell me about your precious physics? Just before you get completely sidetracked.
Well is there anything else I ought to be calling about?
Your wife, Dr Graham, perchance? Your wife and your new baby?
What? Oh Jude. Yes, Jude. Yes, baby, girl – this morning.

I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank you, Roo.
So anyway, mam, these Freshers…
Rupert!
What? Stop shouting at me. And calling me Rupert.
You’re being aggravating.
You are. And you’re the one that keeps shouting.
Tell me about the baby, Roo.
Right, yes. Baby – girl, called Janet Charlotte after our mams. Jude’s fine.
What about Colin?
Colin, yes, not so overly enthralled but he’ll get used to her just like everyone got used to me.
I don’t think anyone’s ever got used to you, Roo.
Look I’ve got to go, mam. I was meant to be back at the hospital an hour ago only I popped into the lab and they’ve made the most marvellous breakthrough with…
Rupert! Get back to your wife and children!


It never ceased to amaze me that the only person didn’t drive to distraction and beyond was his wife. Before Colin had been born they had both been so similar, but becoming a parent had brought Judith down to earth with a bump that hadn’t, as yet, affected Roo.

We spent the summer neither here nor there between visiting old friends and being visited by the family. The grandchildren were all growing up so quickly – especially the older ones. Sarah’s Pippa had just announced her engagement and would be getting married the following summer. I still thought of Sarah as the tiny baby niece Rebecca had laid in my nineteen year old arms during my last holidays from St Monicas and now she had a daughter old enough to be getting married.

Martin Fitpaztrick died that October leaving Harriet a widow. I was the only one of my sisters now still with their husband. Harriet tried her best to shrug it off, saying she had known it was coming but we knew how hard it would be for her without him. Martin had got her through so much and had helped her come to terms with Bridget’s death far more than we had ever been able to. He had helped lay her mind at rest. Harriet said that she would take her inspiration from Elizabeth and find the strength to carry on but now I saw her something I had seen in Rebecca after Philip had died and I wished I could believe her.

#32:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 10:01 am
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Thanks, Pim. I'm sorry to hear about Martin. Welcome to Janet Charlotte!

#33:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:10 pm
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Poor Harriet - and will she fade out like Rebecca?


*Would definitely want to thunp Roo! Laughing *


Thanks Pim.

#34:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:18 pm
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Roo had me giggling!
Thanks Pim.

#35:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:12 pm
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Roo is absolutely fabulous, as ever! Poor Harriet, though. Thanks pim.

#36:  Author: TanLocation: London via Newcastle Australia PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:18 pm
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Wow! 2002! I loved the conversation with Roo and am wondering what the break through was ....

#37:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:31 pm
    —
Caught up again. I'm a little younger than Sharlie ( 7 months younger than Joey's triplets) but I really felt for them over the death of Bethie - I'm not sure how I would cope with that and it was so realistic.

The 9/11 post sent shivers up my spine.

I do love Roo! He sounds just like my #2 son Rolling Eyes

#38:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:00 pm
    —
Roo sounds a right nightmare! A lovely one, but a nightmare all the same....
Thanks Pim!

#39:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 8:06 am
    —
Tan wrote:
Wow! 2002! I loved the conversation with Roo and am wondering what the break through was ....


I have no idea, physics was not my strong point. Knowing Roo, it probably wasn't a breakthrough but more likely a breakage... *g*

But as well all knew so well, the world did not stop because someone had died and life muddled along much as it normally did. Lottie announced that she was pregnant again in January and that both she and Pete were delighted by this turn of events. Lottie admitted privately that she was a little apprehensive as it had all gone so well with Kate and she was sure she couldn’t love another as much as she did Kate. I remembered feeling the same when I had been pregnant with Luke and then the overwhelming love when he had been born and Kathie had placed him in my arms. I was sure that Lottie and Pete would be fine with a second baby but knew that they would find it out in their own time.

Time marched on for all of us and age was certainly beginning to catch up as I creaked my way through the days. Colin and I were, fortunately, still in good health but the years I had spent on this planet were taking their toll and catching up with me. I couldn’t do as much with the grandchildren as I had once been able to although Alison and Joanna both adapted the things they wanted to do with Colin and I. Colin’s own photography was taking a back seat, confessing that he no longer quite had the patience he used to. But he was helping Joanna develop her skills and, even at nine, both Colin and Luke could see that she had promise. Five year old Alexander was equally fascinated and Luke had begun to hope that he might follow in his footsteps.

Alison was still only interested in her ballet and Amelia had talked at length with her teacher about allowing her to audition for the Royal Ballet School the following winter prior to her moving up to secondary school. Joanna couldn’t understand her older sister’s obsession and was often teasing Alison for being so cautious over everything that they did in case she got hurt. Amelia was still working hard to complete her final year as a registrar, hoping that the following year the right openings would come up for her to take up a Consultant’s position. Her contact with Ben was infrequent these days and he had little to do with Alison and Joanna. It seemed there was nothing anyone could do to help him.

Sharlie! Where are you?

I was dozing in the garden at lunchtime on Wednesday 16 July 2003, waiting for Kathie to call me in for lunch when her cries woke me.

I’m out here, I called back, struggling to sit up on the sun lounger as she appeared at my side, flopping into the deckchair. Lunch ready?
No, I got sidetracked.
Bother, and I’m jolly hungry you know.
So am I but it’ll be worth the wait.
For sandwiches?
No, not for lunch itself but the reason why it’s late.
Oh… have you spoken to Lottie?
I have indeed and I am a grandmother again. Well actually I spoke to Pete but…
Oh Kathie, that’s wonderful.
Isn’t it just? A boy this time – Leo Michael and quite hefty by the sound of things at 9lbs 20z.

I winced. Poor Lottie, she’s only tiny.
I know and she was such a little baby.
So was Kate.
Well quite, but apparently Pete was a rather hefty specimen. Anyway he says they’re both well but Lottie’s obviously exhausted.
I’m not surprised.
Pete’s ecstatic though. He only got off the phone as he hadn’t told his own mother yet.
Men are always the worst. Do you want to let Leo know before lunch?
I’ll ring him later. I expect Pete will let him know before then though. Poor old Pete, two sets of in-laws!


Lottie’s worries about a second baby soon proved to be unfounded as she settled into life with two babies with an enviable ease. Leo was a large baby, not quite so small as a newborn as most I had known. Lottie declared though that he was much easier to handle than Kate had been as a newborn because he was already so strong she wasn’t as terrified of breaking him. She was looking forward to a summer off work and the following term to adapt. It always seemed slightly strange to me when the children had talked about going back to work once their children were born but it was the done thing these days. I had never questioned my decision to give up teaching once I had got married and I wouldn’t have given up my years at home with Colin and the children for anything. But I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that my daughters had got the best of both worlds.

