GOLDIE Summer of Love

GOLDIE magazine

SUMMER 2018

£10

THE

SUMMER

OF LOVE

TOP QUALITY WITHOUT COMPROMISE

www.paulainsley.com 2 | GOLDIE magazine

EDITOR’S LETTER

A GOLDIE Summer of LOVE I

n 1968 I was four. Our cover star Patrick Cordier was fourteen. Fifty years have passed and there is still something about THE SUMMER OF LOVE message that continues to inspire our generation. This issue of GOLDIE magazine embodies the spirit of that summer, with a LOVE for life that is ageless. You may LOVE to garden like Elizabeth Grice, undertake a spot of building work, like Chris Davalle, or chat in the pub like columnist Andrew Harvey, but whatever you do it is with style and passion.

You may LOVE to see fantastic photos that show beauty is age agnostic – Arianne Clément’s touching images of older life, or Ben Winkler’s portrayal of silver haired beauties. You may LOVE your grey hair – like Louse Pendry, LOVE Frida Kahlo like her many fans, or LOVE Welsh Rugby – Julie Hurst does – whatever floats your boat we hope you find something to inspire you to do something different: Karen Pine took her research to heart when she moved to Italy, Linda Galloway changed her career to follow a passion for cooking and Sally J Duffell ditched comedy for HRT - Can menopause be funny? Well, Jane Jennison sees a positive side to the change. We explore deep emotions around PTSD, anger,and death: Annie Sherburne takes yoga to a new level, Melanie Denyer encounters rage from her wheelchair and Adam Brody’s feelings come to the surface when he learns of a friend’s death. As ever, we end with personal views about our own demise – the author Angus Donald tells us how he wants to sign off.

If you need permission to dance in the street, then Tom Morley will provide it; looking for extra confidence? Rona Steinberg will help you live out loud; if it’s practical ideas for how to move home with ease Gill Manly has tips, and if you are wondering whether to take up Yoga, Nancy Donahue may have the answer you’re looking for.

Being full of optimism and hope is actually part of the upward trajectory of the Happiness Curve which occurs after fifty: we are all preordained to have increased wellbeing as we age – if we accept that feeling old is more social conditioning than biological imperative, then we are all set to enjoy our life more than at any other time. IT really does get better after fifty – so if you are one of our younger readers, you have so much to look forward to!

Our cover story set the tone for this issue when we asked how David Bowie would dress if he scoured the local charity shops - BTW we think he probably did! A LOVE of dressing up is definitely shared by our generation; we want our wardrobes to reflect our values, just as we did when we were part of youthful subcultural style tribes.

We may have identified as Rockers, Mods, Punks, New Romantics, or any other variant of social belonging, but how do we see ourselves post-40? I have been intrigued by the many Silver Groups that have been springing up on social media. It seems we still want to connect with others over music, fashion, travel and a good debate shared with friends – with or without wine and sunshine… isn’t that what makes a good summer? Actually isn’t that what makes a good life?

One of my favourite feel good stories from the SUMMER OF LOVE issue is Jayne Gould and her partner’s decision to marry after years of being perfectly happy without a piece of paper. Relationships are vital to wellbeing at any age, statistically we will live longer if we are surrounded with people to LOVE, so however you are spending the summer months I hope you are doing what makes you happy, with friends you LOVE and sharing the JOY that GOLDIE magazine aims to spread.

I LOVE to see what adventures you are up to so please share your SUMMER OF LOVE on our social media pages.

Much LOVE, Rebecca

THE GOLDIE CREW Editor: Rebecca Weef Smith rebecca@goldiemediagroup.co.uk Art Director: Weef weef@goldiemediagroup.co.uk Sub editors: Andrew Harvey Charles Hebbert Chris Davalle Denis O’Donoghue Enid Shelmerdine John Clarke Mark Barber Norman Lane NS Sandra White Walter Gammie Special thanks to: Amber Burrows Beth Evans Elaine Harrison PR Humphrey Gervais Lindsay Foreman Mixam Printers MMS distribution Oxfam Fashion UK Paul Harrison The Devonshire Club

Cover image by Elle Halley Model Patrick Cordier Clothes Oxfam Fashion UK facebook.com/thegoldiecrew twitter.com/goldiemediauk instagram.com/goldie_magazine goldiemag.co.uk GOLDIE magazine | 3

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CONTENTS

W R I T E R S Adam Brody Andrew Harvey Angela Kennedy Angus Donald Annie Sherburne Arianne Clément Ben Winkler Chris Duvall Enid Shelmerdine Esther Austin Gill Manly Jacynth Bassett Jämes Rïgby Jane Jennison Jayne Gould

Julie Hurst Karen Pine Kay Newton Linda Galloway Elizabeth Grice Louise Pendry Melanie Denyer Paul Connelly Rona Steinberg Sally J Duffel Sharon Eden Steve Kennan Sue Wheat Terry Ramsey Tom Morley

P H O T O G R A P H E R S Anita Berhane Bertie Taylor Elle Halley Gary Milo Gerald Mathew Wilhelm Jane Davalle Jason Purple Jenny Evans Lisa Bretherick Lynalex Bernales Mike Merchant Ole Laptev Richard Kaby Rob Wilson Jr Trendzine Venessa Mills Veronika Speigl

M O D E L S Aurora Amos Patrick Cordier Rain Harris Serena Constance

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T H I S

I S S U E

3 Editor’s letter 6 Contents

T H E

I N F O R M E R S

8 Scritti Personali Tom Morley brings down the mental barriers.

12 The Goldie Interview Rebecca Weef Smith interviews Martyn Ware.

48 Grey Mattters Gill Manly moves to a community of like-minded women.

92 Anarcho Dandy Whose line is it anyway? Asks Jämes Rïgby.

94 The Scene

u Trendzine: Summer Street Style.

u Richard Kaby: Silk Series, Spitalfields.

104 Closet Confidential Angela Kennedy chats to Rae Feathers.

116 Live out Loud Rona Steinberg: do you want to meet the real you?

120 Life Lessons

¢ Enid Shelmerdine

¢ Terry Ramsey

¢ Jane Jennison

¢ Paul Connelly 128 Pub Talk Andrew Harvey: it’s in the algorithms apparently.

129 What’s your problem?

Ask Agony Aunt, Sharon Eden.

130 Signing off Author Angus Donald shares his final wishes.

L E T ’ S

D A N C E

10 Where it’s hip to be square Sue Wheat discovers how Julie Spicer is reinventing the disco.

16 Why I have put my heart & soul into music Esther Austin talks to Chris Jasper about Lurve.

20 Battling insomnia & grieving an eternal sleep Adam Brody wondered if going to a friend’s funeral was absolutely necessary.

G O L D E N

Y E A R S

28 Catching the silver linings Ben Winkler’s makes an art of photographing older women.

36 Turning negatives to positives Arianne Clément captures the lives of the elderly in her own unique way.

BRILLIANT ADVENTURES 42 My wake up punch Melanie Denyer’s move to York hasn’t been without incident.

46 Pickaxes at dawn Elizabeth Grice shares a memorable but exhausting trip to Greece.

50 Rewiring not retiring Karen Pine heads to Italy for a new life…

52 More than just a matter of convenience Chris Davalle wasn’t sure what to expect from a trip to Thailand and Cambodia.

60 Do I like Rugby? Take it as Red Julie Hurst wears her Welsh-ness with pride.

61 At peace with war on the yoga mat Annie Sherburne travels to Florida to discover a new approach to teaching yoga.

OH YOU PRETTY THINGS 78 Maggie makes magic happen.

Maggie Owen tells Angela Kennedy how she joined the Bloomsbury Set. 98 Life’s a beach Fashion, friends and seaside dressing-up.

82 We are the goon squad and were coming to town Men’s Where? Look no further than the local charity shop.

108 Inspired by Frida The Frida Kahlo exhibition at the V&A gives her fans a chance to meet up.

106 These bags change lives Alicia Kossick creates more than just fashionable accessories.

74 Bow wow, WOWS! Agnetha Sjögren and her very nice dogs.

R E B E L

R E B E L

18 F**K Jayne Gould asks are we swearing more?

68 My Greyvolution Louise Pendry decided it was time to ditch the dye.

110 Life’s T-shirts Kay Newton has a T-shirt to cover every occasion.

112 Pause, refresh, fast forward For Jane Jennison menopause was a blessing.

114 From stand up to lie down and back again Sally J Duffell: ‘funny old things hormones?’

118 Any body can achieve fitness at a stretch Can yoga help us all to get a body like Nancy Donahue?

124 Hackette to haute cuisine Linda Galloway swaps the newsroom for the kitchen.

126 Wedding of the year, Ours Jayne Gould didn’t plan on getting married, so what happened to change her mind?

GOLDIE magazine | 7

SCRITTI PERSONALI

Black tie

white lie PICTURES BY JASON PURPLE & BERTIE TAYLOR

As the metal barriers go up on London’s bridges one group remains committed to bringing the mental barriers down, aided and abetted by Tom Morley

P

ermission, where do we get it from?

Parents first, teachers second, the law third.

It would be good to get it from ourselves.

Permission to do what?

Let’s begin with dancing in the streets. Literally first, metaphorically second. In fact, let’s start with kicking our shoes off and dancing in this fountain.

Dancing in fountains is something I’ve been doing a lot during the past seven years.

For Westerners I think it must be one of the most joyous symbols of freedom we have.

I love it, it’s irreverent on every level and I need to keep reminding myself I’m a rebel.

I haven’t been dancing alone though, that would have been a bit sad. There’s a troupe of us. Men in black-tie and women in ballgowns, all of us getting drenched and laughing like banshees. Mavericks all, it’s a definite ‘NO’ to everything in moderation and a definite YES to seize the day. But who would ruin such expensive, glamorous outfits on a whim?

To onlookers the early morning champagne bottles we are swinging with abandon are a bit of a giveaway.

Look closer and you’ll see smudged mascara, women carrying high heels and the men’s bowties undone and flapping in the breeze. Young and old are singing and toasting each for reasons

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we can’t hear. Let’s get a little closer.

What’s the story? Has this crew been up all night at a wedding party, are we actors celebrating the first night of a West End show, or is one of our tribe having a ‘significant birthday’ that just refuses to run out of steam? We appear to have the energy of teenagers though some of us are in our 60s. The rest, apparently in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s are exuding an optimism that is seldom seen anywhere these days, let alone on the early morning streets.

Black Tie White Lie is the joy of staying up all night without losing any sleep.

We’re pretending. We get to bed early on Saturday and meet early on Waterloo Bridge on Sunday at 10 o’clock in the morning, dressed, and behaving, as if we’ve been partying all night. Why on earth would anybody do that?

It gives us permission to enjoy the social advantages of appearing to be elegantly inebriated. We’re licensing each other to laugh riotously in public, while cyclists wave, cars hoot and open-topped buses of tourists cheer. We’re broadcasting our heartfelt values to the world. Love! Loyalty!

Freedom! We’re riotously advocating adventure and serenading serendipity.

In essence this is street performance for non-actors, for people who have happened to hear about it somehow. Usually by wordof-mouth or social media. For an hour or two the streets become our stage and the people passing by are our audience. Yes, we need an audience for it to make sense. With

Tom drumming up a fun time for early risers on Waterloo Bridge, and right, Tom making a splash in the fountain on the Southbank

“Our empty champagne bottles and our plastic flutes filled with fizzy water become a magnet for good vibes”

their smiles and by stopping to dance with us they’re kindly stamping our passports on the borders of adventure and issuing us with licenses to live. In return we give them a red rose and a song, or maybe a poem.

I say ‘kindly’ because if you ask any of the ‘actors’ most of them will tell you, when it comes to really staying up all night, they just can’t hack it any more.

Some are parents with young children, others hammered their livers when they were students and some are young ravers who partied hard until they were 25 then simply gave it all up, choosing a more spiritual approach to celebration. The one thing we all have in common though is that we loved that ‘up all night’ vibe. The freedom, the connection, the irreverence when it came to dancing all night then going for a slap-up breakfast. We’re not giving that up, and why should we?

In London, any group can legitimately

break a few rules by adopting a corporate identity, that is, wearing the same gear.

Hen nights, football fans, even stag weekends are cottoning on to the fact that their drunken behaviour is more acceptable by the public and the police if they’re all wearing similar cowboy hats.

Black Tie White Lie is different though.

Football fans are in effect saying “keep away, we’re an exclusive tribe” and Hen Nights and Stag tribes are saying “Private Party”. In contrast the Black Tie White Lie performance, with our roses, our empty champagne bottles and our champagne flutes filled with fizzy water, becomes a magnet for good vibes. We also have a big bass beat box in a shopping trolley pumping out ‘I Feel Love’ and other dance classics. People want to be with us, they long to re-connect with the songs that accompanied their late teenage and their early twenties. They love to step back into that video, that sense of ‘we’re gonna be in love like this for ever and ever!’. And in fact they often do join us for a short time.

You could say we’re providing a public service here, including feel good selfies.

But there’s one BIG difference with times past, and if you’re thinking of joining us it’s a difference you’ll like.

This much hedonism would normally be followed by one almighty hangover.

However, the toughest thing at the end of a Black Tie White Lie event is splitting the breakfast bill then working out what to do with the rest of the day.

This is the ‘giving yourself permission’.

The sun is shining, you’re dressed like a star and the world is your oyster. Just like the old days. ¢ The next Black Tie White Lie event will be Sunday 2nd September.

To see videos and photos of past breakfast parties visit www.tommorley.com/btwl GOLDIE magazine | 9

WHERE IT’S HIP

VERONIKA SPEIGL

Julia Spicer tells Sue Wheat why she started a disco for people who cut their dance teeth in the 70s and 80s

ulia Spicer is something of a Renaissance Woman – with 11 being her magic number. She initially trained as a teacher ‘because that’s what you did’, working at the chalkface for 11 years until an INSET course for her final role as a careers teacher serendipitously showed her she was in the wrong job. It was 1989, the same year her mother died, and so she decided she had to make changes.

She moved to a new job managing an ‘education shop’ providing educational advice for adults in Waltham Forest, where she stayed for 11 years. At the same time she began to follow another calling, starting art classes locally and progressing to a Fine Art degree at Central St Martins, which eventually led to her gaining a Masters in Photography from the Royal College of Art. Her next 11-year stint was as manager of Holloway Prison’s library, where she says: “I met some really interesting people and also hosted some wonderful author events for the prisoners. The highlight was Scottish poet and novelist Jackie Kay’s visit – the women absolutely loved her though they had no idea who she was!”

After Holloway, she started life as a freelance artist and curator. She set up her website DoloresRocket.com (named after a famous greyhound) and continues to produce and organise exhibitions of her own and fellow artists’ work. She also recently curated

10 | GOLDIE magazine

an exhibition on the history of the bicycle for Vestry House Museum.

Alongside this life as an artist, Julia’s latest personal reinvention has really caught the attention of the local community. In 2016, she started You Should Be Dancing! – YSBD! for short – a “club night for, as she puts it: “People who cut their dancing teeth in the 70s and 80s – and their younger friends!”

Julia says: “I started DJing when I was first at college in the 70s (the first woman there to step behind the decks) and continued for a bit in the 80s before work took over. But a few years ago, despite being ‘a woman of a certain age’, I started tentatively getting back into it – Dolores Rocket also becoming my DJ name – playing in local pubs at first. And I realised that as we get older, we might not feel comfortable in clubs any more, but as soon as someone starts playing great music, we still really, really want to dance.

“So I started thinking about trying to put on a disco night and people were saying ‘yes you should do it,’ but I didn’t know where.”

As luck would have it someone needed a last minute DJ when their birthday party DJ cancelled, and Julia stepped in and discovered the venue of her dreams – Walthamstow Trades Hall. It was a place she’d heard of, but never ventured in, despite living down the road for 30 years. It’s a traditional working men’s club tucked off the main Hoe St in E17, with a drab 1970’s red brick exterior – but stepping inside takes you right back to that era.

“When I walked into the Trades Hall it was just like coming home,” she says. “It’s such an amazing place. I play music from the 60s through to a cut-off point at the mid-90s – I’m really strict about that – and this venue really suits the music. There’s a huge mirror

“Some are in their 80s – taking to the floor to line dance or jive”

ball, massive sprung dance floor, cheap bar and lounge area with its swirly carpet, it’s perfect. And several of the older members of the Club come along to YSBD! nights – some are in their 80s – taking to the floor to line dance or jive till the end of the night. It’s a unique and special place.”

And so another facet of Julia’s eclectic career was launched. She thinks one of the reasons YSBD! has been so successful is that it’s known for its inclusivity. “There’s been a lot of local community support for it. It’s an affordable night out too – the tickets are cheap, drinks at the Trades are incredibly cheap, so you get an unusually diverse mix

of people who just want an attitude-free night of fun.”

YSBD! has also managed to bring local dance groups onto the floor, often launching into spontaneous dances to tunes like You Should Be Dancing.

An amazing symbiotic relationship has also developed with local dance teacher Clare Farrow, of Move17.

“I didn’t know Clare before I started my night,” Julia says. “She runs a range of dance activities and classes across the borough and encourages members of her groups to come and try out their moves at my nights. It’s lovely to see so many people – who wouldn’t normally perform – just take to the floor and dance in unison when I put a tune on.”

The dance floor is constantly packed, everyone moving to a carefully selected set of great dance tracks – soul, funk, pop, reggae and disco - accompanied by a 70s or 80s dance movie projected on a screen. But Julia is at pains to point out it’s definitely not

P TO BE SQ ARE an “ironic” or “vintage” night out. “No-one feels like they have to dress in 70s gear – although some who enjoy it do!” It’s just a genuine, amazing space for people to meet, drink, talk and most of all…. dance to music they love. “I’m also careful to make sure that every YSBD! set is different, so there’s a new mix of music for everyone to enjoy every time – selected by someone who was there the first time around.”

YSBD! Has now been running for two years and features a remarkably goodhumoured, uber-excited, sometimes besequined, fun and friendly crowd, many of whom have met each other at the school gates, or various community events. “YSBD! solidifies friendships and allows people to meet in a way that they wouldn’t normally do, drawn together by a common love of the music. Everybody who goes knows the music, and even younger ones who come love it as it’s their parents’ music they’ve grown up with.”

The icing on the cake is that, as it’s a working men’s club, with an unwavering and long-running schedule, there is one thing that is non-negotiable among members, and consequently has become a much-loved part of the night: without fail, it’s Eyes Down at 9.15pm for Bingo! “The woman who calls the bingo is called Eileen. Everyone knows her now, and people are disappointed if she can’t make it,” says Julia. “So there are just two tracks which I play every single YSBD! night – one is You Should be Dancing! and the other just has to be… Come on Eileen.”

Walthamstow has become one of the leading “hipster” neighbourhoods in London over recent years, with young professionals flocking in because of its (once) cheaper housing and excellent transport links, but YSBD! and the Trades Hall still seems to be keeping it real, with not a beanie hat in sight.

YSBD! nights welcome everyone – whatever age or background – all united by a love of the music.

Julia says: “It’s been a real revelation, and a wonderful experience for me as well as (I hope) for everyone who comes to YSBD! When I look out from the DJ decks over a packed dance floor with everyone having a great time, the feeling is just brilliant!”

So, will she still be DJing in 11 years’ time….? “As long as people enjoy YSBD! nights, I’m happy to keep doing them,” she says. “The music is so good we’ve easily got 11 years’ worth of dancing yet to come!” ¢ You Should Be Dancing! Is held every two months (keep an eye on the Facebook group for upcoming dates). Tickets: £5.50 Early Bird tickets or £7 on the door.

Venue: Walthamstow Trades Hall, 61/63 Tower Hamlets Road, E17 4RQ www.doloresrocket.com/ GOLDIE magazine | 11

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Don’t be fooled when Martyn Ware says he is no longer cutting edge: this son of a Sheff ield steelworker is as razor sharp now as in his pomp in the ‘70s and ‘80s when he co-founded synthpop bands The Human League and Heaven 17.

Ever the optimist, ever the idealist, he tells a still star-struck Rebecca Weef Smith how he is channeling his energy, enthusiasm and passion towards making the world a better place

MARTYN âW A R E

R

THE GOLDIE

INTERVIEW

emember how it felt when you were 16 and coming out of a gig and spotted one of the band members having a fag? How you’d smile at them and want to say how much you loved their music and how happy it made you, but wouldn’t because that would be so uncool – happiness wasn’t what we aspired to in the ‘80s, was it? So you’d just walk to the tube instead, hoping you hadn’t missed the last one home.

Can you imagine still feeling like that 37 years later? Only now it’s okay to be happy because it’s no longer uncool, and you think that the band member really wouldn’t mind, and it’s the middle of the afternoon so transport concerns aren’t so pressing.

Martyn Ware - along with Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory - formed Heaven 17 in 1981 after a split with The Human League. I wasn’t really sure that I was clever enough to get the radical postmodern joke that Heaven

17 and its alter ego, the British Electric Foundation, were playing. I was at art school, a 17-year-old pretentious wannabe with blue hair, so could definitely manage the look, but could I walk the walk? Penthouse and Pavements was the album I clutched as I strode, full of radical enthusiasm, to parties on a Saturday night (not too radical, however, to forget the name stickers that proclaimed ownership of the records I didn’t want to leave at a stranger’s house after a too many glasses of Lambrusco).

By September, 1983, Heaven 17 were gracing the cover of Smash Hits; they had become the voice of post-punk. Thirty five years later they are embarking on their Luxury Gap tour, having performed live consistently since 1997. They have a loyal fan base of die-hards who turn up to every gig and I couldn’t help but wonder whether what Martyn Ware had to say in the 80s wasn’t, in fact, needed more than ever today. Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry still feels pretty relevant to me but I am not a music journalist: I have no idea what you are supposed to ask a musician, I only know what I like to listen and dance to.

So where do you start with someone who has been making iconic music for ever?

When I hear Let Me Go I am 17 again and getting ready for a Saturday night in the suburbs, so I began by asking Martyn how old he feels in his head. u GOLDIE magazine | 13

MARTYN â WARE

u“Energy levels notwithstanding, I still feel 40 (he is 62). When I was growing up, how I feel now was the way I thought 40 would feel. I’m not delusional, I know I’m no longer cutting edge but I feel that my age has given me a huge amount of strength; I like being the age I am now. Actually, I have liked every age, but this feels good. When I look back on who I was when Penthouse and Pavement came out I am amazed at how much balls I had. I am really proud of myself.

The ‘80s was party time for me. As a generation we were very lucky - there were so many opportunities and resources available. I grasped every one and made the most of that time. I’m not nostalgic, I don’t see the point. Today is good, and every day has its challenges and chances.”

Growing up, Martyn had diverse musical taste. He would shop at Rare and Racy in Sheffield for second-hand albums, picking them up if he liked the cover image and returning them if they weren’t any good, never scared to take a risk on music, or anything else in life. “I’ve always been eclectic, right from a teenager. My education in music was informed by my sisters who are 10 and 20 years older than me. They had big record collections and there was always something different playing, from film soundtracks to experimental computer music to The Kinks’ greatest hits.”

Today he comes across as an optimist, a quality he appears to have inherited from his father, along with his inherent need to create stuff and make a difference to the world.

“My life is pretty cool, I’m having a great time. My concern is for doing right in the world. . . that’s not a bad thing to be obsessed with when you get older. I am in a continual state of joining the dots and learning. I want to be a positive force ‘til the day I die. Many people understandably get disillusioned as they get older, but why are we here if not to make a difference in some way: if you don’t do stuff, what is the point? My Dad worked in a toolmakers firm and my Mum made jeans - it’s there inside me. And Sheffield, South Yorkshire, is full of makers. They produce stuff, you can’t help but absorb that way of being. Everybody was doing stuff – they weren’t very well paid but they were all doing stuff.”

When Martyn turned 50 he realised that it was creativity that made him happy. Now not a day goes by without him expressing his need to make something – whether a 14 | GOLDIE magazine

GOLDIE INTERVIEW

THE

Martyn still makes music, touring with Heaven 17, producing soundscapes and teaching music at Tileyard music academy where he is principal

PICTURES GERALD MATTHEW WILHELM

line of a song or something insignificant to anyone but him. We talk about the value of craftsmanship, of honing a skill and the authenticity in a job well done. Practicality and pragmatism are very much part of who Martyn is, his Sheffield-ness; always seeking solutions to the complexity of life. He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes but wasn’t happy with the way it was viewed as an insurmountable degenerative condition. So he lost weight, made some lifestyle changes and stabilised his blood sugar.

He appreciates that the choices we make impact on our individual happiness but can also have far reaching consequences on others’ lives too. Just recently he has been knocking on doors canvasing for a political cause. By his own admission, he was “shit scared. . . but I knew it was something I

“I am in a continual state of joining the dots and learning. I want to be a positive force ‘til the day I die”

needed to do. You never know what is on the other side of that door. It’s terrifying, they may really take offence at you. It was only 18 months ago I started this and it was one of the biggest learning experiences of my life.”

I wonder if it’s that ‘80s thing. Our generation came of age when the impact of Thatcherism gave us the drive to not take any bullshit. Did the effect of politics cause the proliferation of post punk creativity of which Heaven 17 played a part? And if so, are we likely to see that surge again - are we going to witness our generation becoming activists once more as our anger is reignited?

Martyn feels strongly that age gives us an obligation to continue the fight; that it’s good for us to acknowledge that we have choices and are not merely victims of circumstance.

He returns to his father: the impact of working in the steel industry meant that at retirement age he had little energy left for much else than sitting in front of the telly. “My Dad retired after years of ill health. . . when I was growing up the men I saw were worn out by the time they retired. Our generation have had the incredible luck to take advantage of the health improvements of the last 50 years and we should use that energy for the good of others.”

Martyn still makes music, touring with Heaven 17, producing soundscapes with 3D recording equipment, and teaching music – he is principal of Tileyard Music Academy.

But his passion now is the work he does with cultural support organisations like In Place of War. “We go to places of conflict to find a way for young people to create their own authentic change. We are assisting in setting up a radio station in Palestine; we have been to Brazil; I am hoping to go to Uganda. We shipped an old desk from Ronnie Scott’s to Africa. . . it’s one of those projects where everyone can get involved.”

