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Friends and Mothers

Last night Bluebell's grandmother phoned to tell me of the birth of Bluebell's baby brother, Cassidy.

Bluebell's grandmother has eight children, and four grandchildren with the certainty of many more to come. Di (Bluebell's grandmother) lives with her two youngest, in a little town in the Peak District of England. Di has been an expat even longer than I, but we've stayed in touch since we first met in Elsternwick, a Melbourne suburb, when we were both fourteen. I've visited Di and family in England Here we are on the hill behind her house with the town behind us.

I'm writing about our friendship today as it is Mothers' Day, or as the say in Di's area of England, 'Mothering Day'.

Di has also visited me in New York. The photo below was taken in Manhattan when I took Di to the West Village. A far cry from the Peak District!

Whenever we have our phone chats, most of the time is spent updating each other on the lives of our ten (between us) children. Di's children are making names for themselves in the arts. Son #3, Bruno is an actor. He played the gay in Coronation Street. He's a teen idol as you can see HERE. Daughter #3 is currently on tour with Ed Harcourt. And Bluebell's mum has made an album with Warner Brothers.

Di herself came from a large family (five children) and we chummed up probably because we were both serious teenagers, and unlike most of our peers, not interested in boys. We'd spend our days studying, locked up in a room at her rambling home in Elsternwick. Sometimes we'd go to the Museum in Swanston Street where we'd argue. Di was at that time, a church-going creationist. "They just made up those bones", she'd insist as we stared up at a reconstructed dinosaur skeleton.

I remember one night we went to a dance. We must have met some boys and got a lift home to her house. I remember that they tried to kiss us and we ran into her bathroom and washed our mouths out with soap.

We were two little prudes and academic snobs to boot. I didn't realise how much so, until a few years ago when both Di and I were back in Australia at the same time, and were spending the day at a rodeo BBQ on Di's brother's property. Di's whole Australian family were there, as well as her youngest children who were complaining in their little Manchester accents about the heat and the flies.

I wandered off by myself to contemplate the Australian-ness of the place, but my contemplation was disturbed when I was approached by a woman about my own age.

"Kate!", she called. "Remember me?" I didn't. She then proceeded to tell me that she was a cousin of Di and that she knew me from the Elsternwick days of our childhood, and later worked with my mother in a law firm in the city.

I was only vaguely listening when her voice became shrill. She told me that when we were all fourteen she'd visit the Elsternwick house and would want to join in with me and Di as we studied over our books. Apparently we locked her out of the room and always ignored her pleas to join us.

I apologized and thought that was the end of it, but no, there was more to tell.

She'd been in therapy for decades to attempt to get over our cruel behaviour. Di and I were snobs of the worst kind. She told me that later she'd got a job in a law firm and met my mother who was a legal executive there.

"Your mother was a LOVELY lady," she told me. "She came to my wedding! I liked HER!" And so on ...

I got away and looked for Di. "Hey Di, remember J?" and proceeded to tell her about us locking her out and the therapy sessions.

"I feel dreadful," I said. "Oh well" said Di in her Penelope Keith 'To the Manor Born' accent, "First I knew about it, but we were obviously right to lock her out, she sounds pathetic!"

That's what I like about Di. She's a no-nonsense sort of person. I suppose you have to be when you raise eight children.

So on this Mothering Day I raise my glass to Di, our children, and our mothers. And I am sure that Di is doing the same thing.

Kate Juliff
New York
May 2005