Autumn crawled in once more and we braced ourselves for the long winter ahead, wondering what faced us around the next bend. It was, as it so often is, not something we had been expecting. The phone call came in the early hours of the morning on Friday 1 November 2003. I heard Amelia get up to answer it and then her pacing in the hall talking quietly.

Millie, I asked cautiously, putting my head round the door frame when I heard her hang up.
Oh mam, I didn’t mean to wake you.
What’s happened?
It’s Ben. He’s dead… the police…
she broke off and burst into tears.

#40:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 9:30 am
    —
Oh no! Not suicide? Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad

#41:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:10 am
    —
Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad That's awful. I think this is going to be a *read at home in private* drabble from here on.

Well done for finishing the writing, Pim. You must be relieved but feeling something is missing.

#42:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:32 am
    —
Ta pimmy just caught up since Monday and still can't quite believe this is finished!

#43:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:31 pm
    —
Shocked Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad

#44:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:55 pm
    —
It certainly sounds like suicide...

Those poor girls Crying or Very sad

#45:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:31 pm
    —
Oh no, poor Amelia. How much more can she cope with? Crying or Very sad
Thanks Pim.

#46:  Author: Sarah_LLocation: Leeds PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:48 pm
    —
I was wondering if that would happen. Sad

#47:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:09 pm
    —
Thought it was going to happen. Crying or Very sad


Thanks Pim.

#48:  Author: DawnLocation: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 10:46 pm
    —
Lesley wrote:
Thought it was going to happen. Crying or Very sad




Me too

and well done on finishing this Pim - but I really can't imagine not being able to read new updates on a regular basis

#49:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:10 am
    —
patmac wrote:
Well done for finishing the writing, Pim. You must be relieved but feeling something is missing.


Ask me again on Monday evening when I've been to the library to write the next bit and then realised that there isn't a next bit...

Oh Millie, I whispered, wrapping my arm around her and guiding her through to the sitting room. Did they say…
Suicide,
she said simply. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he’d be so stupid. What am I going to tell the girls, mam, she asked helplessly.
What happened?
Overdose, one of the neighbours… How could he have been such an idiot? But then, I should have known. He just wouldn’t let anyone help or even help himself. If I’d stayed with him then maybe I could have stopped him.
Amelia,
I said firmly. This is not your fault. You mustn’t blame yourself.
But it’s true. If I hadn’t left him then somebody would have been with him and noticed how bad things had got for him to do this.
What could you have done, Millie? You tried everything whilst you were with him to help. How much difference do you think it would have made if you’d stayed?
I don’t know and now I never will.
Amelia, listen to me. I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told any of you and hoped that I wouldn’t have to do so. It might help, it might not. A long time ago – I was only 26 and had just got engaged to your da for the first time. Although I suppose it begins long before then – the summer when I was 16 I went to stay with your Auntie Luce and her older brother Sam came home on leave from the army and I fell head over heels for him. We had a few days together and as far as I was concerned that was it – he asked me to marry him a couple of years later but I couldn’t. I was just about to go to university and had a career to think of. We stayed in touch and off though over the years and then one day he turned up out of the blue at the Chalet School insisting that he needed to see me so I went off with him for the weekend. He was dying, Millie, and he wanted to marry me and give him the child he wanted.
Mam, did…
I did not,
I said emphatically. I said no and, let’s just say, he wasn’t overly happy about it. We had a bit of a fight and then he ran off. Instinctively my fingers felt for the faded scar along my hairline that the fight had caused. I’m not sure what happened next – I was unconscious but when I came to and realised he’d gone I ran out to look for him only it was too late. Someone had already found his body, and I still don’t know what really happened. I blamed myself, of course, broke off my engagement to your da and really didn’t know what to do. It took time and I had wonderful friends who eventually made me realise that it wasn’t my fault what Sam had done. I do still think about it and wonder what might have happened if I’d said yes to him.
I didn’t think…
Of course you didn’t. It wasn’t the sort of thing that you needed to know about. But don’t you see, Millie, it’s not so different for you. Nobody blamed me for Sam’s death when they quite easily could have done – especially Lucy. But even so it took a long time for me to accept it and I daresay it will for you too. But you’ve said yourself time and time again that you did everything for him that you possibly could and everybody knows that.
I feel as though I’ve let everyone down though, mam. Allie and Jo… especially them, they’ll have to grow up without their father.
Ben might still have done it even if you’d stayed and what good would that have done all of you? Amelia, you were miserable when you ended your marriage – you’d have been worse if you’d stayed.
It might not have been though. Maybe I didn’t give him the time to get over Bethie.
You did everything you could. And Allie and Jo have been so much better since you moved back here. I think they knew more than you thought they did. It’s one of the hardest things to learn as a mother but you can’t protect them forever no matter how much you want to,
I wish I could.
I know you do.
What am I going to tell them? They only saw him a couple of weeks ago – he took them out for Allie’s birthday… She’s eleven, mam and Jo’s only nine. I don’t know what they’ll understand – I don’t think I would have done at that age but kids grow up so much quicker these days.
I think it’s best to tell them the truth now. It’s not pretty but at least they’ll know rather than finding out later. Aunt Jane didn’t know how to tell us when Uncle Mike killed himself and I was sixteen then. But of course, the War had changed it all for us.
She sighed. I think you’re right. If I don’t tell them now then they’ll only end up hating me for not telling them the truth. I just wish it had never turned out like this.
She leant against my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her. I wish… oh I don’t know what I wish. I just want it to go back to the way it used to be – when we were happy.

She closed her eyes and we stayed sitting together on the settee watching the sun rise. The next few days were the hardest as we tried to make sense of what had happened and passed on the news. Tessie and Mike volunteered to go to London to sort out Ben’s affairs, Amelia agreeing only too readily. Alison and Joanna took the news badly, both of them withdrawing a little in consequence into their protective shells – Alison into her dancing and Joanna into her books. There was little we could do except be there for them when they needed us. Mike had taken the news much worse than Tessie, perhaps having not realised the extent of his brother’s problems.

Sophie came home first to be with her twin sister and over the next few days we were joined by the rest of the children. It was an odd few days that didn’t seem real, as though I were looking in on it all from outside.

#50:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:16 am
    —
I'm glad Sharlie was able to use her own experiences to help Amelia a little. I just hope the girls can come to terms with it all now. Thanks Pim. I shall be really sad to see this end.

#51:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:37 am
    —
Poor Millie, but she has a wonderful strong family to help her through this.

#52:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:56 am
    —
Quote:
It was an odd few days that didn’t seem real, as though I were looking in on it all from outside.


That's a very accurate description of feelings at a time like that. Poor Millie - and poor children.

#53:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:44 pm
    —
Poor Millie Crying or Very sad

#54:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:38 pm
    —
*hugs them all*

Poor Millie, and the girls too.
Thanks Pim!

#55:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:23 pm
    —
So sad - and all the 'if onlys' won't help. Glad Sharlie was able to confide about Sam.



Thanks Pim.

#56:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 10:25 am
    —
Ta pimmy. Glad the family still all pull round at these times.