He has recently been recording the sounds of factory life in Blackburn for part of a soundscape project with The Festival of Making. We soon move on from how the Silentnight bedmaking factory sounds, to how seriously it takes its responsibility as a local employer, providing not only jobs but an identity for an entire community. “It’s like being in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory – I come from a steel town so I know about factories, but how many of us ever really get to see inside one? I was surprised how hand-made the mattresses still are – they could automate more but they choose not

to. I thought, ‘fuck me, this is handcrafted mattresses selling at mass market prices’.

And I talked to the bosses: they were proud of the fact that they could make a contribution, to be an integrated part of the community.”

We launch into a conversation about the need to regenerate the pride of people in northern towns who have lost a sense of cultural identity. He tells me the story of one factory, Shaws of Darwen, one of the UK’s oldest terracotta companies. Its management took the opportunity to turn around the ailing company, setting up Darwen Terracotta and Faience, re-employing the skilled workforce and bringing pride back into a community who felt they were being overlooked.

Back on music, I ask Martyn whether he feels that what he still produces with Heaven 17 resonates with a cross-generational section of music lovers. If the audience is anything to go by when they perform live, then age

is irrelevant to enjoying what Heaven 17 sound like. They are not nostalgic in the way they perform; Martyn says they continue to mix up the way they “do” classic Heaven 17 tracks and. . . “We still write new stuff – B.E.F shows are innovative and interesting, with new arrangements. We are looking to move things forward. Fans want a new album, a kind of Penthouse and Pavements 2, but my view is that unless it comes from an authentic place inside me, I’m better off not doing it.”

Heaven 17 have 50 gigs lined up this year. Just a few weeks ago they performed at Uttoxeter Racecourse and that wasn’t to an audience of die-hard fans – in the 5,000 it was unlikely that more than 20 per cent had seen Heaven 17 live before. “We tick the boxes. It is very nice to have dedicated

fans but we are also very much of the people.

We like people; we believe that the opinion of anyone is valid. We have developed our set to address ‘non-believers’. We aren’t a niche band, we see ourselves as providing a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours.”

What Martyn does musically is age agnostic. I get the sense that this is not only to do with the band but also in his personal politics and his general flexible outlook on life. We talked about everything, from Ruskin’s theory of “artistic bastardisation”, the problems with Big Data and the benefits that could come from Universal Basic Income. We discussed the need to create environments where diversity profits everyone - Martyn dreams of seeing Tory MPs chatting to people on the streets of Blackburn to get an understanding of how hopeless they feel. We discuss the vision of entering a post capitalist society: “it’s the transition period that is painful . . . there is this super-dumb concept that growth is eternal. What the fuck is wrong with this never ending conveyer belt of enablers who go through the entire delivery chain and embed themselves as untouchable - where is the value in them?”

A Martyn Ware manifesto wouldn’t go amiss. “It seems an overwhelming thing to take on the world. But the small changes you make will make you realise that you have a lot in common with other people. I don’t just bullshit, I go out there and try to convince people that the world can be a better place, but it takes individuals to take action. There is a snowball effect: Use the power that you have, – don’t only look after YOU, think about the wider community you live in. We need to fight against THEM. Age is irrelevant. We are obliged to get out there and have a voice more than ever. This is fundamental issue that affects us all; we need to acknowledge our power and position in society. We can be heard. Every age I’ve been in I’ve enjoyed. They have had different challenges but life is good” Underpinning Martyn Ware the electronic pop-master is an activist who understands he has been privileged, but isn’t going to waste time apologising. He is getting on with enjoying life and spreading that particular style of ‘(we don’t need that) fascist groove thang’.

Which sounds as good to me as it did in 1981. ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 15

Why I have to put my heart and soul into music

Chris Jasper’s music spans the generations. As the author of smash hits such as Harvest for the World, and Caravan of Love, Chris first achieved fame with the Isley Brothers and later IsleyJasper-Isley and at the age of 66 continues a successful solo career, having recording more than 14 albums. Here he chats to Esther Austin

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Esther: Last year you had a couple of singles out: I Love you and That’s what Love can do. Where does all this good ‘lurvin’ come from?

Chris: I’ve been blessed to have been married to a wonderful woman for over 35 years. A lot of that passion in the lyrics comes from my relationship with her and, of course, I have lyrics that are spiritual in nature too. I do have a good connection with our Lord and that’s a big part of who I am too.

E: How do you keep that spark, passion and authenticity of love in your relationship?

C: It’s all so natural for us because when we first met, we had a connection. Once you have that spiritual connection, it really doesn’t go away. It’s something that’s a very pleasant and easy thing to do. I feel that the best connection is one where it feels natural and feels like you’ve known each other forever, so therefore it’s very easy to maintain.

E: How does that connect to The Love that you Give?

C: It’s about expressing that true love between two people. I like to write lyrics from a positive perspective, because there’s a lot of negativity in songs. I like to write things that will uplift a person; give them hope and a positive outlook on life; because I feel if you go into any situation with a positive viewpoint, you’re more likely to get a good result from it. Even in the songs, I have messages that will uplift or maybe give answers to issues. In this ballad it is about true love and really expressing that to the person that you love.

E: How relevant is your style of music today, with all the changes in the music industry and the way people perceive love?

C: I think what’s happening in the industry is that a few major companies are pushing a certain genre of music.

That’s what you hear a lot of. But I find what people are missing, and they tell me this, is good soul music; music that has good lyrics and melodies. They want to hear it and that’s something I’ve been doing all my life, soul and R&B music.

I think that’s the part of the music business that I enjoy the most doing the music.

E: Of all the artists you have worked with, which are the ones you had the best connections with?

C: So many people would stand out in their own way; Whitney Houston did a cover of For the Love of you. I wrote a song for Chaka Khan for her CK album, Make it Last. I really wanted to work with Marvin Gaye, but unfortunately I never got a chance to. We talked about it but it was unfortunate what happened to him. However, I just like to write music and right now I’m working with my son on a project. I’m really happy about that because there’s nothing like working with family. He’s got his own personal style ie. partly R&B and maybe a little bit of hip-hop, with some soul in it. He’s finishing law school now, which allows him more time on his project.

E: You have received many accolades in your time in the business. How does that feel?

That’s something that when you have a good style of music, it never goes away; people still want to hear it.

Even those who’ve not been raised on it, when they do hear it, they say, “Hey! I like that, that’s good.” That’s one thing we have to continue to do. It’s to preserve the things that we’ve established in this music business, because good music never goes away. I still love a lot of the music I grew up on.

E: What do you still enjoy most about the music business?

C: From an early age I’ve been a composer. I’ve always been interested in writing music and when you do something for so long, it never goes away. I wrote all of that Isley Brothers and Isley-Jasper-Isley stuff. After that disbanded I just kept writing, because that is what I do and I really enjoy it. I enjoy putting new pieces of music together and putting a message in there; maybe a spiritual message of love, because we need love in our lives. A lot of people always tell me, “Hey, I like how you said that, as I’d like to say that to my wife.” It’s good to get that kind of feedback. I just love music. I’m going to have an album coming out this summer.

Chris still writing and playing soul music today, above: with The Isley Brothers

“When you have a good style of music, it never goes away; people still want to hear it.”

C: Sometimes it doesn’t feel real; because, like I said, I’m always interested in the music and how it turns out. If it turned out good, then I’m happy. If anything else comes out from me producing music, like an award or some kind of a recognition, that’s good, too.

But I always understand that my gifts come from God and I’m very humbled from that standpoint. I know that he’s working with me and that puts me in the right place because a lot of people get carried away with themselves, which for me is not a good thing, because you can never be quite as big as you think you are because God is everything and that really puts me in the right place to realize where my gifts come from I’d like to say a big thank you to my audience, who over the years have supported and appreciated what I’ve done. I think that means the most to me; because any composer, any writer wants his work to be enjoyed and so I thank everyone for that; everyone who’s ever liked any song that I have done. I really appreciate that because that’s what matters to me. ¢

The full version of this interview first appeared in TurningPoint: Your Lifestyle, Your Well-Being June 2018 Published by Esther Austin Global Publishing.

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Are we swearing more as we get older? Or, asks JAYNE GOULD, are there just more things to swear at – and more ways to do it?

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T

*

here’s nothing quite like the sound of my husband answering a marketing call at 9am: “Who are you? What do you want?

Bitcoin investment? Do you know what time it is? Fuck Off!” Driving with him is also a guaranteed swearing experience. “What the fuck is that arsehole doing riding on my tail? What a complete and utter bastard! Bollocks!

Now I’ve missed the turning. Shit! Shit!

Shit!” And let me be quite clear on this, He uses the full “arsehole” and not the transatlantic “asshole”.

Let’s not forget, too, the Facebook effect, “Did you see what that twat wrote? Who the hell does he think he is? He knows nothing.

NOTHING! What an idiot.”

Though BBC’s Question Time induces peak-performance swearing on a 98-decibel level, his swearing is not directed at any one particular MP or political party, but just as a general instruction to any politician: “Just answer the fucking question!” It’s a weekly occurrence. I’ve banned him from jumping up and down on the sofa during his violent outbursts, and I once banned him from watching the show for two weeks (as a punishment for being surly for the 24 hours following the previous ban), but I relented.

He enjoys the blood sport too much.

Are we swearing more as we get older?

The nanny brigade think swearing is an early sign of dementia or Alzheimer’s, and in some cases that is certainly true; but in this new old age, my swearing has increased as a result of the obstacles created by technology and other modern frustrations.

K ** Dame Judi Dench recently told a 17-yearold paramedic to “Fuck Off” after being asked if her carer was with her. “I’ve just done eight weeks at the Garrick Theatre.” I really admire this Dame, who, I discovered, whiles away her idling time on movie sets by stitching “swearing embroidery”, beautiful intricate work reading: “You are a Fucking Shit” – which is then given as a present.

I reckon the internet has a lot to answer for promoting swearing. WTF. Despite the amazing amount of information available on www, major corporates make sure you waste enough time on their websites NOT finding the answer you want before you resort to chatting to an online AI robot, without knowing you are doing so. And when you do realise you’ve been chatting with a machine, then the swearing begins, full throttle. “I’ve just wasted 40 minutes of my life with a robot – what a complete and utter wank!”

Then there’s the call centres that have the most courteous of people answering with no real information beyond the script they are reading from: “If the customer says ‘I want to speak to your manager’, your answer is ‘I am so pleased to have helped you and look forward to passing on your request.’” “Oh for fuck’s sake, just get on with it.” (Or that would be FFS for those writing on social media?)

In doing the research for this piece, I discovered that a fair number of universities worldwide are researching swearing. Really?

OMFG! Apparently the profs have discovered swearing can be good for you. It can increase your pain tolerance. So when you hit your thumb with a hammer, you’re likely to say “Fuck!” or “Shit!” or perhaps “Ouch!” but in my case it’d be: “Why the fuck am I hammering in nails when you are watching me?” Research by Dr Richard Stephens at Keele University confirms: “Swearing seems to trigger the natural ‘fight or flight’ stress

response, as well as increased adrenaline and heart pumping, This leads to stress-induced analgesia.” Fantastic. I must remember to swear at the dentist the next time I see him. I think I might really enjoy that one.

Another time for pain-relief swearing is when you are exerting physical strength.

Now I know this from trying to open a jar of Nutella the other morning. It was loud.

This sudden exertion of strength is also why you find cursing body builders trying to increase their performance in gymnasiums.

Yeah, right. If that’s the case, then I’m going to have a five-minute swearing session at the bottom of the stairs before I carry the vacuum cleaner up them.

Actually, what I should do is put Question Time on and then ask my husband to carry the vacuum cleaners upstairs.

The more I investigate about swearing, the more I’m liking the research. “The health benefits of swearing include increased circulation, elevated endorphins, and an overall sense of calm, control and wellbeing,” says psychiatrist Neel Burton,.

A joint research group from Hong Kong,

Maastricht and Stanford universities has established that it you have a “penchant for profanity”, you might have a larger vocabulary or are more intelligent. You might also be more honest. It gets fucking better all the time Do men swear more than women? Not necessarily, but society still just can’t come to terms with women swearing – possibly because when women start, they tend to swear for negative reasons.

American funny woman Samantha Bee recently called Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt” – which made front-page news and resulted in the comedian losing her corporate sponsors. Generally, we’re not getting quite as coarse – although some Fleet Street editors have gotten away with similar cursing for years.

Emma Byrne (author of Swearing is Good for You) says swearing between friends is an indicator of trust: “You’re demonstrating that you have a sophisticated theory of mind about the person that you’re talking to, and that you have worked out where the limit is between being shocking enough to make them giggle or notice you’ve used it, but not so shocking that they’ll be mortally offended.” So my saying “Go fuck yourself, John” is a sign that I really understand you.

Too damn right.

I haven’t started swearing more at my friends or in conversation, but I have started swearing more at strangers – especially on Facebook – which has no specific rules about swearing, but does have rules about objectionable content. I find it fascinating that its invisible algorithms can guess your age by the swear words you use in posts.

I’m not sure I know enough swear words to keep Facebook’s advertising robots busy, though I could turn to BuzzFeed, which has listed the 100 Best Swear Words in the English Language: “We may be a lot of bad things, but there’s no one swears better than the British”. A – fucking – men to that! ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 19

Battling insomnia and grieving an eternal sleep –

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there should be a song about it

When his friend Alex died unexpectedly, ADAM BRODY wondered whether he should go to the funeral?

hen I was first thought about writing this piece Alex was still alive. Now he is dead. He was 35. I’m on the train to his funeral and feel very alone. This was meant to be a story about being in a band in my forties. About the creative process, about mid-life crisis and getting over it. It has become a story about grief and insomnia.

When I think about Alex, I think about music and about the Charlatans’ album “Wonderland” when Tim Burgess went falsetto. We played it on a loop. I listened to it again recently and it took me back to a happier, more hopeful place. A moment in time. The noise of time, as Julian Barnes so elegantly put it in his novel of the same title.

Alex and I lived together for a year when I moved to London in 2000. Younger than me and infinitely more talented, he was training at RADA and I was off to a drama school where you were lucky if people could walk and talk at the same time. Our careers followed a path you might imagine. I toured schools and trained dentists how to communicate; he went on to the West End and TV. Insomnia is something I have always suffered. Only in the past year have I acknowledged that it is a severe mental health issue and it’s destroying me. When I was given the news of Alex’s death I’d not slept in more than 48 hours. A mutual friend sent me a text asking me to call her.u

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ANITA BERHANE PICTURE CREDIT

‘Life is, of course, fleeting, transitory and chaotic but to live each day as if it were your last can lead to burn out’

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ANITA BERHANE

uWhen she told me, the grief was overwhelming.

I could picture him so clearly. He was the first of my gang to die. I felt as if I were drowning.

My sleeplessness adding a nightmarish other worldliness to it all. For the past three months my insomnia has been particularly bad. Each morning I look in the mirror at the face I have known my whole life. The eyes look sadder, my skin grey. Quite frankly I look fucked.

This illness can drain a room of energy. This illness has destroyed past relationships and future relationships. It eats confidence. You feel profoundly alone. On the edge of psychopathy; you despise people you love, you crave solitude and peace and yet fear your own company.

Time with friends becomes fraught with anxiety. I’m a social creature and yet I would greet friends with an empty soul, with a feeling that I could take no more. Perpetual jetlag. I don’t want to laugh and smile, I can’t be smart and funny, I can’t be the person I want to be. Always a beat off every conversation, every human interaction. Angry with the world. I want to scream at them all to fuck off . . .

And yet I crave company. I can’t bear to be on my own. I can feel my adrenalin going into overdrive. By evening I’m a shell and yet the night may have only just begun. So the hell continues. Joy is gone.

This illness is all-consuming, all you think about and yet the last thing you want to share with friends for fear of frightening them, boring them. You become paranoid, obsessive, self-pitying.

It is a torture.

I wasn’t sure I should even go to the funeral; I wasn’t sure of anything. Insomnia does that.u

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JENNIFER PICTUREEVANS CREDIT

uRational thought leaves you. Decision-making leaves you. Right and wrong leaves you.

Empathy leaves you. I was supposed to be visiting my mum in Manchester, accompanying her on a hospital visit on the same day. Should I be focusing on the living or respecting the dead? Why was I going to the funeral? Was it for me, to make me feel better? If I hadn’t seen Alex in the past year, how good a friend was I? I felt guilty and anxious because of the cost of the journey. The cost of a hotel and I hadn’t worked for three weeks. Anxiety and guilt in every sinew of my body.

What surprised was my anger and frustration at my friends and family. Why could they not understand the weight of my sadness? They offer kind words and continue with their lives. And yet this is the way it must be. It is what I have done with others. You cannot grieve for everyone.

However, I needed to be in a room with people who understood. Who felt that pain, that ache.

It was only after a rehearsal (I sing in the punk blues band Stage Door Guy) and several pints with the guitarist, New Orleans legend Mr C. J. Williams, that I understood why I had to go.

C.J. had suffered a loss recently and explained how the funeral had helped him to put pieces of the puzzle of his friend’s life together. He said that my contribution to Alex’s funeral would be as valuable as all the other people who would be there.

The service began with an acoustic version of “Live Forever” by Oasis. Public Service Broadcasting’s “Take me Home”, Billy Joel’s “Lullaby”; and “That’ll Do” by Peter Gabriel followed. The songs transported each member of the congregation to different times and places.

It is the power of music that it can express the unexplainable and the tragic.

The last time I’d spoken to Alex’s parents was more than 15 years ago. A time of infiniteu

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upossibility and hope. I could see they had no more tears to shed. I had plenty. For them, for Alex, for me. I stood with his father and there was nothing to say. After service I spoke to a Scouser who had taken Alex to his first Liverpool match. He showed me a picture on his phone of Alex at Anfield. Happy, smiling. I had many conversations with Alex about football. I was a Manchester United fan and he a Liverpool fan. In our last conversation, sat in his garden on a glorious summer’s day in London he had mentioned his trip to Anfield. A connection had been made. A part of the puzzle had come together.

In recent months I’d promised myself that I would contact Alex and hadn’t. I try to keep regret to the dark recesses of my mind. There were moments, literally milliseconds at the funeral where in my sleeplessness I believed I’d come to this part of Wales to meet Alex. That I would see him at any minute. That bear hug, that smile. Then I remembered.

I know that it is through song-writing and music that I will begin the process of dealing with Alex’s death. My mental health is tied to my creative ability. Art in its many guises is essential to seeing us through those long nights of the soul. As Stage Door Guy I write about fucked-up love, politics and time. Recently I have written about insomnia. In the middle of this personal hell, I wanted to own it, claim it as a distinct part of who I am. It is called the death of Stage Door Guy. Time occupies my mind a lot. Always has done. I want to grasp it, I want it to stay still if only for a moment. I want it to stop. An uncle once turned to me, he was in his eighties, and said “Don’t get old”. I was in my twenties but it chimed with me.

The death of a friend or loved one can make you question your place in the universe and turn to the “live each day as if it were your last” mentality. Life is, of course, fleeting, transitory and chaotic but to live each day as if it were your last can lead to the kind of burn out I saw when Stage Door Guy performed during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, when a woman collared C.J. and implored him to live. To be present. In the moment. But as he later described to me there was a scrambling desperation to this, a panic. A howl.

In the past few weeks I have decided to address death for what it is. Death. Not passing away.

The finality of it for me is truthful. This is a tale of insomnia and grief. Given time and given sleep I shall climb out of this self-pitying hole but for now this is where I live; too tired to climb out but not too tired to be more honest with myself. And that can only be a good thing. ¢

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JENNIFER EVANS

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Catching the SILVER linings Ben Winkler has made an art of photographing older women, his images reflecting lives well lived and their promise for the future What made you decide to shoot older women?

Twofold, for them and for me! For them, I’m finding myself acting as a medium, I’m holding up a mirror so they could see what others see. Usually I’m more an ear, or a sounding board for them about where they are in their lives. I usually get a story that goes something along the lines of 50+, kids off to college, husband has an affair or ran off with a 20-something, nature takes its toll with wrinkles and things are sagging: conclusion, no self worth, feeling invisible, life is over and the future bleak. Where I lived in Miami, everyone is super body conscious, nude and young is the mantra. For me there is no personal reward in that. Yet to uncover the stories of a life well lived, every line in your face telling a story of laughter to show personality and substance, therein lies the challenge and a chance to give back.

Once they see their imagery in the viewing, when tears are flowing, I know I have done my part in showing them what’s possible and how other people see them, it gives them hope and a spark to explore again.

What older women in your own life influenced you?

My grandmother, mother and Georgia O’Keeffe. Growing up in a little ski resort south of Salzburg in the Austrian Alps, my grandmother gets credit for morals, right from wrong, and my sense of belonging and yearning for a family structure.

She taught me unconditional love.

My mother was grey since as long as I can remember, she only started colouring her hair late in life. One incident with her played a big role in my photographing grey women: My father had an architectural/ contractor business and my mother Viennese-type coffee shops, with mahogany panelling, brass fixtures, marble table tops with intellectuals hanging out and people playing chess. This one time as a teenager I overheard three guys at the bar making a comment about my mother: “if she’s grey up there, what do you think she’s down there?” With raging hormones and fuming to defend my mother I wanted to take on the bunch, which of course never happened. Since that I get triggered by judgment of women about their appearance, the audacity to tell them what they should or shouldn’t look like – largely displaying our own shortcomings and projections!

In Georgia O’Keeffe for her unapologetic pursuit in what she saw, reflected in her paintings, I see not only the feminine, the curvy vulva-mimicking shapes, but an expression of rawness, allowing it, exploring it and making her statement through it. I wish that at the end of my days that non-wavering, non-conformist tag will head my eulogy, my legacy.

When everyone wanted to change who they are in their imagery I fought for what is truthful, raw and unapologetic!

What do you see when you look through the lens?

There’s beauty in everything, if you can’t see it’s probably because your mind won’t let you. If it’s too busy and there’s too much chatter how could there be space for the obvious, whether minimal, the detail or grand? Appreciate and acknowledge the obvious, possibly the mundane.... be still and in awe! u GOLDIE magazine | 29

uAll of your models say you make them feel amazing and see themselves in a different light.

Why do you think that is?

Authenticity, patience, trust. It’s about allowing with no judgment and an honest feedback on what I see and appreciate about them. I feel the age I am now.is relevant to the way I work and the results I get.

Images on Instagram are here today, and often forgotten 5 minutes later. We are the sum of our experiences, our travels, trials and finally coming into our own, hopefully.

It’s about appreciation and observance and allowing rather than judgment.

How has your way of being a photographer changed as you have aged?

I have gone away from comparing and watching what everyone else is doing. I have a few favourites I follow and a few good oldies I view in a different light now.

With us permanently being connected 24/7 we are bombarded with that sensory overload, that constant noise and in the process we miss what has an impact on us. Today’s where I say what images are timeless, we all have certain ones we remember and the impact they have on us, there is a sensory quality to them.

Is there a difference in the way male and female photographers approach portraiture? What effect does that (gender and or age) have on the image?

Depending on how evolved and appreciative a male photographer is, he sees and is able to capture essence and purity. The beauty he finds, the appreciation from a masculine perspective, the dance with the feminine – in an energetic way not in a sexual energy but the sensual radiance – oftentimes I just see a woman and take in the effect she radiates, purely in a sensory way, the zest, life force and her emanating juiciness for life!

Where do you see this project going? How is it changing you?

I believe everything has a beginning and an end, just like the coffee table book

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had a certain period then it was done, so I looked for something more fluid or ongoing. That’s when the podcast came about and a silver magazine of sorts. In the end nothing can exist in a vacuum so for me it’s about collaborating with like-minded groups and peers. Together we are stronger, more productive and creative and bringing something to the table for women they can associate with and be part of: it’s about community.

What are your goals for yourself?

Fulfillment in all I do or there’s no sense doing it. Family, love and peace in being, yet enjoying exploring new directions and personal growth at whatever rate, it’s always as it’s meant to be, don’t rush, preferably shared.

What or who would you most like to shoot?

In short what I am shooting already, people and their stories. For me its all about telling a story, what I observe. I love the feminine, from various body types to nurturing mothers with a baby, the energy they interact in, expression, radiance and curves. From pregnant bellies to fine art nudes, whether they be full, semi or implied, at whatever level there’s exploration for everything as long as it’s done tasteful, and in a way you would share with your mother and girlfriends. Classic in a sense that you’ll still like your imagery ten years down the road. So my first and most important question as to whether I would work with you on such a project or not is: who is it for?

If not for yourself and celebrating yourself then you might do it for the wrong reasons and if your relationship fails you’ll always hate them for that association. What I loved shooting in the past were illness or cancer stories as people are most vulnerable then and at the same time appreciative of their bodies, not judging it like the rest of us do.

Good examples for that are my waterscapes where you often only see implied nudity, the water wraps and caresses you in a birth-like way that feels comfortable and full of joy.

My latest project for both silver and non-silver, UNDERCOVER – what lies beneath, might just become my biggest and final project. u

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uHow can we, as older people, learn to love what we see when presented with an image of ourselves?

If we had to leave this earth tomorrow or we got an ultimatum, we would look at ourselves in a completely different light.

Usually only once we fall sick we will shift. Choose your tribe. You become who you surround yourself with, no other way! Luckily we get to pick our friends.

Every wrinkle earned tells a story of laughter over the years, they are your stripes, I want them on you I want to see your life, there’s no beauty in plastic.

I always advocate that only now are you getting into your prime as women.

Empty nesters, post menopausal you now come into your prime as a woman with your hormones shifting, to your advantage, gaining the freedom to sensually and sexually having real-world choices of when, who and certainly how. You have achieved what should earn you a crown, sleepless, selfless nights and putting everyone but you first. Now, for the first time it’s all about you, new found liberty!

I was playing with the idea of offering ‘certified imagery’. In a world where dating sites and Instagram filtered ‘false’ imagery has nothing to do with reality, I would take imagery of you and certify that this is how you really look.

Do you think it is important for us to have healthy narcissism and can photos help us achieve that?

