The Final Act for a Bluebell Girl

When Jayne – one of my most loyal readers – asked if I would show some pictures of my late wife, Linzi, from the time when she was a dancer with the Bluebell Girls, I replied that I would look for an excuse to comply.  Well today, two and a half years after placing her ashes upon the sideboard in my sitting room, my son returned home from a shopping trip in near perfect climatic conditions and announced that this was the time to finally scatter his  mother’s mortal remains. I couldn’t agree more: blue skies, gentle breeze, and bright sunshine:  conditions that matched the day of her death exactly, and which (I’m sure) would satisfy her. So, along with his sister and the two dogs, we adjourned to the garden, where first we scattered wild flower seeds…

 

…followed by the ashes of her beloved chihuahuas, Ernie and Poppy…

…whom had been residing inside the display cabinet since 2011 and 2010 respectively. Then, in a ceremony that wasn’t the least sad (I’d already had a little grizzle earlier when I fetched the ashes into the kitchen in preparation) we three humans each scattered her ashes around the garden – upon boarders and in plant pots – until only a few handfuls remained. These were then taken to a bench upon the hill that overlooks our home, and desposited there amongst the grasses and wild flowers…

This, I thought, was the excuse to show a picture of her during her Bluebell days. But alas, all of her memorabilia lies gathering dust beneath our bed in Spain. So I’m  forced to include this terrible ‘still’ from the opening titles…

…from this Spanish movie…

…from the 1970’s. She’s the dancer in green.  However, in a slap-head moment, I realised I DID have a picture from her Bluebell days. Her very first promo shot, aged at sixteen, that she hung in our downstairs lavatory. Pretentious she was not. With the stage name of Linzi Wells, here she is in all her youthful glory – facing straight at the lavatory seat…

And just for her, I add this lovely woodland scene…

She would most definitely approve of this as a wallpaper; she really loved blue flowers – particularly bluebells. I expect though she thinks I’m being a little dramatic by dedicating it to her. She never did ‘dramatic’: not her style.

 

A Village Trapped in Amber?

I always have a camera close to hand; you never know when you’re going to need one. A case in point is this one…

It’s a screen shot from a TV show that was filmed thirty years ago in the village that, for the last ten years, I have called home. I can still recall crowding around the TV set when it was first aired on the ITV network in 1993, to see how the production company had ‘tarted up’ the conurbation in which my mother lived, and into which I was born…

The tale, itself, wasn’t one of Ms Rendell’s best, particularly because it was stretched out to a three-parter, when two episodes would have sufficed. Having snapped several screen shots, I had the fabulous idea of recreating them – to see how the old place has changed during the intervening decades in which I went from being a young dad, to a grey-haired pensioner. So I grabbed my little Canon compact and went hunting locations. The first was inaccessible – being a thicket of vicious thorns and stinging nettles; but I managed to get very close. Close enough to take this…

Not a lot of change, I think you’ll agree.

Here’s an establishing shot during the titles…

To replicate this I would have needed to access someone’s property, so I just stood outside their gate and took this…

Well someone forgot to take their dustbins in: and I don’t think anyone has milk delivered to their doorstep anymore. Here’s a closer Panaflex shot of the shop at the bottom of the hill…

The TV production company changed the name of the shop. Here it is today, with the original name…

No one bothers with window baskets; not in real life. The production company must have thought it would look nicer with them. Here the central character is seen outside of a Limo-hire establishment…

Inside, the building was decked out very like it had been during my childhood: a car sales garage. The apparent antiques shop was actually a private home, and still is. The modern picture shows the ‘garage’ looking very much as it had for eternity…

…but it is, in fact, now a private dwelling, but some stupid by-law forbids the owners to change the outward appearence: so it still looks like a car showroom, but with blacked-out windows, so passers-by can’t see the occupants watching TV. Dumb. Oh yeah, and someone else forgot to take their dustbin from the street. We’re a forgetful bunch – us carrot-crunchers.

Here we see the back of the central character as she turns into the high street. Note the time on the  church clock. Everyone is out at work: those are production company ‘props’ parked in the road. Also note the red Ford Sierra: it will, as of by magic, swap position. Today’s picture…

…includes an ugly warning sign that suggests that very stupid lorry drivers should refrain from taking their huge vehicles up the tiny, narrow road. Presumably one of the aforementioned once tried it, and wrecked several cars whilst trying to reverse back down the hill. God I hate that sign: it’s a blot on the landscape!

Oh look, it’s that red Sierra again. I had one, myself, in the same shade of red. Very bouncy back end, I recall. Blew a head gasket – just a few weeks before I was due to sell it and move to Spain. The florist closest camera was never such, and until recently was an insurance broker. It’s now empty, and will probably become a private residence: they all do eventually. Opposite is the George Hotel. It was actually one of three public houses in the village (now down to one). Today it is an partment building, but retains it’s original ‘look’…

Here is a scene from inside the building…

…which, for me is rather poignant. It is the place (in 1981)  where I met the woman who would become my wife of thirty-eight years, and the mother of my children. So, in summation, apart from in-fill between existing buildings and the street in which I now live – which was constructed in 2011…

…not a lot has really changed. But that’s the English countryside for you. Glacial. And I would be the last to complain.