#57:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 8:46 pm
    —
Huuuuuuuuuge catch up.

Sad Shocked Laughing Surprised Laughing Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Shocked Crying or Very sad

I *think* that sums it up.

Thank you Pimmy

#58:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 10:36 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. I'm sorry to hear about Ben.

#59:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 5:12 pm
    —
Crying or Very sad Poor Millie, that was so sad, Pim. And congrats to Peter and Lottie. And to you for finishing it! Must feel like the end of an era!!

*wonders if there might be a new drabble following Millie or Roo and their families...hint...* (Where's that angel smiley when you need it Wink )

#60:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:25 pm
    —
I hope Amelia gets some happiness in her life after all this sorrow

#61:  Author: AllyLocation: John Bettany's Cabin! PostPosted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 8:28 pm
    —
A belated yay for the finishing from me! *is a bit useless*

#62:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:50 pm
    —
Josie wrote:
*wonders if there might be a new drabble following Millie or Roo and their families...hint...* (Where's that angel smiley when you need it Wink )


Yes. Or not. Not, not, not. Definitely not.


Ben was cremated a week later on a chilly November day in London. There was no service as such, only a few words at the crematorium. Sophie sat on one side of Amelia, Joanna, having passed the withdrawal stage and was now inclined towards clinginess towards her mother, at her other side. Alison, still withdrawn and quiet, sat between Colin and I, her face pale and her eyes wide as she stared unblinkingly ahead, her hand occasionally gripping mine tightly. My mind kept turning back to Ben’s arrival and how proud Tish and Peter had been of their first born. If there was any consolation, it was that they weren’t here to see this.

Mike seems quite intent on avoiding Amelia, Lucy remarked to me afterwards.
I had noticed, I said with a sigh.
Hannah says he buried his head in the sand a little about Ben’s problems despite everything Amelia and Tessie told him. And I suppose it’s doubly hard because they’ve always been such good friends our children.
Mike always did keep his head in the sand over a lot of things though. I know Tish did too but not to the extent that Mike does. I’m only glad that she and Peter aren’t here to see this.
If she and Peter had still been here then maybe none of this would have happened. I suppose it’s hard losing your parents unexpectedly… she stopped and laid a hand on my arm. I’m sorry, Sharlie, I didn’t think.
Don’t worry about it, it’s been so long now. I’m more worried about you in fact.
Me? But… oh. Sam.
Yes.

She shrugged. It was so long ago too, you know – nearly 50 years. Yes, I suppose this did open up a few old wounds but… what about you?
It hurt so much, Luce, hearing Millie say all the things I did after Sam died and trying to convince her that this isn’t all her fault when I know that guilt is the hardest thing to shake. She’s being so strong for Allie and Jo that I’m afraid of her breaking.
It’s not easy for them either.

I shook my head. They only saw him a couple of weeks ago during half term for Allie’s birthday. They’re just kids, they don’t need this, Lucy.

We made it through the day somehow and I had gone to fetch Colin, Alison, Joanna’s and my coats when I caught the sound of raised voices in one of the bedrooms. The door was slightly open and I could just make out Tessie and Hannah standing either side of Amelia.

It’s all her fault, I heard Mike saying. If she hadn’t given up and walked out on him.
No Mike
, came from Hannah. Amelia did a damn sight more for Ben than the rest of us. You didn’t even notice how depressed your own brother was.
He wouldn’t have been if she’d not left.
He was anyway, Mike,
put in Tessie gently. He never got over mum and dad properly. We didn’t exactly try and help, did we? We all gave up on him far too quickly. I know I did.
And me,
added Hannah sadly. I’m surprised Amelia stayed as long as she did, frankly.

Realising that I had trespassed too long, I quickly grabbed our coats and headed back downstairs to find Colin, Alison and Joanna. As we made our way through the streets to the train station and head back to Trixie’s I found myself struck yet again but the fact that life continued to go on around us. It was something I had never quite been able to get my head around. Amelia joined us later looking tired and drawn, admitting only that she was relieved it was finally over.

Back at home we tried to return to some semblance of normality. The funeral had been a catharsis for Amelia who now faced life with a new determination. She was in her last stages as a registrar and determined to not have to repeat another year and find a consultant post. I couldn’t help but think back to the day that Colin and I had dropped her off at medical school a whole lifetime ago. Alison remained in her shell, absorbed only by her dancing and determined to succeed in her audition with the Royal Balled School that would take place in the New Year. Her dancing had taken a turn since the death of her father and her ballet teacher had high hopes for her. Joanna was still inclined to be clingy, but this was directed more towards Colin who dealt with it by helping her work on her photography skills.

Mike had taken time and a stern talking to from both his sister and his wife but he eventually stopped blaming Amelia. The experience had strengthened the bond between Tessie and Mike, each determined not to have to go through something similar again.

Christmas passed us by quietly and the new year 2004 crept in.

#63:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:55 pm
    —
I'm glad Tessie and Hannah were there and stood up for Millie.

Thanks, Pim - can't believe it's 2004 now though!

#64:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:59 pm
    —
Quote:
I found myself struck yet again but the fact that life continued to go on around us.

That always surprises me, too.

Thanks Pim.

#65:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:12 pm
    —
*hugs Amelia*
So glad Hannah and Tessie were there to stand up for her!

#66:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:58 pm
    —
Ta pimmy.

#67:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:58 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. It's good that Mike has stopped blaming Amelia.

#68:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:46 pm
    —
Wanted to kick Mike there - didn't he feel Amelia was feeling bad enough? Glad his wife and sister sorted him out.


Thanks Pim.

#69:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:38 pm
    —
Thanks Pim.

#70:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:38 am
    —
And it's that time again. Off to update the who's who, I guess...

Alison’s audition for the Royal Ballet School took place at the end of January and she had been a bag of nerves in the days running up to it. Amelia took her to the local audition and Colin and I passed an anxious day until they returned, counting on the faith that her ballet teacher had in our granddaughter’s abilities. She was proved right and Alison was accepted as a pupil of the Royal Ballet School with effect from September. The news seemed to bring her out of the protective shell she had built up around herself as she chattered eagerly and incessantly about all the things she would do once she got there. Less thrilled by it all was Joanna who was still prone to being clingy and saw it as abandonment by her older sister and nobody would be able to convince her otherwise for several months.

Alexander turned six in March and was presented with a camera of his own by Luke. It meant he could fully join in the lessons that Colin was giving Joanna rather than simply standing by and watching. Jasmine, now four, wasn’t as enthralled by this but she was by Alison, however, and would happily spend her time watching her older cousin practice her ballet. In the end both Luke and Ellie agreed that it would be best if they let Jasmine go and begin ballet lessons of her own.

Colin and I were both showing too many signs of old age for our liking and many were the conversations I shared with Lucy, Kathie and Trixie on the subject. But more than me, Harriet was fading fast. She had never really got over losing her husband and her daughter, Juliet, now a consultant in elderly medicine, said the prognosis wasn’t good. It didn’t help that widowhood had given Elizabeth a new lease of life which had taken years off her.