Narcissism is not what we strive for, nor selfish behaviour. Yet in a photographic context I would say that self-full, rather than selfish is what I would absolutely promote. Self-full in a positive sense, just like grateful, hopeful or mindful. In our society we are called narcissistic with this new avalanche of selfies, yet in the long run I believe it’s a positive societal shift toward self appreciation It comes with a flip side though, the overused, amplified ‘look at me’ syndrome.

In the end it’s all about appreciation and finding joy in what you see.¢

To find out more about Ben’s work go to: www.benwinkler.photoshelter.com Ben wil be in London for a photoshoot in September - there is a strong possiblity that if you take part in the shoot your picture will be in a future issue of GOLDIE magazine!

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Turning negatives to positives Arianne Clément is a photographer who has spent years combining art with documentary and exploring the power of contrasts between light and dark, beauty and cruelty and the “invisible” people around her. But, as she explains here, she has now turned her lens to capturing the lives of the elderly in her own, revealing way

A

s soon as I start shooting, Marie-Berthe Paquette’s eyes begin to sparkle. She, pictured right, knows all the poses, like a consummate actress. Boudoir photography seems to hold no secrets for the former housewife. “My father was a painter and a craftsman, and he transmitted his love of art to me,” she says. “For me, everything artistic is beautiful: theatre, framed pictures, poems, paintings, flowers, songs. When I look at another person, I pay attention to personality, the face, the smile and the eyes!”

When I ask her if she is willing to pose in lingerie, I’m not sure how she is going to respond. Generally, women of her generation are somewhat prude, especially considering Quebec’s strict catholic background. “Oh, sure!” she exclaims. After two hours’ shooting, her son interjects: “Alright, mom, that’s enough. I’m sure you feel tired now.” He looks exhausted, and frankly so do I, but Marie-Berthe seems to want to go on, apparently oblivious to any form of fatigue.

At the time of the photo shoot, she was 102; her son, 76.

I strive for moments like these, moments when I really feel a bond with my model, my immediate surroundings. Except my models are usually older than most: since 2014 my artistic process has led me to investigate the (mostly) unexplored field of old age, with projects such as 100 years, Age of Beauty (beauty rituals of centenarian women), Aging in the Blue Zones (an ongoing worldwide demographicsbased project) and a recent foray into senior women’s experiences of sensuality and intimacy. I say “mostly unexplored” because I feel older people might be the last taboo in a society like ours, where beauty almost always equals youth.

As I was always attracted to unusual subjects, especially marginalised people of all kinds, it was probably inevitable I would

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be drawn to the elderly, whom I call “the ultimate invisible people”.

I started my career as a photographer in Nunavut, the immense northwestern territory of Canada, inhabited principally by Inuits.

For most Europeans, this may sound terribly exotic, but despite extraordinary resilience and some important recent achievements, the Inuits – like most First Nations in North America – are not viewed in a very positive light by other Canadians. I think this early formative period was crucial in shaping my vision of the world and art, and I retain a strong dedication to portray unusual, neglected people in a positive light – which eventually led me to my current activity, the portraying of old age in its many beautiful aspects.

This exploration started as a documentation of seniors in my area (the region of Montérégie in southwestern Quebec): family members, friends, relations – the above photo of the couple having a bit of fun for my benefit is a portrait of my great-aunt and uncle, Berthe and Roland, who were together for more than three-quarters of a century.

(Berthe passed away earlier this year.) They were still very much in love, and when Berthe was in the hospital Roland took an apartment nearby so he could see her all the time.

As the project grew, I started getting calls from people who had shown interest in my efforts, or had models to introduce: mothers, aunts, grandparents. Models like Monique Mathieu from Berthiersur-Mer, who I met in May last year. In her case, I thought her strength would show particularly well if set against the vivid and contrasted background of the powerful Saint-Lawrence river, an ever-present element in that beautiful region.

As anyone doing research on the elderly will tell you, a lot of the media attention revolves around health and lifestyle issues: how to live longer, or change your diet to live to be 100. For example, Dan Buettner’s story about the Blue Zones in the November 2005 issue of National Geographic was titled “The Secrets of a Long Life”, and his subsequent books and talks seem to have focused principally on u

GOLDIE magazine | 37

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“I feel older people might be the last taboo in a society like ours, where beauty almost always equals youth”

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uthese aspects. Wait, what are the Blue Zones? Well, according to the works of demographers Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain, later joined by Buettner himself, they are regions of the world where the average life expectancy is exceptionally high and where you can find an unusual number of centenarians and super-centenarians.

As a passionate traveller, learning of these zones awakened my curiosity, and I decided I wanted to hear the stories the people of those regions had to tell for myself – the human side of that story.

Last summer I visited Ogliastra and its surroundings, on the island of Sardinia in Italy. What makes that area stand out is its unusual number of men around or over 100 years old. As demographers will tell you, it is more common to find centenarians among women. I also discovered a different way of life: in rural Sardinia, nursing homes for the elderly are virtually unheard of. All the people I met were cared for by their immediate family: daughters, grandsons, nephews. Some would get help at home, while others were visiting a different relative every day of the week. I think I captured some of that strong family bond in the picture of a baby and a centenarian family member. This is a somewhat isolated region, so most people are used to growing their food and taking care of animals (there are an extraordinary number of sheepherders). They live outside a lot which, coming from a country that has some of the harshest, six-month winters, I found exhilarating!

After Sardinia, I want to visit four more areas in different parts of the globe: first the town of Nicoya in Costa Rica; then the Seventhday Adventist community in Loma Linda, California; the island of Icaria, Greece; and finally the island of Okinawa in Japan. Last year, I launched a kickstarter campaign to help pay the expenses for my next trip. I hope to do the same this year, printing calendars illustrated with a selection of my best photos.

The next “phase” of my project took off quite recently, when I shared a picture I took of Christine (87) and her husband Paul (101) on social media. I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to find models to experiment with nude or glamour shoots. I think that has a lot to do with how people view themselves past a certain age. In the media, in movies, in publicity, people over 60 are mostly invisible – unless someone is trying to sell funerary arrangements or retirement home facilities. In other words, finding women over 70 who are willing to show their bodies in a positive way is next to impossible. But somehow I got a lot of positive comments after people saw the photo of Christine, the lady in the snow shown above, and since then offers for shoots have been pouring in. I think that is very positive and encouraging, proof that people are ready to have their beauty standards challenged if properly exposed to something different from the norm. Isn’t that what art should be about? ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 41

My wake-up punc h It took an unprovoked assault to give Melanie Denyer the confidence to challenge the social blindness to wheelchair users

P

icture the scene: I am in the beautiful city York, l have just turned out of the Shambles, one of the maze of narrow lanes at its centre, and am heading down towards the market stalls on the main street.

I spot a couple approaching, close together, the hand nearest me loose at the man’s side as he approaches. In the corner of my eye I see a fist form, be drawn back, then feel the punch land on my arm. I stop and call out, hopeful it was a weird accident, or that he will apologise. It feels unreal, impossible. But they keep walking, and he never looks back. It’s an

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unpleasant thing for anyone to experience, but I will tell you what makes it worse for me: I am in a wheelchair. He punched me simply because I was in a wheelchair.

I haven’t always been in a wheelchair. Once upon a time, I was young and beautiful. I was polite, mostly kind, eager to please and full of potential. Without the least clue who I was or what I wanted.

Looking back, I think about how my identity was in constant, confusing flux, defined primarily by the labels and expectations given by and mirrored back at others: a baby, a child, a straight A pupil; a linguist, a student, a boatie; anglaise, canon, cadre; brunette, bilingual, a long string of job titles, family roles. All used to describe u

GOLDIE magazine | 43

“By wearing lipstick I became a human who happened to be in a wheelchair.” uand define me, by others – and occasionally by me to camouflage my own uncertainty. It’s a lazy way to define anyone, still less yourself, because not one of those labels tells you whether I’m caring, funny or just generally worth knowing. They’re more like a costume I wear for a while. However, the biggest of all the impersonal labels, and the one over which I have least control, is the one that is visible to all: wheelchair user.

This label has had the biggest impact on public perception of my worth, character and intelligence. Every other characteristic I may be able to display has become subsidiary to using the wheelchair, as if somehow the wheelchair, an inanimate object I control, is the most important thing anyone can know about me. The chair might as well be empty, because they don’t see me.

I first noticed this in the Ideal Home Exhibition, when my husband was pushing me round in my manual chair. My husband, educated, articulate, helping me navigate the world and still be a part of it.

As we rolled along the aisle in the beauty section, sellers discussed the virtues of skincare products for me with my husband, looking over my head and refusing to meet my eye. Shocked, my husband retorted that I might well be interested had they had the manners to treat me like a sentient human, or suggested they might discuss it with his wife. Some rose to the challenge and apologised, others were flustered and looked for the next customer.

I hoped that the switch to an electric wheelchair would improve the situation, because if I was going out independently, perhaps people would realise that I also existed and had a voice. It turned out to be a mixed blessing. I could take buses to get around town, but my need for the wheelchair space on the bus put me at odds with some parents who objected when bus drivers requested they fold away their buggies. And I’m quite capable of understanding the verbal abuse and bigoted remarks.

Living on the fringes of the City of London, I would also go to shops in my wheelchair, daring to occupy space on the pavement as I went about my business. Here, again, the idea that I had a right to the space I occupied seemed to be an issue. I was an obstacle to circumvent, forced regularly into a sharp stop by men determined that they must not wait one second for me to pass. I would be barged from the side and rear by pedestrians staring too intently at their phones, maybe hitting me round the head with a bag, or losing balance and landing on top of me, calling me flid, spaz, stupid cunt, fucking disabled twat, the City isn’t for retards like you. Never an apology, never an acknowledgement of my humanity.

The contents of the chair only became human to them when my cousin suggested I apply red lipstick before heading into the City.

This simple act was enough to change attitudes. By wearing lipstick I became a human who happened to be in a wheelchair. The iZombies would apologise for not seeing me, the oh-so-busy executive let me pass with a smile. While disgusted at the double standards, I caved in and used the lipstick as a weapon. My M.A.C D for Danger restored my confidence and I was permitted to rejoin the human race.

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Moving to Yorkshire brought a change. Living in the Dales, where access to many places is impossible in a wheelchair, I’ve been using the blue badge and crutches more. It’s partly because exercise is good for me, so long as I don’t overdo it, but also because I can, if need be, park on double yellows and hobble a short distance into my destination. Being upright and at eye level with the people I met, they spoke to me, not over me. I was once again visible, a part of society.

Invited to meet some friends in York at the end of April, I readily accepted. I charged up the wheelchair and enjoyed the drive across.

And I set off early so I would have a chance to explore the city before we all met for lunch.

York is a beautiful city, the county town, filled on a Saturday with nice middle class people shopping or enjoying the historic architecture. People who consider themselves decent, possibly even good Christians, or just good humans, but certainly respectable. If you were to poll them about their attitude to wheelchair users and the disabled, I’m sure many would claim to be sympathetic and treat them as they would any other human.

Navigation round city streets is a skill at which living in London made me adept. Eye-level in my wheelchair means I see torsos and arms for the most part, and they’re what I watch as I choose my path.

So as I bumped over the endless cobbles, dodged those who stopped directly in front of me with no warning, backtracked to find a dropped kerb as the pavement ended in a 6 inch drop, or suddenly narrowed to a width of 10 inches, I was always a couple of manoeuvres ahead.

But I never expected to be punched.

For all the verbal abuse I’ve received over the years for being a wheelchair user, it’s never gone that step further into physical assault.

Until that day. Ignoring the other people he passed, the man saw a wheelchair user and punched her, clearly knowing she couldn’t fight back. Then carried on with his day as if nothing had happened. His world wasn’t changed by what he did, but mine was.

I will never know why he punched me. The many people who looked me in the eye as I needed their help, then looked away as they hurried past, probably still think of themselves as the kind of people who would go to the assistance of an assaulted disabled woman. I think that the only characteristic that has mattered to people is the chair. The police have recorded this assault as a hate crime, because the sole motivation appears to be my disability, absent of any form of provocation.

I am no longer turning those events over and over in my mind.

Now I realise that if you can’t be seen, there is a freedom to just be.

So if my attacker’s intention was for me to learn my place - out of sight, mind and reach of a punch - then it’s backfired because, armed with a range of personal attack alarms, and the red lipstick finally unpacked and back in service, the post-assault anxiety attacks are an unpleasant, but increasingly distant, memory. I will not be scared out of living my life to the full. On the other hand I’m determined that from now on, it’s not the chair people will see, but me. ¢

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goldiemag.co.uk GOLDIE magazine | 45

Pickaxes at dawn

T

A trip to the Southern Peloponnese proved an exhausting but memorable adventure for Elizabeth Grice and her bunch of hardy horticulturalists

he timing was perfect. On a day of maximum February dreariness, an email arrived from a friend in the travel business asking if I’d be interested in a trip to the Southern Peloponnese in April to “do a bit of digging and some planting” around a group of holiday villas near Chrani. If so, did I have any friends with “a modicum of gardening nous”, people with an eye for things, who might like to come along with their trowels and kneeling mats? In return for slave labour, our flights to Kalamata (where the black olives come from) would be taken care of and we would stay in the villas to consumer test them before the start of the holiday season.

It was sleeting, temperatures had dropped to -1°C in London. It took about 30 seconds to decide that the prospect of Greece in April was the most hopeful thing since Noah caught sight of an olive twig in the beak of his returning dove.

I co-opted my sister and brother-in-law, bought a book called The Mediterranean Gardener and started to fantasise about sipping Greek wine at dusk under an arbour of bougainvillea when the day’s work was done. Before there was time to muster a larger and perhaps more muscular taskforce, flights were booked and two months later we were bumping up a rutted track to a group of nine villas set in seven acres of fragrant maquis. Beyond swimming pools of almost Olympian dimensions lay the sparkling Gulf of Messinia and beyond that the snowcapped Taygetos Mountains.

The gardens were something else. Wildly overgrown flower beds had been bordered by rocks in an attempt to define what was cultivated and what was not. On either side of the beds were areas of weed-suppressant black plastic, covered with pebbles and punctuated by a few sick roses. Only the hardiest shrubs and a few brilliant gazanias had survived years of neglect. Straggly geraniums reached for the sky under a deep coniferous shade.

We were a team of four, sometimes six, and most of us wouldn’t see 70 again. Not the ideal candidates for land reclamation, but so what? Not a word was said about the

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assortment of creaky knees and defective joints we’d brought with us. It was going to be fun, taming the wilderness, re-planting the plots and having a swim at the end of the day. Before we left England, the idea had been floated that Georgios, the handyman, might join our team but Georgios had better things to do than humour the mad English who’d been drafted in to prettify arid scrub.

He preferred to power-wash the terraces.

Ominously, Georgios did not believe in watering living things; watering made the weeds grow.

Our bags were weighted with trowels, hand forks, kneeling mats, old shoes and various tubes of embrocation for muscular pain. As we unpacked, we noticed that two heavy-duty pickaxes, two long-handled spades with sharp points and a quantity of vicious-looking smaller tools were already waiting for us, along with nine watering cans and a serpents’ nest of hoses. What did our taskmasters know that we didn’t?

Possibly more than they were saying. Noel

Josephides, chairman of Sunvil Holidays, and his wife Sue Ockwell had been on a recce a few weeks earlier to see what the villas and gardens needed to make them more welcoming. They had equipped us for the job.

The ground in most of the borders was full of rocks and roots and was so hardpacked that it needed breaking up with a pickaxe, followed by weed removal with little spikey tools, then more pickaxing to make holes deep enough for the plants. Of our core group of four – Liz, Sally, Sonia and Martin – Martin was chief pickaxe wielder.

The rest of us followed in his wake, breaking up the terracotta clods, weeding, watering, composting, watering, planting, watering again…

For light relief, we’d break off to plant big clay pots and barrowload them to stand at the corners of each villa’s pool. What with the heat and the sweat, sometimes it got a bit silly. Filling nine watering cans at a time for areas that the hoses wouldn’t reach,

prompted Martin to break into a rendition of “Stand by Your Cans”. When we discovered that 250 more geraniums had been delivered by stealth during our lunch break and deposited in full sun, we flopped into the trolley in despair.

On April 23, the name-day of Georgios, we were lured out of our trenches and offered diplotes, honeyed pastries flavoured with

Grafting in Greece was not all pain and toil. We retired to wonderful verandahs at the back of our villas to have coffee or very late lunches of Greek salad and more Greek salad with Kalamata olives. It was a dreamlike vista. Fishing boats seemed to float above a silvery sea in the early morning light.

Buzzards circled on the thermals above the olive groves and lizards skittered across hot

“Filling nine watering cans at a time for areas that the hoses wouldn’t reach, prompted Martin to break into a rendition of ‘Stand by Your Cans’.” cinnamon, light as air. When Noel called by at 11am and found we had downed tools, we felt like naughty schoolchildren.

On days one and two, we planted for the future – allowing spaces between the shrubs for growth and spread. Our taskmasters seemed a little underwhelmed by the show. What they had in mind was a wow effect, rather than a horticulturally correct scheme, so that holidaymakers would sweep up the drive through a riot of colour.

Geraniums, rosemary, campanula, dazzling osteospermum and a flowering shrub we called “the bobble shrub”, were our staples and we started to bung them in cheek-byjowl for maximum impact.

rocks. Enormous lemons grew at our door.

How is it that the British rhapsodise at being able to pick a lemon off the tree and slice it straight into a G&T. On two evenings, we drove down the steep track to friendly local tavernas where we could eat heartily for €10 (£8.78) a head with wine. It was rumoured that health and safety had put an end to the tradition of inviting visitors into the kitchen and showing them the dishes of the day. Not here. At The Plane Tree in the mountain village of Achlathohori (“Place of the Olives”), we trooped into the galley to meet the family team. The old man was in charge of the meat kebabs, his wife had prepared the vegetable dishes that

morning and his spindly son, whose English was good, dealt with front-of-house matters.

With a flourish of lids, we examined what we were about to receive - meatballs in tomato sauce, okra, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, tzakiki, souvlaki, two different aubergine dishes and butter beans (gigantos). The son’s wife was making fierce Greek coffee on a spirit burner.

Everything arrived together, banquetfashion, and when we were done they brought us small glass dishes of thick local yoghurt drizzled with honey. Owls were hooting under starry skies when we got back to the villas, fortified for the next day’s onslaught.

By the end of the week, we had reclaimed three of the nine gardens and planted giant pots around the doors and swimming pools of the other six. Despite our streamlined planting policy, there was still a mass of geraniums waiting to be put in when it was time for us to leave. On the final afternoon, Noel and Sue hired the muscle-power of an Albanian woman from the village, who arrived carrying a pickaxe on each shoulder.

In the space of three hours, she had tamed and planted a trench that would have taken us a day. I’m glad they didn’t think of her before.

We would have missed a great adventure. ¢ If Goldie readers would like the opportunity to graft in the Greek sunshine in April 2019, email noel@sunvil.co.uk GOLDIE magazine | 47

GREY MATTERS

Gill Manly’s transitory life echoed the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence, until she found a journey’s end in a community of like-minded older women

So

W

this i s h o m e

e recently said farewell to our geshe, a Tibetan monk who had been with us at the Kennington Buddhist Centre for 25 years and was leaving to become the abbot of Sera Mey University Monastery in Mysore, India. A baby when his family fled Tibet during the 1959 uprising, Geshe Tashi was smuggled across the Himalayas before finding refuge in India. He lived and was taught in Sera Mey University Monastery, studying English to enable him to followed his dream of coming to England.

Throughout the years Geshe Tashi lived and worked in the Kennington centre, teaching very philosophical Buddhist texts, nurturing the Dharma students, knocking down walls, and cooking Tibetan food for the volunteers. In recent years became the translator for the Dalai Lama on his travels.

His journey and homes have been in situations some of us can only imagine; the bravery and determination quite awe inspiring. But fundamental to it is the idea of impermanence, one of the essentials doctrines of Buddhism, and the philosophical dilemma we all face – that life will and does change from moment to moment, not always of our choosing, until the final breath.

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Impermanence is not to be taken lightly as we age – most particularly with regard to having a home, a place to rest I came to London in 1979 as an 18-year-old student and rented my first home of my own in Stoke Newington, then a very depressing, but cheap area to live. A tatty, one-bedroom flat with little privacy but it was my first home away from home. My landlord was an Orthodox Jewish gentleman who refused to talk to me and all dealings were through his wife. I look back at that first move fondly. It was easy, me and a few things from home, as I had no intention of ever going back to live with my parents. A new beginning, and exciting. And the Landlord and Tenant Act was very different in those days, giving tenants far more rights than they enjoy now. It was £15 a month.

Today I sit in my eleventh home since 1979, some of them rented,

‘Life changes from moment to moment, not always at our choosing’

Stress-free moving n Start planning immediately you know your moving date. n If downsizing, decide what you want to keep and what will fit. n Unwanted furniture that cannot fit can be donated to charity. The British Heart Foundation offers free collection of items in good order.

Anything fabric must have a fireretardant label. Give them at least a week’s notice and book on line. www.britishheartfoundation.org.uk n Non-essential items for the first few weeks.in your new home – books, ornaments, rugs, excess crockery and kitchen equipment, seasonal clothing – should be boxed up two weeks before the move. n Heavy duty packing boxes and tape can be ordered online and delivered.

Try eBay or Amazon to compare prices. Add a black felt tip pen, labels, cable ties, strong plastic sacks, and vacuum packing bags. and a few I have owned. But each move signified a life change of sorts, not always welcomed, but each one identified by how the move went and how the nesting instinct did or did not arise. In latter years, renting privately brought annual stress that would start six months into each contract, knowing that the renewal agreement held a potential for financial disaster, with a rent increase way too high, and the knowledge that if I could not afford to pay it I would have just a month to get out.

As you age, the threat of homelessness increases. A single woman in her late-50 and without children is not high on anyone’s agenda.

I have lived in a state of flux and stress since 2008, until finally this year a wonderful charity granted me a home at an affordable rent.

This has been liberating. The nesting instinct took over immediately, knowing that I could at last make this house a home. Paint the walls orange and pink, put up pictures, plant flowers and vegetables, not worry about insane rent hikes, and the threat of having to leave every year. I live in a small community of seven women of ages varying from 57 to 92 – all with great stories to tell. A community that enjoys the peace of living together in their cottages and meeting in the gardens or on the front steps. I never felt happier or more alive.

This move invoked many different feelings, mostly positive, but with one overriding premise that this would be the last move, unless or until I could no longer care for myself. The place in which I could quite possibly spend the last of my days pottering. When you finally arrive at your destination to rest your bones while they still work, you can breathe and settle. I have never known this feeling and it takes some adjusting. But despite knowing life will continue towards the final destination, I feel this is a sort of permanence I needed. ¢

Friends gather for Gill’s house warming Sunday lunch

n Sort clothes into seasonal groups.

These and any bed linen, table cloths, etc can go into vacuum packs – IKEA does them very cheaply. n All non-essential items can go into storage at least a week before you move. This means more space in the removal van on the day, and room to move around while you get organised in your new home. Shurgard rents small storage spaces from about £10 a week, after the first free week, or check local companies online. n Check neighbourhood chat sites, Freecycle, or Facebook groups for recommendations on removals firms. I got a man with a van who was brilliant, on the basis of local knowledge. n Organise utilities on line, so that all is up and running on day one. Do this at least three weeks before you move.

PICTURES ROB WILSON JR

n Mail re-direction. A must frankly. Do this online with one month’s warning.

GOLDIE magazine | 49

Rewiring not retiring Back in the UK Karen Pine maybe a Professor, but in beautiful bucolic Umbria she is just an idiot who asks for ‘some of those fish’ while pointing at peaches

S

eptember 2017, and my husband Ben and I were on our fifth trip to Italy that year. Only this time was different.

This time our tickets didn’t show a return journey. We weren’t going back to the UK. We had decided to sell

up and live in Italy.

We landed at Perugia airport with an overnight bag and a suitcase of last-minute panic buys, including a sizeable stash of Monmouth coffee (as if they don’t have

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coffee in Italy) and Aesop hand wash. The sniffer dogs at the airport positively beamed at the aromas wafting from our luggage.

The next day was spent at the notary’s office and, after some lengthy legal procedures (which included reading Every.

Word. Of. The. Contract. Slowly. And. Out. Loud.), we were handed the keys to our new home, a palazzo in a medieval village in the heart of beautiful bucolic Umbria. Bellisima!

For almost a decade up to this point, Ben and I had been banging on about how people could change their lives for the better. We even had a company called Do Something Different. We had written several books with

the same message: if you really want to get something different in life, you have to do something different. We believe that we are what we do, not what we’ll think we will do.

That we have to be active participants in this game called life, to live it deliberately and courageously. Not drift through it passively half asleep. Our research, as psychologists, had convinced us that humans have a need and a responsibility to grow and develop.

Living a life that is limited can be, at best, boring and, at worst, stressful.

Now it was crunch time. Now it was our turn to walk the talk. From now on, we were going to be doing a lot of things differently.

With very little Italian vocabulary, we had to talk, point and gesture our needs to an array of visiting workmen over the next few weeks. All were patient listeners, helpful and charming. And all clocked off punctually at 12.30 to go home to mama for lunch, returning at 3pm to resume work, smiling, freshly stuffed with pasta and no doubt plenty of papa’s red wine. This is the Italian way. Lunch is important. No dining al desko or grabbing a Gregg’s pasty for these guys.

Food remains a central part of their lives and earns massive respect. This may explain why they are such happy people, familyoriented and deeply committed to preserving a positive lifestyle. That does encompass a tendency for all Italian mothers to believe their sons are Jesus Christ. In reciprocation, all Italian sons wholeheartedly believe that their mothers are virgins. Of course, the

ROWAN HEUVEL

Italians are not alone in harbouring delusions, which others manifest in different ways.

For example, they could be totally bonkers and have voted themselves out of Europe.

Imagine that.

In light of this, I guess you won’t be surprised to hear that feminism has yet to reach these parts. The videos I watch as part of my Italian language course are a cross between a Carry On film and soft porn.

