Pippa’s offer on the painting was refused. Months later the money had been sunk into stamp duty, solicitor’s fees and a new boiler. The painting had gone from the shop window. The house still needed work and Pippa’s aunt had offered to give her some money. There was a condition attached to the gift though, Pippa must spend it on something she loved and didn’t need. She returned to the shop to enquire about the bird painting. It had been retired to the back of the shop. Her fixation with the painting had a sweet irony. In her early teens Pippa and her sister had an eye-rolling disdain for bird lovers. The ‘massive squares’ would congregate in her family’s front room for the Southbourne Young Ornithologist’s Club, run by her mother and a friend. Helpfully, on the back of the canvas, the artist has identified the birds as a Blackbird, a Collared Dove and a Chaffinch.
13 Nov 2011
Russell took the ferry to France on a Sunday night. Early the next morning he set off for the Pompidou Centre. He’d made the pilgrimage to see one of two lead falcons made for John Huston’s 1941 film noir ‘The Maltese Falcon’. It was being exhibited as part of a Warner Brothers retrospective. He arrived to find that the Pompidou was closed on Mondays, so he booked another night at his hotel. Ten years earlier, already a pulp fiction and film noir obsessive, Russell had made a plasticine version of the falcon. The Paris show inspired him to make a more permanent model. The two halves of his latex mould aligned perfectly using registration lugs made from the toggles of his duffle coat. He produced around thirty, packing them in kapok and calico, as they had been in the film. He gave them to friends. A couple of years later, the other original Warner’s prop was to be auctioned by Christie’s. Russell dreamt of owning it, just as Casper Gutman had in the film. The falcon sold for $398,500. Russell is still consoled by the fact that, in the movie, it turns out the falcon is a fake – just like his.
06 Nov 2011
Tamara’s Mother left Sri Lanka for finishing school in England. She learnt the traditional skills deemed requirements for a young woman; baking, dressing and arranging flowers. It was the flower arranging classes that genuinely engaged her and on returning to Colombo she opened a shop. ‘Blossoms’ survives today. Her success as a florist allowed her to travel extensively and have jewellery made after her own designs. Tamara inherited her Mother’s diamond and gold earrings and her Mother’s talent, today she works as a professional jeweller in London.
30 Oct 2011
The bus journey from the caravan site to Hove took close to an hour. Teddy Boy didn’t swim, he watched with Emma’s mum at the side of the pool. Later, with Emma dried, dressed and feeling that particular post swim hunger they went to meet her dad in the vast ’30s restaurant. He ordered fish then immediately declared it ‘off’ to the waiter. He refused to pay and threatened to throw the food across the restaurant. Emma and her mum retreated to the bathroom downstairs as the argument escalated. After a silent bus journey back to the caravan Emma discovered that Teddy Boy was missing. Her mother refused to go back to look for him. Emma explained that she didn’t know how she would break the news of Teddy Boy’s fate to the other toys and her father relented. He took the same bus journey back and had to calmly ask the same waiter he’d shouted at if a female member of staff could search the bathroom. The cleaner offered to look, she came out giggling and beckoned Emma’s dad inside. Sitting patiently on the edge of the toilet seat was Emma’s Teddy Boy.
23 Oct 2011
Kate’s family were on holiday in Bedruthan Steps, Cornwall. In the evening the hotel would put on entertainment for the guests. A fancy dress contest was announced. Kate, aged seven, was bemused by her costume. Her mum Pam, able to use only what she had to hand, made Kate a dress out of newspapers. Kate’s brother went as a boxer. Kate resented Nick’s convincing black eye, crafted by Pam with eye shadow and kohl. The competition prizes were handed out by a magician who was performing at the hotel. Kate won a wand, awarded for her ‘Miss Print’. She promptly put it to the test, commanding it to make her brother disappear. When he didn’t, she was so incensed that she snapped the wand in half. Years later, she told the story to her friend Ed. A few weeks later he gave her a present. He’d made her a new wand. It came ready broken.
16 Oct 2011
Sveta found this dress in a pile of her childhood clothes in the attic of the family dacha in Strizh, 30 miles south east of Moscow. She was visiting her parents from London where she lives. Her mother, Elena, had the dress made in the early 70s by Nadezhda, a local seamstress working in the Vykhino-Zhulebino district of Moscow. Elena can now appreciate just how short the dress is, but at the time this was how they were commonly cut, the exposure of too much leg exasperating older generations. Sveta tried it on, it fitted perfectly, she said wearing her mother’s dress immediately gave her an ‘all around good feeling, pure happiness out of nowhere.’ Sveta is wearing it for her birthday, she is 34 today, exactly twice the age that her mother was when she first wore it at 17.
09 Oct 2011
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