In May the weddings began for the grandchildren. It was Pippa, Sarah’s 23 year old daughter, who would be the first. It simply didn’t seem possible. In my mind Sarah was still the baby niece that I had been so proud of when Rebecca had laid her in my arms upon my return home from school for the Easter holidays. She surely couldn’t be old enough to have a daughter getting married. As so many of us said though, it was a shame that Rebecca and Philip couldn’t be with us to see their granddaughter getting married. But all the same it was a lovely day all round.

That summer saw once again Lucy and I sitting on our deck chairs, looking out at the sea in a time honoured tradition.

Do you remember the first time, she asked wistfully. It was fifty years ago.

I closed my eyes. I could still see us sprawled on the blanket at the sea front, Samantha three years old curled up asleep against me, Tish and Lucy arguing about who had really won their swimming race whilst Tish made short work of the ice cream cone Nicole had bought for Samantha. We had been 24 years old, taking on the world in our own ways. I smiled.

Of course I do. And who’d have thought we’d still be here now? You don’t get many friendships as long lasting as ours these days.
I know. I’ve never been able to keep up with Hannah’s and I daresay it’ll be even worse with the grandchildren.
It is
, I said with a laugh. In September it’ll be 63 years since I was shoved into Tish’s care on Bristol station.
And aren’t you glad that happened?
Yes. I don’t know where I’d be without you and Tish, or Annie and Nicole. I wish they were still here.
Me too.
Do we dare think about the next five years?
I think we said that last time.
I don’t really want to jinx things.
Me neither.
All the things I wanted five years ago… it seems longer than that. I didn’t get them all. You got yours though.
I know. And I think myself lucky every single day.
She reached out and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. Do we dare look to the next five years?
I think we should. We always have done since you never know what’s round the next bend.
It might be a double decker bus.
Lucy Lennox!

She grinned. Okay. In five years time I’d like to still be here with Hannah and the grandchildren still happy.
I like to think I’ll be here too – the children and grandchildren all happy and the two of us complaining about old age. To 23 August 2009, Dr Burrows.
I raised an imaginary glass.
To 23 August 2009.

#71:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:54 am
    —
But will they both make it? Ta pimmy...

#72:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:19 pm
    —
Crying or Very sad But it's just so sad to think that they might not make it. Can you repeat the link for the who's who, please Pim, as I can't remember where it is.

ETA I just found it, where I should have thought of looking in the first place. Embarassed


Last edited by Fatima on Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:37 pm; edited 1 time in total

#73:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 1:15 pm
    —
*hoping they are both there in 2009*

Thanks, Pim

#74:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:56 pm
    —
Thank you Pim! *wibbles slightly*

#75:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:21 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. I would like to raise a glass to 2009 as well as it is in the future now! Well done to Alison!

#76:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:33 pm
    —
Thanks Pim - 74 now? It's not that old.

Here's hoping.

#77:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:18 pm
    —
So in 2009 Sharlie and Lucy will be 79?
Well seeing as life expectancy in Britain for women is something like 76-78, and that Sharlie and Lucy are hardly average I feel they have a decent chance of making it!
*Crosses fingers just in case*

#78:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:30 pm
    —
Thanks Pim. Fab as ever, I love their little ritual.

#79:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:06 am
    —
Lesley wrote:
Thanks Pim - 74 now? It's not that old.


Is in my family...

Another summer had come to a close and September brought with it the first stirrings of autumn. It also brought Alison’s departure as she packed her bags and headed to the bright lights of London to follow her dreams at the Royal Ballet School. Amelia struggled with the farewell, reminded too much of the final one she had had with Elisabeth. I remembered the farewells to my own children, but they had been so much older as they had gone off to university. I found myself, not for the first time, wondering how mam must have felt as I had said my goodbyes to her during her brief visit during to us in Wales during the summer holidays of 1941 before I went to St Monica’s. She had already said goodbye to us once before eighteen months previously when we had left Liverpool for the safety of Wales. Alison telephoned regularly, something we had been unable to do, to let us know that she was having a wonderful time but I knew that for Amelia nothing would be the same as having Alison with her.

Harriet passed away at the end of September from a variety of causes each provoking the other, but principally we knew she had never fully recovered from Martin’s death two years previously. He had done so much more for her than we ever could and Elizabeth and I knew that we ought to be glad that they were now together again. But her death served as a reminder that neither of us was getting any younger and it would catch up with us eventually. Even so, it was hard saying goodbye to my baby sister, the one whose opinion I had always valued, the one who had always understood me when the rest of the family often hadn’t. As with Rebecca, it just didn’t seem possible that I would never see her again.

She was ready to go, Elizabeth said to me after the funeral. She had been since Martin died and even though it’d be selfish of us to want her to stay…
We can’t help it,
I finished. It was always the four of us after we lost mam and Bridgie. We faced everything together and now with Becca and Harri gone…
I know it has to be one of us next and I don’t want it to be. If only we could turn back time, I’d take us back to before George died when we were all happy and da cared about us. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t have any money and every day was a struggle – we had our family, we had each other.
True, but we weren’t as close then as we are now – Becca and I certainly weren’t. It was the war that changed everything for us really. The separation brought us together.
I’m pretty sure that living forever could get quite boring but there are times when I think it would make things so much easier.


Mine and Colin’s conversations took a more sombre turn that autumn, each of us acutely aware that it could be us next. We reminisced more and more often, looking back to the past safe in the knowledge that the future was provided for.

Amelia brought good news home in October. She had completed her registrar training the previous year but had been working as a locum waiting for a consultant opportunity to come up. Her perseverance had now finally paid off and she would be taking up an appointment at the hospital she had first gone to when she had returned to Liverpool as a consultant. She would now be Dr Amelia Graham, Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She had followed the advice my da had once given to me; she had spread her wings and learned to fly.

#80:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:17 am
    —
Well done Millie!!! I don't want it to be Colin or Sharlie or Eliz next...

Ta pimmy!

#81:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:14 am
    —
Thanks, Sharlie. I'm sorry to hear about Harriet. Well done, Millie!

#82:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:00 pm
    —
No, I don't want anyone else to die. Please finish before they're all gone, Pimmy.

#83:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:33 pm
    —
Well done, Millie Very Happy

Thanks, Pim

#84:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:44 pm
    —
I'm tiptoeing into the thread each time there's a post now that you say you've finished in case the worst happens. Crying or Very sad

Well done Millie! Even today, that's a great achievement.

Quote:
She was ready to go, Elizabeth said to me after the funeral.
although I think Elizabeth was right, it doesn't help at the time and they must have been so sad.

Thank you Pim.

#85:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:52 pm
    —
So sad - and more sadness to come Crying or Very sad



Thanks Pim- this has been a magnificent epic.