Every office scene involves women pouting and prancing around like pole dancers, while the men phwoar and smirk. I have yet to learn the Italian phrase for ‘dismantling the patriarchy’ but have a sneaky suspicion it won’t be translatable.

Language continues to be a challenge.

Although we are studying pretty hard there’s a huge mismatch between the topics in language lessons (‘At the pharmacy’, ‘Buying travel tickets’ and ‘Checking into your hotel’) and the topics we actually need (‘Can you replace the faulty boiler valve?’ or ‘We need some sealing joint compound’ or ‘Are the snakes in my garden venomous?’).

As we get older, we humans have a tendency to surround ourselves with a small group of similar-minded people. Living in a foreign country makes that impossible. If we didn’t bring enough open-mindedness with us, it will be foisted upon us. Never again will I pre-judge a person with a foreign accent, because I am now one of those people. I have to confess I actually find that profoundly refreshing. I may be a Professor back in the

UK but here I am just an idiot who pushes a door marked pull and asks for ‘some of those fish’ while pointing at peaches.

The Italian winter was harsh and I won’t pretend we didn’t almost freeze our butts off in this old, stone house with its vast rooms and lofty ceilings. We kept an extra stock of fur blankets just for visiting guests, who mistakenly believed a Mediterranean climate meant year-round warmth. However, we are now rewarded with sunshine pouring through the bedroom window every morning. From our gorgeous garden, we feast our eyes on the

most glorious views; the majestic Apennine Mountains to the east and the sweeping Tuscan hills to the west. I can smell jasmine and lilac on the breeze and be serenaded by beautiful birdsong and croaking frogs as I work on the terrace. We can eat organically, and have become more tuned in to consuming only what is in season. We can source scrumptious wines, luscious cheeses and the most flavoursome olive oil from the people whose own hands have worked the land.

We rush about less. We make stopping for a coffee the moment’s purpose, rather than an interruption to busyness. We make time to write, paint, throw pots, grow basil and produce our own pesto. We meditate, strum a ukulele or listen to Gavin Bryars as the sun goes down, rendering the vast landscape pink and reminding us that our problems are minutely insignificant against the vastness of all earthly and spiritual realms.

Ben and I are both sixty-odd, still working, creating, learning, and still resolutely not ‘downsizing’. By decamping to Italy, we have been forced to come face-to-face with new customs, a different culture, unfamiliar foods, befuddling bureaucracy, alien driving rules and a new-fangled language. Sure, sometimes it is scary. All change is. But that fear reminds us that we are pushing the boundaries of our comfort zones, doing something different. We know that novelty makes the brain work harder and that’s good at any age. We are not retiring, we are rewiring. ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 51

More than just a matter of

52 | GOLDIE magazine

CONVENIENCE Chris Davalle went on an adventure holiday in Thailand and Cambodia and found it a jumbo-sized trip that changed people’s lives, and his own

PICTURE CREDIT

PICTURES CHRIS & JANE DAVALLE

GOLDIE magazine | 53

I

didn’t think I would ever want to build an outside toilet or, for that matter, ever have the need for one. But even if someone had told me I would get the urge, I didn’t think it would take me until I reached my sixties to answer this particular call of nature.

And I would have flushed with surprise to be told that in the week before this astounding construction feat I would be living, feeding, washing, swimming, walking with (and clearing up after) elephants.

So here I am at 61, proud and exhilarated to have ticked these two off the list of unexpected life events. I have to admit that they didn’t come as a bolt out of the blue but they have left a profound legacy and a sense of achievement that I could never have foreseen.

The catalyst was a friend’s approaching 60th birthday. She wanted to do something different to mark the milestone without making it more of a millstone. A trip to faraway places and a challenge or two perhaps. The solution was provided by an extraordinarily accomplished but relative newcomer to the world of adventure holidays, We Are Bamboo. The company, which states that it is “the next step in independent tours and adventure travel, dedicated to pushing boundaries and to redefine the term ‘responsible tourism’”, organises trips and volunteering from India, Nepal, Cambodia and Thailand to Costa Rica and Tahiti.

The “adventure” that floated our boat was the Two Countries visit to Thailand and Cambodia, and more appropriate to our slightly older group of adventurers it was designed for the “young at heart” - those who were 50-plus. Except in reality we became part of a group of 20 enthusiastic, hardworking, hard-playing, dedicated friends who didn’t want to be treated gently and were happy not to be so.

One of the attractions was the organisation of the trip, from accommodation, meals, travel between far-flung places to guides, volunteer co-ordinators and everything else needed to ensure the days and weeks ran smoothly, and to fix things when they didn’t.

So apart from the flights (which were down to individuals), virtually everything was taken care of.

My wife Jane and I, plus friends Nicola and Tricia, started our three weeks of enlightenment and enjoyment in Bangkok, that buzzing, vibrant, noisy, edgy, cheap, fascinating, cultural and sometimes shady capital of Thailand. We stayed at a budgetstyle hotel in the middle of the city which was functional and clean but then who wants to spend time in a room when the delights of the city are beckoning. It was an evening for getting acquainted with our fellow travellers, drinking, having inexplicably deep and painful massages - and eating charcoaled scorpions and assorted fried creepy-crawlies

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of near I’m A Celebrity proportions. We were 20 in total, two men and 18 lucky women, ranging from 50s to 70s but all “young at heart” in accordance with the trip’s billing.

Day two was Bangkok discovery day.

Temples, rivers, markets, street food - and more temples. A flurry of activity, mayhem, sounds, tuk-tuks and smells and a great introduction to a city that never seems to sleep. A day and night is never enough to do it justice.

Slightly sad then to leave and head northeast by road the 340km (211 miles) to Surin. The dust of the city gave way to flat, open rice fields (dry in March) and junglestyle mountains. Surin was a so-so city.

An interesting night market, with clothes that made the bargain-basement prices of Bangkok seem expensive, but not a place worthy of a detour. Nice hotel, though, with a well-received swimming pool.

It was, however, ideal as a stepping stone to the elephants. Everything before this was just a distraction. This was the big one, literally. As volunteers we were to spend four to five days living, eating and breathing with these magnificent animals.

We Are Bamboo is playing a small but important role of protecting and improving the life of elephants in small communities and villages, For hundreds of years elephants have been used (and abused) in Thailand, predominantly in the logging industry.

This was outlawed in 1989 and thousands of the animals were suddenly redundant, as were the mahouts, their keepers, who could no longer afford to care or feed them.

Many were forced into the cities where the elephants became part of the tourist industry and frequently ill-treated.

This is where organisations such as We Are Bamboo stepped in. In an ideal world

the elephants would have been returned to the wild but this is not practical. Instead, the mahouts are given a royal grant that allows them to look after the elephants, some in sanctuaries but many in ordinary people’s homes and farms. At last these animals are being allowed to be elephants again, not just working machines.

And how amazing to be part of this in some small but important way. Our group home was a homestay in a small tucked-

Chris enjoying a little down time with the elephants

away village, Tha Tum. Basic rooms with a fan, mosquito nets, Western toilets (but flushing from a bucket) and, best of all, two elephants in the backyard - mum Bank and her baby Wan-Dee. Just imagine opening your bedroom door and there they are, swaying trunks and flapping ears.

Volunteering in the village involves everything elephantine. Many hours spent in the fields cutting and stripping elephant grass for their meals, hauling it into vans u GOLDIE magazine | 55

From begining to end. Chris and his fellow volunteers get stuck in building their first toilet

uand unloading it back at the homestead.

Shoveling piles of the remnants of the grass deposited by the ravenous beasts (it actually doesn’t smell too bad but there’s loads of it). And then the best bit: leading them for over a mile through dry rice fields and along dusty roads to the river for bath time. It’s amazing how quiet these giants are when walking on their soft, squashy feet, with the occasional trumpet to split the air. But once they get the scent of the river it’s all bustle 56 | GOLDIE magazine

and a quickening of steps. We bathed with them, washed them, were soaked by them and played with them. And to cap it all my elephant was pregnant and I could feel the baby moving inside its cavernous chest.

Golden memories.

Our days at the homestay were memorable, our team of 20 becoming ever closer with these amazing shared experiences. Food was cooked fresh every day and there were trips to an elephant sanctuary, graveyard and

temple, we made elephant pooh paper, had cookery lessons (yes we washed our hands first) and we drank copiously every evening.

Within days we had seen two sides of Thailand, immersed ourselves in local culture and felt privileged to have helped, in some small way, to make sure these animals have a secure future.

It was then time to cross the border into Cambodia. Instant change of scenery, buildings, roads and general infrastructure -

Jane making elephant dung paper.

Below in the class room

a country obviously much more down on its heels than Thailand due to its recent, violent and horrific history.

It was in stark contrast to the newish, clean, air-conditioned luxury of our hotel just outside Siem Reap where we were to spend the coming days, part sightseeing but mainly volunteering. A welcome retreat from the heat and dust of our community work - in my case Project Toilet.

A 45-minute drive down dusty roads and

“While we sweated in the sun, others from our group sweated in the classrooms.

Schooling in Cambodia is pretty much a hit or miss affair”

past local markets took us to a small village - and one of the poorest in the area. Homes on stilts, animals and chickens pecking the dirt, water from a pump paid for by another charity. But no toilet.

It was here that seven of us (plus our project leader) would take four days to build one - from the bare earth upwards. Local families had hitherto resorted to wandering into the fields to answer the call of nature so this would be a major contribution u GOLDIE magazine | 57

u to hygiene and well-being.

This is where We Are Bamboo really showed its teeth. They paid for and provided all the building materials and tools and we provided the labour, albeit helped by a few villagers. It was blood, lots of sweat, and tears… of the emotional variety, shed by two men and five women.

To be frank it was hard, tiring, arduous work but none of us shirked our roles in the heat of the midday sun. We can now all claim to be bricklayers. The quality would not cut much muster on most Western building sites but the structure was solid and square - and went up surprisingly quickly. Then there was the rendering and skimming, everyone desperate to have a go. We dug huge concrete waste holding tanks into the sand - digging from the inside out and being hauled out when they were the required depth. We worked as a team, cajoling, encouraging and laughing with the locals at our sometimes inept skills.

By the end of the fourth day the toilet was roofed, doored and ready for, er, action. The families that were to use it were emotional in their thanks and praise and our tears mingled readily with theirs. We felt elated, honoured to have helped this poor community. We had left our mark, literally, by adding our painted handprints and names on the outside walls, along with a cartoon panda designed by my wife. Jane.

While we sweated in the sun, others from our group sweated in the classrooms.

Schooling in Cambodia is pretty much a hit or miss affair. The state education system exists but many of the children do not attend on a regular basis, as they have to stay at

Food with a sting in the tail. Jane about to enjoy a scorpion on a stick.

Right, Chris receives a blessing and below, the crew setting out

“So slowly, very slowly, Cambodia is crawling out of its dark days” home and help their families earn a living or are forced to sell trinkets and goods on the streets. We Are Bamboo and many other voluntary groups have sponsored private schools where children from six upwards have the chance to learn skills that will help them to find jobs, learning English, maths and computing skills. They can attend up to three hours a day, and are often provided with food and healthcare.

The New Hope school where our team of volunteers were based is again in one of the poorer districts of Siem Reap. All the lessons are conducted in English and each class is made up of boys and girls of differing ages and abilities. This produces considerable challenges for the teachers and the support from native English-speaking volunteers is invaluable. Whereas we builders came back after a day’s work physically tired, my wife 58 | GOLDIE magazine

and the other teachers returned mentally worn out - but equally buzzing and stimulated.

The appreciation from pupils was clear - the team finished their four days with rounds of hugs and armfuls of paper gifts and pictures, some of guns and tanks - a bitter reminder of Cambodia’s recent past.

On a positive note, a number of the tour leaders were taught and had progressed from this school. It also has an on-site restaurant where older pupils could learn all aspects of the catering trade. It opens its doors to paying guests at lunchtime and evenings, which brings in valuable money and gives students practical experience.

So slowly, very slowly, Cambodia is crawling out of its dark days. These past nightmares are laid bare no more disturbingly than in the killing fields and death camps in Phnom Penh, where our trip took us after our

volunteer days. Here the utter ruthlessness and murderous wanton destruction and rape of the county and its people by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot is a livid scar and memorial to those who died and suffered.

As you walk through the bare rooms of the S-21 death camp you can almost hear the screams of the thousands who were tortured and murdered here. You read how the residents of this huge camp were sent to work in the fields and, for one in four, to their ultimate deaths. The mountain of skulls are a reminder of inhumanity at its very worst.

Most disturbingly, this was happening in the 1970s, when I was young, free and able to do what I wanted.

All the more reason why I, and my fellow travellers, felt it was right and fitting to try and give something back to help those who suffered and are still suffering from this

distressing and appalling period of recent history.

Heartwarming to see, then, the smiling faces of its people. Always a big smile, a friendly greeting and the feeling that things can only get better. This country has so much to offer and so much to see. Include in this the magnificent Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap, seen as the sun rose, and the many other surrounding temples, now crumbling but majestic in their size and structure. We saw the sun set along the Mekong river and the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.

Our final days together were spent on the beach at Sihanoukville, to the west of the country. A lovely boutique hotel, soft sand, lovely food, swimming with luminescent plankton. But sadness even here. The beaches awash with plastic discarded by a population that does not have the resources or money to

recycle, and building sites for casinos and hotels, by the Chinese, for the Chinese, with little benefit to its native Cambodians. The country is changing in many good ways but this is not one of them. What little money is being generated in the country is being sucked out into foreign pockets.

All this sounds gloomy, and in many ways it is. But to experience this country, to meet its people, to help them, to hear them, to see what it could be given a huge slice of good fortune for a change is a life-changing experience.

We Are Bamboo made it happen for me and the rest of this group of 20. Organisation was exemplary. Its staff efficient and friendly.

Not a holiday so much as an experience. And no higher recommendation that 10 of the 20 are reuniting to do a similar trip to Vietnam next year. Give it a go. It may change your life, too. ¢

Need to know We Are Bamboo offers its twoweek Two Countries Young At Heart trip on numerous departure dates. The cost is around £1,100 including all accommodation, most meals, transfers, guides, entrance to attractions and tips.

A one-week extension to Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, again including all the above costs, is around £500.

Flights have to be arranged separately but return fares with Cathay Pacific start at around £500. Many other airlines fly to Bangkok and Phnom Penh.

We Are Bamboo www.wearebamboo.com GOLDIE magazine | 59

Do I like rugby? Take it as red Julie Hurst wears her scarlet shirt with a swelling of patriotism and pride

I

stand in the entrance to the tunnel leading to the pitch. I see the grass some yards ahead as we wait for the signal to walk forward. The singing of the crowd rings in my ears, my heart beats faster in my chest. I can hear those waiting with me breathing more quickly too. I glance down at my red shirt, the Prince of Wales’s feathers so white they almost glow.

The announcement comes: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Wales!” On cue we step forward. Tears spring to my eyes and spill down my cheeks.

An understandable reaction, I suppose, to representing one’s country. In my case, however, I was taking my son on a tour of the Principality Stadium in Cardiff as a half term treat. The singing and announcement were pre-recorded sound effects and the only person watching our procession down the tunnel was a groundsman tending the grass. So why all the emotion? In Wales we have a word for it – hwyl. It doesn’t translate exactly; the closest is ‘an emotional stirring of the heart’. But you know it when you feel it.

For me it has a lot to do with wearing my Welsh rugby jersey. There is something about it that really does stir my heart, straightens my back and lifts my spirit. Its red thread is literally and figuratively woven through the fabric of my life, forming a key piece of the country that moulded me and the culture that directs me still. I cannot remember a time when I’ve not owned a Welsh team shirt, and it has always had the same effect. Nowadays those feelings of pride at being “proper Welsh” are mingled with the wonderful memories it brings back.

I recall my mother sitting next to the television on international match days, fingers flicking at the screen to try to “knock over” the ball when the opposing kicker was lining up a penalty. Growing up in the Welsh valleys I remember how the streets stood empty as everyone crowded round the TV set, at home or in the local working men’s club. Those who had to work did so with a grumble - there was no catchup TV then. I still recall my shock when I ‘emigrated’ to England to attend university and a friend asked me to go shopping

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Fact and figures A report by SMG Insight in 2013 examined the appeal of rugby union across 14 different nations, comparing both the gender and age of supporters. Overall, support is strongest in the southern hemisphere through the might of South Africa, where 70 per cent of the population follow rugby union is some way, and New Zealand (63 per cent). Wales at 44 per cent, and France with 41 per cent are Europe’s foremost “rugger huggers”.

The female fan base of rugby is a solid one. Although there are more men than women among the sport’s fans overall, 62 per cent of women in South Africa support rugby, followed

by New Zealand (57%), Wales (36%), Argentina (35%) and France (33%).

Interestingly, the love of rugby does not diminish with age; in fact in some countries it actually increases. For the powerhouse nations of South Africa and New Zealand, 73 per cent and 68 per cent of over-55s respectively follow rugby, the highest proportion of any age group. It’s a similar picture in Wales where 58 per cent of over-55s enjoy the sport, with the other home nations close behind.

on a rugby Saturday. Sacrilege of the highest order.

During my university years I proudly wore my shirt alongside my friend, Linda from Barry, as we sang the Welsh anthem - the only two standing amidst a sea of English white. I remember taking my father to the national stadium to watch Wales play. We lost as I recall, but it didn’t matter. He loved being part of that sea of red, singing in unison, doing our best to raise the roof, even though it was firmly closed.

I’ve worn my scarlet shirt many times in the small English village where I live, sometimes in victory, sometimes in defeat, but always with a swelling of patriotism and pride. Luckily for me the banter between rugby supporters is a good-natured affair, as I’ve been involved in a lot of it over the years. The shirt also seems ageless: no one questions why I wear such a thing, being a woman of a certain age. National allegiance defies age, fitness and gender (see panel, left). It is truly a timeless garment, although unlikely ever to be featured in a magazine as a fashion essential.

Of course, I’m not the only one who feels this way. Leicester Tigers recently asked fans to attend a home game in old team shirts.

Many answered the call, turning up in Tigers shirts that had been passed down through the generations, children now wearing shirts once worn by their parents. However, I doubt many of those fans had started as early as my son. His first rugby top arrived 24 hours after my father learnt we were expecting a boy – just six weeks into pregnancy. It was two years before it fitted and I still treasure the picture of him wearing it, sitting on my father’s lap, watching a game.

But my shirt is not just about nostalgia.

If I cannot recall a time without one, I cannot foresee such a time either. When I’m in my dotage I am determined to be the little old lady still wearing her rugby shirt, still watching Wales play, still singing the anthem, even if I have trouble standing. I’ll be there, still feeling the hwyl. And if all goes according to plan, in about 10 years my eyes will be on that tunnel again, waiting with 74,500 others to cheer my son as he steps out on to the pitch. ¢

At peace with war on the yoga mat

ROBERT STURMAN

Yoga has a vital role to play in helping soldiers cope with post-traumatic stress disorder.

By Annie Sherburne

GOLDIE magazine | 61

H

ow does an artist and yoga teacher from London find herself modifying an American colonel’s tree pose in Florida one May morning in 2018? Even my son couldn’t quite understand how his pacifist mother was working with the military, and the US military at that, with such passion.

I have been an artist all my life, versed in self-inquiry, immersed in a world of cultural thought and expression. I am also a charter Level-1 yoga teacher. It was through a meeting with a commissioned officer who asked me to teach him yoga and then moved into my life briefly that I ended up in Florida witnessing a whole new view of what yoga could be.

Before that meeting I had been developing a training programme to teach prisoners to become yoga teachers. Yoga is known to help people to recover from trauma and the prison population is full of people whose childhood and life traumas have gone unresolved. The Prison Phoenix Trust already takes yoga into prisons but access is patchy and my aim was to help prisoners to help themselves, rather than going in to do a weekly class.

My soldier was interested and told his CO, who recommended that I look at an organisation called Warriors at Ease in the USA. She suggested that I should base my training on Warriors at Ease protocols because if the military do it, it must be male psyche orientated, winning over anyone who might think yoga soft.

By an amazing coincidence, there was a teacher training course in Florida the following week and I flew out to the Sivananda Ashram there for it. I followed through with online training in sexual military trauma, studying papers and reading specialist books on moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), writing assignments and designing classes. Finally, I went for a one to one mentoring session in Florida, where my mentor, Annie Okerlin, introduced me to veterans and serving soldiers.

I then completed my Level-1 training in i-Rest, which is the jewel in the crown of these yogic practises and teachings.

This, together with my Warriors at Ease certification, enables me to work with u

62 | GOLDIE magazine

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PICTURE: COURTESY WAE

64 | GOLDIE magazine

JANEL NORTON

u traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, military sexual trauma, and all the physical injuries of war.

The US military, US government and the Veterans Associations in the US acknowledge particular protocols which have been developed by Warriors at Ease to be the most effective methods to enable recovery from all the injuries in the theatre of war.

These days the USA military considers PTSD to be the most prevalent combat injury, rather than a disorder, but we have a long way to go before this is more widely accepted. The symptoms are not a disorder, they are natural response to events, creating knots in the belly, tension in the chest, pain in the head, a desire to fight, rage, fear, helplessness. They are part of primal programming to help a human being to survive a devastating attack.

Afterwards, the ego takes over, and personalises the trauma to ‘something is wrong with me’. It’s not personal, but the ego obstructs what is otherwise a natural healing process. The symptoms are debilitating, emerging in the body and mind in an attempt to cope with stressful experiences: hyperarousal, numbing and avoidance. These lead to attempts to cope because the brain cannot release the trauma: alcohol, drugs, reckless behaviour, gambling, suicides, disassociation, gastrointestinal complaints and other physical illnesses.

In the UK, servicemen and women are treated within the National Health Service, whereas the US has specialised services for the military. Warriors at Ease is starting online training internationally for yoga teachers, and hopes to bring these procedures to the UK; we just need to find open doors and a willingness to try them.

Yoga Nidra is an ancient yogic technique that has been healing trauma for well over 4,500 years. It accesses and changes the neural pathways of the brain by simple techniques that enable yogic sleep. The body sleeps, and the conscious mind travels through different brain wave patterns and away from the beta waves of day-to-day life. First we drop into alpha, then theta and delta, accessing what is essentially trauma that has been stored in the memory, as well as physically in the tissues as part of the body’s natural process to protect it. When we create a safe environment in Warriors at Ease classes, traumas are released. The soldiers face and assimilate experiences on their own terms. It is not a psychological therapy; it is a guided meditation process.

One third of all combat servicemen and women in the US returning mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq – equalling around 833,000 people – suffer mental illness. 13 per cent (more than 250,000) have a full diagnosis of PTSD. PTSD occurs when we push something away – bury it – but it always surfaces again. Practices enable us to deal with our individual experiences, recognising

“One third of American combat servicemen and women returning from active service suffer mental illness”

the tell-tale signs. Instead of suppressing it, we welcome it and work with the technique to release what has arisen.

Military survivors of trauma are stigmatised by their colleagues, future employers and, most crucially, by society.

The Vietnam veterans were so badly treated when they returned because many considered the Vietnam war to be unjust and blamed the vets. Those vets are among those who are benefiting from these mind-body practices and I met many of them.

Soldiers today face different issues from those that the Vietnam vets experienced. More studies are needed to look at PTSD and indeed moral injury in modern combat, where there are new forms of engagement and danger, including suicide bombers, child soldiers and IEDs. In addition, the soldiers themselves are often younger. Current thinking suggests that Warriors at Ease protocols could provide resilience before trauma can occur.

Much of the suffering I am talking about remains hidden because of the distinctive nature of military culture. In the services, the culture is of a family: the soldiers are like brothers and sisters to each other – so that abuse of this is cruel. The culture says “suck it up”. In the US there is a massive incidence of sexual trauma in the military that is unlike civilian sexual trauma, because it is more akin to incest. After the sexual abuse, the victims have to face their abuser at work; going absent without leave incurs a court martial.

Combatants and veterans often try to conceal PTSD and sexual trauma because of the stigma invloved, which adversely affects future employment opportunities and personal relationships. Currently, service men and women tend to be put on other jobs during deployment while being treated, unless their PTSD is a cause of harm to themselves or to others. These practices of

Warriors at Ease is not endorsed by Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs. This content represents the views of the individual and does not imply endorsement of any government entity.

yoga and yoga nidra are so effective that having them available alongside day-to-day work and even on deployment means that everyone can self-treat. Treatment options need to be mobile and acceptable to service members.

Remarkably, a survey found that 72 per cent of the 291 soldiers asked had sought alternative and complementary medicine for pain, stress and anxiety. Warriors at Ease protocols are perfectly acceptable to this culture, because they are movable, invisible and don’t need special equipment; they can be private, so they involve no stigma and individuals don’t have to admit weakness.

The practices are also less costly and can be done in groups.

Susan Eldon, of Warriors at Ease, teaches an inspiring class on the hero’s journey, and showed this working in the Native American medicine wheel: from home, into great challenges, seemingly beyond endurance,u GOLDIE magazine | 65

JANEL NORTON

uto find resources we didn’t know we had, then to return, to tell the story and be welcomed back.

When we find suffering within ourselves and within the warriors who protect our borders, these yogic practices teach us to bring our experiences together to heal them.

When we discover healing within the self, and within the larger bodies of nations, the 66 | GOLDIE magazine

opposition can be met and resolved. It is a continuing process.

During my training I found myself thinking: “Who are these people who go to war for us?” There is research to suggest that those of pacifist tendencies make the best soldiers; the ones who end up suffering the most in terms of traumas and moral injury are those who come to the army with pre-

existing traumas from their childhoods. The future of war needs to honestly looked at, in terms both of the people who choose to fight and how these individuals are prepared for this age-old human activity.

I experienced deep personal peace in myself in this training, just as in Yoga Nidra where I found the peace of deep truth, along with the effervescence of the life force

CASE STUDY

and the territory from which all human endeavours arise. We each have access to find peace in our own personal experiences here and now - life just is, we don’t try to fix it, but accept it, and let it move and be, and become adept at navigation. Who knows how wise our soldiers will become when they have that peace within them? ¢

To find out more about Warriors at Ease go to: Warriors at Ease is a worldwide network of teachers.

