International man of mystery Jennie E Owen

Jennie E Owen

International man of mystery

You were the Mr Benn living cartoon of our childhood usually abroad at some far away store, trying on the revolve-a-door disguises of a hundred different men. You’d return with scars, dangerous toys with glass eyes, secrets in briefcases.

You were a veritable man from U.N.C.L.E, back then, one of the Monkeys, Rod Stewart, Freddie Mercury. At home we never knew who you’d be, we’d place bets with buttons and two penny pieces. Some days you’d be Indiana Jones, others James Bond (played by Roger Moore). You might be a sailor; a traveller, a navy man pulling coloured flags out of your sleeves, tapping morse code on the dining table with the tip of a pale fingernail. Perhaps you’d be a professor straight off BBC 2, with half-moon glasses and a pipe, (later gobbled by the thaw of a hungry snowman) Once, you were Acker Bilk although we all agreed you never quite pulled that off. You chameleon’d.

Then one day, you encouraged us to try on costumes of our own

a teacher, a poet, a painter, a leader a mother, a sister, a daughter. An artist of the miniature moss gardens found in empty outside pools, garnered with beech nuts, spun with stolen petals, sea glass letters snail trail sentences.

about the power of fake moustaches, the quick-handed change of a hat. You taught me