#86:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:18 pm
    —
Sad Very poignant, Pim.

*senses the end if near* (well I guess you finishing writing it would be a good clue! Wink )

Thanks for the update.

#87:  Author: Kathy_SLocation: midwestern US PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:19 pm
    —
Lesley wrote:
and more sadness to come Crying or Very sad

I hope not! At least not for another 10 or 15 years.

(Thank you, Pim.)

#88:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 7:32 am
    —
After a riotous Christmas with Alison home for the holidays, seized upon by her younger sister to participate in the madcap schemes she knew Alexander and Jasmine were too young for, we settled into another year. Lottie and Pete’s third was due in May and Kathie was spending more and more time with them helping out with Kate and Leo. Kate had now started school and Kathie could often be heard bemoaning how quickly grandchildren grew up. I knew it only too well. It seemed no time at all since Alison and Emily had been born and now they were both at secondary school, the latter showing signs of following in Alice’s footsteps. Time was catching up with Colin and I, both unable to keep up with the pace of the world around us as everything changed so quickly it was hard not to long for a return to the simpler times of my childhood.

Trixie died unexpectedly in April, she having not told anyone how serious her health problems had become. I refused to believe it at first. We had only spoken the week before and she had been bright and cheerful as we had discussed our next opportunity to meet up. It didn’t seem possible that the bright and bubbly Trixie I had met at 19 was now gone. We had been friends almost 56 years from the first morning we had met in our room in College Hall and we had been through so much together over the years. But it had been typical Trixie, hiding the extent of her illness from everybody, including her family. She had hated growing old and never liked the indignity of illness, even with a cold at university she would always take to her bed, hide under the covers and reuse to see anyone. As Tash and I chatted after the funeral, I realised that my only real link to my university years was now gone. Tash and I had drifted too much, even since Sophie and Freddie had been together and my friendship with Sara was something entirely different.

It’s me, thus announced Kathie down the telephone on Friday 6 May 2005.
Hello you, I replied with a grin. How’s Leeds?
Grey and miserable. Liverpool?
I think the sun’s trying to come out again.
Jolly good. Listen, are you up to a trip to Leeds this weekend?
I think I am. Colin might not be – his hip’s playing him up again.
Poor bugger.
Not the amount of whinging he’s doing he’s not. Anyway, do we have a good enough reason for coming to Leeds?
My new granddaughter good enough?
Absolutely. How thrilling for you all. How are they all?
Fine, perfect – all three of them. Pete’s over the moon, Lottie’s besotted and Kate thinks her new baby sister’s the best thing ever.
What’s she called?
Nancy,
came the choked reply.
Oh Kathie…
Nancy May – she’ll be May for every day.
What a lovely name.
Isn’t it just?


I duly paid a visit to the newly extended Murphy family that weekend, Colin not up to the trip grumbled about having to wait for Lottie to visit instead. We were laying tentative plans for a summer holiday, intending to go to Devon to visit Simon and the family in between having the children and grandchildren to stay.

Sharlie!
What’s the matter,
I asked, hurrying to the sitting room in reply to Colin’s shout on the morning of 7 July 2005, thinking he had fallen and hurt himself.
Look. He waved his hands wildly at the television. I swore under my breath and sank to the settee as my knees went weak.
Allie, I whispered. We need to know Allie’s okay.

#89:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 8:56 am
    —
pim wrote:
Allie, I whispered. We need to know Allie’s okay.


And so do we!

Thanks Pim, I'd been thinking about the bombings yesterday for some reason.

#90:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:02 am
    —
Brings back memories of emails and texts and phone calls to check everyone was ok. Hope Allie is ok...

And welcome baby Nancy May!

Ta pimmy.

#91:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:37 am
    —
Thanks Pim.

#92:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:50 pm
    —
Oh no ...

Please let her be ok

#93:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:05 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. Welcome to Nancy! I'm sorry to hear about Trixie and I hope that Allie is ok.

#94:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:15 pm
    —
Please let her be ok! I couldn't bear it if another one was gone.

And how sweet to call the new baby Nancy, even if she will use May for every day.

Thanks Pim.

#95:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 6:35 pm
    —
Really pleased for Kathie re new granddaughter Laughing


Hope Allie's OK Crying or Very sad



Thanks Pim.

#96:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 8:46 pm
    —
Thank you Pim!
Lottie naming her new daughter Nancy brought tears to my eyes, and the worry over Allie has me wibbling!
Please Pim, I don't think Amelia could stand to lose another daughter!

#97:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 8:12 am
    —
There had been four explosions, bombs, three on the tube, one on a bus. I stared at the screen in blank horror at what they had done to London, my London. I managed to pick myself up and stumbled into the hallway to find the telephone but it rang before I could begin to dial any number.

Mam, it’s me. Have you seen the news? I can’t get through to Allie’s mobile. I think the network must have gone down.
I was just about to try her.
I keep telling myself that she’s got no reason to be in any of those places but… oh God mam, what if she was? Not Allie as well…
Millie, I’m sure she’s fine.
I wished I felt as confident as I hoped I sounded. She’s probably in a ballet lesson completely unaware. Can’t you, what do you call it, e-mail someone there?
I already have done but I guess mine won’t be the only panicking parent message they’ll be getting. I’ve no reply yet but I can’t stand at my computer all morning – I’m meant to be on a ward round.


As I hung up from talking to Amelia I though of all the others I knew in London. All of Trixie’s children worked in the city, as did Tash and Sara’s. I was sure neither Tash and Josh nor Sara and Pedro would have been on the tube at the time but they had children and grandchildren who could well have been. Anxiously, both Colin and I punched in number after number of everyone we both knew in London, waiting for that comforting dialling tone. In between trying all the numbers our phone rang and it was Amelia to say that she had had an e-mail from the Royal Ballet School assuring her that Alison was quite safe in her morning lessons. I had never had better news. As the afternoon progressed we began to hear from people, Tash assuring us that all her family was accounted for and Poppy and Edward had managed to get hold of all Trixie’s to find out the same thing.

For Sara and Pedro though the news was not so good. Their youngest son Carlos had been on the tube at Russell Square and hadn’t survived. There was nothing anybody could say to make it any easier for her. He left behind his wife of eight years, Jinny, and their two young daughters, seven year old Gemma and six year old Rosalie. I listened to Sara’s incomprehension as she tried to make some sense of all her family had come through in the war only for this to happen to her son. I shared her incomprehension and disbelief. I shared Alison’s later when she eventually rung to let us all know she was fine; one of her friends had lost her mother that morning too. I leafed through the papers of the following days, staring blankly at the images that I had hoped never to see, unable to make any sense of it at all.

London had been my city, my home, for my two years at university and now I saw it torn apart in the name of a cause that should never have been allowed to arise. But at the same time I felt a swell of pride as I saw a city stand united in the days that followed, determined to get through this, determined to stand proud and defiant. We attended Carlos’ funeral a week later, a solemn affair that reminded us all of the need for solidarity as the fall out of that morning continued.