Find a teacher in your area by visiting: www. warriorsatease.org/find-a-teacher/ or contact us at info@warriorsatease.org

Lieutenant Colonel James Alden U.S. Army Retired Lieutenant I spent 15 of my years in the military as a, ‘Green Beret,’ a proud member of the United States Army Special Forces. I am a combat veteran, a modern warrior, and a quiet professional. I clearly remember the day when I took the oath, ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic’. I and my comrades took this oath freely, fully knowing the risks and sacrifices our nation would ask of us.

We love our nation, we love our fellow citizens, and we love each other.

I have a daily yoga and meditation practice that has served me both at home and in a combat environment.

Mind-body practices have helped me to fully embrace the warrior I have become through my combat experiences and decades of service to our nation.

When the Global War on Terrorism began, we never imagined that we were entering a war that would become the longest in the history of our nation.

Regrettably, our nation’s wars will continue, and so will the deep wounds and the sacrifices. Yoga and meditation have been essential to my resiliency and overall well-being of mind, body and spirit.

GOLDIE magazine | 67

For Louise Pendry, growing out her dyed hair was how she learned to love her age

My

Greyvolution

GARY MILO

W

hen I turned 50 I fell in love with life. I didn’t plan it that way. What I did plan was that by 50 I’d finally be free of dyeing my hair.

And I was – my long, dyed brunette tresses traded in for a short silver bob. But during this growing-out process, something else happened too.

My life to this point had been pretty good.

But as the years rolled by, I felt like I was on a predictable treadmill, my life mapped out and my horizons narrowing. Plus I was getting older, and hating that. The physical signs freaked me out. Thanks to my genes (cheers, Dad) grey hair started arriving in my teens. Well, sod that! I embraced hair dye, rejoicing that I could cheat the grim grey reaper forever, courtesy of a regular appointment with my hairdresser. Next came the wrinkles. And the saggy bits that hadn’t been there before. So I slapped on the anti-ageing creams, hit the gym and was told that I “looked good for my age”. What a compliment (not). But it all took so much effort, especially the hair part. Those roots required a fortnightly touch up once I hit 40.

Permanent hair colour? I think not. I planned my entire life around that badger stripe. Until one day in my late forties I had an epiphany. What if I just … went … grey? But the prospect terrified me. I feared not only being grey but also going grey. The roots I hated would take over. I’d look like I’d let myself go. And ultimately, I’d look old.

For years, I realised I’d despised ageing.

We are conditioned to be prejudiced towardu

GARY MILO

“My experiences have empowered and emboldened me. Always cautious and reserved, I have begun to try new things, to take risks, to forge new connections. ”

GARY MILOCREDIT PICTURE

“I now eschew those irritating rules about what not to wear after 50” u our future selves, to hate a group that we will one day, if we are lucky enough, get to join. How maladaptive is that as a life strategy? So we invest huge amounts of time, energy and money into staving off the inevitable truth: at some point, we too will be old. People will look at us pityingly. They will know we are on the inevitable downward slide towards senility and death. Poor us.

But in spite of my misgivings, I decided to try. I hacked off a foot of my dyed hair, joined a few supportive Facebook “Going Grey” communities for moral support – trust me, they rock – and off I went. And yes, I hated it at first. I knitted hats to hide my burgeoning roots and slunk about in the shadows to avoid detection. It was a slow process, a life lesson in humility and patience. Not so much a bad hair day as a bad hair year (and a half, in my case).

Along the way, though, I realised a few things: 72 | GOLDIE magazine

People will comment on your going grey.

Some may compliment you (not many).

Others will tell you it’s a big mistake. That’s OK. It’s your hair, your choice.

Some people will give you funny looks in the street, not quite sure if you’re doing this on purpose. Let them wonder.

The rest do not care even one iota.

Seriously.

When you are done, random strangers will accost you in the street to congratulate you.

After the first few months it can actually become fun, growing into this silvery new you. Subversive even. As someone who’d always followed the rules, it felt naughty to deviate from the societal diktat that says women must not visibly age. I developed reserves of self-confidence that had eluded me my whole life. I was finally growing into myself, owning my age. I liked it.

And I started to ponder ageing more generally, especially as a woman. I began to

question the received wisdom I’d absorbed over the years: stay young at any cost, fear age. We are ageing from the day we are born. There’s a lot to be said for every stage if we stop fighting against what is, after all, a natural process. I’ve been evolving my whole life, from child to teen to young adult to mid-lifer. Each phase brings with it benefits and costs. Why should this stage carry any more negativity and fear than the ones that preceded it? Why can’t the glass be half full when we speak of growing older?

As I grew more comfortable with my hair, I scrutinised the rest of my outlook more closely. Whether or not I now looked older with grey hair, I realised I no longer cared.

Perversely, I felt younger. Casting off the burden of society’s expectations that I may not age was curiously rejuvenating. I began to consider other aspects of getting older.

My whole mindset shifted. I observed that the crippling insecurities that had dogged

How to ditch the dye

VANESSA MILLS

Joe Cowley from Little Bird Hair Studio shares her gentle guide to going grey

me from my teens onwards, the sense that I was never quite good enough, had started to fall away. I recognised and valued the hardwon experience I’ve accrued across my first half century. Finally I’m getting a sense of proportion, figuring out what is important.

I’m more than good enough.

My experiences have empowered and emboldened me. Always cautious and reserved, I have begun to try new things, to take risks, to forge new connections. I now eschew those irritating rules about “What not to wear after 50” and instead take pleasure in wearing stuff I’d formerly rejected as too young for me. My teenage daughter and I now swap clothes.

Biker jackets, leather trousers, over-theknee boots, dungarees, shorts, have all found space in my wardrobe. And I love them!

I also welcome opportunities to celebrate growing older. So this past couple of years I’ve taken part in a number of photo

shoots celebrating being happily silver (Ben Winkler’s Faces of Silver project, and Vanessa Mills’ Naturalistas project), and modelling projects that seek to break down age barriers (for fashion label The Bias Cut).

My “Why ever not?” mindset has introduced me to photographer Gary Milo. On a whim I entered his Fifty and Fabulous competition for a makeover shoot and won. We had so much fun that we’ve kept working together, setting up themed shoots with my fellow silver friend and virtual stylist Liz Eremenko that we hope capture the sheer joy and mischief of growing older as a woman.

The process has opened new doors for me in my job as a university psychology lecturer, too. I’ve had a lifelong interest in stereotyping and prejudice, and have started to focus on the gendered ageism that affects women, especially in midlife. I’m exploring how online communities, blogs and vlogs for women – on all topics, whether it’s

l Once you’ve decided you’re over the slavery of tinting your hair every 4 to 6 weeks it’s such a relief. l Whether you colour at home or a stylist does it for you, you don’t need to go cold turkey. Talk to your stylist about going grey graciously. l Don’t try to keep your hair too long.

The growing out process will take longer. l Hair that’s in poor condition can be very ageing, and this alongside colour change, could be a recipe for you changing your mind. Condition. Condition. Condition. l Opt for a contemporary haircut and have it kept in shape whilst going au natural. l If your hair is currently tinted dark, and you are anywhere between 20-100% white underneath, you may want to ask your stylist to pre-lighten first. This will give you a lighter base shade to work on. l Try to avoid using bleach and high levels of peroxide as this will deteriorate the hair quicker than anything and the condition of the hair is key l Balayage/ombré, where you paint the mid lengths to ends lighter shades, change the hues and shades around your face but keep the roots dark, will create the illusion of the hair being lighter and help with the transition. l Combinations of ash and gold blonde woven highlights are another good solution and mixing up the tones makes the hair look natural. l If your hair begins to tarnish or go a yellow tone once you start to go lighter, talk to your stylist about blue or violet shampoos for home use or as salon toners. l As our hair loses its pigment, so does our skin. You may need to adjust your make-up alongside your new hair colour. l Finally, good luck. I can guarantee that once you reach the end, you’ll never reach for the bottle again.

menopause, style, going grey or becoming a midlife entrepreneur – can support and empower. It makes a beautiful story and I’m keen to tell it. In addition to the academic work, I’m doing guest blogs and features, I’m planning to write a book and I’m embracing any opportunities to get the word out that this phase of life can be more than OK. I have never felt more positive about myself, more comfortable in my own skin, more authentically me. What started out as an experiment in going grey has ended up being so much more. It’s turned into a reassessment of who I am and what I want in life. A realisation that ageing is a process to embrace, not fear. Finally, I’ve accepted, and learned to love, my 52-year-old self. ¢

GOLDIE magazine | 73

“Each piece is personal to her own narrative.

Some tell of aspects in her life she’s not yet ready to reveal.”

74 | GOLDIE magazine

Bow-wow

WOWS! They don’t bark, they definitely don’t bite.

Artist Agnetha Sjögren tells Rebecca Weef Smith how her intimate artworks made success a walk in the park

A

gnetha Sjögren’s world is bliss for those of us who are fearful of dogs: we get all the benefits of spending time with an animal without the stress. In her studio, I find myself wanting to pet the art, and turn to a dog we’re discussing, expecting a response: a quiet bark or recognition that it is being admired.

Agnetha’s dogs don’t require walking, feeding, or otherwise amusing, nor will they bite you if antagonised – as Agnetha says: “My dogs are very nice.” And these dogs are much more than aesthetically pleasing works of art; they are the canvas on which she shares her autobiographical stories. I really want to begin this with Once upon a time there was a little Swedish Girl who loved to make collections….

Agnetha didn’t intend to become an artist – even recently she was reluctant to refer to herself as one. Her Swedish childhood was colourful and creative; she had a finely attuned sense of pattern and an understanding of colour that often led to her stylish mother asking her opinion on clothes. She studied economics and languages, spent her twenties travelling, partying and working out who she was. On a whim she took a course in window

display (as visual merchandising used to be called). Her brother studying in London had a contact in display. Agnetha came for a twoweek work placement and is still here more than 20 years later.

She created her first dogs for a store window and everyone loved them. Always wanting to learn more Agnetha took a Master’s degree in entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths, London, with the intention of expanding her business. It was during that year she had an ah-ha! Moment. “I realised that I didn’t want to return to windows,” she says. “My dogs were so much more than display objects, they had become my passion.”

Much of Agnetha’s life seems to rely on charmed chance encounters: she was at a party chatting to a stranger when they discovered they were both afraid of dogs: “But my dogs are different, they are nice.”

The woman turned out to be the Art Buyer for a “posh hotel” and offered Agnetha her first exhibition. Six months later she was exhibiting her dog-sculptures and filled the walls of the space with dog-art prints.

It has been three years since the first show and Agnetha’s dogs have become famous. They are much loved by galleries and collectors and it’s easy to see why. The dogs are beautiful to look at. They are quirky, vibrant, amusing pieces which sit well – of course, they are well-behaved – in both home spaces and museum environments.

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u The craftsmanship of each unique dog is outstanding. Agnetha initially makes a form out of wire and plaster; this is translated into a mould which in turn is used to create the base sculptures made in Jesmonite, an ecofriendly, exceptionally durable plastic. The sculpture then becomes the canvas on which Agnetha collages, decorates, and presents each piece’s temperament. The process of making the dogs confirms Agnetha’s selfproclaimed perfectionism. She is unable to let a dog go if it is not right: right being as much about a psychological sense as a balance of shape and form. Each dog is developed in the same way from tail to nose.

There is a journey being played out. The playing is part of the method. As Agnetha tells me how she organises her cut pieces I can see a young girl in Sweden siting at the kitchen table cutting out her comics and arranging them in collections, carefully grouping them in themed envelopes. When Agnetha’s mother discovered one such envelope – Jesus, Angels, Father Christmas – it was transformed into a dog which shares her childhood memories.

Agnetha also works in bronze and stainless steel. She is meticulous in who she chooses to work with: the foundry where her dogs are produced is a family run Greek company, V & P Tassis and she is careful to find photographers who can turn her sculptures into portraits for her limited edition prints.

Every detail is pragmatically considered.

She values these close relationships with everyone involved in the making of the dogs, the intimacy of each piece requires trust just as it would in a family.

As each piece is so personal to Agnetha’s own narrative she has to feel that she is ready to share that part of her story. There are dogs which tell of aspects in her life which she is not yet ready to reveal. Recently her work has been playing with the idea of concealment, using zips and blindfolds. The dogs are still drop-dead-gorgeous objects of desire but I sense they want to be in control of how we see them.

It would be easy to take Agnetha’s dogs at face value; I think they offer us a deeper insight into what it is to be a woman in the 21st century. When Agnetha opened a UK bank account she was appalled to discover they wanted her to have a title on her card – what relevance was it whether she was Miss or Mrs? She eventually got her own way.

She conducts her life under her own terms and the dogs are equally independent and free spirited. Every dog is exceptional, has its own character and back story; each dog has its own passport. Agnetha gives her dogs the freedom to fly. They are autonomous creatures that may be “nice dogs” but are so much more. And if you choose to view them through that singular lens you may find that they come and bite you on the bum! ¢ 76 | GOLDIE magazine

JR GLOBETROTTER

OLLIE OLYMPIC

JACK SILVER

CHARLIE BROWN

MARSIPAN & BLIND LOVE

M&M

MY ANGEL

BLIND LOVE

PRADA LOVE

SUPERMAN

LINUS GOLDIE magazine | 77

Maggie makes magic happen …in her bijoux boutique, a treasure trove of beautiful things and fusion of exquisite accessories Maggie Owen tells Angela Kennedy how she joined the Bloomsbury Set PICTURES BY LISA BRETHERICK

I

f you get the feeling the high street has morphed into a conglomerate of branded shops that look the same and sell the same sort of stuff, then take a stroll down Lamb’s Conduit Street in Bloomsbury and you’ll be pleasantly rewarded.

You’ll be stepping into an eclectic community of independent shops fizzing with personality.

Some have been in the same family for years and others, like La Fromagerie the gourmet cheese shop, are relatively new, but all have the same desire to provide something special.

78 | GOLDIE magazine

There’s Ciao Bella, the Italian family restaurant loved by all, Noble Rot a wine bar with a cult following, Persephone, the independent book shop, and just off centre, Maggie Owen in Rugby Street – so named since much of the area is owned and managed by Rugby School with its badge of British heritage.

In Bloomsbury, still redolent of great names like Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf, Rugby Street is just that little bit hidden away to make it a curiosity well worth the search and where Maggie’s is an emporium you will be more than thrilled to discover. u

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uIn the beginning I grew up in Hampshire and spent my formative teenage years in Malta where my mother, from Donegal, loved making things - especially dresses for us. Swatches arriving from Liberty remain a vivid memory. I loved Liberty and was enthralled by the wonderful displays, the prints and colours.

I graduated in fine art, married the lecturer and became a teacher of art in Hampshire where my son Roland was born From Hampshire to London I feel I’ve done things upside down and back to front. While people in mid-life frequently swap the city for a rural life, I’ve moved from the country into town. It’s inspiring – I adore being in the centre of London. It gives me a daily dose of energy and motivation, living and working in such a vibrant eclectic area.

From teaching to retailing I had no career path mapped out but there are some things I’ve always loved and I’ve always adored shops and exploring new areas. Deep down I had a hankering to have an outlet of my own filled with things I love, but I had no real retail experience.

I was just winging it at the start. I didn’t know what a ‘forward order’ even meant.

I’m amazed now at my naivety and even more amazed at the trust designers placed in me and will always appreciate that.

Why Bloomsbury?

Purely by chance. I’m so lucky to have landed up in this spot. I was visiting a friend in Bloomsbury, considering my move to London and was charmed by the area, the heritage and romance of its bohemian past. A property advertisement said, ‘Shop with living accommodation above’ and it just felt right.

13 Rugby Street was originally a dairy the site of London’s oldest dairy.

I could immediately picture a showcase for the costume jewellery shop I imagined creating. Bloomsbury is a real

“It doesn’t have to be expensive, to be special ”

mix which makes it so special. The Rugby estate celebrated its 450th Anniversary last year and the whole community joined in.

We host many charity events to raise money, primarily for Coram’s Fields children’s charity and Great Ormond Street Hospital, which are both near by.

Is it true that just one necklace started your business?

Yes, I bought a stunning one-off necklace on holiday in the south of France in 2001 that was much admired. It was an individual and beautifully crafted piece. I tracked down the designer Philippe Ferrandis, who was not represented in the UK, and persuaded him to sell to my ‘unknown’ business.

Philippe had complete faith in my enthusiasm and we still have a close professional relationship. I opened the shop in 2006, adding many other designers like Angela Caputi, Epice, Christina Brampti and Sa muel Coraux along the way, and it’s constantly evolving. Philippe is still my best selling designer.

Where does your inspiration come from?

Travel and the arts. I love creativity in all its forms. I’m lucky to be able to visit the major art exhibitions in London and I’m a member of the Academician’s Room at the Royal Academy. I source fabulous things and love the thrill of discovering new names and nurturing new talent. I appreciate how hard it is for young designers to get a showcase. And though I’m in tune with fashion trends and use them as a focus for the windows, I prefer to offer pieces that are distinctive and not generally available.

“For as little as £10, you can have a new pair of ear-rings ” 80 | GOLDIE magazine

I despair of the high street in every town and city looking exactly the same with the same mix of shops Do you have a business mantra?

Personal service, good will and sincerity are important and will always generate customer loyalty.

I want customers to feel good about what they buy, whether it’s a young chap buying his girlfriend a gift or a celebrity purchasing an expensive necklace for a red carpet event.

Everyone deserves the same respect and attention. I know how I feel about pushy service and always let customers browse. Men, who notoriously hate shopping enjoy the calm, low key vibe and always come back for gifts.

How do you define your own fashion style?

I prefer a pared-down look that’s a foil for my accessories.

If you could live anywhere else, where would it be?

Paris – it’s been the source of so much inspiration for me. From here I can walk to St Pancras and be on Eurostar and in Paris in a couple of hours.

The windows They invite people in. I change them approximately twice a month to reflect a current trend. I like to build a story around a topical theme whether it’s an exhibition, a colour or an artist and mix jewellery, magazine covers, books, and accessories to reflect the variety of things we offer.

On Social Media I’m an enthusiastic about Instagram and love seeing beautiful images (but I’m definitely not into selfie culture).

I originally had two accounts, one for work and one personal, then I realised that the shop was ME, so now they are merged. It’s a great way of sharing news and showcasing our windows. ¢ maggieowenlondon.com

LISA BRETHERICK

5 BRANDS WE LOVE Philippe Ferrandis Eclectic stand-out pieces, always colourful , always original , mega sized ear-rings Epice Jazzy bold patterned scarves with eclectic appeal around the £135 mark

Inside Maggie’s lovely shop there is a treasure trove of beautiful things

Angela Caputi Italian “Hollywood” style bold jewellery, that makes a powerful statement

Simon Harrison Sparkly gems with red-carpet appeal, and stylish topical zodiac pendants (under £100)

Alex Monroe His signature ‘bumblebee” and daisy necklaces are cult pieces that make fabulous gifts

GOLDIE magazine | 81

Imagine if Bowie was on the lookout for a new summer wardrobe in his local charity shop?

Rebecca Weef Smith goes searching for menswear befitting a style icon PICTURES BY ELLE HALLEY

We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town…

82 | GOLDIE magazine

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86 | GOLDIE magazine

The photographer: Elle Halley

What do you see when you look through the lens?

T

he camera is very honest; my feelings about the subject will be explicit in the image I produce. So I look for the beauty in everyone.

I always need to see something about the person I am viewing that is likeable - whether their inner beauty, energy or vibrancy in order to reveal it in a photo; I want to celebrate the best I can find in that person.

When I show someone a new side of themselves they may be surprised at what I have seen. Often I will give them a version of themselves that they think they want and then my side of them, my vision of who they are. It is likely that they will be quite different aspects of a person.

As people get older their personality shows more on the exterior - the face reflects our experiences - we wear our personalities on the outside. Lovely people age beautifully.

The beauty on the inside lights up the outside; kind people have an inner glow. When I am working with someone who has a fragile ego (which, let’s face it, we all are prone to at times in our life - ageing can be difficult to accept), who really only wants the world to see a perfect (younger) version of who they are, it can take time for them to appreciate that the reality of their beauty - who they are now, wrinkles and all - is enough.

I want my images to flatter - no one wants to see obvious flaws - but I don’t think we want bland characterless images with all the life taken out of them in Photoshop.

Overly commercial, please-photograph-myego work isn’t what I’ve ever wanted to be doing; other photographers are better than me at that. You can always deliver an image that someone wants to see, but it may not be genuine. Ultimately the sitter, or the client, has the final say on how they want to be perceived.

I don’t like to be photographed myself.

I feel awkward when a camera is pointed at me. We are all vulnerable in front of a lense. So I make a point of getting to know my subjects and I like to spend time with someone and chat; to be natural in front of a camera we need to feel comfortable and safe.

Sometimes if I am in a studio I have to get creative to achieve this; I might ask a model to pretend they can see some drama going on out of the window or to role-play a scene or just imagine a cat has jumped in through the window! I can be tough if they just want to put on a camera face and not engage in a dialogue with me to get an interesting shoot.

I need a model to trust me to bring out the best in them. I love working with Patrick; we know how to tell a story together. Of course, he just lights up when a lens is pointed at him. But there are very few Patricks in this world! ¢

The model: Patrick Cordier

How did you to be so good at this modelling lark?

I

have been at it for a while, so I should be good at it by now. You know the story… I was walking with my Mum in Stockholm and there was a shabby lady waving at me with her rollers in, so I ignored her, but she came over to us and said “I’ve seen you about and I am looking for the new face for the Marco Polo campaign, give me a call.”

And that was that; Mum made me call, ‘cause I was like, ‘really? she is so old’ - at least 35 and I was 19.

So I got a friend to take some photos and the scout loved them, so she got my friend involved: I got the job and he got his first break too. It was 1976; fashion was all about having a good time with friends. From there, she took my picture to a big agency and my first major job was for Vicks VapoRub. I couldn’t go to the movies for 3 months ‘cause I was known everywhere as the boy with the cough; it was really embarrassing.

Then I went to Hamburg and bam! I was a Face…

The highlight for me has always been traveling. Seeing the world for free has been amazing. How many kids get to see all of the fabulous places I have been to and get paid to go? I was so young and flying off everywhere; I did a Freemans catalogue with two weeks in Key West in the sun shooting winter clothes, and I was one of the first models to work in Tokyo in ’78. After 5 weeks I had a suitcase of money and I bought myself a special watch from Hong Kong which I still have, as well as Sony Walkmans for my friends - there was waiting list in Europe at the time and I got 10 to bring back.

But then of course, I had to call it a day.

When you are in modelling you know when

it’s coming to an end. You have an expiry date like a pint of milk. I have always looked younger than my age so it lasted longer than it did for some: I was 39 when the milk went off.

So I moved from New York to London and started a new life. I had been very, very lucky, but it was still a shock. I couldn’t work out how you lived on the money you got in the real world; I was used to getting stuff for free and I had to adjust and think about myself differently. I had no contacts or networks so I started from scratch. I was a waiter for a while - the worst one ever - then eventually I ended up in sales to pay my rent and was made a manager, although how that happened I don’t know.

That was until 2 years ago. I was with a friend, Diane Goldie, who had made me a jacket, and we took some photos which came out well, so she said “why aren’t you still doing this?”

I thought, “Ok. Maybe now is the time to get back to my true love. I love everything about modelling, and of course I like the money…”

If I could give advice to young models I would say put a third in the bank, have a good time but respect that it won’t go on forever… this time around I will be sensible.

Your bookers are your mum and dad, your agency take care of everything but one day you will be on your own and you need to have built in some security.

This time around I am appreciating it all much more. I’m so grateful to travel again, to be meeting super people, to be having fun. I am perfectly happy; I love the energy in fashion when you’re working with a good team. But I have a few ambitions still. It’s still my dream to work on a Prada campaign; that would be a good trip. The Prada shoes I have on in this shoot are timeless. You put them on and they last forever, like a good relationship working with a fabulous photographer like Elle. Fashion is a family, and it’s a lovely place to be. ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 87

“Ageing is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”

David Bowie 88 | GOLDIE magazine

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90 | GOLDIE magazine

Location: Granary Square Kings Cross, London N1C 4BH Photographer: Elle Halley www.ellehalley.co.uk Model: Patrick Cordier-Retting Styling: Rebecca Weef Smith All clothes Oxfam and stylists own. Shoes model’s own.

With thanks to Oxfam Fashion, Oxfam, 245 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2SE Oxfam, 123a Shawfield St, Kings Road, London SW3 4PL

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THE ANARCHO-DANDY

NO THOUGHT

CASUAL

What’s an Anarcho-Dandy?

– said hardly anyone ever.

By Jämes Rïgby

I

t’s been around for a lot longer than it’s had a name. Oscar Wilde was one. The self-proclaimed Master of Ceremonies of my home town of Tunbridge Wells, Beau Nash, was one.

Basically it’s men who like to dress up elegantly with a bit of edginess about them. So let’s break it down, beginning with the Anarcho bit.

On 26 November 1976, I’d just turned 11 and was in the first full term of secondary school. This isn’t interesting.

What’s interesting is that it is the date on which the Sex Pistols released their debut single “Anarchy in the UK”.

It’s a convoluted chain of events, but had it not been for this song, I might not be writing for Goldie today because it started my interest in anarchy. Not the violent “overthrow the established order by force” variety that the Sex Pistols seemed to be advocating, but the peaceful, “live and let live” variety.

Anarchy is from the ancient Greek “Anarchos” (ἄναρχος) meaning without rulers, or leaders, or people in authority.

I like that and extend it to being without rules, within reason. I don’t like petty rules, and some arguably non-petty ones. I can subscribe to all the essential rules such as not killing people, harming people, stealing things, damaging other people’s stuff, defrauding people, and the like. But pretty

92 | GOLDIE magazine

OFFICE WORKER

Whose line

much anything else goes, especially where no one else is harmed.