 

Pongs and Songs and a Virtual Time-Traveller

I recall the celebrant at my wife’s funeral asking me if there was a ‘special’ song that we had shared. I surprised her by saying no and adding that our musical tastes were quite dissimilar. I was glad of the situation because (thought I) it would mean that I could continue to listen to the music I liked without being forced to think of her, and (naturally) becoming upset. What I had failed to consider is the fact that human  memories are often triggered by sounds – particularly music. There have been many cases, since her passing, when I have needed to switch off a song, or take myself away somewhere to be alone until I can recover my emotional equilibrium. But yesterday (13.03.2022) I was caught unawares by my car radio. Flicking impatiently through a multitude of channels, I paused as the opening bars of Clean Bandit’s ‘Rather Be‘ filled the passenger compartment. In an instant I’d travelled back to 2019; aboard an Easyjet Airbus to Spain; my MP3 player earphones buried in my ears – listening to the same song; my wife beside me as she played upon her beloved Apple iPad. It came like a bodyblow. I had to pull over in traffic – unbidden tears welling. In the space of a few seconds it seemed that all the effort I had put into trying to recover from my loss had been for nothing. But, of course, I got over it. I pulled myself together, and resumed my journey to collect our daughter from her day care centre. But I continued in silence. Music is a cruel time machine. It lays in ambush. Then today, some thirty hours later, I decided to ride my freshly-repaired motorcycle in the dark. Once I’d accustomed myself to the remarkable quality of the ride produced by new tyres and clutch, and travelling along an unlit and nondescript country road, the cold air made my nose run, and I sniffed involuntarily. As quickly as the music of the previous day had taken me back in time, so too did the aromas of the English countryside at night. I was momentarily confused. I didn’t know where I was. Then, for the briefest of moments, I thought I was a twenty-something version of myself, riding my bike to visit my new girlfriend’s house. Then, as I recognised the true situation – that I was sixty-five, and that it wasn’t March 1981 – far from being upset, I felt something akin to gratitude. Gratitude for the almost four decades that were to follow on from that year. For a life worth living. Sometimes  time travel can be a happy affair after all. Certainly, from my experience, pongs beat songs every time. 

Personal Portrait

I snapped this photo of my late wife, Linzi in 2017, whilst she was holidaying with another ex-hoofer. Finding it again made me smile. It shows that she may have left show-biz behind, but the spirit of show-biz wasn’t quite so keen to let her go…

The Book That Will Never Be Written

During the eulogy at my wife’s funeral, the celebrant let slip some information concerning a period in her life that many there knew nothing of. Afterwards, in the garden of remembrance, her former boss said:

“I don’t know how many hours we must have spent chatting about this and that together; but she never mentioned a word of that other life. I’m gob-smacked.”

The ‘other life’ to which he referred was her dancing career, which was cut short after only ten years by injury. As a dancer she travelled the world, and had many a tale to tell afterwards. A few years ago, a fellow dancer (who wrote to me following her death, and told me that Linzi was the most talented dancer she ever worked with – not that I would have known; Linzi ALWAYS played down her acheivements) suggested that Linzi write a book about her adventures behind the greasepaint. Linzi wasn’t keen: she doubted her ability. But she did come up with a title. If she were ever to write it, it would be called Three Brothels and a Monkey House. I, who was privvy to her stories, understood the meaning, and urged her to write it. But she didn’t. She just let the idea slip away. But yesterday, as I was tearfully sorting through the mountain of her ‘stuff’ I discovered a sheet of lined writing paper. There were only a few lines of her immaculate printed hand writing upon it. I think it might have been an experiment of hers – just to see if she really could write the book. Nothing else has come to light, so I must conclude that this tiny scribble is the totality of her autobiography. And this is it…

We’d travelled to Dusseldorf by train from Paris to appear in what turned out to be a small club looking rather like someone’s front room, very dark and decidedly on the dodgey side. On requesting the directions to our dressing room, we were met with ‘What do you need a dressing room for?’ We discovered that it was intended for us to appear nude. After a hurried call to our boss in Paris we all left the club and headed back to our cramped flat to discuss the situation.

And that was that. There are no more words. What actually happened afterwards was an unusual gig at the local zoo. Yes, you’ve guessed it: in the Monkey House  – in which one of Linzi’s dancing troupe swore blind that the large male orangutan there was really  a man in a suit.

Linzi always said to me: “You’re not putting any pictures of me on the Internet!” She did not enjoy any kind of limelight. But just to back up what I’ve just written, here are a couple of pics from that era…

Home (Madrid) from Argentina, where she enjoyed a relationship with a famous pop singer of that time. Last year she discovered a picture of herself with him on the Internet. Someone was selling it for $150.

And here she is, modelling for a perfume sales campaign in Spain. She never saw the resulting hoardings that sprang up across Madrid, because she had already moved on to her final gig before enforced retirement. Apparently, someone later told her, they looked fantastic. And, you know, people don’t believe me when I tell them that I DIDN’T marry her for her looks. Those were just a bonus…

For almost forty years, I was the luckiest man in the world.