My Family

As a kid I absolutely adored Gerald Durrell’s “My Family and Other Animals” and devoured the battered paperback many times over before I reached my teens. Looking back on it now I am struck, not so much by the animals that litter the pages and that were the driving force for me reading the book as a child, but the his family itself. They are just so joyfully… odd. And British.

I remember at the time I was bitterly envious of this family who, seemingly on a whim up-sticks for Corfu for a few months and end up staying five years. They are close, zany, arguably certifiable and clearly live life as it comes. By contrast my own family seemed so darn ordinary. I’d have given my right kidney to live in Corfu, not Glastonbury. To be tutored at home whenever my tutor wasn’t drunk or too love-sick over my fictional sister. Not to be 2.4 with dog + cat. To truly not care…

Looking back now I realize how lucky I was, in fact still am, with my family.

My Dad worked for an international shoe company, packed eggs, bottled Babycham, raced all types of boats from dinghies to tall ships, drove taxis, worked for a Sheik, irradiated small schoolchildren and was the target of a local residence association petition (though they didn’t know it was him they were petitioning against – lord, they’d have thrown rocks if they’d known it was our family!). All by the time I was fifteen.

My uncle is an engineer-turned-brain-surgeon, a member of the TA-MC, featured on a C4 documentary, served in both Gulf Wars and Bosnia, drives a TukTuk, is building a working miniature steam railway to take people on rides round the farm, and makes his own honey.

My aunt weaves, makes marmalade and flapjacks to die for, is a Ph.D, has been to two garden parties with the Queen, and has made the most welcoming and friendly home imaginable.

My grandmother was called Mop, was an award winning artist, made her own jewelry and liked Burmese cats.

My grandfather chewed coffee beans at night in the kitchen in a vain attempt to hide from his wife that he’d been eating garlic. My surrogate grandmother was called Nobby.

My other grandfather served in Africa, taught me to play chess, couldn’t stand peas, insisted that custard tarts were served with afternoon tea and that only lime worked in a G&T.

My mother very nearly got sacked from work because she was a day late back from holiday due to being ship-wrecked off Portland Bill, but her boss didn’t believe her till she showed him the headlines in the papers. She raised my brother. She raised me. Her garden is the most beautiful patch of serenity I have ever seen, she was once snogged by a camel. She in invincible on Tetris, is unbeatable at Scrabble, and she once flirted with Charles Dance in the car park at school.

My cousin is a fully trained and qualified glass blower who has exhibited at Sotherby’s and who is now training to be a doctor. Another cousin has ridden for the UK. Yet another lives in Taiwan where he teaches English and helps his wife run a business where, among other things, they sell their own line of soap. He also rides a motorbike.

My brother lived in New York for four years, loves cooking, flies light aircraft for fun, annoys the hell out of me on a daily basis, listens to R.E.M, the Doors, and P!nk, plays the piano like an angel, the guitar like a devil, and has a pet rabbit called Gilbert.

And to top it all, my dad now lives on a narrowboat.

People seem amazed that I find things about my life to write about. I’m quite frankly amazed that most people can’t find things in their life to talk about.

I used to think my family were pretty normal, then I looked again and saw that no, they are wonderfully special. Everybody has stories to tell, you just need to have your eyes open so you can see them. I’m not sure what gods were smiling over my birth, but someone up there certainly had her finger in the mix. I guess I’m thankful I come from the family I come from. More than that though, I’m grateful I realised that before it was too late. Just think of the stories I would never have been able to tell you all else-wise!

11 thoughts on “My Family

  1. Wow.

    I knew they had to be cool to have produced such a wonderful eclectic personhood as you, but they aound amazing!

    My Mum is mentioned in Hansard and my Dad was a card-carrying communist who once held the hitch hikers record from Venice to Paris…. I could say more, but methinks I’ll save it for my own blog (if I ever manage it)…

    N

  2. Yeah, they’re cool. But shhh, don’t tell them I said that, especially not my brother – I’d never hear the end of it!

    And I can’t wait for you to start blogging. Something tells me you’d be very, very good at it 😀

  3. Yes. For a while he had the responsibility of finding sites for mobile phone masts. More than one of these ended up on top of schools/near schools. Hence the local petition as well.

  4. How would one go about it? I can never make websites that look pretty 🙁 And I’d say too much- cyberspace makes me WAYYY more honest than IRL…

  5. You have quite a royal and educated, hard working family. Everyone seems to be doing there best. That’s life. Family bonding is what makes life complete. I miss my grandfather who died three years back, a natural death. I really miss him because I was so close to him. He loved me most of all in his family. By the way, the new look of your site is great.

  6. How is easy – you go to your email inbox and find the invite I just sent you so you can get a wordpress.com blog – you don’t even have to worry about making it pretty as they do that for you 😀

    And you’re talking to the queen of cyberspace making someone more honest! I’ve seriously lost count of the number of scrapes I’ve gotten into because of it. It’s all fun though 😉

  7. This is a tuk tuk (forgive the quality. It was taken at night on a crappy camera, so I’ve had to tweak the levels and such to make it show).

    Basically, tuk tuk’s are auto-rickshaws, used throughout South East Asia. My uncle fell in love with them when he was in Nepal for a conference a few years back and he decided it would be perfect to run down to the local shops in…

    Yes, my family are great 😀

    For more information, see wikipedia.

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