#98:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 8:17 am
    —
Thank goodness Alison was all right.

#99:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:00 am
    —
Crying or Very sad Ta pimmy.

#100:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:56 am
    —
Thanks, Pim. I'm sorry about Carlos. I am relieved though about Allie.

#101:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:21 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim Crying or Very sad

#102:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 5:41 pm
    —
So sad Crying or Very sad

Glad Alison was OK.

Thanks Pim

#103:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:24 pm
    —
So glad I didn't have to sit on that cliff

Thanks Pim

#104:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 11:47 am
    —
So much sad news Crying or Very sad

Glad Allie is safe though.

#105:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:56 pm
    —
That was just so immediately relevant and seems like yesterday. Poor Carlos. Crying or Very sad

#106:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:05 am
    —
There's another two posts to come after this one. Admittedly I am prevaricating a bit over getting round to typing up the last one. Suddenly tidying my room seems quite appealing...

It was an odd summer as events of July began to sink in and we all turned to each other that little bit more than we had done before. The children and the grandchildren passed through our lives filling the days with their laughter and sheer enjoyment of life. We were used to Joanna, Alexander and Jasmine from seeing them every day but being with their cousins brought out new sides to them. Eleven year old Joanna would be starting at secondary school that September as would Alice’s Jane. The former now bore a striking resemblance to her grandmother Tish at that age with her unruly red curls, mischievous face and great sense of fun. She acted like Tish, determined to have her fun and horrified by the prospect that one day she too would have to become a grown up like the rest of us.

It was much quieter once autumn arrived and the children went back to school, the empty house now only filled by the echoes of the fading summer days. I fell ill that November, spending a few weeks in hospital confusing the doctors who struggled to achieve a diagnosis. Of course I knew very little about my family medical history, which didn’t help matters very much. After three weeks of being prodded, poked and discussed without them arriving at any particular conclusion I was discharged home in early December and told to take care of myself. It was easier said than done with an accident prone Colin in the equation. The situation prompted Ellie to do what she had been longing to do since she had gone back to work after having Jasmine, and she took the decision to work from home saying that Colin and I needed someone to keep an eye on us during the day to ensure we didn’t do too much damage to ourselves.

The whole family came home for Christmas and there was nothing quite like having a full house. The children still bickered as though they were no older than their own despite Alice having reached the grand age of 44 two days before Christmas and Roo having turned 36 two weeks previously. As for their own children, Emily and Alison were not thirteen, raising their eyebrows disapprovingly at the antics of their younger siblings and cousins, decreeing themselves to be “too cool” for such things. May, at seven months, was the baby of the family and everybody’s darling. In the middle, Alexander, William and Colin had all turned seven that year and certainly kept us all on our toes over the festive season.

Colin and I took up Lucy’s offer of spending the New Year with she and Christian in Cambridge. The four of us saw in 2006 quietly, chinking our champagne glasses at midnight before turning in for the night. I wondered what the New Year would bring as I snuggled down beneath the covers into Colin’s safe arms before falling into a dreamless sleep until morning.

#107:  Author: TanLocation: London via Newcastle Australia PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:23 am
    —
2006 already?? Shocked

Thanks Pim. I must say I will be sad to see this come to an end.

#108:  Author: AliceLocation: London, England PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:15 am
    —
Having the whole family for Christmas sounds ominous to me... I'll be sad to see the end of this.

#109:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:23 am
    —
Nearly up to date now...

Ta pimmy.

#110:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:02 pm
    —
*wibbles*

I don't want this to end Pimmy! Please keep writing.

#111:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:04 pm
    —
I agree with fran - I don't want this to end either. And I'm so worried about what might be wrong with Sharlie.

Thanks Pim.

#112:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:18 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. I am dreading the end of this which I know is becoming very near. I'm wibbling about Sharlie being ill.

#113:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:35 pm
    —
Alice wrote:
Having the whole family for Christmas sounds ominous to me...

Me too. Especially as they couldn't work out what was wrong with her.

Thanks Pim. Only two posts to go? Blimey!

#114:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:22 pm
    —
Hmmmm, so we'll be seeing an ending soon? Crying or Very sad


Thanks Pim.

#115:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:13 am
    —
Post le penultimate!

We returned to Liverpool, the New Year a few days old, feeling refreshed for the time away, As always the house was eerily quiet without the children and grandchildren. Alison had gone back to London and with Joanna at secondary school the house was much quieter as she could no longer join in the games of Alexander and Jasmine as she had once done, instead now retreating to her room to do her homework once she got in. Jasmine celebrated her sixth birthday in January with a ballet themed party, her love of it still not showing any signs of fading. Alexander, who would be eight in March, only scorned his younger sister’s hobby as “girly”. He was so like Luke in so many ways and just as easy to love. He and Joanna were both still keen on their photography and were reaching the stage where they were both happy to go out independently and go over the results with Colin or Luke once they got back.

February saw the Andrews family pass into a new generation on Friday 17 February 2006.

Auntie Sharlie, it’s Sarah. I’ve got news.
Is it about Pippa?
How did you guess?
I’ve been waiting for this news for days.
The wait’s over great-great-auntie Sharlie.
Goodness, that makes me feel ever so old! How can you be a grandmother, Sarah? You’re still my baby niece.
I’ve asked myself that so often, you know. I’m only 57! Pippa’s still my baby.
Tell me all the details.
It’s a girl – Gillian Rebecca. I just wish… mam would have loved to be a great-grandmother.
I can just imagine her as such.
Ten years this summer, Auntie Sharlie and I miss her as much as I did then.


I spoke to Elizabeth later that day as we discussed our new status as great-great-aunts. The term seemed so stately that we were quite sure it couldn’t be applied to us! Colin suggested Gillian could abbreviate it to gaga once she was learning to talk – a term neither Elizabeth nor I, funnily enough, were overly impressed by.

Joanna was rushed into hospital in late March with a case of acute appendicitis. Taken ill during the night, Amelia and Luke had run her to the hospital the three of them in their pyjamas. She came through unscathed, only a little sore, and was soon swapping stories about the experience with Kathie. Amelia confessed that she had possibly overreacted in her panic over the situation but I knew that the pain of losing Elisabeth had resurfaced on seeing Joanna so suddenly and seriously ill. But fortunately she was soon home and revelling in a few unexpected days off school.

Easter brought the whole family home once more, except Alison who was understudying in London. May, who had now reached eleven months, was in the throes of trying to walk and talk – often together – and would do the former whilst clutching hold of the nearest handy object, be it inanimate or not. The children, as ever, reverted to their younger days in their bickering and teasing as the quips flew back and forth throughout the house. It was easy to forget all they had achieved in life – Alice and Roo the academics, Luke following in his father’s footsteps, Amelia the consultant and Sophie and Lottie the teachers – on hearing them behave as though they were still at school.

#116:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:42 am
    —
Lovely last post and nice that Joanna is ok. Think I might have to read the last post in private though.