As such, I am a form of political anarchist – and there are, perhaps paradoxically, many types of political anarchist. I take my political anarchy in to my daily life, I like to think I’m ruled by no one, never ever ever, including through my clothes and appearance. Just as there are debates within political anarchy circles about where to draw the lines, be it about the need for a judicial system, what “harm” actually means, and the point at which violence is

and with the word ‘fashionable’; and with some aspects of the word “stylish”. But apart from all that, Google is pretty much on the money. For me, it’s simply about being smart, well-turned out, and looking like you put a little thought into what you’re wearing.

But add the anarcho prefix to remove the requirement to adhere to other people’s ‘rules’, and you end up with whatever look you like, provided it wasn’t thrown together randomly – unless you deliberately chose randomness for a reason.

To misquote Sarah Connor in the

“Dressing to please yourself is a liberating thing. No more having to worry about being ‘on trend’” allowed in defence, opinions also vary on where to draw red lines for clothing. While my political lines are fairly rock-solid, my clothing red lines tend to creep and flex over time. As I get older, I am becoming more anarchic.

So that’s anarchism and my relationship with it explained. On to Dandyism. Type “dandy” into Google and the definition that appears is: A man unduly concerned with looking stylish and fashionable.

I must protest about the word ‘unduly’,

Terminator films: “There are no rules but what we make for ourselves.” And the second we start thinking about what to wear, our own internal rules rear their heads. Some of these are “rules” designed by self-appointed rule-makers in the fashion industry, some are words of alleged collective wisdom formulated and codified over time.

Don’t mix blue and green; don’t mix black and navy; don’t have unmatched belt and shoes, don’t wear fitted if you’re ‘plus size’, don’t wear double-denim; don’t mix

DANDY

CLOWN

DON’T GO THERE!

is it anyway? patterns, don’t wear florals unless it’s spring or summer; don’t wear black unless it’s winter; black shoes for the city, brown shoes for the country… Rules, rules, rules! Never mind that bollocks, be yourself. But within reason! But the reason should be your reasons and no one else’s.

Dressing to please yourself is a liberating thing. No more having to worry about being ‘on trend’ or wearing the right labels.

The time is right to do it now. But it’s not without risk. Whether we like it or not, people will naturally make snap judgements based on what we wear. These judgements can of course be good or bad; they can also be true or false.

The question in my mind is ‘Does it matter?’ I think it does: sometimes and in some situations. A very wise and always flamboyantly dressed woman once said: “It’s important to avoid looking like a clown.” Every time I get dressed, I look in the mirror and check I’ve avoided crossing that line. But only my line, only for me. It’s also my own judgement regarding what is and what isn’t clown-like. I don’t own a comedy nose, facepaint or shoes that extend a foot beyond my toes, but with some thought, or more likely lack of it, I could quite easily concoct an ensemble with many clown-like qualities from my closets (too many closets).

This, of course, works for men who wear

To put the clown into context, I imagine a men’s dressing spectrum as follows: No thought Blue jeans, T-shirt, hoodie, tracksuit bottoms, trainers, baseball cap.

Casual Chinos or smart jeans, tailored shirt with or without collar, casual or unstructured jacket. No trainers.

Smart Casual or office workwear Add a structured jacket, a collared shirt, maybe a tie. Alternatively a suit.

Dandy Now we’re talking! Tailored jacket or coat, mixing up the colours, bowtie or cravat, a hat and other accessories. Elegant shoes or boots.

This is where I aim to be.

Clown, or perhaps children’s TV Presenter Maybe too many primary block colours, perhaps a bright but cheap hat. This is what I aim to avoid.

Timmy Mallett

trousers, shirts and jackets, be it at work or for holidays in the sun. For those who don’t, I may join you in your wonderful world some day, but not quite yet. Everyone will have their own spectrum, their own lines, their own vision of what a clown looks like. But most of all, these are my rules, it’s my spectrum, they are no one else’s and shouldn’t be so, unless they so choose.

But back to the Big Top: when I go to events, where people are there to dress up and be seen to be dressing up, there are sometimes people that I consider look a little clown-like. But I don’t say “Hello Coco,” partly because I’m not quite that tactless, but mainly because the thing about us each having our own rules for ourselves, is that we must accept and respect the rules that others have made for themselves.

Maximum respect from me is if someone’s clearly thought about their attire. If they clearly haven’t that’s fine too – although when they tell me how much they like my look, I take every opportunity to tell them that they can do it too.

If you’re dressing by your rules and no one else’s, I want to meet you. Because as far as I’m concerned, we’re so pretty, oh so pretty, and far from vacant.n

Don’t go there!

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THE SCENE Taking inspiration from the Flâneur, the spectacle of the city street is at it’s best in summer. Where would we be without neutral shades, the drape of linen and the cool concealment of a straw hat? real life – real people – real trends images: trendzine.net

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THE SCENE Celebrating fashion, art and lifestyle at Old Spitalfields Market, London, the Silk Series is a new cultural initiative curated by ethical fashion designer Meihui Lui. real life – real people – real trends Images: Richard Kaby

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LIFE’S A BEACH

REBECCA WEEF SMITH

Why don’t you . . .

Get together with old friends and play dressing up. Remember how much fun playing with fashion was when you were young?

Why not pack up a basket of clothes and head to the beach…?

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Location: Serena’s beach hut, Hove, East Sussex Models: Aurora Amos, Rain Harris, Serena Constance Outfits: Models own & Charity shops

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CLOSET CONFIDENTIAL

Angela Kennedy gets the inside story from the resort wear entrepreneur who’s created summer all year round

R

ae Feather is sassy, stylish, and very Irish with a warm sense of humour and great eye for detail. From a high flying marketing career in Formula 1, followed by ten years working with the legendary Sandy Lane in Barbados, she launched her eponymous resort wear collection just five years ago and now has a thriving business and enviable Instagram following of 50k and growing.

WHY?

I come from a big Irish creative family. My mother and sister are both interior designers (Hilary and Helen Turkington) based in Dublin.

I live in Oxfordshire now with my four sons, the youngest is just 15. Our extended family have a house in Portugal where we holiday together each year and it can get pretty chaotic.

I had a ‘mad’ uncle who lived in East London, with a bohemian lifestyle inspired by travels in Marrakesh. His rambling house was filled with kilims, patterns and paintings that were dazzling and his eclectic style gave me an early appreciation of textures and colours. There’s definitely a strong BoHo streak in our family.

It seemed inevitable that I should eventually be working with artisans and craftsmen developing something I feel passionate about. Travel, along with a love of history has always inspired me and I love books about interiors - everything creative is related.

WHAT?

I like simplicity, sustainability, and real cotton. It has to be pure cotton.

Over the years I’ve seen so many ugly shiny synthetics on the beach and can never understand why women would make that choice when cotton is so much cooler and natural.

The designer I admire most who does it all brilliantly, is India Hicks, she markets an enviable lifestyle.

My collection is called resort wear, but it can be worn all year round at home or away on holiday. It all originated from my love of straw baskets.

I found a Portuguese company

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making traditional handmade baskets and customised them a little, then a lot. People loved them and then we introduced our signature monogram service. From there the collection grew with more accessories and clothes and is evolving each season. I have an audience that thinks I’m 25, so it’s generally a surprise to hear I’m 50-something.

My customers love the timeless quality of the collection; everything is ageless and easy to wear.

I design and work with fabulous Portuguese and Indian artisans who take such pride in their work. I’m inspired by their traditional skills and vintage embroideries which incorporate into the collection in a modern way.

WEAR

I don’t like wearing clingy clothes, everything has to flow. And I don’t like cleavage on show. I really love kaftans and am inspired by the YSL-in-Marrakesh era of luxe kaftans. My signature is definitely a scarf because I’m rarely without one and have hundreds.

My taste is for pared back luxury.

I’m a relaxed understated sort of person and my family even tease me about occasionally missing flights because I’m too laid-back.

Although I’m definitely not a designer label person, I do have a favourite pair of Gucci shoes, but that’s because they fit so well and are beautifully crafted.

I’d always rather receive a gift that’s handmade rather than one that’s mass produced and when I spend, it will be on something that lasts, like a good coat. Luckily, I’m near Bicester Village so I can often browse to see what’s on offer. www.raefeather.com

Far Left: Rae Feather This page: Pure cotton Kaftan, signature clutch monogrammed to order, Panama hat Left: Pom pom sandals, straw hat, bag from the Rae Feather year round resort collection

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Alicia Kossick tells Rebecca Weef Smith how a group of Colombian women helped her create her Polished Coconut fashion brand and improve their community Polished Coconut is a socially responsible lifestyle brand inspired by indigenous design. Founded ten years ago by Alicia Kossick, it now works with more than 200 female artisans, collaborating to preserve their cultural heritage and produce handmade fashion and home accessories. Alicia shared her brand story with me when she was in London for a Polished Coconut Pop-Up store at Anthropologie on the Kings Road in Chelsea, London What are the core values of Polished Coconut? Why do you do business this way?

I believe that there is no challenge more powerful than the development of women. I want to respond to growing consumer demand for socially conscious home and fashion products with a critical need for environmental sustainability by conserving exceptional ancestral craftsmanship.

Polished Coconut aims to invest in people who can change the way the global economy works; local living economies are thriving everywhere and consumers value craftsmanship and provenance. As consumers we want every transaction to positively impact society; we want our dollars to honour the principles of fair trade, preservation of cultural heritage, and empowerment of women. When I talk about fair pricing I mean for the producer and the consumer. I use our bestselling bag to highlight this; the culture of Colombia has been embedded in this bag. It is very recognisable, you can see a bag like this in every beach resort now, but of course when we started ten years ago it was still novel. We keep the price as stable as we can; even though there are fluctuations in how much it costs to produce, the price to our clients is only about $10 more than it was at the beginning.

What is the Anthropologie connection?

We have a store in Coconut Grove, Florida. We are a small town but attract tourists. Someone from the head office at Anthropologie came into the store and loved our products and our story. They 106 | GOLDIE magazine

These bags change lives have supported us with getting our story out there; it is a great association for us, our brand values are similar, our ideas are aligned. When we were coming to London our local clients were rooting for us, everyone in our community shares in our success. And it’s been like that from the start So going back to that point ten years ago, what was your inspiration?

How did the idea for Polished Coconut come about?

I had been in private banking, specialising in Latin America, I had a Masters from Columbia in development in Latin America, focused on female enterprise. And I had Spanish language skills, but I wasn’t involved in the creative industries. I had a big shift in my personal life and wanted to leave that old self behind. Everybody would always ask me where I got my clothes from or how I came by the homewares I amassed. I

have always been drawn to craft objects; it was always about the authenticity of an object as well as the aesthetic.

So I thought, how can I support eliminating poverty, empowering women and provide a living for my family? I didn’t expect it to get quite so big; it was just a tiny seed – I’m now responsible for the livelihood of over 200 women – I visualised a powerful combination of product and ethics. But my main focus was a commitment to helping these women. I was surprised by the level of poverty in their lives. For instance, they had no dentistry, if they lost a tooth that was that. They had a dignity and a generosity that changed my life.

This was in 2008, a difficult economic time in America, and I did wonder how it was going to work. I started to sell the bags in the local farmers’ market; social products were not known, it wasn’t easy to sell a $170 bag. But the story connected with people.

And how did it develop?

I started building a brand with the bag and it expanded from there with belts and hammocks, then clothes. And what was brilliant about the farmers’ market was that I met many other women my age who were taking creative routes to getting their visions across.

These were women who, like me, had an idea about ethical ways to do business, and we all began to support each other. All of a sudden there are all these conversations going on; most of us had been on one path and then an alternate path came along, we had a life calling. For many of us circumstances can be our great wake-up call. At the market we were sharing the stories of how we got to this place. We created a true community. And for me that was very different. I had come from a business world – even perhaps a generation – where there was a feminist gap; we were in competition with each other not there to hold each other up. I experienced being supported by other women, and growing with each other first hand at the farmers’ market.

How is this feminine collective reflected in the society in which the products are made?

In a matriarchal society the women are all important. When I visited I was surprised that the man didn’t sit at the table, didn’t handle money, and wasn’t involved. I was going through this massive life change, becoming independent, and I was seeing these powerful women, with a sisterhood. Girls didn’t help each other in my world. These women were there for each other. And there for me. I was in a dark emotional place; they were supporting me, even to the point of healing me.

The outstanding impression of this culture is of being held together by strong women, they are the goddesses, the head of the clan and the head of

“When you buy a bag you are carrying the history of the women who made it, values they weave into it” the economic community. I had been forced by circumstance to look again at what I was capable of and in doing so – by happenstance in my case – become more than whom I had been. These Colombian women showed me a new way to be myself.

Of course it is a business, I have to make a living for myself as well as commit long term to the communities that make the products. There has to be profit or it wouldn’t be sustainable. The women in these communities are great role models but, closer to home, so are my mother and grandmother.

So what is that family connection?

My grandmother was divorced in the 1950s – she was a Catholic woman, this was unheard of. She took matters into her own hands and went against the advice of the church to leave her adulterous husband. She was discovered in her thirties and did modelling for Neiman Marcus runway shows. She came to Europe where she was exotic and stunning. She made her life as she wanted to, she was very avant-garde.

My grandmother was progressive and my own mother was more traditional, very Mexican in her ways. Eventually my grandmother started a well-known boutique in Houston; everyone loves her style.

So I identify more with my

grandmother in terms of business. And I see these women also in clients who come into the store. I see a woman trapped but who wants more, and think that there is now a real desire to do something different as we near menopause. There is a saying in Colombia that when our hormones change we lose the need to chase sex and we can put that energy into another part of our life. As we age we can take on new challenges. I am learning all the time and hopefully giving something back too. I try to explain to my children – I have four – that even if it seems small, an act of kindness, recycling your plastic, being grateful, it all counts.

It sounds as if Polished Coconut has had a big impact on your life?

This experience has changed me. I know much more about myself than I did ten years ago. I have learnt from the women in Colombia that we are together in this world and we can all support each other. When I first went to the communities that made the bags I was very American – uptight, not into hugging. I learnt the importance of touch, that it is OK to be hugged, and so now I know how to hug. When I visit Colombia the women never leave my side, they will give me the best hammock to sleep on, the best food, they protect me and I am enveloped in their culture.

And they are big ladies so when they hug you are totally enclosed in safety.

They protect each other, they protect me. They have taught me to just be present for another person. And the bags carry all of this story. When you buy a bag you are carrying the history of the women who made it and the values they weave into it. I don’t need to always be doing. We don’t always need the answer, sometimes we just need to be there. I am not only the bag lady. ¢ www.polishedcoconut.com

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Inspired

by Frida Rebecca Weef Smith asked a group of friends visiting ‘Frida Khalo: Making herself up’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London “Why are you inspired by Frida?”

p Kathleen Like many others, I can connect with the pain she went through.

It was amazing that she lived with such discomfort and continued to be so creative; she used her looks and her talent as a force to keep going. It’s very inspiring – we all go through bad stuff in life but it is how you come out of it that’s important. She came through everything with gusto. And, of course, her style is so relatable – I love her clothes. This look brings out the gypsy in me; it’s an easy look for me to wear and it feels very natural for me to dress like this. I love to pull together pieces from charity shops to create this style and what I can’t find, I make myself - like my headdress. I make hats out of whatever I have around. I have bags of stuff I collect and play with it until something evolves. Frida flowers in my hair are a simple way to add her style to any outfit.

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u Cassandra As an artist, I am so inspired by Frida I draw my pictures of her whilst listening to her life story.

I am currently creating a new collection of Frida images on fabrics; I want to catch the essence of her in my work with my embroideries.

The dress I’m wearing today is one of her prints; her face is iconic and wearing that image reflects how I feel as a female artist. She was so powerful: she painted to get her message across and she was a force of nature – I own that power in my own life; it makes me very emotional, as if there is a thread of connection that goes into my work from some of her power. p Ema I am a painter and artist as well as an activist and feminist. Frida stands out for me as symbol of not just women but humanity; in my opinion, no other artist has portrayed art as a method of overcoming adversity with as much power as she did. She was thrown a curve ball by life but the gratitude she projected - she didn’t whinge, she didn’t moan – allows us to have hope; her genuine human experience connects with us all.

And her outfits are joyful – her use of colours and textures celebrate life.

She had a way of using her clothed body to make a statement about the world in which she lived. She chose to dress to turn to the light and be positive. It’s a very addictive way to dress; colours add delight to any day.

The world through Frida’s lens

u Cathy Frida was so feisty and strong. The pain didn’t stop her creativity from flourishing and she started the whole selfie thing, painting herself over and over again; she celebrated her culture with glorious colours and patterns. I loved the film of her life; her relationship to Diego was fascinating and complex, the kind of love many of us will experience. She was a very vivid character, always being herself no matter what was going on.

So when we dress like this we are also saying: ‘accept me for who I am’ and, of course, it makes us feel good to dress like this in these happy colours. t Galina I didn’t know about Frida until I came to the UK as an adult – I come from a Communist country, and she wasn’t mentioned. So when I first read about her life and work I was very moved. I felt connected to who she was – her style, art and personality touched me as a woman. She isn’t apologetic, she is raw and she didn’t shrink from emotional reality.

I often dress in outfits that could be seen as a tribute to Frida, but it is just the way I dress; it is a look that suits me. I have a vintage clothes shop so I often get pieces in which have a Mexican feel; it is actually an easy look for many women to wear.

Personally I don’t feel that Frida Kahlo’s style suits me. Like others, I admire her art and way of being but had given up on emulating any aspect of her style. I did love her sunglasses - the V&A exhibition includes the original pair of Frida’s matte gold glasses - Retropeepers has produced as a limited edition of these classic, mid-20th Century, cat-eye frames.

Handmade and officially licensed from the Frida Kahlo Corporation, each pair comes with a floral folding case inspired by the artist’s work and Mexican heritage, together with an individually numbered certificate; so not only a pair of wearable sunglasses but also collectable contemporary art.

I wouldn’t have tried the glasses on had it not been for some serious prompting by Lauretta from retropeepers.

I didn’t expect Frida’s glasses to suit me any more than the rest of her very distinctive wardrobe would. I was surprised to like them on me to the extent that I am having them made up with my prescription lenses; I can pay a little bit of a tribute to Frida in my own way after all.

Lauretta explained to me that when it comes to choosing glasses we need to take quite a lot into consideration. She asked me to think about the following: Do you want to make a statement with your glasses, or do you want to pretend you are not really wearing any?

If the answer is ‘yes’ to the first option then the world is your oyster! If your answer is ‘yes to the second option, however, then waste no more time on the search and simply go for frameless specs.

Are they for everyday activities or are they for occasional use?

If for daily wear, then comfort, fit and weight are going to be the key issues to consider and the shape might depend on what you do: certain styles of glasses can certainly endow a sense of authority to the wearer!

If for driving and distance then you might want to consider frames with photochromic lenses, which darken when the sun shines, in effect becoming sunglasses.

Glasses specially chosen for evening use can add a really festive, party air to your outfit.

What shape is your face?

A square shape face suits frames equal to, but not exceeding, the width of the face. Aviator shapes, round or cat-eyes can all work well, but it’s best to avoid very square styles, which may look too severe. Rectangular glasses can give a round shape face some contour and if you have a heart shape face just about any shape can work for you!

Cat-eyes look particularly good on this shape face as the lift at the top edge of the frames balances the width of the brow and the jawline. Oval shape faces can wear most styles well and it comes down to personal preference whether to go for a square, rectangular, round or cat-eye. If you have a narrow shape face try the smaller, softer, rectangular shape frames or oval shapes to help balance the face. And lastly: bold, rectangular designs can work well for people with wide foreheads, while a really well-proportioned cat-eye can add a cheerful lift to the face.

The shape of your eyes and eyebrows need to be considered as well, as it is important to frame your eyes and not lose the impact of your best asset; if you want to show your eyebrows above the frame edge go for a look that does just that, otherwise allow the frame to do the work of the eyebrow and sit comfortably over them.

I can see the sense in all of the above, but in the end I went with the fact that in the Frida spectacles I felt quite exotic, and I love the idea of being able to share in the adoration of this amazing artist when I wear my own small tribute to Frida. www.retropeepers.com GOLDIE magazine | 109

Each life challenge is like a T-shirt. We all have varying styles and colours, some fit perfectly, others don’t.

There are some T-shirts we would prefer to borrow – and give back, others we would rather not wear at all.

Our personal collection of T-shirts defines who we are.

If we can learn from others we can avoid the stress and discomfort of wearing a T-shirt that doesn’t suit.

By Midlife Stress Buster, Kay Newton

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t’s 30ºC outside, the Mediterranean summer is on its way. My T-shirt is already sticking to my skin as I walk into the market. There is a faint mix of essential oils, coconut and sweat seeping out of the fibres. I love wearing T-shirts and often use them as a means of describing the stages in my life.

Just like you, I have worn many “life T-shirts”. The list grows longer with every year on the planet. Some have been comfy and worn until they are threadbare and eventually discarded as dusters with much pomp and ceremony. Others are forgotten, hidden out of site or never worn again.

There are those kept just for the memories and brought out on special occasions. Some are borrowed from others, with or without consent, given back or kept. Some T-shirts are tight fitting, uncomfortably itchy, irritating, yet necessary. Some are too big and cumbersome, a burden to wear. There are the bright ones, the dull ones, the faded ones, the eccentric ones, expensive ones and the downright ugly ones. Yet, the variety of garments all have something in common, they represent my life. It is my own genuine, unique wardrobe. No one has one exactly the same.

Here are just a few . . .

One of my first recollections of a T-shirt was my Dad’s. His shirts were always white with splashes of coloured ink from his day working in the factory. They smelt of oil, turpentine and hard work. He worked as a colour mixer for a packaging and board games company, a job he did for 40 years.

Every day he had to judge the exact shade to match the new batch of paper, something he did accurately despite being virtually blind

in one eye. Every day his shirt would have a new look, a new splash of colour, a unique design. I loved hugging those T-shirts, they were comforting and stable.

As I grew and left the nest, I began to wear my own special designs, a rebel to conformity in the making. Perhaps the most memorable was jet black with a small rainbow on the pocket. Worn during an event that would change my life and led me to understand that life is for living - you never know what will happen in the next minute. I have never forgotten.

As a family, we loved to sail and after finishing university I had the summer free.

Synchronicity led me to a chance to sail with a retired couple, on their yacht, up the east coast of England. Our goal was to get as far as we could, perhaps to the Orkney Islands.

We sailed as far as Lindisfarne.

That night as the tide turned a French boat nearby dragged their anchor and it wrapped around ours. It took until sunrise to free both boats. After taking a tea break we set about resetting the anchor and putting the boat in a safer place. The skipper and I pulled up the anchor and his wife steered the boat. It was then that he collapsed on deck from a massive heart attack. I knew he had died, I heard the death rattle, yet proceeded to use my St John Ambulance First Aid training to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the pan-pan mayday was answered by the local lifeguard Sea King helicopter. It took 40 (very long) minutes for them to arrive on the scene. Life is short, you have to live it to the full.

Despite my traumatic nautical experience, I joined the “white T-shirts and blue shorts brigade” professionally. My adventures started by delivering a private motor yacht from Hull Marina, to Mallorca, Spain. I refused to swim back. My nautical shirts from this journey alone are enough to fill a wardrobe. Three weeks at sea with the owner of the yacht, a pot-smoking friend of their family and a retired tanker skipper who carried a condom in his shirt pocket – “just in case”.

My first Mallorcan T-shirts were all turquoise blue, worn sailing around the

coastline of the Balearic Islands. Anchoring in beautiful Calas, watching the sunrises and sunsets from the water, dashing over to Monaco for the Grand Prix, cooking and entertaining the rich and famous. Life was hard work, very long hours and exciting at the same time.

Yet, I was missing a T-shirt, the bright red heart one that I wanted to share with a special person in my life. Synchronicity again played its hand. The owner of the boat I worked on sold his business and bought three properties.

I moved to a shore-based position.

My first onshore T-shirt had “Snagging” written across it in big bold letters. I was to liaise with the building company and sort out the many issues, which included a huge corner bath that had been scratched and the owner wanted replacing. That day I met my future husband. He told me the bath could be repaired and polished rather than replaced and … “would I like to go out to dinner?”

About Kay Newton Kay is an award-winning international speaker, enthusiastic author and Midlife Stress Buster, whose hundreds of clients love her straight talking and no-nonsense practical holistic help in dealing with their attitudes to stress.

Kay’s books include: The Art of Midlife Stress Busting Seven Steps to Declutter Your Mind Without Pills or Potions; How to Clean Your Home Organically: De-stress Your Surroundings; Tips and Tricks for StressFree Downsizing: A Step by Step Guide to Moving On. Kay is also a co-author of the six Kindle books in the “Quick Fix For” series, and a contributing author to Hot Women Rock and A Journey of Riches.

Originally from Leeds, in her early Twenties Kay left for Spain where she set up a own business looking after second homes for the rich and famous, became an eco landlady and is the mother to two sons.

The family shared their three-acre organic farm with holidaymakers, workshop and retreat attendants. She has been married for 26 years. With the majority of her business online Kay has combined her business with her love of travelling.

We have been married 26 years.

The next set of T-shirts were soft and fluffy and smelt of newborn babies (both ends). Nothing ever seemed to stay clean. I remember once we had been invited out for Sunday lunch, just as we were about to head out the door, there was a little red face, a murmur and a loud noise. We all needed to get changed, good thing we had spares!

As the years went by this family T-shirt pile grew to four members. There was always a pile to be washed, another drying and one to be folded, there was never time to iron anything. Then before the blink of an eye, the pile had dwindled down to two. With both boys now fully grown, we again decided to do things differently. Instead of an empty nest, we ditched the nest, leaving the boys behind to create their own life wardrobes.

For three years now, the T-shirts have been exotic in nature, colourful, relaxed and happy. Hubby’s work took us to Zanzibar, Tanzania, where we lived in a two-roomed, tin-roofed house, just minutes from a pristine white beach with azure seas. Life was simple, with space and time for reflection.

My author T-shirt came out in all its glory, three books published, six more co-authored and numerous articles in magazines around the world. There was even space to dabble in painting, to beachcomb, learn about the local culture and to travel more. It was a special time, another wardobe of its own.

