I Remember, “I Remember Mama”

Elizabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson 

 I managed to go to the cinema yesterday.

What a treat! 

The film, “ Shirley” was a much praised fictional account of a very dark period in the life of 1950 s horror writer Shirley Jackson. 

It’s an unsettling film, part gothic horror, part psychological and erotic romp and despite an excellent performance by Elizabeth Moss in the title role, I found myself irritated by it , so I left early . 

On reflection I needed a film with a certain lightness of touch , so I came home, looked through the BBC IPlayer and found George Stevens’ classic I Remember Mama 

It was an inspired choice.

If you have not seen I Remember Mama ......please do, for its a little gem of a movie 

Set in San Francisco in 1910 it is a simple tale of family life , seen through the eyes of a teenage first generation Norwegian immigrant girl ( Barbara Bel Geddes).

The family is ruled by the Mama (Irene Dunne) a gentle but pragmatic matriarch who not only supports her three daughters, son and husband through the difficulties of a frugal life but who remains the moral compass for her three elder and less virtuous sisters, the timid Aunt Trina ( Ellen Corby) , bad tempered Aunt Jenny( Hope Landin) and the bitter Aunt Sigrid ( Edith Evenson) and the thunderous and her overbearing Uncle Chris ( Oscar Homolka)

Oscar Homolka as Uncle Chris

The family is perfectly described during the normal but significant life vignettes everyday life. Of course they are older and more stereotypical than they could be, but they are the product of a teenage girls’ memory and so the larger than life performances of Landin, Corby and especially Homolka ( In probably his most remembered role) are pitched just right.

The story meanders through illness ( when Mama in an effort to keep her promise to see her youngest daughter after surgery famously  pretends to be a hospital cleaner), death, and the formative moments of a girls’ growing up and does so with such affection and warmth, that by the final credits when daughter reads out her published stories as Mama looks out of the kitchen window , there is not a dry eye in the house.

Irene Dunne is a revelation and breaks your heart as Mama

The famous washing the hospital floor scene

Nice People Come First

 

The last three on the much slated I’m a celebrity 

Are just sweetly nice people 

Chatter

 Wales in back in a sort of lockdown until Christmas.

Last night I went to The Crown for a pint with Gorgeous Dave  and again it was nice to see much of the village there filling the tables for a last time. 

The new landlady was sanguine, 

Everyone will drive over the border for a drink she said.

I’m not surprised, then the non essential shops were closed in England, the English did the same with us and shopped here.....

Yesterday I caught up with jobs,

Mary had a vet Check up in the surgery car park and I was sure to point Winnie out to the junior vet as she sat smiling in Bluebell’s passenger seat eating the remains of a sausage and egg McMuffin 

He smiled genuinely enough.

I posted my traditional Christmas decorations to friends in Australia and Derbyshire and posted my Christmas Cards before dropping off a team gift to a nurse who has just left the hospice through fears of catching covid.

Today I’m off to the cinema 

It’s cold today

Nu

 Since 1989 my best friend has been Nuala......

She’s always Nu to me 

For for over thirty years she has been my touchstone, my constant , my bestie 

And apart from a short, and rather painful separation when she worked in Saudi 

We have never been apart for any longer than a few months in three long decades! 

I’ve not seen her for over a year now and that’s been tough.

She recently sent me the above video when we met at her second home in Kenmare in Ireland  just after my husband left and her words that accompanied it shattered me just a little

“ You looked so happy but I know your heart was broken” 

I working within the rules as the Welsh are allowed to cross the border, so before Christmas I am meeting up with her

And do you know what? ......I will hug her and hug her and hug her 

And then 

I will hug her some more.

Rent A Cuddle

 

Welsh terriers are desperate cuddlers

They will cling to you as a baby would, but unlike babies they never cry and will snuggle all night without pissing themselves.

Over this year Mary has been loaned out many times to friends that need this “ cuddle time” 

The other night my friend Ruth collected her for an under- the- duvet night, only a few hours after Hattie collects her for a walk ( and long hugs on a country bench) and a day after Trendy Carol collects all of the dogs but only allowing Mary to come up to her drawing room for some sit on her knee time .

All my Welsh terriers have been the same 

Moral Support

 I met up with a friend in the back and beyond of Snowdonia before the galleries shut again in Wales and bought this......isn’t he delightful? 

We met a third colleague and friend ( social distancing of course) who has had a dreadful time of late to offer some moral support.

The Welsh Countryside has never looked so alive

Postscript

Eleanor and I 

This is a short postscript to last night’s blog.

I met Chic Eleanor for coffee and cake at two.

It was just what we both needed.

I had just sleepily tumbled out of bed and looked it

She looked fantastic in a beige and cream ensemble.

We talked and laughed and even though she has family traumas afoot 

she was gracious and called me darling John several times over.

And when she said her goodbyes her expensive perfume lingered long in the air

So perked up I bought a miniature Christmas tree on the way home.

Best Supporting Actors

 

I’ve just found out that the veteran actress Lynn Cohen died this year

Lynn was never a leading actress, but was, what was known as a jobbing actress. 

Always busy, always in the background of a drama or a story

I always loved her as Miranda’s mother figure Magna in Sex and The City.

and when she finally kissed Cynthia Nixon on the forehead with the affirmation of “ You Love” 

I was in buckets.

Many of us have these supporting actor types in our lives. 

They aren’t best friends or next of kin’s.

We don’t have to see them all of the time , but they are often beavering  away in the background, becoming characters we all can take for granted.

And ones we only mourn when they finally disappear from view.

I consider Albert as an animal member of this group. He walks around the cottage in the background like a shadow, with wide shocked looking eyes and a faint limp which allows the eye to focus on him. But with a succession of various tap dancing bulldogs taking centre stage, he remains to be content with a full food bowl and a quiet corner in which to sleep.

Weaver of Grass ( http://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/)  is another low key constant but a blog one. Never showy , never boastful she has been a quiet queen of blogs for a decade and a half, chatting quietly of country life in North Yorkshire with a pace that is both comforting and consistent. 

Mrs Trellis, Gorgeous Dave, Wendy I’ve been to the ballet once with, Sitges Jon, 

Leo and his texts.....Mick and Meggie and a whole bucketful of names from Sheffield.....the list is long and one I realise so beautifully long as I write my Christmas cards with my gliding ink pen 

On reflection I can think of two dozen such characters, perhaps more who provide a backdrop to my life.

Like Magna they are vital and so important  to ones existence, but like Magna, they always worked away in the background , mostly unsung, but as necessary to us , as air is to breathing