There will be a huge gap in the board once this is finished.

#117:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:52 am
    —
Gosh - only one m ore post to go!!

Glad Joanna's okay. And hurrah for Sarah's granddaughter. Thanks Pim.

*prepares tissues for next post*

#118:  Author: AliceLocation: London, England PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:31 am
    —
Tomorrow - and that's it...

#119:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:04 am
    —
So have you typed it up yet?

Lovely post for a penultimate! Ta pimmy.

#120:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:59 pm
    —
I'm so glad that Joanna was all right. And I love the name Gillian Rebecca!
How I shall miss this once it's finished, though, Pim.

#121:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 5:21 pm
    —
Thanks Pim - think I'll be like a number of others and have to read the final post in small doses. Crying or Very sad

#122:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 5:30 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. I am not looking forward to this finishing. Crying or Very sad Welcome to Gillian!

#123:  Author: DawnLocation: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:09 pm
    —
Love the GAGA suggestion Very Happy




But don't really want to read the last post Crying or Very sad

#124:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:46 pm
    —
I don't want this to end... please write some more Pim we would all love Sharlie to live until she's 100!

#125:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:43 pm
    —
Could Sharlie be alive at the end of the last post. My idea was that you could update this once a year?

#126:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:04 am
    —
Ahhh, finally, post le last. Ish. Bothersome characters have insisted on one final set ouf outtakes (next week's task however). So this is it. A well deserved round of applause for all of you for sticking with me til the end. Mahoosive thanks to Gem and Ally for minion-ing above and beyond the call of duty.

The mystery illness that had laid me up the previous winter returned with a vengeance in June, prompting more visits to doctors who merely looked baffled, shrugged and then offered a variety of vague and often conflicting diagnoses. There was a fairly concrete one agreed upon by early August that I could make little sense of, agreeing to take the prescribed tablets if only to keep everyone happy. It brought days when it was hard to get up and I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling listening to Colin talking with Luke and Ellie or Amelia. I could hear Alexander and Jasmine as they played outside in the garden, lost in a world of make believe as I so often had been as a child. Joanna would always arrive home long after the others, kept away by her assortment of after school activities. There would be a shouted conversation as she returned home en route to her bedroom to get on with her homework.

Throughout August there were visits from the family and I would often hear Alice, Luke and the twins’ heated debates as they played the variation on Scrabble that they had created as children. It would be punctuated by accusations of Luke cheating just as it always had been. It seemed to hard to think of them as grown up now with their own families – they were still my children in spite of all they had achieved. Alice my sensible and serious eldest, the lecturer at Manchester university, speaking on subjects I had lived through. Luke, the easily loved one simply because of who he was, running the family business and hoping to pass it on to the next generation. The twins who still looked alike even though time had told more on Amelia whilst their personalities remained polar opposites. Amelia, the consultant, still as headstrong, determined and strong willed as she had been as a child with Sophie, the primary school teacher, the more placid and laid back, keeping it all together with a firm grip noticeable only to those who knew her well. Roo, the family baby, scatter brained and deeply intelligent, the lecturer at Oxford university. And Lottie, as much one of our own as the others, the maths teacher who so much resembled her mother.

Then there were the grandchildren, all still tiny babies in my eyes. The eldest two, Allie and Emily, both so sensible and serious – the former devoted to her ballet, the latter as bright as her mother. Then came Jo and Jane, eighteen months younger at twelve, both discovering the delights of secondary school and enjoying living life to the full. Ten year old Heidi settled awkwardly in the middle, neither here nor there, unsure as to whether she wanted to join with her elder siblings and cousins or the younger. The boys, Colin, Will and Alex, were now eight and lively, boisterous young souls with a contempt for anything they deemed to be even remotely girly. Jasmine, Kate and Jacynth, all now six, were still enjoying the novelty of school and discovering their own passions in life – the former adoring her older cousin Allie and continuing with her passion for all things ballet related. Four year old Janet was the one always trailing Jasmine, Kate and Jacynth, determined to be allowed to join in their games. And Leo, just three, as fiercely determined to do as much, and more, as he possibly could. Finally, May, who had celebrated her first birthday earlier that year, was discovering the joys of life, bringing a new trick with her every time we saw her.

And then there was always Colin. I still had his arms to go to when I sought reassurance and love, knowing that I would always find it in him. I had come so close to losing him once that it now seemed impossible I could have been so foolish as to let him go. He had always been there, always been the first to try and smooth things over for me and make it better.

During the seemingly interminable hours I spent confined to bed, my eyes would often wander to the photograph on the dressing table. The one that I knew by heart. The four girls at the top of the cobbled street in Liverpool, my sisters and I a whole lifetime ago. Had seventy years really passed since the day that Rupert Graham’s motor car appeared in our street, unwittingly determining the course that one part of my life would take? Without that picture I would never have known Colin, and without him would I have ever found someone who loved me in the way he did? My mind turned back over the years more and more often during those days of autumn to the events of my life.

In my time I have learned to reconcile myself to all those experiences that made me who I am today. I am Sharlie Andrews from the back streets of Liverpool. I am Sharlie Andrews, the scared evacuee in the tiny Welsh village. I am Sharlie Andrews of St Monica’s School. I am Sharlie Andrews of London University. I am Sharlie Andrews of the Chalet School. I am Sharlie Andrews, friend, cousin, niece, daughter, sister, wife, mother and grandmother. I am all this and so much more.

But above all things I am, always have been and always will be, the little girl in the navy blue dress, captured forever in black and white with her sisters at the top of the street looking out at the industrial panorama and dreaming of what lay beyond.

GRAHAM, Charlotte (Sharlie) Louise (née Andrews). On 4 October 2006, aged 76, peacefully at home after a short illness. Beloved wife of Colin, mam to Alice, Luke, Amelia, Sophie and Roo, almost-mam to Lottie, nan to Emily, Jane, Heidi, Alex, Jasmine, Allie, Jo, Will, Jacynth, Colin, Janet, Kate, Leo and May. Funeral details to be announced, family flowers only.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into that silent land;
When you can no longer hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning to stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be too late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
~Christina Rossetti~

Tell me where, where is it written what it is I’m meant to be, that I can dare. It all began the day I found that from my window I could only see a piece of sky. I stepped outside and looked around, I never dreamed it was so wide or even half as high. The time had come (papa can you hear me) to try my wings (papa are you near me) and even though it seemed at any moment I could fall, I felt the most (papa can you see me) amazing things (can you understand me) the things you can’t imagine if you’ve never flown at all. Though it’s safer to stay on the ground sometimes where danger lies the sweetest of pleasures are found. No matter where I fall there’ll be memories that tug at my sleeve, but there will also be more to question yet more to believe. Oh tell me where, where is the someone who will turn to look at me and want to share my every sweet imagined possibility? The more I live, the more I learn, the more I learn, the more I realise the less I know. Each step I take, papa I’ve a voice now, each page I turn, papa I’ve a choice now. Each mile I travel only means the more I have to go. What’s wrong with wanting more if you can fly? Then so with all there is why settle for just a piece of sky? Papa I can hear you, papa I can see you, papa I can feel you, papa, watch me fly. ~Barbra Streisand~

Word count : 368, 936
Pages: Typed 681
Handwritten 773


Last edited by pim on Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:41 am; edited 1 time in total

#127:  Author: FatimaLocation: Sunny Qatar PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:08 am
    —
Crying or Very sad

Thanks Pim.