For the past 15-years, I have constantly worn one T-shirt beneath all the others, which shimmers and shines of its own accord. My PURPOSE T-shirt may have had different names over the years: Sensibly Selfish, Caring Confidante, Midlife Stressbusting, yet the passion is the same, to unite and inspire women. I love my work as a personal development coach, helping others to live life to the full.

Did you know that women over 50 are the biggest demographic on the planet?

They have the potential to change the world if they only step up. As women reach this third stage of their lives there is no time to waste, there is no other stage. I fight to improve the collective experience, build communities, introduce people I know to each other, host gatherings and fuel people to find their passion and purpose to create an interconnected humanity.

Now there’s is a new set of T-shirts on the horizon, a very exciting time indeed, to replicate the simple African lifestyle, back in Mallorca. This may be our biggest life wardrobe yet, a joint family effort to build an alternative, natural way of living, a passive house, with permaculture garden, to remove all toxic chemicals from our lives, in essence, to tread more lightly on the planet. We hope that by leading by example, we can help others awaken to help heal the planet. My next T-shirt will have ‘Sustainable Success’ boldly printed on it. ¢ /www.kay-newton.com GOLDIE magazine | 111

Pause, refresh, fast forward

M

After years of anxiety and ill health caused by endometriosis, for Jane Jennison the menopause has brought only positives and a new zest for life

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enopause is frequently portrayed as a health problem, something to ‘go through’ rather than a natural part of aging.

Searching for the ‘positives’ of menopause can bear pretty slim pickings. Among friends who have talked about the menopause, it has generally been in terms of the negative impact rather than any benefits But menopause has been a great liberation for me, impacting positively on my sense of self and my identity.

Endometriosis has blighted most of my adult life. Typical symptoms for me were chronic pain and fatigue, long, heavy painful periods, pain on intercourse, infertility, and raging hormones.

I did not trust my own body: I had to make constant trips to the toilet to check if I was bleeding/how heavily, random bowel-movement traumas, and so on. I had irregular periods that made planning for anything very difficult. At one point, I was bleeding for three months straight, with the associated pain and inconvenience. Intimacy with my husband was painful and, because

of the frequency and length of my periods, irregular. I had miscarriages, then stopped ovulating completely and became infertile.

My body shape would change dramatically during my cycle, so I would go from looking chunkily athletic to very swollen all over with water retention, and a painful and distended tummy that made me look pregnant (oh, the irony!). I would not wear pale colours on my lower half in case I bled, or sanitary protection failed.

I started the menopause at the same time as my father was diagnosed with cancer, and at first, I thought the lack of periods was a stress response. But in the tumult of dealing with dad’s ill-health, it was not unwelcome.

Over the next two years, I had three periods, both very short and light.

I did suffer from ‘power surges’ (hot flushes), but considered these to be a minor inconvenience.

Having had them before as a side-effect of medication for endometriosis, I was perhaps more aware of them than anyone else, and knew to wear layers.

I went through ‘early’ menopause (all over and done with before 50), as did several of my friends. But the difference in how we responded was marked These were women who had had ‘conventional’ female health and had borne children. Unlike them, I was not saying goodbye to my child-bearing years, and

“And I’ve saved a small fortune on not needing to buy sanitary protection, and pain relief.” closing the door on that chapter of my life – it had closed long ago. I was now on a level playing field with all the other postmenopausal women.

I have gone up about two dress-sizes, and am thicker in the midriff than I used to be.

Previously my size fluctuated vastly over the month, so my wardrobe held ‘fat’ and ‘thin’ clothes and has been able to accommodate these changes. There are other pluses, too.

I no longer need ‘period pants’, or to avoid light-coloured clothing for fear of accidents.

And I’ve saved a small fortune on not needing to buy sanitary protection, and pain relief.

My confidence levels have increased. I don’t need to worry about my body limiting or restricting me, so instead can focus on what I want or need to do. No longer in pain or constantly fatigued, I have more energy and can engage more.

I am not hijacked by my body any more.

I wondered whether to use an alternative word, but ‘hijacked’ is how it felt and what

came to mind very strongly in describing it.

I’m able to make plans for the future, and strive towards achieving them, rather than lurching from one health crisis to another.

I have the physical and emotional energy to engage in whatever I want to do.

I have re-trained, and am now a qualified Person Centred Art Therapist, with Level 1 Attachment Focused Family Therapy. I have a qualification in using Positive Psychology and Mindfulness in Coaching, and am completing a Master’s Degree in Positive Psychology.

Quite simply, I rock!

I am becoming the person I was before my life was consumed by endometriosis. I am much stronger and more confident.

The common language of the menopause –the emotional roller-coaster; the insomnia; heavy, frequent periods; the loss of reproductive capacity and no longer ‘being a woman’ – decribed my pre-menopausal self.

I have had a ‘reverse menopause’ and am free of all of this.

In fashioning a post-menopausal identity, it has been liberating to redefine myself as a healthy, mature woman. I have no restrictions on what I wear or why. As a parent of two adopted teenagers, I can also now model those personal strengths and help empower the next generation to create their own choices in a positive and affirming manner. ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 113

114 | GOLDIE magazine

From Stand-up to Lie-down – and back again Comedienne Sally J. Duffell went from late night comedy gigs to growing her own cure for hot flushes

BEA LACY

I

was a comedienne for 11 years until 2003. Towards the end of that time, I got into healthy eating. I would take apples and flapjacks to gigs and while other acts would be sharing drink or drugs, I would be asking “anyone want a Granny Smith?”.

Sadly, the late attempt at healthy eating didn’t save me from getting ill. I had an operation followed by an infection and then just never recovered. I had to give up stand up and instead lie down in bed for a few years. It meant I had a lot of time to think and I found myself mulling over all the jokes I’d written, all the ones I wished I had and any heckles I was strangely still looking for an answer for! I’d always taken quite an analytical approach to comedy (almost scientific you might say) and all these thoughts eventually turned into a book of joke-writing formulas - The Serious Guide to Joke Writing.

My health was slowly starting to recover through diet. That’s when I started bean sprouting. Some people don’t know what bean sprouting is. It means growing seeds and beans for a few days without soil to dramatically increase their vitamin and mineral content. I started giving talks on how to do it - mainly because it meant I could get into summer festivals free. At first, I tried to make my talks funny because the comedienne in me couldn’t get used to the idea of talking to a group of people without them laughing.

When I hit 50 I started to get menopausal symptoms. I knew that red clover contains lots of plant hormones, so I sprouted some and my hot flushes disappeared. I was so amazed that I looked on Google to see if there was any science behind it.

There was - tons of it. But it was all about plant hormones contained in drugs and supplements, no one said we could grow red clover ourselves. That’s when I decided to write a book and scientifically reference it to prove everything I was saying.

To do the research I had to teach myself science-speak. The sprout names were often in botanical Latin and some of the terms were in Greek. When things were very complicated I found myself talking out loud while sitting in front of the computer. It felt like the clever part of my brain was explaining it to the not-so-clever rest of me. I read research papers that I couldn’t fully grasp, but then I would toddle off for my afternoon nap (because I had a residue of fatigue) and wake up to find everything had slotted into place.

I used to get embarrassed about my need to sleep in the afternoon, but I’m in good company apparently, as Winston Churchill napped his way through the Second World War. My research into plant hormones started to go further than just menopause and into diseases of ageing generally, such as cancer and osteoporosis. Obviously, it got very serious at this point. For the two and a half years I was writing the book, I didn’t have sex at all. Though towards the end it did feel strange, so I arranged for an old love to visit two days after the deadline, what an incentive that was!

The new book - Grow Your Own HRT – is funny as well as scientific reviewers say. Obviously in stand-up comedy terms it’s not that funny but compared to most science books it’s hilarious apparently. ¢

About the author: Sally J. Duffell has been growing, teaching and writing about bean sprouting for many years.

She extensively researched the scientific proof behind the rich bounty of plant hormones, their effects on menopausal symptoms and the diseases of ageing. She lives in Hastings, UK. More info at https://growyourownhrt.com/ GOLDIE magazine | 115

LIVE OUT LOUD

It’s never too late to meet the real you Welcome to Rona Steinberg’s new regular column for GOLDIE readers who are ready to explore what it takes to be themselves the Out Loud way.

Who are you?

Tricky question, no?

While you’re mulling that one over, let me tell you a little about who I am, or to be more precise, who an Out Louder is.

About five years ago, I was humming and haaing about what to call my fledgling little coaching business. The moment had arrived when I had to reluctantly concede that if I was going to cut it as a coach I needed a website, which also meant that I needed to find a name for my business. I don’t remember the precise moment that the title Out Loud Coaching emerged, but I do remember the feeling of rightness when it did.

Out Loud spoke to me about who I was as a coach in a… well… in an Out Loud kind of way. It felt right, it felt true, it felt ME. When I say that I’m the Out Loud coach, other people also seem to recognise the truth of it. But the funny thing is that once they dig a little deeper, even after all this time, I can struggle to explain exactly what being Out Loud really means. And sometimes that can be a problem.

Getting Clear I’ve noticed that in this world, what many people seem to think is important is being clear. Be clear about who you are, what you want to say, what you want to do. If you’re clear, the theory goes, then everything else will be clear and we will all be able to move forward, get things done, achieve our goals and tie everything up in a nice, tidy bow.

Clarity means safety and certainty, the absence of doubt and confusion. Clarity is good.

To a certain extent I agree with this point of view. In a very early incarnation of myself I was a solicitor and as we all know, if there’s one thing the law is famous for, it’s being clear about stuff. Although even then, there’s that little matter of interpretation…

But when it comes to getting to know who you are, well that’s when I think a healthy mix of shade, obfuscation, doubt, ambivalence, confusion, paradox, polarity 116 | GOLDIE magazine

and outright contradiction can really come in to its own.

Especially in the Out Loud world. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve found myself explaining that no, being Out Loud doesn’t have to mean being a noisy extrovert – unless of course that’s your thing. The truth is you can be a quiet introvert and still be Out Loud. You can be a sometimes noisy, sometimes quiet ambivert if you like.

Out Loud doesn’t define you.

Because this is a key – perhaps THE key, thing about being Out Loud – it doesn’t define you. It’s you who gets to define you and the great thing about that is that your definition of who you are (or want to be) can change. Especially at the stage you are at in your life. Not because your circumstances are different (although they might be), but because now more than at any time you have the breadth of experience to know that life can be surprising, unexpected and unlimited.

You know that wanting to be certain about things is just a way of trying to stay in control. And you know, because you’ve been there many, many times, how that works – well, how that doesn’t work.

If I really had to tell you what Out Loud means to me, it’s about you discovering for yourself what it means for you. Much more than authentic (which is a kind of limiting idea anyway don’t you think?), being Out Loud comes in every shape and size, with every possible meaning and full permission for you to find your own way of being.

In this column, as we get to know each other, my hope is that in the stories I share and the thoughts I express, maybe even the things I suggest you try for yourself, you find your own Out Loud, your own way of being totally, fully you. As we travel this interesting road together and you find yourself being asked or asking yourself ‘Who are you?’ the answer may well continue to be ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I’m not sure’, but hopefully you might also add the all-important and much more promising word…‘Yet’.

Who Are You? Out Loud Steps Consider: How do you define yourself?

This is not a place for finding the ‘right’ or only answer, it’s certainly not something to rush or skip over. Take your time to explore and investigate. Don’t limit yourself. Really dig in to that question and just jot down your thoughts and feelings as they arise without editing or censoring yourself. Feel free to be as wild or zany or straight or narrow as you like – this is your view of yourself and remember, there’s no one who knows you better than you.

Ask yourself: How does the definition of who you are serve you? How does it not? What are some other aspects of you that you’d like to give some airtime to that

may in the past (perhaps even going back to childhood), have become turned down or even switched off?

Try being Out Loud: As you become more aware and surface those qualities that may have lain hidden or obscured for some time, give yourself permission to try them on, to expand your range of who you think you are and notice as you do so the feelings that they evoke within you and the impact that has on those around you.¢

STEPHEN COTTRELL

Live out loud tip This is brave and profound work, so be gentle on yourself.

It’s not easy to give yourself permission to bring out aspects of you which may have been buried or set aside, perhaps because of fear or feelings of unacceptability or others’ expectations of you, sometimes for years or even a lifetime. But remember, just because things have been a certain way for a long time, does not mean it’s not possible or too late to rediscover who you are. Dare to find new ways to define yourself; who knows what riches we can locate together and how truly Out Loud you can be.

GOLDIE magazine | 117

Anybody can achieve fitness, at a NANCY DONAHUE was “discovered”

by Mademoiselle Magazine in 1978 whilst she was still at college. She was contracted to do 10 covers for Mademoiselle and be signed exclusively to them. From there she appeared on the covers of international glossies; there were editorials on her in Self, the US, British, Italian, French and German editions of Vogue, and Italian Bazaar; and major beauty campaigns for, among others, Helena Rubenstein, Avon and Cover Girl.

Nancy moved back to her hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, when she needed to provide for her son. She became a pastry chef, working for the next 10 years for a high-end catering company. At the same time she certified as a personal trainer, yoga and Pilates teacher, but still found time to fit in triathlons and marathons.

It was a PT client, who happened to be a surgeon, who introduced Nancy to a device to help ease sore muscles. This became the BelleCore bodybuffer which 118 | GOLDIE magazine

she developed with a business partner, four doctors from Boston, and MIT and Harvard engineers. Launched in 2010, it was stocked by Neiman Marcus and Harrods as the first beauty/wellness tool on the market. They remained in the big stores for six years and now sell directly to customers. Nancy seemed the perfect woman to explain how to get into shape after a fitness lull. Rebecca Weef Smith takes a deep breath and asks her . . .

“You must be patient. They say you are a beginner in yoga for at least 10 years!”

What tips can you give to a 55-yearold who hasn’t exercised and doesn’t know where to start?

I suggest starting with a “Slow Flow” yoga and “Yoga Nidra” for sleep and meditation. Starting with these two will ease a person into yoga and understand the practice and the poses. I am not a fan of Bikram-Yoga as I don’t think it is healthy for the body or the mind.

Pilates is a gentle way to get used

to exercise, as long as the teacher is aware that you are new to exercise.

As a personal trainer I always start clients like this, just doing 3-5 minutes on the treadmill, elliptical or stair machine and gradually build from there. I trained one woman who could not even do 2 minutes when we started; she ended up staying on the machines for 30-40 minutes. It is a progress for sure.

LYANLEX BERNALES

s t r e t c h Is it okay to do Pilates and yoga, or should we learn one before tackling the other?

I was trained in both Pilates and yoga and I love both of these forms of exercise. One can complement the other.

I suggest the client try “standing/mat” Pilates first and then go to the machines, as they can be intimidating. Yes, you can learn both of these at the same time, as yoga incorporates some Pilates.

Yoga and Pilates are truly beneficial for balance, strength and peace of mind.

Why is yoga so good for us as we age?

It is hugely important as we age because our muscles tighten up and we need to practise balance, as I described in the above paragraph. We must stay flexible and yoga is so good for the mind (meditation), muscle strength/tone, core and to learn to breathe, which releases stress.

What benefits can we expect when we take up yoga after 50?

You will definitely become more flexible, more toned and be able to think more clearly. It is a practice, though, and you cannot expect results in just weeks. I have been practising for 13 years and I am still learning. You must be patient. They say you are a beginner in yoga for at least 10 years!

practic e and it takes time and patience.

You should just think that you are taking one hour to take care of yourself, which is hugely important in this day and age.

We are constantly on our devices and one needs this time for oneself. I make sure it is the first thing I do every day and book my meetings and appointments around my schedule of practising yoga.

Is there anything we need to beware of before we begin exercise?

Yes. If you have any knee, back, neck or any other issues, you should let your teacher know and she will guide you to the correct positions and give you options for each and every pose. My knees were actually quite bad prior to yoga because of all the running I have done and they are much better now.

And finally . . . how long will it take to get a body as amazing as yours?

Well, you are very kind, thank you. I am actually very lucky to be born with good genes but do workout/do yoga every day. I love to swim - my other passion.

So it takes work and good eating habits.

No fad diets, just good, healthy food.

Everyone is born with a unique body and they have to do the best they can with what they are given. I don’t think one should strive to be like someone else: strive to be the best you can be with what you have. ¢

What else might we need to take into consideration?

As I mentioned above, yoga is a

GOLDIE magazine | 119

LIFE LESSONS

Taking control can make all the difference in the end says Enid Shelmerdine

Not fade away

C

hris got the Hollywood ending perhaps many of us dream of.

Friends gathered to see him off, the house overflowing with people wishing him a smooth journey, drinking, laughing, reminiscing.

When the car arrived for him and two close friends, we said goodbye. Then I stood on the pavement and waved until they disappeared round the corner.

Four more friends travelled out to join them. Check-in was 8am with departure scheduled for 2pm, and they passed the time playing games and chatting until it was time for him to leave.

They hugged and gathered closer at the send-off. And then he was gone.

When Chris had told us he planned to go to Switzerland to end his life, we at first tried to persuade him out of it; surely there were other options? I was even rather cross with him. The cancer had only just been diagnosed. Wasn’t he being a bit hasty, weren’t people supposed to fight?

That’s what all the newspapers headlines said – cancer victim’s brave battle. But Chris didn’t want to be a victim. He didn’t want to have the fight knocked out of him.

His battle was to stay in control.

The disease progressed rapidly, and we 120 | GOLDIE magazine

realised he must have known for some time that it was only going to end one way. He had matter-of-factly booked himself a place at Dignitas.

A single man in his fifties, Chris had been brought up by his mother and two elderly aunts, and had spent some time in care. As an adult he had generally lived in shared houses, finally as landlord, always needing the company of others. Dying is a lonely road and accompanying him on the journey was the least we could do.

He took a turn for the worse at Christmas, and was admitted to the hospice, where he was surrounded by friends during every waking hour for the next two weeks.

Stabilised briefly, then quickly he went down hill. He couldn’t get comfortable, shifting from bed to chair, from chair to bed again. And he knew it was time to make the final move.

Dignitas came back with a date. He should be there at 8am for a last medical check then, if he still chose to go ahead, he would take the poisoned draught at 2pm.

Aghast, I told a friend they’d given Chris a date and time. “We all have a date and time,” he said. “We just don’t know it.”

When Chris told the medical staff what he planned to do, they said there were still drugs and procedures they could offer to ease the passing; his heart was strong. Why would he take this route? “Because I’m a coward,” he said, the very opposite of what we knew him to be.

So he was discharged, ostensibly as an outpatient. The doctors couldn’t stop him but they couldn’t be seen to support him in his plan. The bag of drugs he took home contained several weeks’ supply – the hospice sticking with the story that he would be coming back – and provided a moment of black humour when Chris realised he now had the means to save himself the expense of the Swiss trip.

But he went ahead, and his family of friends was right there with him, gathered around the bed, just like in all the best movies.

We scattered the ashes on the sea at Whitstable, one of Chris’s favourite places.

A friend gave us a wobbly harmonica rendition of Auld Lang Syne, and we cried then, briefly.

But back inside we laughed and drank and applauded the memory of a man who had opted not to end with the classic fadeout but to go out on a big final number in a brave act of defiance. ¢

LIFE LESSONS

Terry Ramsey embraces being alive in the way that only the morning after the night before can make you feel

How to hug a hangover

H

angovers - don’t you hate them? That headpounding, joint-aching, bilious feeling, when you just want to hide under the duvet?

The sickening feeling that makes you vow to never ever drink again. Or dance on a bar table. Or do that trick with your private parts in public. Or proposition a member of the police force . . .

Yes, they can be bad. And while no one can be expected to embrace every hangover with open arms (for, as Robert Benchley said, “The only cure for a real hangover is death”), there are times when hangovers are, well . . . like meeting an old friend again. Albeit one that greets you with, “Goodness, you look rough.”

And sometimes, hangovers can even be lifeaffirming: a reminder that you are alive and kicking, you’ve had a good time and that, if this is the price you have to pay, then bring it on.

(Even if you are thinking all that while dropping two Alka-Seltzer into a glass of water.)

It may surprise you to know that I can actually pinpoint exactly when I have my most life-affirming hangovers: they come in February.

This is the result of not having had a drink in January (and I would like to point out that I have been abstaining during that month for about 20 years - long before anyone came up with “Dry January” and turned it into a tedious trend). So, by the time February blows in, I have had 31 nights without any alcohol. That’s 31 mornings of waking up with a clear head, a settled stomach, bright eyes and a brain on the starting blocks ready to race into the day . . .

God, it’s boring. Every single morning the same, Every single morning totally predictable. Every single morning, waking up knowing that that is the best I am going to feel all day.

Come February, that changes. And the first time I wake up blearyeyed and groggy, it is almost like a joyful occasion. The old sensation

is back. I can only describe is as maybe a bit like losing a child or a loved one on an empty beach and then, when they suddenly reappear from behind a sand dune, you run and hug them, swing them round and cry: “There you are! I thought I’d lost you!”.

Of course, the sensation of an old love having returned doesn’t last all year - and certainly does not apply to all hangovers. Some are more like finding your loved one and having an almighty blazing row in which all the crockery gets thrown inside your head while needles are stuck in your eyes and a small furry animal nests in your mouth.

It is impossible to love such beasts. There is only one response to such occasions, and it starts with: “Take the juice of two bottles of gin . . .”

But hangovers that provide life-affirmation are not confined to the grey and murky mornings of February. Who has not thrown open the curtains on a sunny morning in July, winced, closed them again, and thought: “That was a great night”? The memory of a fine and wild night with friends - or even of drinking wine alone while reading a book on the sofa - can be good for the soul at any time of the year. Even if it does have you reaching for the Nurofen in the morning.

And let’s not forget: if we don’t like the way drinking leaves us feeling like half our brain has been removed, we don’t have to do it.

Though, personally, I think that is defeatist talk. I prefer to remember the words of the American humorist Fred Allen, who said: “I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.”

Of course, drinking is not the answer to everything (although, to be fair, it works for most questions, from ‘How do you get over the common cold?’ to ‘What inspired F Scott Fitzgerald’s writing?’) and, even if you embrace your hangover, you can end up a little frayed around the edges.

But never blame the booze for that feeling. Remember: it is not drinking that gives you a hangover - it is stopping drinking. ¢

“I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.”

GOLDIE magazine | 121

LIFE LESSONS

From nursery to allotment: it’s best to experience life in slow mow

I Jane Jenison says the cross-generational appeal of gardening is one of its strengths.

122 | GOLDIE magazine

have been pondering on what my first sentence here should be. I was going to start with something about gardening , but I realised that was not quite enough.

It’s to do with definition of self, how we label ourselves, refer to ourselves, and how others refer to us. For a long time, I was “Allotment Jane”, or “Jane the Gardener”, and to be frank I have missed those monikers.

I don’t remember a time when I did not “garden”. It started off as pottering in my parents’ and grandparents’ gardens. My grandfather taught me how to use a Dymo gun to label his money-maker tomatoes and coleus bedding plants. My father gave me a love of tropical plants and the joys of discovering open gardens and secret nurseries.

I have learnt from my allotment neighbours what to plant, when, and how far apart. I have moved mountains to attend talks by Christopher Lloyd and been on holiday with Alan Titchmarsh (OK, I was on holiday for my 40th birthday, where he was guest speaker on a garden themed cruise around the Norwegian fjords). I have been to plant shows and bombarded exhibitors with questions such as “wet feet or dry feet?” regarding care for Arundo Donax Variegata (say it out loud – it’s a glorious name and sounds so much better than ornamental grass), and how to prune and propagate pitcher plants.

I learnt to cut the lawn with a push-mower in my parents’ garden. For my first garden I was given a hover-mower. This was replaced by an electric one and I briefly had a battery mower, until the battery died. I have a patch of lawn on my current allotment and on my

previous one, too. I was given a push-mower for it and rediscovered the simple joys of slowly mowing the lawn to the surrounding sounds of nature, rather than the buzz of the electric mower.

I had an electric mower at home, and supplemented this with a push-mower for my children to use without me – or them – worrying about electrocution although I do have a circuit breaker. I now use the pushmower out of preference to the electric one; I like the freedom from cables and concerns.

This pedestrian activity has also given me pause to ponder on my gardening journey as well as my route up and down the garden.

I realise that I have moved from mentee to mentor. I am now the person people come to to ask what to plant, when and where. I am no longer the student; I am the leader of the Gardening Club at my daughter’s school.

On my allotment neighbours ask for advice.

I am able to share plants and experience with them, as well as abundant harvest. It’s a truism that as we grow older police officers appear to get younger. So do the presenters of Gardeners’ World. The cross-generational appeal of gardening is one of its strengths.

There is an image on Pinterest that reads: “Part of the problem with the world today is no-one shells peas with grandma anymore”*.

We know from positive psychology that relationships are one of the keys to increasing our – and other people’s – happiness.

Moving from mentee to mentor, from student to teacher is a great way of linking up people of all ages who are interested in learning about gardening, and those doing it. Positive psychology also talks about the benefits of being outdoors and being engaged in “purposeful activity” Gardening offers all this. Marin Seligman has lots to say about positive psychology in his book, Flourish, if you want to know more.

Another Pinterest post declares: “Gardening is cheaper than therapy, and you get tomatoes”. We have seen slow food and slow cooking come and go as fashions.

Gardening is a slow activity. A seed will germinate in its own time, given the right conditions, and plants will grow at the pace the environment dictates, not at the rate we might want. Taking the time to spend time in the garden is – literally – a fruitful endeavour.

As my children grow we are spending less time together at the allotment and I am there on my own more often. After a recent spate of shed break-ins my allotment neighbour and I swapped mobile phone numbers.

He typed my name into his phone as “Allotment Jane”. ¢

LIFE LESSONS

Crawling from the wreckage – that’s me, not the twins An older dad finds happiness the hard way after a life changing event

by Paul Connelly

I

was never desperate to become a father. I was a rock music journalist who jet-setted around with bands. Children would have been a hindrance to that lifestyle.

But as 30 turned to 40 I started to feel little spasms of regret.

I was with Donna then, who was in an equally glamorous job and who had never wanted kids when she was younger. She too started to feel the stirrings of broodiness.

We tried for a few years with no luck. Then we turned to IVF and were suddenly presented with twins. Lives don’t change more comprehensively than that.

Donna was 40 and I was 50 when our daughters were born – and the first six months were tough.

I remember an occasion when I emailed my mum a photo of me with Leila at three months curled asleep in my arm looking preposterously cute.

Donna had taken a quick photo of us and, knowing how much my mum loved seeing pictures of her new grandchildren, I sent it straight away. Five minutes later she called me, a heavy note of concern in her voice.

‘Paul, my love, Leila is gorgeous, but you look awful. You look as though you’ve just escaped a collapsing building.’

She was right. When I look at that picture now I see a man on the verge of disintegration. But at the time it was just the way it was. The combination of three-hourly feeds, double nappy changes and squalls of infant bawling – all while trying to work five days a week – drained every drop of energy from every ageing bone and befuddled nerve cell.

My physical decline was alarming. My hair, once jet black, went grey almost overnight, the continual bending to pick up the girls was playing havoc with my 6ft 5in frame and my back started to spasm whenever I tried to move suddenly.

Over time things became easier and gradually I began to get the hang of parenting. At five months the girls started sleeping through

the night and once you’re enjoying seven or eight unbroken hours of sleep, everything seems a little less apocalyptically knackering.

We felt a little surge of triumph. “We did it!”

It wasn’t to last. Within weeks, maybe days, the feeling of triumph soured as we confronted the one fundamental truth that nobody ever tells you. And that is that everything changes as soon as infants learn to crawl. As soon as a child can propel itself, your life as you knew it is over.

Until that point the daytimes are a comparative doddle. Sure, you’re forever carting babies around the house but at least when you put them down somewhere they’re still there when you return. Once a child is able to move you are entering a period of servitude and anxiety that will cling to you for years And with twins, obviously, this sudden revelation is even more blinding. Twins may have a reputation for being similarly hardwired but if there’s one piece of software Leila and Caitlin don’t share, it’s GPS. This is not so bad when all they can do is crawl. But their reluctance to follow each other becomes much more of a mobility issue when they start to walk. And once they discover the outdoors, you, as a creaky boned 50-something dad flying solo while mummy luxuriates in her once-every-three-days shower, are in trouble.

Outside, they behave as if they are magnetically repelling each other. One will head south, the other north. I have knees blasted by football injuries so a slow trot is all I can manage. And a trot’s just not fast enough for a two directional toddler chase.

Shopping is an adventure with twins too. The target is to get in, buy things and get out without finding a twin trying to climb into a freezer cabinet or another behind an unused cash till repeatedly pressing red ‘Emergency’ buttons.

However, being an older father has its advantages. I am much more patient at this stage of my life. Testosterone rates drop about 1 percent a year as men age, making them less reactive and more relaxed. Patience is a key quality when dealing with twins.

I’ve also had a pretty long run of life experiences; I’ve seen success, failure, bright beginnings, tragic endings, and the death of loved ones. That range of experience makes for a more wellrounded father. I know stuff now about life that younger fathers couldn’t know.

We tried for kids for almost ten years and were told when we embarked on the IVF process that we only had a 13 percent chance of success. We still can’t quite believe we were lucky enough to have twins. Leila and Caitlin are now five and they know how much they are loved.

They will always know they are loved. ¢

‘I have knees blasted by football injuries so a slow trot is all I can manage’

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EVENING POST PHOTOGRAPHER EVERT SMITH

Linda in 1983 interviewing the cast of Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys in Port Elizabeth.

From hackette to haute cuisine Her second career was never going to provide a happy work-life balance, but Linda Galloway says the rewards have been huge

A

s a teenager, I used to torture my mother with descriptions of my future adult self eating food straight from the tin with disposable cutlery.

Why would anyone bother with cooking and all the mess that went with it, for something that would be consumed ungratefully within minutes and quickly forgotten?

A 1950s housewife with 4 children, in a seemingly constant state of food shopping, preparation and clearing up, my mother had the equivalent of a starred A-level in Home Economics under her belt, carefully balancing her income and expenditure. But I was on a mission – from the age of 13 – to become a journalist. I had a burning ambition to feed people with information. I am still

124 | GOLDIE magazine

feeding people today – but my opinions on food and cooking have clearly changed, for now I am sitting in the window of my popup restaurant, tweaking the menu for the day.

Journalism in 1980s South Africa had a vital role. This was a place of apartheid and civil war, where disinformation – now, as then – was brandished as the sword of truth by both sides. Fast-forward through tear gas, rubber bullets and the release of Nelson Mandela to London in the 90s, which was exhilarating for very different reasons.

A further 10 years followed, working in the engine room of both The Times and The Sunday Times in London as a features sub-editor and chief sub-editor (the shallow end, as the news desk used to call us). Here, I entered the less intense world of lifestyle journalism – country life, gardening, birding columns and food and drink. And that is where I found my second career.

The food revolution was in its infancy,

Frances Bissell was still the Times Cook, and Jamie Oliver was a sous-chef at the River Café. The cult of the celebrity chef was some way off, but we had quality cooks such as Henry Harris and Simon Hopkinson writing for us. Editing their copy and recipes, I was sense-checking ingredient lists and methods, quantities and cooking times. Without realising it, I subtly graduated over the years from tin-eating teenager to a keen cook, baker and dinner-party host, and apparently I knew some stuff.

Just as I was becoming disillusioned with the change in emphasis from news as life-blood to news as light entertainment, a round of voluntary redundancies gave me an escape route. I took the money and ran – to Leiths School of Food and Wine, completing their one-year advanced diploma. Then followed the intern years, on the competitive children’s birthday party circuit in Notting Hill and Holland Park. I cooked in some fancy Scottish game lodges, for some fancy aristocracy, and for Michael Jackson at the World Music Awards at Earl’s Court in 2006.

These were heady times. A new generation of internationally mobile and inquisitive thrill seekers were discovering food as Theatre, as Art: a meal could be as intellectually stimulating and memorable (and expensive) as an evening at the opera. Chefs’ names were uttered in hushed tones, Raymond Blanc, Michel Roux, Anton Mosimann, Nico Ladenis. Michelin became a popular arbiter of excellence and cool. I was mesmerised, absorbed, as fulfilled as a trainee chef as I had been as a cadet reporter.

With every client I gained more experience, and finally convinced myself that a place with my name above the door was possible.

In central London, and without a few million

quid, that goal is out of reach but I have a temporary space, the pop-up restaurant Daffodil Soup*, in Bethnal Green, in which to showcase my product, a shop window to sell my on-point, seasonal, sustainable wares friendly to vegans and non-vegans alike.

This is a half-way house – a chance to dream, but not to sleep.

There are many parallels between journalism and professional cooking. The most obvious are the deadlines that both disciplines work to, the long hours of shift work and the creativity required. Both carry a higher risk of alcoholism, divorce and stress-induced health issues. They also share a wider, common goal: they are both in the sales business, appealing to a paying audience to win their approval. What on today’s menu/front page will catch the eye and get a customer/reader to part with their cash. I marvel at the road I’ve travelled.

The move from annual P60 drone (with

“Looking over a restaurant full of happy customers brings the same satisfaction as a front-page byline”

*Daffodil Soup is not a thing. It’s a construct, not a dish. It’s a heady (and potentially toxic) blend of all the things I have been and am.

Please don’t try it at home.

Daffodil Soup in Bethnal Green is now closed.

paid holidays, private health care and sick leave) to freelance, then to precarious selfemployed status (investment in equipment, premises and staff) was gradual. I became a consultant, then a director of a commercial catering company, where business acumen was required to balance the books – as my mother did. Harder to maintain is the happy work-life balance one might expect in Life Part II. There were huge challenges, exciting, rewarding and exhausting (most of all exhausting). Relationships suffer, birthdays and anniversaries unmarked, holidays scuppered – this is not a career choice for the 9-5 minded.

However, those days spent looking over a buzzing restaurant full of happy customers bring the same satisfaction as a byline on the front-page lead. Everyone should have a second career. If you’re lucky both of them will be rewarding. ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 125

Wedding of the year,

OURS

After years of international turbulance, Jayne Gould tells how she and her partner opted for a soft landing in the nearest available register office

I

t wasn’t a long-term plan, it wasn’t a grand affair. It was something we wanted to do, simply and quietly. They say you get a bit luvvy as you grow older, and even though we’re a couple who reckon we’vebeen-there-seen-it, the day became a very special one for us. Very sentimental.

We’d known each other for over 35 years.

I met him way back in the 1980s, at a Grace Jones party. She was late, really late, and so we got talking, and the later she was, the more talking we did. We got on well – he was very handsome and I was flirty.

Then he started explaining his passion for pro cycling road racing, and how shaving his legs made a real difference. I remember thinking: ‘This is a bit weird’ – I hadn’t met any other men before who shaved their legs, let alone admitted it. Another glass or two, the shaved legs were forgotten and I made the pass: “Um, why don’t you come back to my place?” He grimaced and said: “I can’t, I have a girlfriend.”

Looking back, it was just as well that we didn’t hook up then – I hadn’t shaved my legs.

We lost touch, we moved countries, we did different jobs – our paths didn’t cross again until 2006 when I was working in New York and a visiting friend met me for drinks.

126 | GOLDIE magazine

“So how do your keep in touch with your English friends, then?” she asked.

My short answer was: “Well, I don’t.”

She said: “There’s this thing called Facebook.” A few days later I was harvesting friends and I spotted HIS name.

I sent a message: “You’re not that guy who used to work at that music company in London, are you?” He was. There was an intake of breath.

He was living in France, managing some artists, and renovating a huge farmhouse at the same time. He sounded quite chirpy about the fact that I had contacted him, so the back-and-forth messaging started, and the following year he came to New York for a vacation.

I made a pass again. This time there wasn’t a girlfriend. He, in return, invited me over to the Dordogne. I thought it would be a week of lazy lunches, beaches, swimming pools, vineyards… but no, it was chasing the Tour de France.

When you hook up again with someone you knew quite well from years ago, you have an invested history. You know their character, their traits, their passions, but apparently, decades later, I’d really underestimated his continued passion for pro cycling.

He drove through beautiful countryside, and we parked at the roadside to admire breathtaking views, when suddenly six or eight large campervans also parked up

close by, then more cars, then more vans.

Enormous state-of-the-art vehicles with satellite dishes… Then the gendarmes on motorbikes, wearing their tight-fitting, sleek uniforms. Now there were different sights for me to look at.

He whipped out a fold-up picnic table from the boot, along with a portable barbecue.

Next minute, he’s cooking up local duck breasts for lunch – and then – AND THEN, we wait for two hours for this goddamn Tour de France cycle race to go by – which flashes past in five minutes. That was it.

Vroom. Gone.

We were both in our mid-fifties at this point. Neither of us was looking for “the” relationship, but we were having a lot of fun. We felt very similar about things, we felt comfortable with each other, and things seemed to be working pretty well.

And his cycling passion? I could live with it after he explained it all to me. Put it this

“We were both in our mid-fifties at this point. Neither of us was looking for “the” relationship, but we were having a lot of fun.”

way, I understand pro cycling more than I understand cricket or the offside rule.

After more transatlantic crossings, we decided to live together and he moved into a shoebox apartment in New York. We had still not discussed marriage; I suppose we were still discovering each other. When you’re a mature person, there’s lots of knowledge and experiences to share, and it took us a while.

Then my mother had a severe stroke and we left Manhattan for the UK to become fulltime carers. If that situation doesn’t test a relationship, nothing does. We clung together like glue, dealing with so many unexpected issues, so many anxieties – it takes emotion into another realm.

I guess in older life you roll with the punches, you just get on and do what you have to, but it was six years of our lives we hadn’t planned and certainly weren’t prepared for. After Mom died, it took a while to get our characters and personalities back

to being “us” – we’d both changed. We hadn’t appreciated how engulfing being a carer could be.

Now our romance could thrive again and we started doing nutty luvvy things: going to gigs and seeing bands; calling each other stupid pet names such as Baby Chops and Tweety Pie; buying cowboy boots; collecting new artists’ prints; and trying to outMasterChef each other in the kitchen (God, there was some incredible food produced).

We were having so much fun. It was good to laugh and good to smile.

Then another unexpected event happened.

I’d had a gall bladder removed but, a few days after, there had been complications and I was rushed into hospital. While nurses and doctors went into furious action in A&E, the call came out: “Where’s your husband?” He was outside, and I thought I never want to go through this without him by my side.

Over Christmas pudding and ice cream, a small-but-perfectly-formed box was brandished and a sparkly ring was slipped onto my finger. I don’t know who was crying the most. We were engaged!

Well, the wedding was next. I’m not sure this has anything to do with age, but we both wanted something quiet and intimate.

We didn’t want a grand affair, we wanted something sentimental.

Organising the marriage, though, meant taking on a bureaucratic assault course.

In February we applied online at the Northamptonshire registry for a marriage in March, but all our date suggestions were being denied, and of course there was nobody to speak to, so I wrote a snotty feedback to get a contact. It did. The reason for the constant push-back was because the first date available was in July – they couldn’t get the website to tell you that – oh, and they only conducted three weddings a week.

“Try some other county,” they said.

Neighbouring Leicestershire was also jammed, but Cambridgeshire had a vacancy in April at 10am. We’ll take it.

“Now you need to register your marriage before we can confirm the booking. And when you register the marriage, they’ll need the date of the event, but that can’t be confirmed until it’s registered.” Priceless.

It was a bitterly cold March this year; the register office was freezing, with the registrar sitting at his computer wearing his duffel coat. We had our puffs coats and our knitted hats on. I had to take my gloves off to sign

the documents. It wasn’t quite the romantic setting you expected it to be. But at least we were now allowed to get married.

Twenty-eight days later, we drove through thick fog for two hours, across the East Anglian fens to get to another register office, this time in Oliver Cromwell’s home town of Ely. Setting off at 8am without time for caffeine, we started the two-hour cross-country drive after picking up our willing octogenarian neighbours as witnesses. The early-morning start may have been too much for our elderly friends who were barely awake in the back seats after 30 minutes.

With no stimulating conversations, the whiteout fog, and our sleepiness, the driving became monotonous, but the silence was suddenly interrupted by a police radio: “Delta Echo Tango responding. Copy that.”

The hearing aid of one of our octogenarians had locked in to the same frequency as the police on the A1. “Delta Echo Tango. ETA 15 minutes. Copy that.” The trouble was he was asleep and couldn’t hear the police reports.

We eventually arrived at the register office. The bride and groom wore denim, and the witnesses both wore smart suits and were mistaken for the wedding couple.

We’d gone for the basic wedding in the register office – which was exactly that, with a large, black computer screen, its matching printer and photocopying machine. Again not the dream setting we’d envisaged. But by this time it didn’t matter.

Then the registrar asked us to put the rings on a special silk cushion. We hadn’t thought about rings. All we could do was take my engagement ring off and use that.

Despite the surroundings, the mad drive and forgetting the rings, it still became a very special moment for us. Really special.

The wedding reception (lunch at the local gourmet pub) was equally quiet and, of course, after two glasses of champagne I had to have a nap in the afternoon.

Has getting married changed us? Oh God, yes. We feel much more relaxed as we are recognised as an official couple – for whatever medical, fiscal or international issues are thrown at us in the future. Considering the turbulence we’ve had to endure over the recent years, the rollercoaster anxieties, getting married has made us very happy and amazingly content.

But if he mentions Chris Froome once more. ¢ GOLDIE magazine | 127

PUB TALK

‘‘D

id you see that? I was nearly knocked over by a phantom car. It could have killed me.” Felix is not one to hold back but he doesn’t usually get going until well after the second pint. This time he hadn’t even unzipped his top leather.

He lumped his vast biker’s helmet on to the bar and looked around with a mixture of menace and indignation for somewhere or someone to unload the full horror of his near death encounter. Our small knot of comrades was just a stool or so away. There could be no escape.

“Must have been one of them electric cars,” growled Felix.

“Not a squitty little thing, it was a big white bugger. Never made a sound. I stepped on the road where the pavement’s broken and it nearly had me leg off.”

Instinctively we put the blame firmly on the driver; not for any error in vehicle handling but for getting Felix all worked up over not very much. We could just clear off and leave some other poor soul to be the big man’s audience. But that would be cowardly and it was too early to head home.

Jim was first up. You can see that he was a cheeky sort of lad back in the playground days who never got roughed up by the bullies because he was verbally quick on the draw and wore a self-mocking smile. “You should think yourself lucky, mate. At least it had a driver.

The next lot of cars coming up the road won’t have any. It’ll be like sitting on your sofa watching the telly.”

It was a quite brilliant swerve. We might have to pick our way through one of Felix’s imperfect tirades in the future but at least he’d been distracted from this evening’s near miss saga and was now looking as if ordering up a pint was the pressing priority.

“It’ll never happen. It’s just one of those gimmicks dreamt up in America,” he said as Sharon got to work on a glass of Badger’s bitter.

“Just think about it: all those cars kept a regulation distance apart.

You’ll just get pretty pattern gridlock – and that’s before anyone’s been knocked over and killed.”

“That’s already happened,” Richard chipped in. “Bloke wiped out in Florida the other week and no driver, not even a robot at the wheel.”

“Of course there was a robot - it just didn’t look like one; they’re more like the Sky box for your TV” said Philip, aka Mr Computer. “The cars run on algorithms.”

“I thought they ran on batteries,” quipped Richard, hoping for a laugh.

It was a painful truth that no one really knew what an algorithm was. No one except Philip, of course, could stand there and explain it to the rest of us - and he was going out for a smoke.

I thought I should have a go and rambled through a few incomplete sentences about logical instructions, computers learning to respond to information from sensors, how the car’s computer processed data about its surroundings. It was all rather amateur but at least with Mr Computer having a roll-up I would escape his scorn.

Felix thought for a moment. “I told you, it’s all bollocks,” he said.

“When I’m on my bike I’m in control. I can see gaps in the traffic, I can cut up the inside, bend and weave, give it plenty of power.

There’s no way some fancy piece of computer kit will be able to do all that without causing a smash.”

“Yeah, but you’re a boy racer who never grew up, lucky you’ve never killed anyone,” challenged Fat Tony. “The next generation of cars will be much safer.”

“Safer!” exploded Felix. “That one nearly had me leg off.”¢

Algorithm & blues Andrew Harvey reports

“Felix thought for a moment. “I told you, it’s all bollocks,” he said”

128 | GOLDIE magazine

WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?

Ask Sharon Sharon Eden is an accredited and registered psychotherapist with over 30 years’ experienceas well as a trainer, spiritual warrior and author of the bestselling book ‘Bounce Back from Depression – The No Nonsense Guide to Recovery.’

Q A

“However big or small, your problem is significant to me; you’ll do me a favour by asking about it. Helping you reclaim some of your power and potential through sorting your problem helps me live my professional purpose. A win-win for us both.”

I’m not sure this is even a proper problem but it’s causing me sleepless nights. Recently a friend has been adding sarcastic comments every time I post something on Facebook. They seem to be trying to get others to join in with their negative opinions of how I conduct my life. I’m starting to wonder if I should stop sharing stuff on FB. The comments are niggling me. They seem to want me to feel bad about myself and particularly my body. One comment started a whole chain of others joining in with whether I should cover up more as I have put on weight My husband says perhaps I am over-reacting. I think I might be. It’s making me feel as if I should take down my FB profile but I enjoy catching up with people on line. I’ve noticed that I’m feeling anxious and am even avoiding meeting these FB friends offline for coffee. How can I tell if I’m being over-sensitive or if this is inappropriate friendship behaviour? I feel silly and childish even asking the question.

As you’ve discovered, the old adage ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’ is a utopian concept. Words can hurt like hell-fire.

Especially when delivered by a so called ‘friend.’

What bigger betrayal is there, apart from sleeping with your lover, than when somebody you thought was a friend attacks you publicly out of the blue?

I can understand why you feel you should take down your FB profile to prevent attack. But, if you do 1) you’ll deprive yourself of the pleasure of your online catching up and 2) your bully harassers will have won.

Oh-oh... Am I making a value judgement here? You bet your sweet arse I am. The only thing necessary to make the bullies prosper is when, in this case, a good woman does nothing except take down her profile. (With thanks to Edmund Burke!) Instead...

STOP! Deep breaths and chill-baby-chill. You’re not being oversensitive or over-reacting. And don’t even think this isn’t a ‘proper problem.’ Being abused, off or online, is massive.

No wonder you don’t want to meet these FB ‘friends’ off line.

Who, in their right mind, wants to hang out with people who are sarcastic, negatively critical and gang-bang you? It’s a no brainer.

However, you are creating a potentially paranoid state that they’re out to get you... even if they are! High anxiety and sleepless nights result. It might also be that their comments trigger your own bad feelings, unconscious or not, about your weight gain. Not so sure about your conduct though.

If that fits for you, each time you get a beating-yourself-up critical thought, respond with, ‘Thank you so much for telling me that (with attitude) and right now I’m…….’ Insert whatever you’re doing in the moment to bring you back into the real ‘now’ instead of the trance-like self-beating in your head.

Feeling ‘silly and childish’ suggests a child part of you might be triggered who’s previously been badly criticised and/or bullied.

Your current situation just ladles a whole other level of stinging agony onto her historic wounds. If so, love and protect her in your imagination big time.

As for ‘inappropriate friendship behaviour,’ wake up and smell the coffee. No friendship of any kind is going on here. It’s time to FB dump these critical bullies.

Block them and report them for abuse. Why haven’t you done that already? Misguided loyalty, a ‘good girl’ who avoids trouble or scared there’ll be repercussions? If so, tell your child part that adult you can more than deal with these harassing bullies.

Grab your divine feminine cojones and BLOCK THEM RIGHT NOW!

How to unfriend a friend on Facebook www.facebook.com/help/ 172936839431357?helpref=faq_content How to block them (also unfriends them automatically) www.facebook.com/help/ 168009843260943?helpref=faq_content How to report abuse www.facebook.com/help/reportlinks Find me at www.daretobeyouuk.com and www.facebook.com/sharoneden.biz While Sharon wishes she could reply to all correspondence, regrettably she’s unable to clone herself.

Issues with the widest appeal will be answered where-ever possible.

GOLDIE magazine | 129

SIGNING OFF

Angus Donald Author of the bestselling Outlaw Chronicles, a historical fiction series about a gangster-ish Robin Hood. He was a journalist for The Times and other national newspapers for nearly twenty years now writes novels full time from his home in rural Kent How do you want your death announced – The Times or Twitter?

Oh Twitter, definitely. I want to be the No 1 trending hashtag – #NationMourns – and have distraught people Tweeting “He changed my life!” and “I don’t know how I can go on without him.” As well as “That guy’s dead? Wasn’t he a huge literary star way back in the 2020s?” I want the Bowie treatment, basically. Come to think of it, I also want the splash on The Times front page – “World’s Greatest Novelist Dead at 105” – and a commemorative 24-page colour pull-out magazine à la Princess Diana. Is that asking too much?

What would you like people to be saying about you?

I’d like people to compete with each other for the most outrageous stories about my misbehaviour. I’d like my adult children to be listening in and be totally shocked – and deeply impressed. I want someone to suggest that a statue of me is put up in Trafalgar Square, and for everyone to agree that this is a brilliant idea and fitting tribute. And then for it to actually happen. No, really. I want a fucking statue. Isn’t there an empty plinth there anyway?

Cremation or burial? Religious service or gong bath?

Viking burial at sea in my massive, billion-pound oligarchstyle yacht, which I have named the “Outlaw” after my first novel. The party will go on for 24 hours around my open coffin, masses of drink and drugs, and the food will be seafood-themed, obvs. I imagine Viking food was pretty grim. And when everyone has been ferried ashore, exhausted, completely partied out, the Outlaw will be remotely piloted out to sea and blown up in a massive, fiery explosion. I also want there to be rumours that I’m not really dead. Like Diana again. But I want them to be true.

How are you hoping to be remembered?

I hope to be remembered as the world’s richest author. The Rockefeller of the Written Word. The Onasis of Novelists. The Abramovich of Adventure Stories. But there is a tiny chance that this may not actually happen. I’d settle for: “He was quite fun to hang out with and wrote a few half-decent adventure stories”.

Who’s on the guest list? Anyone you’re hoping won’t turn up?

Anyone who has ever made me laugh. Or bought me a drink. But nobody who voted for Brexit. And no politicians. They can all fuck right off.

Last musical requests?

I don’t really care what music is played at the Viking boat-burning party – but not too loud, I want people to be able to talk easily about what a terrific guy I was.

Dress code?

Porn stars and paeodophiles Tea and biscuits or Jager bombs all round?

Tequila slammers, speed and champagne. (I once hosted a brilliant party like this in my twenties: it was absolute carnage!)

Can we expect any surprises?

There may well be a sulphurous puff of smoke and a suave, devilishly handsome gentleman may emerge from the cloud holding a contract and smiling a little too much.

Describe where you are going to end up You’d better ask the suave gentleman!

Angus Donald’s latest novel Blood’s Game, a swashbuckling yarn about the most outrageous jewel heist of the 17th century, is available in all good bookshops and online.

130 | GOLDIE magazine

A PRIVATE MEMBERS CLUB SET IN THE HEART OF THE CITY The Devonshire Club offers all the luxury and glamour of a West End private members’ club combined with the style and panache of the East End. The Club is nestled in a quiet pedestrian square just two minutes walk from Liverpool Street.

The Club is spacious and comprises an 18th Century former East India Company warehouse and a large Georgian townhouse.

The Club has its own boutique hotel with 68 bedrooms and suites. At the heart of the club is Number Five, a stunning 110 seat restaurant with a huge marbled seafood counter.

A Champagne bar leads into a wonderful Garden Room with its own secret garden. On the first floor is the Library, the elegant Causerie, and Cocktail Bar. There are four private meeting/dining rooms.

The Georgian building houses a well-equipped gym, weights room and studio.

The curated cultural programme of events and entertainment is designed to inform, inspire, and delight and offers exclusive access to an array of world-class performers, speakers, specialists and creatives from around the world.

5 Devonshire Square, London EC2M 4YD info@devonshireclub.com 020 3750 4545

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132 | GOLDIE magazine

Next issue September 2018