#128:  Author: NinaLocation: Peterborough, UK PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:12 am
    —
Crying or Very sad Gosh, what timing, I saw this as soon as you posted and wasn't sure whether to read it now or save it for later. I've read it. Crying or Very sad I think I'll come back and read it again later...

And to think I almost didn't start reading this, right back at the beginning! Thank you Pim Smile

#129:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:20 am
    —
Sitting here with tears streaming down my face - Pim this was beautiful - the definitive work on Sharlie Andrews.




Sublime - no more need be said - except thank you.

#130:  Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:11 am
    —
Awww - that made me cry - and very very few drabbles ever do that!

Thanks Pim. This has been fabulous from start to finish. Whatever anyone else writes about her, this will always be Sharlie's story for me.

Looking forward to the outakes and hope the withrawal symptons aren't too bad!

xx

#131:  Author: KarryLocation: Stoke on Trent PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:17 am
    —
I have just had to disappear into our Shredding room, so that concerned people do not ask me what the matter is! Thank you Pim. this has been a tremendous work, that is one of the highlights of the day!

#132:  Author: LottieLocation: Humphrey's Corner PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:25 am
    —
Thanks, pim. I have really enjoyed this (apart from the sad bits!).

pim wrote:
Funeral details to be announced, family flowers only.

After 368,936 words, I feel I should be contacting the florist.

#133:  Author: AliceLocation: London, England PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:42 am
    —
I was okay all the way through that, until I got to the obituary. I'm glad no-one is around me in the office right now!

Thanks Pim.

#134:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:43 am
    —
Thank you so much for this Pim. I was determined to wait until I got home, but couldn't.

The story highlighted for me how much can lie behind those simple death notices; they can never do justice to the person concerned.

The biggest round of applause goes to you for this epic work, which will forever be the definitive story of Miss Andrews.

#135:  Author: NellLocation: London, England PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:50 am
    —
Even though I knew it still had me in tears...just (I fought them). Can't really believe that's it but what a lovely end with Sharlie reconciled to who and what she is.

Ta pimmy.

#136:  Author: GemLocation: Saltash/Aberystwyth PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:27 am
    —
*also slightly tearful*

Can't believe it's actually over... What am I going to do without my regular email every Monday with the week's updates?

This has been an amazing story, Pim, from start to finish. I'll never read about EBD's Sharlie again without knowing her real background and future Wink *hugs* Thank you.

#137:  Author: AllyLocation: John Bettany's Cabin! PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:37 am
    —
Gosh two years and two days, where did they go? I had to go back and read it again as the first time did make me cry rather. Thank you pim for a marvellous epic (and all that death plotting) Wink

#138:  Author: ChairLocation: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 am
    —
Thank you, Pim. Crying or Very sad That was a very moving ending. I'm so sorry to see this end. Crying or Very sad I will definitely miss Sharlie. Thank you for writing such a wonderful story. You have made me laugh, cry and giggle at many points during the story.

#139:  Author: Cath V-PLocation: Newcastle NSW PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:47 am
    —
Thank you Pim; I have enjoyed this. It all came back to the photograph in the end . . . which was fitting.

#140:  Author: EilidhLocation: North Lanarkshire PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 12:42 pm
    —
Alice wrote:
I was okay all the way through that, until I got to the obituary.


Yep, me too. I knew it was a good idea to read this before the boys got here.

Thanks Pim - a wonderful ending.

#141:  Author: RoseaLocation: Edinburgh PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:49 pm
    —
Thanks, Pim. I am hugely impressed by the epic that you produced - (and looking forward to the final out takes! )

#142:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:15 pm
    —
Thank you Pim. I wondered how on earth you were going to finish it without it turning maudlin - which even the sad bits have never been - and that was perfect. Sharlie reconciled to her whole life and then slipping away.

'Your' Sharlie and her whole universe have been so real that I was upset for Colin when I read the Obituary.

#143:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:58 pm
    —
Thanks Pim, I've loved reading this and am so sad that it has ended as it has been the best drabble on the board for a long, long time. Sad

#144:  Author: TanLocation: London via Newcastle Australia PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:14 pm
    —
Oh my.

I lost it when I saw the obituary, I almost feel as if a friend had died.

Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad

Thank you Pim, this to me is the definitive story of Sharlie.

#145:  Author: MaryRLocation: Cheshire PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 9:21 pm
    —
Thank you, Pim, such a long and happy life - and Colin can't be too far behind his beloved Sharlie. Crying or Very sad

#146:  Author: Kathy_SLocation: midwestern US PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 2:29 am
    —
Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad

So much for hoping against hope that the narrator couldn't die!

Beautifully written, though, especially that last post.

Thank you, Pim.

#147:  Author: Elder in OntarioLocation: Ontario, Canada PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 2:30 pm
    —
This has been a fascinating saga from start to finish, encompassing so many elements from 'real' history and weaving them in to the life cycles of Sharlie and her friends. I suppose it was inevitable that her death would end it, but as Mary R said, I doubt if Colin will survive her for long. And that was such a simple, yet such a poignant way of announcing her death, too.

I may not have commented often (if I commented on *all* the stories I read, I wouldn't have time for Real Life!) but I do just want to say how much I have enjoyed watching this unfold and 'sharing' the highs and lows in all your characters' lives. I'll certainly miss looking for the first new post of each week every Monday!!

Thank you, Pim.

#148:  Author: DawnLocation: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 10:08 pm
    —
thankyou Pim

Crying or Very sad

#149:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:40 am
    —
Crying or Very sad

Sharlie Andrews from start to finish. You made her seem so real, Pim, I didn't want her to die. Crying or Very sad

#150:  Author: BethCLocation: Worcester, UK PostPosted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:57 pm
    —
Pim, this has been wonderful. I hardly ever cry over stories, but the notice of Sharlie's death had me welling up. Thank you.

#151:  Author: LyanneLocation: Ipswich, England PostPosted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:27 pm
    —
Thank you Pim.

#152:  Author: LizBLocation: Oxon, England PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:02 pm
    —
Thank you, Pim - that was a wonderful drabble from start to finish. I'm sorry it's come to an end, but it was a perfect ending.

#153:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:12 pm
    —
Pim, thank you hunny.
Beautiful, sad, happy, joyous, heart-wrenching. You covered everything in this drabble. A complete and wonderful rollercoaster.
Thank you again.
*hugs*



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